Senior Recital

Author

Jaron Kirshenbaum, Western Michigan UniversityFollow

Date of Defense

12-1-2018

Date of Graduation

4-2019

Department

Music

First Advisor

Marth

Second Advisor

Stephanie Hovnanian

Abstract

This recital, although it featured works learned over the last six months, is really a culmination of all the work I have put in over the last three and a half years here at the Western Michigan University School of Music. It is a program that brought together friends and colleagues, and featured solo works that show just how far I have come since I arrived here as a freshman clarinet player in the Fall of 2015. Although the diverse music selection and the decision to do mainly single movements from larger works is not what you would typically see on a music recital, it is indicative of my time here at Western, and showcases the many options of performance one may take advantage of while studying music here (i.e., playing in a trio, a clarinet choir, or performing solo works with a piano accompaniment).

The recital, containing roughly 45 minutes of music, features works from the Classical and Romantic eras. The first piece on the recital is Trio in E-flat, K. 498, composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart during the Classical era. The trio features three instruments: the clarinet, viola, and piano. The trio consists of three movements: Andante, Menuetto, and Rondeaux: Allegretto. The total runtime of the work is around 20 minutes.

The second piece on the recital, and the closer of the first half, is Clair de Lune. The piece was originally written for piano by the Romantic era French Impressionist composer Claude Debussy, but there now are many arrangements for small ensembles, including clarinet choir. This arrangement was performed by the Western Michigan University Clarinet Choir, and conduced by the Director of the School of Music, Professor Bradley Wong

The third piece, and opener of the second half, is the third movement from Clarinet Sonata No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 120, composed by Johannes Brahms. This piece, also performed at my Senior Hearing for the School of Music, was prepared with virtually no help from any School of Music faculty member, other than a few notes given at the hearing about two weeks before the recital date. Interestingly, Brahms came out of retirement in 1891, just six years before his passing, in order to write works specifically for the clarinet. He wrote his two Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano in 1894, just three years before his death on April 3, 1897.

The final piece is the third movement from the German Classical Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 74. This piece was the most technically challenging, as is characteristic of Weber’s compositions for clarinet. Weber is known for his Operatic writing, and his works for clarinet are standard in every clarinetist’s repertoire. The highly embellished piece is nothing short of a technical “workout”, and is up-beat, engaging, and was an overall fun way to end the recital.

Recommended Citation

Kirshenbaum, Jaron, "Senior Recital" (2018). Honors Theses. 3074.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/honors_theses/3074

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access