First Concert Review

Apryl Mendez

October 17th, 2014

First Concert Review

        On Friday, October 3, 2014 I attended the Midterm Piano Workshop at the College of Southern Idaho Recital Hall, which started at 5pm. There were eleven different students playing from the classical genre. They of course as you can tell were all playing the piano. Each had their own time on stage to perform.

        I really enjoyed listening to the Turkish March composed by W.A. Mozart and performed by Andrew Honcharenko. The song has a quick upbeat tempo and is in duple meter. This song begins with a musical idea that is repeated in the first two phrases and then the phrase changes to contrast the first two phrases that were played. The bass notes in this piece were keeping the time of the entire song. He had good articulation in his notes because much of the song is staccato. He performed this piece very well and I can’t wait to hear what he has to offer at the next recital.

        The second piece in which I enjoy listening to was Fur Elise composed by Ludwig van Beethoven performed by Daniel Mendez. This piece is easily identifiable right from the start due to the motive. The tempo of this piece is very mellow and calming at the beginning and then transitions to a very quick and upbeat tempo only to come back around to the beginning. It then departs into a section that becomes very dissonant to build tension before the unity of the piece happens.  Tonic and dominant chords are used very often throughout this piece. There were a few times that the performer did mess up but only someone who listens to this type of music often would have notice.