Department of Music

Isaac Cox
Graduate Recital
April 23rd, 2022, 6pm
Center for the Performing Arts, Recital Hall

Program

Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue in D Minor, BWV 903- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
1. Fantasia      

Suite No. 2  in F Major- Tommaso Albinoni (1671-1751)
1. Allemanda   
2. Corrente
3. Gavotta
Featuring
Qilong Wei, violin
Fanhong Jiang, violin
Kassim Hawary, cello

Images, Book 1- Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
1. Reflets dans l’eau   
2. Hommage à Rameau
3. Mouvement

Intermission

Embraceable You- Gershwin/Wild (1898-1937/1915-2010)

The Little Island- Rachmaninoff/Wild (1873-1943/1915-2010)
            
L’Alouette (The Lark)- Glinka/Balakirev (1804-1857/1837-1910)

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 23- Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

 

Artist Bio

Isaac Cox received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in piano performance from Adrian College in 2020, and will graduate with a Master of Arts Degree in piano performance, with a focus in collaborative piano, from the University of Toledo in May of 2022.  Isaac’s passion for performance lies in collaborating with others, whether it be playing harpsichord in a baroque string trio, playing in the pit for theater shows, or accompanying vocalists and choirs.  After graduating, Isaac hopes to find work at a university as a piano instructor and collaborative pianist.

 

 

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank:

Dr. Michael Boyd, for his wonderful guidance and instruction.  I have deeply matured as a pianist and musician during my time here at the University of Toledo, and that is in no small part thanks to you.

Phillip Clark, for guiding me through the foundational years of my growth as a pianist.  I would not be nearly the pianist I am today without your help.  

Heather Petty, for her endless love and support.  I could never have managed graduate school without you by my side.  Thank you for a wonderful five years together, and here’s to many more!

My parents & family, for being my life-long supporters.  I appreciate all of you more than you could ever know.  

And to everyone who, in any way big or small, supported me and helped me to grow throughout my six years of study. Thank you.

Isaac Cox is a student of Michael Boyd.  This recital is given in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Music degree in Piano Performance.

Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach
 (1685-1750) was a German-born composer of the Baroque period.  Bach spent much of his early life in various small German cities, receiving musical tutelage on the violin, viola, klavier, and organ.  At age 15 he began to work as chorister, organist, and string player for various churches, first in Lüneburg, and then in Celle, Arnstadt, Mühlhausen, Weimar, and Cöthen.  By the time he settled in Leipzig in 1723, he was 38 years of age.  He remained there for the rest of his life, working as cantor of St. Thomas’s Church.  A prolific composer in spite of his immense workload, Bach’s vast body of work was in large part religious, including large-scale vocal and orchestral works for the church.  However, he also composed a large repertory of music for the organ and klavier.

Bach’s Chromatic Fantasia & Fugue is a large-scale work composed for klavier during his years in Cöthen.  As the title suggests, it is composed of two primary musical forms: the fantasia and the fugue.  The fantasia is an improvisatory style of composition, with no set form.  In this case, Bach composed his fantasia in two primary sections – a fiery, exciting Prelude followed by a more relaxed Recitative.  Both feature unpredictable and unconventional chromatic harmonies.  The fugue is a contrapuntal style of composition with a more rigid form.  The Exposition introduces the primary thematic material – the subject and counter-subject – as various ‘voices’ enter one after the other.  The thematic material is subsequently manipulated and experimented with in a series of episodes and entries, until the fugue comes to a close.  This composition can be likened to the prelude and fugue in its essentials, though it is much greater in length and more complex in its form.

Tommaso Albinoni
 (1671-1751) was an Italian composer of the Baroque era who was born, lived, and died in the city of Venice.  A lover of the voice, he penned more then 50 operas; however, he also wrote many instrumental works, including a great many suites of dances.  The Suite No. 2 in F Major is a short suite of three dances: the allemanda, a lively dance in 4/4 time featuring a short motive passed between parts, the courante, a stately dance in 3/4 time which playfully fluctuates between 3/4 and 2/4, and the gavotte, a bright dance in 2/4 time.  

Claude Debussy 
(1862-1918), virtuoso French pianist and composer of the Impressionist (or Symbolist, as he preferred) movement, was born just outside of Paris in the city of Saint-Germaine-en-Laye.  Although he spent several years in Rome and traveled frequently, he considered himself staunchly a French musician and spent the majority of his life living in Paris.  Debussy composed in an Impressionist style - impressionism in music refers to a style of composition in which one uses inventive harmonies, colors, timbres, sonorities, and textures to depict a specific image, mood, feeling, or event, usually explicitly named in the title of the work.  Although Debussy did compose a number of works for the stage and other instruments, the bulk of his opus was written for the piano.  

Images, Book 1, written in 1905, is a set of three compositions, each intended to evoke a unique subject.  The first movement, Reflets dans l’eau, translates to ‘reflections in the water’.  There are a multitude of ways in which Debussy depicts this image, including droplets or ripples on the surface of the water, the gleam of the sun, a stormy sky, the racing wind, and many more.  The second movement, Hommage à Rameau, translates to ‘homage to Rameau’.  As the title suggests, this piece pays homage to the great French Baroque composer Jean-Phillipe Rameau, whose writings on music theory greatly influenced Debussy.  The third movement, Mouvement, translates to ‘movement’.  This piece is characterized by a singular motive of constant, incessant activity.  The sixteenth-note triplet figure does not cease, even once, until the piece comes to a close.  What is so wonderful about these titles is that they are purposefully vague – specific enough to give the listener a point from which to begin, but leaving room for their imagination to take over as they experience the music.  

The song transcription is a genre of composition in which a song originally intended for an accompanied voice is faithfully reworked into a solo piece for the piano.  These compositions often feature complex textures into which a simpler melody is interwoven.

Embraceable You was composed by George Gershwin (1898-1937) in 1930 as part of the Broadway musical Girl Crazy and was popularized by famous jazz vocalists such as Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby, and Ella Fitzgerald.  It was transcribed for solo piano by American pianist and composer Earl Wild (1915-2010) in 1954.

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you

Embrace me, you irreplaceable you

Just one look at you, my heart grew tipsy in me

You and you alone bring out the gypsy in me.

I love all the many charms about you

Above all, I want my arms about you

Don’t be a naughty baby, come to papa, come to papa do

My sweet embraceable you.

Wild also transcribed fourteen songs composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943).  These include The Little Island, originally written in 1896 as a part of song cycle Twelve Songs, Op. 14, and set by Wild in 1981.

A virgin island slumb’ring lies

Far from the course that ships are plying;

Upon it’s shores each wavelet dies

With scarcely more than sighing.

At sunny noon or fragrant night

‘Tis ever peace among it’s bowers,

Through ev’ry season green and bright

With tropic ferns and flowers.

No sailor who has roamed the main

Can guide you to this fairy arbor;

When lost in dreams alone you gain

The shelter of its harbor.

L’Alouette (The Lark)
 was composed by Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) in 1840 as part of a song cycle entitled A Farewell to St. Petersburg.  It was set for solo piano by composer Mily Balakirev (1837-1910).  In this transcription, Balakirev depicts the lark’s beautiful song and graceful flight through the streets of St. Petersburg.  

Between the sky and the earth a song is heard

An unending stream of sound pours louder, louder.

Unseen is the singer in the field where sings so loudly

Above his mate the sonorous skylark.

The wind carries the song, to whom, it does not know.

She to whom it is sung, she will understand who it is from.

Pour on, my song of sweet hope

Someone remembers me and sighs furtively.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish pianist and composer of the Romantic era.  Beginning his study of the piano at the age of 4, his talent as a virtuoso was quickly recognized and he became a favorite of the Polish aristocracy.  His reknowned talent for improvisation quickly became a passion for composition, and he turned nearly his full attention to it by the age of 12.  Chopin spent some time in Vienna in 1830, but shortly afterward moved to Paris in 1831, and spent the remainder of his life there.  Nearly all of Chopin’s output as a composer was written for the solo piano, and is characterized by his seemingly unending output of breathtakingly beautiful melodies.  

Ballade No. 1 in G Minor is the first of four Ballades composed over the course of Chopin’s life, beginning with Op. 23 and ending with Op. 52.  The Ballades are large-scale piano works which suggest a sense of narrative without being explicitly programmatic.  The Ballade No. 1 is perhaps the most exciting and dramatic of the four, featuring a wide variety of textures and sudden shifts of tone, mood, and dynamics.

I hope you enjoy the program!

 

UToledo Music Logo with All Steinway 

 

Last Updated: 10/28/22