Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music will present faculty members Christina Guenther and Ron Petti in a recital at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, in Cole Concert Hall as part of the Calliope Concert Series.
Guenther, professor of flute, and Petti, director of accompanying at SFA, will perform the program “Song and Dance” featuring works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Franz Schubert, Grigoras Dinicu, Samuel Barber, Eugène Bozza, Philippe Gaubert and Eldin Burton.
The program opens with Bach’s “Hamburger Sonata,” which was written in Hamburg, Germany, in 1786. “While neither movement is technically a dance, the second, Rondo, is dance-like in character,” Guenther explained. C.P.E. Bach is the most famous son of the great Baroque master Johann Sebastian Bach and falls into the period between Baroque and Classical known as the Empfindsamer Styl (sensitive style).
“During this period, one can see, read, and hear what is known as Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) in visual art, literature and music,” Guenther said. “This is featured in proto-Romantic ways through subjectivity and freedom of emotion and expression.”
The program also includes Theobald Boehm’s arrangement of two Schubert Lieder – Der Lindenbaum and Ständchen, followed by Romanian composer and violinist Dinicu’s Hora Staccato. “Dinicu wrote this piece in 1906 for his graduation from the Bucharest Conservatory,” Guenther said. “A lively dance written in the Romanina hora style, it is a famous piece originally written for violin.”
The program continues with three songs that are not related, Guenther said, “but we find them to make a lovely set together; each of the three pieces has a title that means ‘song.’” The set features Barber’s Canzone, Bozza’s Aria, and Gaubert’s Madrigal. The recital concludes with Burton’s three-movement Sonatina.
“This piece was written in 1948 as a composition project while Burton was at the Juilliard School,” Guenther said. “It is his only published work and won the 1948 New York Flute Club’s composition contest. Burton’s only other known work is an unpublished flute concerto.”
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit http://www.finearts.sfasu.edu/.