The UNCG School of Music has been recognized for years as one of the elite
music institutions in the United States. Fully accredited by the National
Association of Schools of Music since 1938, the School offers the only
comprehensive music program from undergraduate through doctoral study in
both performance and music education in North Carolina. From a total
population of approximately 14,000 university students, the UNCG School of
Music serves nearly 600 music majors with a full-time faculty and staff of more
than sixty. As such, the UNCG School of Music ranks among the largest
Schools of Music in the South.
The UNCG School of Music now occupies a new 26 million dollar music building
which is among the finest music facilities in the nation. In fact, the new music
building is the second-largest academic building on the UNCG Campus. A large
music library with state-of-the-art playback, study and research facilities houses
all music reference materials. Greatly expanded classroom, studio, practice
room, and rehearsal hall spaces are key components of the new structure. Two
new recital halls, a large computer lab, a psychoacoustics lab, electronic music
labs, and recording studio space are additional features of the new facility. In
addition, an enclosed multi-level parking deck is adjacent to the new music
building to serve students, faculty and concert patrons.
Living in the artistically thriving Greensboro—Winston-Salem—High Point “Triad”
area, students enjoy regular opportunities to attend and perform in concerts
sponsored by such organizations as the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, the
Greensboro Opera Company, and the Eastern Music Festival. In addition,
UNCG students interact first-hand with some of the world’s major artists who
frequently schedule informal discussions, open rehearsals, and master classes
at UNCG.
Costs of attending public universities in North Carolina, both for in-state and out-of-
state students, represent a truly exceptional value in higher education.
For information regarding music as a major or minor field of study, please write:
Dr. John J. Deal, Dean
UNCG School of Music
P.O. Box 26167
Greensboro, North Carolina 27402-6167
(336) 334-5789
On the Web: www.uncg.edu/mus/
Chris Jusell
violin
Chenny Gan, piano
assisted by
Frédéric St-Pierre, violin
Noah Hock, viola
Joel Wenger, violoncello
Suzanne Luberecki, double bass
Emily Orr, piccolo and flute
Soo Goh, clarinet
Brandon Tesh, saxophone
Elaine Peterson, bassoon
Student Recital
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
5:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Sonate für Violine und Klavier (1939) Paul Hindemith
Lebhaft (1895-1963)
Langsam – Lebhaft – Langsam, wie zuerst
Fuge: Ruhig bewegt
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77/99 (1948) Dmitri Shostakovich
III. Passacaglia: Andante – Cadenza (1906-1975)
IV. Burlesque: Allegro con brio
Intermission
Sonate pour Violon et Piano (1927) Maurice Ravel
Allegretto (1875-1937)
Blues: Moderato arr. C. Jusell
Perpetuum mobile: Allegro
This recital is dedicated to my grandfather, Glenn John,
and to the memory of my grandmother, Elsie John.
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
Paul Hindemith:
Sonate für Violine und Klavier (1939)
Hindemith wrote his 1939 Violin Sonata in Switzerland during a two-year stay there after
permanently leaving Germany. By this time, the composer’s style had solidified into the
four-square modernism that was to remain his hallmark. He was also at work on his Mathis
der Maler during this period, a work which clearly and deeply influenced his inspiration.
The sonata opens with one of those “vigorous,” rhythmically-driven moods for which
Hindemith is famous. The second movement follows a simple ABA structure, opening with
a relaxed piano melody; after a livelier section, the material returns, now crowned by
virtuosic scales in the violin. The finale is a fugue of essentially melodic nature and
powerful climax, conveyed through textural imagination and dramatic flair.
Dmitri Shostakovich:
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1, op. 77/99 (1948)
Shostakovich composed his First Violin Concerto in 1947-48 and revised it in 1955; David
Oistrakh gave the premiere on October 29 of that year, in Leningrad. The dual opus
number of this work is an unusual reminder of the difficult time in which it was created. In
February 1948 Andrei Zhdanov, Joseph Stalin’s spokesman for cultural matters, issued an
unexpected and vicious denunciation of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and several other
prominent composers, charging them with the sin of “formalism” and plunging the Soviet
musical community into a period of darkness that ended only with Stalin’s death five years
later (Zhdanov himself died before the year was out). Shostakovich was just then
completing his Violin Concerto, to which he assigned the opus number 77; he put the score
away to await a more propitious time, and only with the beginning of the “thaw” that
followed Stalin’s death did he bring it out, affixed with the new opus number.
The third movement of the work, a Passacaglia, repeats a brooding bass figure in the
accompaniment, the violinist meanwhile becoming increasingly impassioned until it, too,
takes the bass figure into its own speech with octaves. This climax falls to a monumentally
extended cadenza, where themes from previous movements are recalled over a gradual
accelerando, which leads to the final, frenzied movement, a Burlesque.
Maurice Ravel:
Sonate pour Violon et Piano (1927)
Arranged by C. Jusell
Maurice Ravel was a stolidly slow composer. He constantly revised his compositions, and
would never send material to his publisher unless he was completely satisfied with every
aspect of the work. While composing the Trio, he wrote to a friend, “I am working – yes,
working with the sureness and lucidity of a madman. At the same time I get terrible fits of
depression and suddenly find myself sobbing over the sharps and flats!"
The Sonate pour Violon et Piano, actually Ravel’s second Sonata of this kind (the first not
found and published until 1975), took the composer four years to finish. Apart from the
musical problems which it presented (he threw away one completed version of the last
movement, thinking it was too much like the first), it was also interrupted by his contractual
requirement to finish his opera L'Enfant et les sortilèges. The aspect of the work which has
generally attracted most comment is the second movement, "Blues," with its use of jazz
sounds and rhythms, reflecting his interest in the growth of jazz in Paris cafés and
nightclubs during the 1920s.
This arrangement, for violin and chamber ensemble, was completed by Chris Jusell in
January of 2004.
Chris Jusell
violin
Chenny Gan, piano
assisted by
Frédéric St-Pierre, violin
Noah Hock, viola
Joel Wenger, violoncello
Suzanne Luberecki, double bass
Emily Orr, piccolo and flute
Soo Goh, clarinet
Brandon Tesh, saxophone
Elaine Peterson, bassoon
Student Recital
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
5:30 pm
Recital Hall, School of Music
Program
Sonate für Violine und Klavier (1939) Paul Hindemith
Lebhaft (1895-1963)
Langsam – Lebhaft – Langsam, wie zuerst
Fuge: Ruhig bewegt
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77/99 (1948) Dmitri Shostakovich
Passacaglia: Andante – Cadenza (1906-1975)
Burlesque: Allegro con brio
Intermission
Sonate pour Violon et Piano (1927) Maurice Ravel
Allegretto (1875-1937)
Blues: Moderato arr. C. Jusell
Perpetuum mobile: Allegro
_____
The hall is equipped with a listening assistance system.
Patrons needing such assistance should contact an usher in the lobby.
