Concert Critique

On April 10th, 2018, I attended a concert performed by three talented performers: John Carlo Pierce (Tenor), Michelle Stanley (Flute), Jeff LaQuatra (Guitar). The performances were at The Griffin Foundation Gallery in the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. The performances were part of the Music in the Museum Concert Series, which is a performance based on the art that surrounds it. The art installment in the museum is called Pompeii Archive: Recent Photographs by William Wylie. Pompeii was once a thriving and sophisticated Roman city. It became buried under ash and pumice after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. William Wylies’ photography revolves around the theme of death. The musical performances incorporated the theme of death from …show more content…
1944). All three pieces were written for someone who had recently died, and it explained their life and gave a little love note for those who they left behind. The first piece, Elegy for Mary Gray, was written for a woman named Mary Gray. The flute started out with a lento tempo and a Piano dynamic range which gave the song an eerie, sort of sad tone which really brought the crowd in. The guitar mimicked the flute and went very steady with its rhythm, not going too fast but not going very slow either. With both instruments almost in unison with each other, they both complemented the music being produced from each other’s instruments. Both instruments start to slowly fade out than it came back in at a Fortissimo dynamic range and presto tempo to bring the audiences attention back in. My own opinion is that the composer was trying to scare the audience and give them the feeling he had when he lost Mary Gray. Near the end, the guitar became the only instrument left playing and the sound became slow and soft, probably representing the death of Mary Gray. The second piece performed was titled Cavatina. The piece started out very light and airy, only going around an Adagio tempo but keeping a Mezzo – Piano range the whole time. The whole piece seemed to be a tribute to love for whomever passed on and it could be felt when throughout the whole song. The last piece performed, Elegy, had a lower tone to it, which was mostly …show more content…
The piece was titled Canciones Para Un Adios,(English: Songs for a Goodbye) which was composed by Raúl Maldonado (b.1937). The first part, Tonada para un adios (English: Tune for a goodbye) started with the guitar and tenor singing at a respectful mezzo-piano range. The flute joined in about a minute later and changed the dynamic from mezzo-piano to fortissimo with one note. As I had noticed with the other performances, the notes seem to be on a theoretical rollercoaster ranging from mezzo-piano to fortissimo throughout the entire first part of the piece. To match the high pitched tempo, the flute and guitar began to perform a duet with fast paced, short notes, which gave off a sense of pride. This reminded me of someone trying to honor the dead. The voice then came into the song and started singing in Spanish, which is the original language for the song. The song then starts to do a false ending, but they slowly come back to the end the piece very nice and smooth. The second part, titled Surco de Ausencia (English: Abscense Groove), started out with a guitar solo with a nice flow of rhythm and a fast paced, mezzo-forte dynamic range. This allowed the flute to join in a light and airy tone which seemed to always come from the flute. The flute once again complemented the notes the guitar was playing and brought a gentle peace to the performance. The piece then turned into a forte range and