Helen Smith
The Paw Print
On Sunday night, Dr. William Lipke of the ASU Music Department brought a classy touch to Leon Hall with his piano recital. Seeing Dr. Lipke in a tailed tuxedo made the audience feel as though they should be in formal attire as well. The recital almost seemed a tour through music history and provided a glimpse in to the style of each period of music history, giving insight in to the style of each composer represented. The music that Dr. Lipke played spanned three periods of music history, going from the Baroque period to the Classical and to the Romantic.
The opening piece of the evening was Toccata in E Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach. This was a composition in three movements: Un poco allegro, Adagio, and Fuga: Allegro. The Allegro, in closing the piece, has many dynamics and a very bright timbre. The next piece brought the classical period in. Haydn’s Sonate in E-flat Major has a very upbeat tempo which brought in an element of excitement to the recital. This piece was also in three movements; however these movements were very different from Bach’s. Dr. Lipke called Haydn the “most classical of classical composers,” and this was very evident in the structure of the movements. Following the journey through the Baroque and Classical periods there was a brief intermission.
The next half of the journey took the audience to the Romantic period with two consecutive pieces by Franz Shubert, Impromptus in G major and E-flat Major respectively. The G major was a very even, pleasant 4/4 time tempo and had no separation of movements. On the other hand, the Impromptu in E-flat major was a ¾ time waltz and had had distinct light feel with a deeper timbre in the middle portion of the piece. The next piece transported everyone back to the Baroque period with a Melodie from the opera “Orfeo” by Christoph Willibald von Gluck.
The evening ended on an exciting note in the Romantic period with the Scherzo No. 1 in B Minor by Fredric Francois Chopin. This piece had a high degree of difficulty and for added entertainment, Dr. Lipke played this piece from memory. This fast and lively composition added a “bang” to the ending of the recital.
The journey through the history of music brought a very classy and professional touch to the recital and each piece was a glimpse in to the past. Mrs. Darlene Thompson, who attended the recital, said that she could “picture the composers writing down these melodies that came to their minds.” The journey was short, yet it covered hundreds of years with notes on paper and highly skilled hands playing the Steinway and Sons piano in Leon Memorial Hall.
What’s Been Said…