Sunflowers Critique

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Walking in and seeing everyone sitting in their seats waiting for the show to begin was exciting. The hall sat a little bit less than 200 people and it got very noisy considering almost everyone was having a conversation at the same time. Before the show began, I sat in my chair thinking about how we all had one thing in common, the love of music, and it gave me a relieving feeling. We were all there to see Jeanie Darnell, Michael Baron, and Helen Tintes-Schuermann perform a feast of American songs.

Jeanie Darnell is a soprano soloist that is known for her “wonderfully bell-like tones.” (program notes). She has been a featured soloist with many different ensembles and has had the opportunity to perform around the country. Accompanying her is Michael Baron, an award-winning concert pianist. He plays many different compositions of …show more content…

Sunflowers consists of 3 poems written by Mary Oliver: The Sunflowers, Dreams, and Sunrise. Lori Laitman made sure that these 3 poems flowed right into each other when performed. The Sunflowers is in through-composed form with no key signature due to the fact that it uses both major and minor tonalities and has a constantly changing meter. Typically in a soprano voice, it has a homophonic texture that is constantly changing dynamics. Its melody moves disjunctively, having Darnell make large leaps from interval to interval. This piece had a sense of playfulness and sincerity and clearly eased into the second piece. Dreams, the second piece of Sunflowers, shares some of the same characteristics as The Sunflowers such as, through-composed form, changing tonalities, changing meter and same timbre. Tempo and dynamic levels change along with the meter. It also has a homophonic texture but in certain areas it mixes with polyphony. It’s melody movement changes from conjunct to disjunct and has and has a softer

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