Reflections and Narratives | Spencer Myer, piano | faculty recital

Piano faculty member Spencer Myer explores late works of Leoš Janáček and Ludwig van Beethoven on the first half of this program. Janáček’s “In the Mists” (his final work for piano) and Beethoven’s Sonata Op. 110 both possess very introspective, searching, reflective qualities, as if the composers were reminiscing, or in a way searching for something deeper in their compositional voices. Veering in the narrative direction, Frédéric Chopin’s Four Ballades are musical stories–left up to the imagination of the listener, as Chopin didn’t assign them specific plots. But through them, he turns the piano into a narrative medium, making the instrument essentially “speak” with his gift of melody and line.