Program Notes

All degree recitals require written program notes. Notes will reflect a degree-appropriate level of scholarship and will indicate any sources referenced in footnotes or a bibliography. Approximately two paragraphs per group are expected. Program notes will also include original language texts and English translations, noting the source for the translation. DMA students who are performing an opera role in fulfillment of one of the DMA recitals will be expected to write program notes for the performance as well. 

MM students must turn this document in to the major professor two weeks before the recital.  

DMA students will provide the draft of this document to the major professor and the recital committee two weeks before the scheduled recital or opera role.  DMA students counting an opera role as a recital should have their approval from the Graduate Performance Dissertation Committee and required paperwork completed by this time.  

 

Sample program notes courtesy of Dr. Snider:

Carl Loewe

Born about a year before Schubert, Carl Loewe was also a prolific Lieder composer. He is most remembered for his dramatic “Balladen” and three of the most famous (and most gruesome!) are included on this program. It is not certain whether he had knowledge of Schubert’s 1815 “Erlkönig” when he composed his in 1823.

HERR OLUF (Danish, trans. Herder)                                      LORD OLUF

Herr Oluf reitet spät und weit,                                                Lord Oluf rides late and far
Zu bieten auf seine Hochzeitleut’.                                          to summon his wedding guests.
Da tanzten die Elfen auf grünem Strand,                                Elves are dancing upon a green shore,
Erlkönigs Tochter reicht ihm die Hand:                                   the Erl-king’s daughter offers her hand.
“Willkommen, Herr Oluf, komm tanze mit mir,                        “Welcome, Lord Oluf, come, dance with me,
Zwei goldene Sporen schenke ich dir.”  …..                            two golden spurs will I give to you.”  ……

Translations © 1976 by George Bird and Richard Stokes from
The Fischer–Dieskau Book of Lieder