FREE ESSAY ON MEGAN MISKILL: JUNIOR RECITAL

MEGAN MISKILL: JUNIOR RECITAL

April 13, 2000
Music 100
Megan Miskill: Junior Recital
On April 4th, I made my way to the music building to see Megan Miskill perform her Junior
Music recital. Her concert was shared with a violin player, Trevor Corneliusen, but for
this paper, I will only discuss Megan's performance. She sang three sets of pieces:
Schubert, Faure and Mozart. Each set was contrasting, yet featured her lyric soprano
voice beautifully. Nick Williams was her accompanist.
The first section of her concert was the Franz Schubert pieces. Schubert, a romantic
composer, wrote pieces that focus mainly on nature, love, and unrequited passion. Megan
sang Im Fruhling, Die Sterne, and Heimliches Leiben. Im Fruhling and Die Sterne both have
a lighter tone color than Heimliches Leiben does. The texture of the first two pieces
were lighter and had a sooth melody and softer dynamics. Although they both are
melodically and harmonically complex, they still maintained a very positive, happy, feel.
Both the first and the second of the Schubert pieces are very cyclical. The form of the
first is ABABAA and the form of the second is AAAA. In the second, the melody is exactly
the same except for a few accidental notes that were either flat of sharp. The third
piece in the Schubert section, Heimliches Leiben, contrasts the first two pieces greatly.
It is rhythemically different, starting slowly and then gradually speeding up. The
dynamics get louder as the piece gets more passionate. There are bigger, more emotional
chords and by the end, the pianist was pounding on the keys. In the second and third
verses there is a climax because that is where the most passion is. It is as if the
singer has reached a point of complete desperation. It was interesting to hear some more
Schubert because we had just studied him in class. One can really get a sense of what
romantic composers are like when one looks at the translated lyrics to Schubert's songs.
The titles, In Spring, The Stars, and Secret Love, all exemplify the types of things that
romantic composers wrote about. 
The next section of her performance was the Faure pieces. When I interviewed Megan about
her concert she said that these are her favorite pieces because she speaks French and she
thinks that they are the most beautiful. Faure is a romantic composer as well. Much like
the Schubert, the first two pieces in the section, Le Pays des Reves, and Les Roses
d'Ispahan, were much lighter and more lyrical compared with the third piece, Fleur Jetee,
which is heavier and darker. Compared with Schubert, Faure is harmonically more complex.
Faure uses crazier keys and the form is more complex. It is more fitting that Faure is
more complex than Schubert is, because he was composing later in history. 
The first and second Schubert pieces have a simple rhythm and tempo. There are some very
high notes that Megan sang beautifully, however. The first piece shirted from 6/8 time to
? time and then back to 6/8 time again. The tone color of both of these was lighter and
had a less complex texture. The harmony, however, seemed very complex. The third Faure
piece was much darker. There was an element of insanity that seemed to be included in
Faure's composition. Her vocal dynamics got louder as the dynamics of the piano got
louder. The rhythm was incessant and got increasingly faster. The piano got increasingly
loud and by the end the pianist was pounding on the keys. The dynamics were loud and just
kept getting louder. There was a major contrast between the first/second, and the third
Faure piece. 
The last section, the Batti Batti by Mozart, is in Aria form. It is from Don Giovanni's
opera. In this piece, Megan sang the part of Zerlia, in which a lover has to talk her way
out of being caught cheating. There are long decrescendo-like runs in which Megan sang
from a very high note to a very low note. Megan told me that this piece is practically
written for a lyric soprano because it shows off the technical aspects of a lyric
soprano's voice. There were two different rhythm sections in this piece. It starts out
slow, but then at the word "pace" there is a shift to a happy, quick tempo. The music
shifts when Zerlia has finally talked her way out of the predicament. This is a very
beautiful piece which was fabulous to listen to because it is light and has a fun story.

All of the singing was beautiful, but my main critique is that it was not loud enough and
that she did not have any facial expressions. She simply stood still and sang. I think
the performance would have been increasingly interesting had she used more body language
to convey the emotions in the songs. However, I was particularly impressed by the fact
that she could sing in all those different languages. When I asked her, she said that all
freshman music majors are required to take a diction class in order to learn to read and
pronounce the different languages that they sing. 
I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to interview Megan Miskill. I asked her
several questions about the music, but also about her personal history with music. When I
asked her why she chose the pieces she did, she said that they are all lighter pieces
which are in her range. They all focus on technique and range, rather than volume. When I
asked her what the hardest piece for her was, she said that it was the Die Sterne because
it was so repetitive and very wordy. She said that she felt like the melody was never
ending, which made it more difficult for her to focus. When I asked what the hardest part
of putting on a concert was, she answered by saying that dealing with the concert hall
managers was very difficult. 
Megan has been singing since she was five years old. She started in the church choir and
then began to sing with the Anchorage Opera. She said that voice is not what she wants to
do as a career, but rather as a hobby. She said that there are too many nasty politics in
the music world that she does not want to have to deal with. I feel fortunate to have had
the opportunity to not only hear, but also interview such an accomplished vocalist.