Graduate recital in voice

Includes recorded audio files in WAV and MP3 formats, 57:42 in length.Mia speranza adorata was composed by W. A. Mozart for Aloisia Lange and chamber orchestra in January of 1783. The text of this concert aria is from a scene in an opera called Zemira by Anfossi. It is in the form of a recitative and rondo. Although the rondo makes ample use of the Italian style with scales and arpeggios, it also maintains the dramatic intent of the scene.\ud The Four Songs by Arnold Schoenberg, opus 2, were composed about 1898. The careful construction of the accompaniments well integrated with the vocal lines are examples of Schoenberg's heritage of lyricism from Brahms. There are also examples of rhythmic freedom, chromaticism, polyphonic textures and a lack of exact repetition. All of these foretell his future discoveries especially in regard to dodecaphony. The first song, Erwartung, is especially prophetic as it is entirely built on one chord (eb, a, d, gb and cb) without exact repetition and sequences.\ud Four Songs of Youth by Debussy were composed for Madame Vasnier between 1882-84. They were published in May 1926 in the Revue Musicale. This was at the beginning of his growing interest in the symbolist poets including Stephane Mallarme and Paul Verlaine. These songs do not presage many of Debussy's later melodic or harmonic techniques. The melodies are quite melismatic with little indication of parlando. The harmony, though chromatic, is definitely tonal with the dominant functioning dynamically, characteristic of his early works, and with little or no use of pentatonic harmonies, typical of his later works. (See more in text.