According to Evelyn Mesler ’17, the songs that she sang in English were more challenging than the ones she sang in French or German.
With a light hearted, bright melody, Evelyn Mesler ’17 sang “June” by Roger Quilter to conclude her repertoire in her Senior recital. Smiling at her family and friends in the audience, Mesler sang up and down her range, concluding with a resonating high note.
“I would say that ‘June’ was probably the hardest for me because it was at the end of the recital, so I was pretty tired and because the end of the song has a lot of high G notes which is high for me. Getting the vowel right and hitting the note are two big challenges for me, and they both coalesce in that one song, so I’d say that’s probably the hardest part of the repertoire,” said Mesler.
This piece was one of ten in Mesler’s Senior recital, in which she was accompanied by Rebecca Plummer, Adjunct Instructor in Music, last Sunday in the Timken Room in Graves Hall. Mesler’s Senior recital marked the culmination of her music career at Andover.
“I’ve been taking lessons for four years, so we went through the songs that I’ve learned and performed in the past and chose the ones that were my strongest and were in my range but were also a little bit varied. We chose a lot of songs by the same composer; I chose four by Faure. We wanted different languages, but we also wanted the same composers and some continuity,” said Mesler.
According to Mesler, the songs she performed in English were more challenging than the ones in French or German.
“I would say the most challenging part for me was the English. In English, you’re enunciating so everyone can understand exactly what you’re saying versus in French or German they have to understand what it is, but I’m not communicating exactly to my audience,” said Mesler.
Mesler sang two songs in German, the latter being “Du bist die Ruh, D.776, Op. 59, No. 3” by Franz Schubert. A song about peace and release of pain, Mesler sang as if yearning for pleasure, starting every line low, gradually singing higher, and ending each on a slightly lower note.
“The most fun one for me was ‘Du bist die Ruh’ which I love because I love German, and I really love singing in German. It’s fun to feel like you have control over the sound you’re producing especially in the beginning in the first two measures because it’s really quiet, but it’s supposed to be strongly quiet. That’s fun because I had the most control over it, and also it’s most of my range,” said Mesler.
