German and music students came together for German poetry and songs Tuesday in the Dingeldine Music Center auditorium.
Associate professor of music Kerry Walters and visiting assistant professor of German Agnes Cser planned the event to demonstrate an appreciation of the language, culture and music.
“This is an opportunity for students who are studying German and German literature to see how poetry from German literature is brought into the world of music,” Walters said.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Johannes Brahms were composers featured in the program.
“[Fanny Mendelssohn] was from the 19th century, when it was not cool for women to be composers and publish compositions,” Walters said.
Students from the German class WLG 316 recited three poems, “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,” “Die Lorelei” and “Erlkoenig.”
Molly Sloter, staff accompanist, played piano for the singers and performed an excerpt of the music composed for the poem “Erlkoenig” after it was recited.
Three vocal students sang different songs in the style of German opera. Senior music business major Kelsey Chapman sang “Die Mainacht.”
Senior music education major Randy Sperry performed “Kommen und Schieden.” Sperry thought the combined event was a great opportunity to work with students in a different department and liked the cross-curricular aspect.
“It was a lot of fun for us to be able to work with those students because it was fun to see different perspectives of German,” Sperry said. “Especially since we don’t necessarily speak the language, but we have an understanding of the function and pronunciation. That’s really cool to see a different take on it.”
Aria Cramer, senior music education major, said she was nervous to sing in front of an audience that knows German because singing in the language is different from speaking it. She sang five Italian poems that were translated into German in 1860.
“You do get such a different perspective and being a musician, we need to know how the language is spoken to be authentic to the culture and authentic to the language,” Cramer said. “On the flip side, as someone who reads poetry and is speaking the language, sometimes getting that auditory sense of what the words are can give you a deeper understanding of the poetry.”
Celia Compton, freshman photography major, was one of the students that recited “Die Lorelei.” She said it was her first time looking at older works in German culture and thought it was interesting to hear the poems and music in a concert hall setting.
“It was fun to look at a time period of Germany where it’s like romantic kinds of poems and I can see that represented in the work,” Compton said. “I think it was important to see how they were meant to be said.”
To end the event, the audience joined in and sang “Ode to Joy,” composed by Beethoven and lyrics written by German poet Friedrich Schiller.
