Those familiar with  J.S. Bach's repertoire  know how even in his most technically complex works,  the continual emotional stream of his personal life is evident--his doubts and sorrow at the loss of  first wife and many children, for example.  And  how  his musical self-explanations can wrestle and culminate  in faith and an exultation in God.  In this concert we will hear  Bach's “Capriccio on the Departure of His Beloved Brother”.  This piece is written  in a rare style, a "capriccio" being a  "little caprice or caper",  typically  in free form  and usually lively and brilliant.  A second work is Schumann's.  The romance between Robert Schumann and his young love Clara Wieck is the stuff of many biographies.  Briefly put, Robert wooed the quite young Clara in a long courtship against her family's objections.  (Their subsequent  long marriage produced  8 children but  ended tragically as Schumann was incarcerated with  mental illness.)  In this early  love piece,  longing, obsession and passion  pour out in his rarely played    “Sonata No. 1 in F-Sharp Minor.”   And Maurice Ravel in the early 1900's was witnessing the breakdown of the Golden Age with his masterpiece “La Valse".  This well-known opus was originally for ballet and became an orchestral piece,  but is rarely played in its solo piano transcription for its extreme difficulty.  Ravel opposed the unanimous critics in their interpretation of the piece as a reflection  the decadence of the times and the oncoming maelstrom, and wrote, "This dance may seem tragic, like any other emotion... pushed to the extreme. But one should only see in it what the music expresses: an ascending progression of sonority, to which the stage comes along to add light and movement."   Ravel himself is fully aware of the modernization that is coming in the world, the vortex tugging on the world as well as at musical forms.   

Laura Kargul is a commanding and sensitive performer whose performances have continually been a hit with our audiences.  Her repertoire spans  Scarlatti to Rochberg, but she has received particular recognition for her playing of the nineteenth century romantics. After obtaining her doctorate in piano performance from the University of Michigan, her European tour created a sensation.   Her newly released solo CD, “Liszt and Ravel: Transcriptions for Piano,” produced by Grammy winner Bob Ludwig includes the piece she will play, "La Valse".  Kargul moved to Maine in 1989 to join the piano faculty at the University of Southern Maine, where she now serves as the Director of Keyboard Studies. Devoted to teaching, Ms. Kargul lectures and presents at many Music Teachers’ Associations.  Oct 15 she will present   a concert which is sure to be memorable.