Linda Farmer is a true example of the saying “hard work pays off.” She has been practicing her piano skills to perform for the Martin community, her friends and professors, and most importantly her parents and her “favorite grandpa.”

Farmer performed her senior piano recital, her second recital this year, and gained the full attention of the audience. This was her night and she did a marvelous job making sure it turned out perfectly. One of the audience members noted that performing musical masterpieces in such a way made Linda a masterpiece.

“She has always been a very diligent student,” Amy Yeung, assistant professor of Voice said. “She accompanies many prominent local musicians and has been pretty active in a musical world.”

The musical program, which was chosen by Farmer with a little help from her professor, had a variety of piano masterpieces of different periods and cultures. In general, her choices constituted the traditional European works from Classical-era Italian sonatas to twentieth century Neoclassicism pieces.

As Scott Roberts, the associate professor of Musical Theory noted, “Different periods have to be covered as a requirement of the program. Both student and professor pick out the pieces.”

Farmer started out by bringing in the extravagant baroque music of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas. His music is characterized by culminating notes running in rapid succession instead of sounding simultaneously. Then she moved on to the less cluttered and smoother classical melodies of Wolfgang Mozart, whose piece didn’t seem to contain a predominant tone or beat.

The three sonatas of Scarlatti were similar, but were unique. The three-part sonata of Mozart served as a good example of typical classical music. The audience enjoyed Farmer’s polished skills, even though the extra long last piece of Mozart “Andante: Theme and Twelve Variations” may have seemed as a monotonous repetition of the same melody with minor variations.

After the intermission, the last three works revived the hall with their more down-to-earth modern melodies. While the strong and gloomy tone of the twentieth century composer Benjamin Lees’ “Fantasia” kept the audience on edge, Claude Debussy’s “L’isle joyeuse” of the Romantic era turned out to be one of the favorites. The melody pleased the audience with its duplicating running notes and setting the mood with a steadier, slower but louder beat in its second part.

Franz Liszt’s “Un sospiro” turned out to be another complicated piece, requiring Farmer’s full concentration.

“It’s so involved,” Farmer said, noting that it took her a while to get it right.

The two major parts of “Un sospiro” created a double layer of two main different melodies. The smoothly duplicating background notes served as a foundation for the individual, slow notes, which added some color and acted as the main feature of the piece.

At the end of the recital, the Fine Arts main floor was filled with Farmer’s fans and praises.

Farmer is a Music-Piano Pedagogy and Math Education double major.