Minnesota Varsity: Ellie Hansen

Instrument: Piano

Hometown: Longville, Minn.

Piece: Johannes Brahms — Rhapsody in G Minor, Op. 79 No. 2

Why did you choose this piece?

With such a large range of musical repertoire in existence, choosing just one piece to represent yourself as an artist can be a daunting task. That's why I consider myself lucky to have chosen Brahms' Rhapsody in G Minor as my piece. Brahms' compositions are both technically and emotionally intense, and this piece is no exception.

When deciding how to perform a piece, musicians often think of it as a story to tell an audience. For this piece, the most obvious narrative to me was Brahms' self-doomed love for Clara Schumann. While the piece lacks overt plot points, I felt the abstract emotional narrative throughout the piece accepted this interpretation. In this piece, one can hear a bevy of emotions at any given time: anger, bitterness, hatred, self-loathing, pain, and love (heartbroken and agonized though it may be.) In my performance, I try to convey love in concert with these other emotions, without marring the legitimacy of either. It is these beautiful, wrenching emotional pairings that are, in my opinion, truly unique to Brahms. It is for these reasons that I chose Brahms' Rhapsody in G Minor to represent me as a pianist.