This piece is homophonic and played with a full orchestra. Berlioz places heavy emphasis on percussion and horns to achieve a very strong emotive sound for this movement.…
The piece I enjoyed the least was “‘Tarantella’ from August Bournonville’s Napoli”. I found it distracting how in the piece the dancers that weren’t dancing were standing on the side, still visible. They were still on the stage distracting me from the dancers in the center. It was distracting to have them still visible on stage and not behind the curtain, backstage.…
Music is a form an expression, it cannot be defined by an exact word or description. Certainly, there is background information about how and why a specific piece of music is composed, but why should I describe the music by a definite word? Before I read this article, I am a fan of Tschaikovsky, his romantic music with different melodic lines really…
The twentieth century, was an exciting time for music. The traditional rules from the Classical and Romantic eras were being challenged and new ones were being created. This allowed composers to develop new styles, sounds, and genres. One of these composers was Igor Stravinsky, who challenged the norms with his “experimental and often controversial style” (Hanson 165). Due to this, Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and “The Firebird” will be compared for this week’s assignment. All comparisons will be based off the piece’s melody, harmony, texture, rhythm, timbre, and form.…
The Rite of Spring by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) had been composed in 1913 and is considered a masterpiece of the twentieth century. Despite being considered such a prolific piece, it serves as quite paradoxical when it comes to its rather contradictory and ambivalent background. The composition process had been approached in a different style to much of his other works, involving myth, folklore and traditionalism and all of which surround this rather haunting yet admirable piece with great controversy. Primitivism is an obvious and quite prominent influence upon the Rite of Spring but what were these features and how do they relate to the ambiguous, diverse genre of Modernism? To realise, the internal cogs that turn this devise must first of all be analysed and recognised.…
There are multiple different genres of music that each have a certain sound or represent a certain time period in history. The two genres that I have selected are Opera and Big-band Jazz. These are two very diverse genres that have different musical elements, such as melody, rhythm, etc. The Opera piece is Purcell: Dido and Aeneas, Act III, Opening and Lament by Henry Purcell and the Big-band Jazz piece is Strayhorn: Take the A Train, by Duke Ellington Orchestra.…
II. Stravinsky- brief background of life up until the premiere of The Rite of Spring…
20th century orchestral music encompasses orchestral works, concertos, ballets and symphonies that have been written and performed since 1900. This era had no particular dominant style and composers have created highly diverse kinds of music. One impressionist piece that demonstrates these characteristics is Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, The Kiss of The Earth (1913) is a pinnacle 20th century orchestral piece, which boldly rejected structured harmony and the comfort of a traditional orchestral composition (Toor, 2010). Furthermore, Stravinsky’s use of neo-classism along with complex rhythms helps to set the timbre of the piece as being both calm and chaotic. This essay will analyse and evaluate how Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Kiss of the Earth, experiments with the music elements duration, pitch, timbre, expressive techniques, and other compositional devices to compose a 20th century innovative work.…
The tone for the folk-like melodies is sweet and soft, as a folk tune would be, but the tone used in the faster and more chaotic sections is often very harsh. The harshness is aided by cluster chords and dissonance [see trumpet parts, figure 16 + 4 bars]. Stravinsky does not conform to one key, he uses polytonality, Atonality, dissonance and chromaticism in The Rite of Spring, all of which have extreme qualities that are not always pleasing to listen to. In the folk-influenced sections the melody is the key feature [bars 1 12] and rhythm becomes less vital due to the irregularity of folk rhythms. However, rhythm in the intense sections [bars 13 onwards, with an exception at figure 12, where the music returns to the idea presented in the opening bars of the piece] is arguably the most important musical element. While the tonality is often hard to define, the rhythm is rigid and powerful, but not always regular [the opening to "The Augurs of spring, the dances of the young girls."] Ostinati patters will shift rhythmic centre and some patterns may be irregular, but the rhythm is still what holds everything together. Dynamics have an extreme range, sometimes (usually before a climatic point)…
The emphatic, stirring conclusion to The Firebird leaves the listener with the sense that a favorable event of great significance has occurred, or that a long-sought-for goal has been achieved. This effect is achieved mainly through Stravinsky’s peculiar choices of instrumentation and dynamic markings.…
The first movement(Allegro ma non troppo ) with movement in 2/4 meter. It opens with warm, calm melody, the main and colorful melody was basically introduced by violin, cello, flute, and oboe. The pleasant melody shows the expectation of rustic life and was repeated in a peaceful way without too many decorations.…
Period and style appropriate to the piece. In addition, knowledge of the composer, his/her influences and some other works is expected. Knowledge of other genres typical of the period by not necessarily instrument-specific is also expected. (orchestral music, choral music)…
In William’s “Hymn to the Fallen,” sounds of the violin and orchestra possess a depressing and sad tone which matches perfectly…
This past Sunday I attended one of many classical concerts that the Lake San Marcos Chamber Music Society (L.S.M.C.M.S.) hosts. The one I sat in on was their season opener at the San Dieguito United Methodist Church. It featured Michele Zukovsky (clarinet), Daniel Rothmuller (慶ello), and Joanne Pearce Martin (piano) as they performed an all-Brahms program. The musicians presented three pieces by Johannes Brahms: Sonata in F major for 慍ello and Piano, Op. 99, Sonata in F minor for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 120 No. 1, and Trio in A minor for Clarinet, 慍ello and Piano, Op. 114. The performance of Sonata in F major for 慍ello and Piano, Op. 99 Allegro vivace was truly an amazing experience and was my favorite piece of the concert. The piece started out fortisimo: violent and frantic. Within twenty measures it faded to pianissimo. During the entire piece, the dynamics ranged in and out of this spectrum. The tone color of the 慶ello was sharp, flighty, and eclectic while the piano represented tonal characteristics of power, joy, grace, and sorrow. The pitch of the number varied from soprano to bass although it stayed mostly in the baritone register. It was measured in thirds and there was some syncopation involved when the 慶ello would deviate from the beat set by the piano. During the piece, both the piano and 慶ello would imitate each other in a counterpoint fashion. It seemed as though at times the 慶ello would command the piano and vice versa. The texture was definitely homophonic because of this. Overall I give this concert four and a half (out of five) stars. It would have been perfect if only the artists had added more passion…
Some of the main elements of music are rhythm, timbre/instrumentation, melody, harmony, texture, musical form, genre/style, pitch, tempo and articulation.…