I went to see a performance at the Duke Energy Center by the North Carolina Symphony. Three works were performed at this concert. The first piece was Musica celestis by Aaron Jay Kernis, and featured a full orchestra. The second piece was Seeing is Believing by Nico Muhly and featured a chamber orchestra and a solo electric violinist. The final piece was The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi and featured a full orchestra accompanied by a solo violinist for each season. Musica celestis and Seeing is Believing were composed in 1990 and 2007, respectively. The Four Seasons was composed during the Baroque period. The audience seemed to enjoy all of the pieces. Melody refers to a succession of pitches perceived by a listener as a single entity. …show more content…
The Four Seasons is a group of four violin concertos, each representing a season of the year. Photographs of North Carolina’s state parks accompanied the piece. The poems that Vivaldi wrote to exemplify what the music intended to evoke was also shown. This is an example of program music. Program music is instrumental music where the composer wants you to hear a story. Form is how a piece begins, develops, and ends. The form of The Four Seasons would be a multi-movement form called a concerto. A concerto is an instrumental piece that features one or more solo instruments among a full orchestra. It generally contains three movements in contrasting tempos. Tempo is the speed at which music progresses. Each concerto represents a season. For example, the “Summer” concerto consists of three movements in three different tempos; Allegro non molto, which means not very cheerful, Adagio, a leisurely slow tempo, and Largo, a slow and stately tempo. The genre of this work is Baroque. The Baroque period lasted from 1600 to 1750. The valued aesthetics during this time included complexity, elaboration, and direct emotional expression. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons is one of the most famous works to come out of the Baroque
Concert Review 6 This year’s West Bay Community Band concert on December 17th was an excellent concert based on the theme of Christmas music. The performance took place at Mills High School in their own theater and had the new staging previously used in their Winter Concert. The Band, Saxtet, Euphonium Quintet, and the Flute Trio had some individuals with the Holiday spirit. The band seemed pretty relaxed and were at ease when playing their selections regarding A Christmas Festival.
The Baroque was an era of great changes in religion, politics, science, and economics. The Baroque Era began with the Counter-Reformation and ended with two types of revolutions, political and industrial, that changed the world. The baroque was also a period of scientific innovation led by the discoveries of Descartes and Galileo. Science was no longer based on Greek ideals or religious dogma but on reason and empirical laws.
The English horn gave this piece so much character appropriate for the era it was composed. Throughout the piece, I like the way the English horn was the foundation of the piece and with accompaniment and response of flute and oboe made everything flow together so euphorically. The sixth piece of the evening was Canonic Sonata No. 2 in D Major TWV 40:120 Spirituoso composed by G.P Telemann. You can definitely tell that this piece was composed in the baroque era.
My first Carnegie Hall experience wasn’t what I expected it to be. As I entered the balcony of the Stern auditorium, I was amazed by the beautiful design of the white and gold walls and the beautiful red seats. Upon looking at my Concert Quick Guide I noticed the first symphony Leon Botstein was conducting was Arnold Schoenberg! When I flipped the guide to observe what else was in store for me, my eyes opened wide as I saw Mozart! I felt as if I wasn’t completely ignorant towards the classical music world, here I am in Carnegie Hall for the first time and I have a general background of the two original composers of Chamber Symphony No. 2 and Great Mass in C Minor.
Chapter 17 Assignment #2 (Ryan Cho) 17.2 Rococo, Neoclassicism, J.L. David, Classical Music, concerto, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Carnival. 1) Rococo. Although the Baroque and Neoclassical styles that had dominated the seventeenth century continued into the eighteenth century, by the 1730’s a new style known as Rococo began to influence and spread decoration and architecture all over Europe. Rococo art emphasized grace and gentle action. Rococo rejected strict geometrical patterns and had a fondness for curves, it liked to follow the wandering lines of natural objects, such as seashells and flowers.
It’s not uncommon for classical music lovers to listen to songs without knowing their names, but for songs that I have been familiar with for the most of my life, it’s a bit dismaying that I only learned their names a few years ago. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has managed to sneak into most aspects of my life. From “Spring” that played during “quiet time” at my elementary school to “Autumn” that played while I watched in Pretty Woman, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons became an omnipresent accompaniment in my life without my knowledge. Growing up, my mother encouraged musical exploration. My sister chose the violin and joined orchestra in high school.
The Baroque period covers one hundred and fifty years from 1600 to 1750. Its characteristics tend to include, lavish, over the top, expensive and much more then necessary. The period is painted literally with architecture, paintings, clothing, food and much more that continuously begs people of today to ask ‘why?’. The use of frill and extravagance in art in this period has become less of a question of ‘why’ and more of a question ‘where is the extra?’, because this part in history is centered around adding extra ornamentation to everything. With such an over the top part in history, it would seem impossible to pick one piece that could embody every aspect of the Baroque Era but it is to be proven that one piece has such potential.
This orchestral composition is a skillful combination of these elements that makes this classical piece one of my favorites. The instrumentation
The Baroque period was identified as the “Age of Absolutism” because it was a period where rulers practiced their full power to control subjects. Also during the Baroque time frame music became more leant about where it was played. Instead it only being played at churches and occasionally in some courts, it was being played at specific functions and operas. It was at this time that operas were established for the first time in history. Musicians at this time were employed for aristocrat’s courts, churches and operas although they were considered high positions yet still viewed as servants.
Serenades enjoyed great popularity in south-central Europe, particularly in Vienna, where Mozart spent the last decade of his life. At that time, it was customary for ensembles to perform serenades in Vienna’s parks and gardens, and the creation of such pieces became a lucrative source of income for composers” (Schwarm, 2015). A movement that is worth looking into is the second movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The second movement is shorter compared to most Romantic era pieces, it has a slow tempo with section A (which it opens with) being prominent and pieces of section B appearing. The first violin carries out a fast tempo which makes the transition to section B, which is more rhythmic.
Throughout history, many periods of music have existed, some of which have left behind enduring contributions to music altogether. The most important period of music however is the Baroque period. This is because the beginning of its era marked the introduction of dominant musical devices that have been used ever since. The term “baroque” was derived from the Portuguese barroco meaning “oddly shaped pearl” and refers to a period of European music or Western European art music that flourished from about 1600 to 1750. This period began when the Renaissance period of music – a period of music full of choral music and chants – began to change.
The Baroque period on the other hand, spanning 150 years from the beginning of the 1600s to 1750, was divided into three parts: The Early Baroque period, The Middle Baroque period and The Late Baroque period. While these two eras start right after each other, there are a lot of differences between them, this shows how much music can evolve through time. There are many similarities and differences in characteristics between the two periods. They’re both very similar in texture, in that they’re both polyphonic. Although sometimes homophonic textures are also used in both eras.
The piece comprise of many musical instrument particularly string, brass, and woodwinds. The composer also use repetition in composing as the first part is repeated at the end of the piece, but with more sophisticated dynamics and timbre. In my opinion, the piece by Richard Wagner is a very good example for the topic of Basic Musical Concept that introduce many essential parts like referential listeners and structure of
The performance was repeated the next day for the Composers’ Union, and the first Moscow performance took on 9 October, same year. The work gave an extraordinary impact, The composer Heinrich Neuhaus attended the premiere and later said: “It’s music of absolute genius! I was shaken and cried.”
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background The Baroque was the period of artistic style and exaggerated motion. This Era was all about exuberance, drama and grandeur in all forms of art. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe (Fargis1998, p.262).