Aaron Copland's The Four Seasons

The symphony is in four very powerful and entertaining movements. The first movement begins in the pianissimo tone with the strings section, but quickly enters the fortissimo tone with the introduction of the woodwind, brass and percussion sections. The dynamics of the musical melody varies throughout the movement moving from crescendo to decrescendo modes. The first movement reminds you of a raging storm from soft blowing winds to thunder and lighting. The audience is mesmerized by this first movement of the sonata.

The melody in the first movement opens with the violins and they are then accompany by the violas and the cello. As you keep listening you notice that French horn, clarinets, flutes, and oboes contribute to the harmony. The first movement is also in the key signature of G minor. As you move through the first movement you enter into the second section which is in a different key. The key signature of the second movement is in B flat major. The instruments that have the melody this time are the violins along with the clarinets and bassoons.

The piece makes use of an allegro tempo (‘moderately fast’), setting the foundations for the relentlessly aggressive nature of the piece. This is supported by the irregular aforementioned 5/4 time signature, which when combined with the allegro tempo, creates an intense, uneasy, and unnatural mood. A 5/4 time signature will almost always ‘place the listener on edge’, as it is an irregular time signature, due to the odd number of beats (5) in each bar. This manipulation of tempo and time signature was an ingenious decision by Holst, as it establishes the foundation of the piece through his portrayal of the unnatural, uneasy atmosphere of war. However, the addition of a time signature change to 4/4 in bars 68-92 (C1 – see figure 2.1) would be extremely effective in assisting the sections’ ‘military’ atmosphere (as the act of military marching is typically rigid, regular, and constant), further supporting Holsts’ theme of unpredictability. The strings ostinato at the opening of the piece is coloured by a mechanical timbre, achieved through the use of ‘col legno battuto’ (Italian for ‘hit with the wood’). ‘Col legno’ is a technique which involves striking the strings with the wood of a bow, as opposed to drawing the hair of the bow across. The obvious manipulation of this technique results in an extremely effective mechanically percussive

The poem starts with a description of the setting of a summer day, Levertov writes: “The fire in leaf and grass/ so green it seems/ each summer the last summer”. The green leaf and grass refers to a fresh new day, which emphasizes a good day to start in the summer. The author goes on with her describing the beautiful sunshine of the summer by giving the images of the wind, the leaf and the sun. She writes: “The wind blowing, the leaves/ shivering in the sun, / each day the last day”. The poet uses the words “fire, blowing, and shivering” to gives us how urgent and immediate we feel in our lives. It is also a reminder the poet wants to send us that these beautiful natural things won’t last forever, as well as we

As the piece ended, the performers smiled. Having put 7 years of work into this score, they stood proudly and bowed. The audience erupted in applause. The Rite of Spring was reborn as the performers were re-invited on stage three times. Considering the already high expectations of the performance and the applause they received, it is obvious this performance is by far the most memorable UWA Lunch Time Concert this

The composer continues to describe the Winter, again using descriptive language to create a cold harsh environment, and allow the reader to sympathise for the duckling. With the life-threatening act of being ‘frozen fast in the ice’, comes the only act of real kindness that is present in the story as a farmer rescues

Former President John F. Kennedy said, “Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” Leadership is a quality found in many characters of writer. In Neal Shusterman’s Unwind, Connor is a main character that found direction and became a great leader. Unwind is a story that takes place in future America. The unwinding process takes place from the ages of thirteen to eighteen. During this time, kids are able to be unwound and harvested for their body parts. Kids will not die but they will live in a divided state. Connor is one of the main characters in Unwind. From the moment Connor was introduced, he was a ticking time bomb that could explode at anytime. As the story progressed, however, he learned to control these emotions,

Antonio Vivaldi is a famous Italian baroque composer, known by most Suzuki violin students who study his concertos or by audiences everywhere who have heard and love his composition of the Four Seasons.  Having grown up as students of the Suzuki Violin Method, we recognize this composer and have experience performing his pieces.  In addition to his many concertos written for solo violin, Vivaldi composed many concertos intended to be performed by two solo violins, accompanied by a small orchestra.  Because we are both violinists, we chose to analyze the second movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor, RV 522, included in his L’Estro Armonico works.

The development starts very similarly to the exposition with the first violin part once again playing the sunrise theme with the only differences being the distribution of the motifs ‘x’ and ‘y’ (The opening sunrise theme of the exposition was in the order of motif ‘y-x-x’ then ‘x-x-y’ compared to the opening

“In the Loop” by Bob Hicok and “Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney are comparable in terms of their symbolic titles, speaker’s perspective, and tragic themes. These two poems diverge only in their physical structure, as neither has rhyme nor meter.

The book Seize the Storm, is written by Michael Cadnum. I chose this book because my dad actually read this book and told me about it a few years earlier, and found it in the library and it looked cool so why not choose this book. The title of the book “Seize the Storm” just sounds like that would be a great book, which it was, plus the cover looked very cool.

Music is constantly changing. The Baroque period (1600-1750) and the Classical period (1750-1820) have both differences and similarities in elements such as form, texture, and dynamics. I will be comparing the first movement of Spring from the Four Seasons composed by Antonio Vivaldi and the first movement of Symphony No. 5 in C minor by Ludwig van Beethoven. I will construct a stylistic comparison of the two compositions and their musical stylings with regard to the periods of music of which they belong.

Following this climactic section, the cello leads a duet with the first violin in measure fifty-five. The duet, accompanied by the second violin and viola, mimics cello part of the poco agitato section in the exposition, but now in style of an inverted fugue (marked in blue). The combining of the exposition’s themes suggest that measure fifty-five to the end of the movement is, collectively, the

The tempo throughout the song varies from adagio to allegro, but favors the allegro speed in most of the piece. As most of us have agreed, this specific movement is very repetitive in texture and tone. We believe repetition is a main them in the song to help the listener get a feel for the piece and help them memorize it better. As the melody progresses, the tone and volume of the piece make a drastic change. It slows down as to show the time of year is slowing. No longer are children running and playing outside, it portrays winter being right around the corner. The tone continues to fall lower, giving the listener a feel of sorrow, as if death is in the air. The visualization of leaves falling is imprinted in the listeners mind. Then suddenly, the tempo rapidly picks up and jumps right back into the main chorus, which is abruptly cut short. The tune firmly begins to build up as it almost lullabies the listener through the composition, while the volume steadily increases. I can picture myself swaying in the wind to the cool fall breeze as the sun sets on the warm colors of the fall leaves. Just as the lullaby seems to pick up in pace, it slowly fades in to the distance. Once again the volume of the piece quickly increases and has the listener on the edge of their seat as joy fills the air. The pitch jumps from low to high between each instrument as they begin to

The first movement overall treatment of instruments is conservative throughout Cool Fire. The texture is primarily homophonic in the first movement with seven main changes of sound in the first movement. The structure is based on the traditional Classical Period rondo form. Moravec’s harmonies do not follow traditional chord progressions and are varied by using extended chords, altered dominants, and modal scales. Three modes are used in main melodic sections. The first two are in lydian-dominant mode. The third theme uses octatonic mode or diminished scale, alternating whole and half step pattern. The first movement is marked quickly. It is in 2/4 meter and has no change of tempo.