According to Wikipedia’s article “Modest Mussorgsky”, Mussorgsky was born on March 21st, 1839 and died on March 28th, 1881. He was a Russian composer in the Romantic period and wanted to be known as a unique composer in Russian music (Wikipedia 2014). He was influenced by Russian history, Russian folklore, and other themes. Some popular musical pieces that written by him were “Boris Godunov”, “Night on Bald Mountain”, and “Pictures at an Exhibition”. At a young age, Mussorgsky was sent to Cadet School where it’s believed that he started his alcoholism. Mussorgsky eventually died after suffering four seizures one after another (Wikipedia 2014). Also according to Wikipedia’s article “Igor Stravinsky”, Stravinsky was born on June 17th, 1882 …show more content…
After this continued for a little while, a sort of twirling sound began to arise and then fall back into the same melody that was at the beginning of the movement but this time it had sounds almost like footsteps along with the beat. Again, something evil seems to arise and has a dark feeling to it and then it slowly fades out, almost like it’s waiting for something to happen. Then you begin to hear a soft tip toeing for a little while as it becomes louder and louder and everyone in the orchestra starts to play in a monophony, which is the same notes at the same time. Then the chasing sounds begin along with the same melody that was at the beginning of the movement. It starts to get faster and faster and you begin to hear horns as the composition …show more content…
They both seemed to have to have a part in the movement where it would descend out into a soft tone with a sort of tip toeing sound to it. Another thing that was noticeable was that they both used polyphonies and monophonies in certain parts of the compositions. They also both used trumpet instrumentations for what seemed to be important parts of the movements. As for the differences, they had different tempos. They both had driving rhythms, but they were going at different paces. “Rite of Spring” also seemed to be more catchy then “Pictures of
The first movement began with a very strong texture as the music reflected a very powerful theme. It began with the heavy instrumentation from the strings including cellos, violins, and basses. The tempo was also relatively fast and generally upbeat. About a minute and half in there was a very noticeable solo by the violins which was a bit softer in terms of the texture. The melody seemed to be very upbeat and cheerful. Lasting the form of the movement was very well structured and the instruments backed each other up smoothly.
The melody sounds somber and serious and the energy of the dancers suddenly changes. A spoken word takes place and all of the dancer begin to tell their stories of pain and struggle through movements. The spoken word talks about the journey of men and women who overcame social injustice. In the dancer's movements you could clearly see how they correlated together. Movements were powerful and restraint at the same time giving the audience the idea of the women were pushing through something that was bearing them down. There was a lot of expansion in the chest, back, and arms followed by contractions in the body. As soon as the spoken word was finished the mood of the piece change again and the pianist began to play a upbeat tune that brought the dancers back in to a more positive and high spirit. A lot of polyrhythms take place as the dancers jump high and move their arms back and forth moving throughout the space. This happens in unison at first and then solos, trios, and duets happen in this section of the dance. The expression on their faces add charismatic charm to this piece. Their expressions continue to move them into different emotions and feelings that are relatable to everyday
Instruments I heard during this music piece were violins, violas, and clarinets. The first theme within the music is exposition; the music begins quiet for a short amount of time. However, during the middle, the transition becomes louder. The second subject begins quiet and gets louder towards the end. The second theme, the development is loud within the middle of the music however, the music begins and ends quietly. There is dynamics that contrast within this part of the music. The dynamics in the recapitulation is similar to the exposition, where the first subject is quiet from the middle to where the transition is louder. Then the second subject begins quiet and gets louder towards the end. The first and second theme contrast in nature by there rhythmic composition. The first theme has shorter values, whereas, the second theme has longer.
the two works both tend to return to a main musical theme. The both tend to use ornamentation in there melodies. Copland tends to limit the range of the instruments in both pieces. I think he did that to help portray a more wild west American image.
Eventhough they differ heavily at the base level they are similar. Neither artist have an underlying symbol to thier work. They just want to entertain and invoke emotions through thier work. They also don't focus on anything in particular with thier work. Art is art in the end of the day and they both show elemnts in thier work. Both of them use this to create work that is interesting to
The main similarity to me is that they are all well developed spirituals comparing to the original spiritual songs. They have more complex lyrics and rhythms, and the meanings of the songs are not quite the same as the original ones. They are not like the songs that were sung during the Brush Arbor meetings because I cannot feel the eager of escape or fight. Also, these two songs give me a feeling that they can sing to the public and can be performed in front of people. They are not secretly sung by the slaves any more, somehow it develops and becomes some popular genre of music and can be sung be everyone. I believe this is the development and innovation of gospel music as how Thomas Fenner
The introduction opens with a descending minor scale by pizzicato strings, followed by three sforzandos in the orchestra. Section A begins with strings, woodwind and brass playing a waltz rhythm, which modulates to major. The strings play melody 1, which is then repeated with piccolo countermelody. Brass and string crescendo and cymbal crash before strings play melody 2 which is dotted, and followed by suspensions and an imperfect cadence. The suspensions are repeated with a perfect
This is typical of Stravinsky, as he liked quick transposition between episodes so one never knows quite what one is expecting. Next, a fanfare-like figure is introduced on the trumpets and is passed around the orchestra. Soon after, everything stops (typical Stravinsky) and the chords in the string section returns. The chords now persist for a little longer and there are no bassoon solos. Instead of having a break every now and then, this time the bassoon is on top of the whole string orchestra, playing a loud, simple, powerful rhythm. This eventually is done in some other wind instruments and the movement is finished with a loud bang from the Timpani really caught me off guard. The orchestra then builds up into tremolo ideas used in the strings that create a busy effect. Another fanfare-like figure is introduced on the horns, which appears throughout the rest of the movement. Stravinsky plays around with the accents in the music thus resulting in 9-8 bars
The first song played from the Orchestra was Infernal Dance. The whole orchestra plays a loud chord to show the intensity of the piece. The rhythm of this movement is syncopation due to the rhythm not being on the beat. This makes the strong beat weak, thus giving a chilling ambience. Infernal Dance then transitions to the soothing movement Berceuse. Berceuse is a lullaby played by the bassoon. The Orchestra concludes the concert with Finale. Finale is the finishing piece of The Firebird and uses one french horn for the melody in a dynamic of piano. The whole orchestra soon joins in creating a hymn like choral. Instead of ending with a grand note, the brass takes the melody at a faster pace developing a celebratory ending. With its uneven rhythmic and extravagant arrangement this Suite fashions a spellbinding
The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount
Russian Avant-Garde was born at the start of the 20th century out of intellectual and cultural turmoil. Through the analysis of artworks by Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky this essay attempts to explore the freedom experienced by artists after the Russian Revolution in 1917. This avant-garde movement was among the boldest and most advanced in Europe. It signified for many artists an end to the past academic conventions as they began to experiment with the notions of space, following the basic elements of colour, shape and line. They strove for a utopian existence for all benefited by and inspired through the art they created. They worked with, for and alongside the politics of the time. The equality for all that they sought would
Mankind has always aspired to be the largest, biggest, strongest, highest, essentially the best in everything. This is not untrue for the Russians who have had the largest country in the world for quite some time now. Russia covers one-sixth of the entire world’s land mass and has had a significant part in modern history. However, in order to understand why a country has become what it is now, one must look at its culture. A country’s culture not only reflects its citizens now but also its history and future.
When we hear the term Russian culture many Americans tend to have negative thoughts like the cold war, their government ruling with an iron hand, and the Red Scare. These thoughts do not do the justice to the Russian people or to their long history as a people dating back to INSERT DATE. One of the major themes throughout Russian history and this course is the idea that the Russian people value intangible things more than the tangible. The Russian people have a long rich heritage, they are deep in there Christian faith, and they pride themselves on hospitality and value there community, families, and fellow Russian people. They have learned how to sacrifice from the constant invasions and being forced farther and
Russia, officially known as the Russian Federation, has a total area of 17,098,242 sq km (“The World Factbook”) and is the largest country in the world. It is about 1.8 times the size of the United States (“The World Factbook”). Most of Russia is either large stretches of plains or areas with a lot of forests and mountains, with the exception of the Siberian Tundra. It is difficult to perfectly describe Russia’s climate because of it’s large size. However, in general, the country only has two seasons, summer and winter. In the summer they have very warm, continental weather and they have very harsh winters with a lot of snow. Russia is plentiful in natural resources. They are particularly
Russia, known by most as the Russian Federation, is a federal state in Eurasia. Russia is the largest country in the world at 17,075,200 square kilometres by surface area, covering more than one eighth of Earth 's inhabited land, and the ninth most populous, with over 146.6 million people as of end of March 2016. The European western part of the country is much more populated and urbanised than the East, with almost eight-tenths of the population living within the European region of Russia. Russia 's capital, Moscow is one of the largest cities in Europe and the world. Its ohter major urban cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara.