Moravec's Montserrat: Concerto For Cello And Orchestra

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 Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Opus 26 is one of the most famous violin concertos over the musical history. It is also considered to be the most renowned work by the German composer Max Bruch. I will begin with a short explanation of why I choose to analyse this piece followed by what makes this piece so remarkable. I will then present the musical context – German Romantic period – in which this piece was composed and discuss how it is representative of this period. Also, I will present briefly the biography of the composer and relate his life and style with this particular piece of music. After, I will explain the basic structure of a concerto, associate it with this violin concerto, and analyse how each movement is related. Then,

In the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, op. 2, the composer draws on a variety of stylistic strands that contributed to the evolution of the mature classical style. Through an analysis of specific musical elements, which include references to form and style, structure, harmony, thematic material, dynamics and textural considerations, I will show how Beethoven adheres to the formal and stylistic conventions associated with the sonata during this period, as well as how he asserted his own voice, creating his own “Beethovenian” style.

The “Pastorale” Symphony and the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, one named by Ludwig van Beethoven and the other by a friend, are splendid examples of Beethoven’s musical acumen. These pieces are more formally known as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and Piano Concerto No. 5. This concert report will cover both pieces and will contain my impressions of each piece.

This work was composed during the Classical period, 1750- 1820. One aspect of the classical music style beign applied to this work includes the reoccurance of two or more contrasting themes. Another is the use of short and clearly defined musical phrases. Lastly, this piece, on a purely musical level, was simply more to hum along to. This type of melody took over the complex polyphony of the Baroque period.

Beethoven’s work appears to have had a strong influence in the compositions of Berlioz, as a matter of fact; Berlioz was mainly responsible for making Beethoven’s compositions famous in other parts of Europe through performance. Berlioz’s

In this essay we will analyze two modern musical pieces. These pieces are namely Sonata V from John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes, and Caballito Negro by George Crumb. Composed in mid twentieth century, both pieces made a great success and they are worth examining in terms of the historical and subjective values affecting their achievements.

          Haydn has a special preference for writing music in a bundle of six. Each of the six pieces has its individuality while sharing many common features at the same time. Haydn’s solo keyboard sonatas show striking diversity in type and style. They often could be categorized by their style periods and each of them reflects a corresponding social background.

Leonard Bernstein is seen as one of the greatest composers in America. Bernstein composed great music, conducted great music, and also preformed great music as a pianist. Bernstein is probably most known for his film score in the production West Side Story. According to The New York Times, he was "one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.” Being born and educated in the United States, Bernstein was the first American to obtain worldwide acclaim. He is also cited in the Encyclopedia of World Biography, that “his special gift of bridging the gap between the concert hall and the world of Broadway made him one of the most glamorous musical figures of his day.”

Ever since his father began teaching him as a child to play the violin and clavier, any keyboard instrument such as the harpsichord, Ludwig van Beethoven has been amongst the most renowned and influential composers of music. Despite the harsh punishments and mistreatment Beethoven suffered through while practicing with his father, he still managed to become a “prodigy” at a rather young age, having his first public recital at around seven years old. After his first recital role music played in his continued to grow, and soon after dropping out of school to pursue music “full time” he published his first composition.

Since the Baroque era, the concerto has played a vital role in the music world. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a concerto is “a composition for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” There are two main types: the concerto grosso and the classical concerto; both will be discussed later. While the term concerto is relatively easy to understand in context, when put into use the term becomes more complicated to define.

In Johannes Brahms’ first symphony, an angelic alliance of flutes hypnotizes the audience with delicate notes that form a scenic melody. In the distance, I am blowing until my face turns blue into a large goofy instrument that hardly anyone notices. When I picked up the tuba during my junior year of high school, I quickly became accustomed to less glamorous musical parts, long notes of loosely buzzing lips, and pages of paramount silence. Worst of all, playing the tuba never quite made me a “ladies’ man.” Yet my short-lived stint as a tubist sparked an appreciation in me for the humble instrument’s significance. Were it not for the deep rumbling of the tubas which mirror the melody step-for-step, coloring the piece to a new depth, Brahms’ rich masterpiece would undeservingly sound hollow.

Lamont Symphony Orchestra performed three beautiful sets of music that was conducted by Ryan Kozak with Hisham Bravo Groover, Assistant Conductors and Lawrence Golan being the Music Director and Conductor at Denver University on Thursday, November 17, 2016 in June Swaner Concert Hall at 7:30pm. Kozak conducted all three of the of the pieces; Danse Macabre Op 40 by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 to 1921), Isle of the Dead, Op. 29 by Sergei Rachmaninoff which is my favorite out of all three pieces (1873 to 1943), and Symphony No. 5, Op. 107 by Felix Mendelssohn (1809 to 1847). Walking into the concert hall I was flabbergasted. The size of the room just amazed me and the stage was fantastic to say the least. Made me more excited for the show to start! As I sat down in my seat I noticed all the types of people in the concert hall were dressed in many different sets of attire. Elderly people were better dressed with their suits and dresses and pant suits where the younger people in the concert hall were still nicely dressed but were a little more casual. After what seemed like forever the lights finally began to go dim and I knew the show was about to start. In the first piece, Saint-Saëns, setting of the poem, the solo violin represents the devil who is playing his fiddle for the dance. The dance begins at the stroke of midnight in a graveyard. The harp begins the work with 12 strokes,

The early piano sonatas of Beethoven deserve special mention. Although his first published examples of concertos and trios and the first two symphonies are beneath the masterpieces of Mozart and Haydn, the piano sonatas bear an unmistakably Beethovian stamp: grandiose in scope and length, and innovative in their range of expression. The sonatas were able to move expression from terrible rage to peals of laughter to deep depression so suddenly. Capturing this unpredictable style in his music, a new freedom of expression which broke the bounds of Classical ideals, was to position Beethoven as a disturbed man in the minds of some of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he was to be seen as the father of Romanticism and the single most important innovator of music in the minds of those after him. (Bookspan 27).

Composers since the early classical era have used sonata form to express through music ideas which are at once complex and unified. This form contains a variety of themes and permutations of these themes, but is brought together into a comprehensible whole when these excerpts reappear. Beethoven, in the first movement of his Piano Sonata Opus 2 Number 3 utilizes this form to its full potential, modifying the typical structure in his characteristic way.