The recitative tells the story and the aria responds emotionally to what just happened.
The recitative refers to song-speech. It is derived from the Italian verb meaning “to recite” and its purpose is to portray the quality of speech. The no. 4 recitative of The Magic Flute is where we are introduced to the Queen of the Night. The recitative is in the key of B-flat major and continues the Allegro maestoso tempo marking of the entrance music. It starts with a syncopated accompaniment figure which is useful in creating a disturbed and restless mood, making listeners wary of the Queen of the Night.
Mozart adopts secco accompagnato, an old style from the Baroque operas. However, Mozart did not entirely utilise the Baroque opera styles and structures. Baroque arias were characteristically in the ternary form, which was a reason for their downfall as the music did not move with a strong sense of direction- it always ends where it started, which stopped the progress. Mozart changed it in a number of ways. He used the orchestra as a filling more complex than in earlier music, and a way for mood setting, which is a crucial difference compared to before. When the Queen of the night starts to sing, dry chords are played in the orchestra to keep the singer in tune and also emphasise certain words. The secco accompaniment brings the music to modulate to the relative G minor. This leads into the aria.
The aria is kind of in binary form, however it is not exactly binary as the two parts are not related. The first part starts in G minor in Larghetto and shows us the introverted, worried and anxious side of the Queen as she remembers the horror of her daughter’s kidnapping. The second part of the aria is back to B-flat major and is in Allegro moderato. This part portrays her bossy and commanding personality as she orders Tamino to rescue her daughter. This aria would be more appropriately classified as through-composed as the music follows the text.
The Queen of the Night attempts to create a firm image of herself, but the music betrays her. It shows her lack of control. The very rapid shifting between emotions suggests that she is fickle and shows that her façade is extremely shallow.
In the recitative, Mozart uses a
The play first reveals the shortsightedness of stereotypes made by Westerners, when the submissive Asian woman is awaiting a dominant Western male. Throughout the play, Gallimard is reliving his experiences that he has shared with Song in prison so he flashes back to describe his story of the perfect woman. Gallimard first flashes back to the German Ambassador house in 1960’s where he first meets Song. Gallimard and Song end up conversing about the opera Madame Butterfly that Song was performing in. Song thinks the opera is ridiculous, but Gallimard likes the opera. Gallimard tells Song how she did a beautiful job as butterfly and how her character was very convincing. Song argues with Gallimard, stating that this opera is only beautiful to Westerners. He asks if “it’s one of your favorite fantasies, isn’t it? The submissive oriental woman and the cruel white man” (17). After hearing these words, Gallimard turns rather defensive; despite his own stereotyping of Asian women, he does not want to be trapped in a stereotypical Western mindset. Song effectively trashes this stereotype by using his devious skills to manipulate
Perspective is important. The way you look at something may be drastically different from the way I look at something, giving us a potentially vast difference in opinion. This applies to literature as well and is shown in the different narratives the stories are written in. Different stories are better written in different types of narratives (including first, second or third person narratives) and “Night” is no exception. “Night” is written in a first-person narrative, which in my opinion, is very effective in carrying across the author’s point. First-person narration in this novel allows us to connect with the narrator and understand the situation in a realistic sense, as well as being the most fitting narrative for this novel, it makes sense
“The Trombone” tells the story of a boy, Jerry, who loses and finds his trombone. Jerry walks into his music classroom and realizes he forgot his trombone on the bus. He leaves without a lesson and rides home. Jerry tries to find his instrument by calling and visiting the bus company but is unsuccessful. Fortunately, a passenger from the bus turned in Jerry’s trombone to the music school, and Jerry has it back the very next day.
I was much more fond of the symphony music played by Mozart, although there was not much featured in the movie. I am not a big fan of Opera’s to begin with, so I am a little biased when judging them. I found Don Giovanni and the Opera written alongside Salieri more preferential; there was more substance and feeling in those. The opera Figaro to be extremely boring; apparently so did Joseph II. It was extremely slow with the same dark melody the whole piece. I most enjoyed the first Opera commissioned by Emperor Joseph II. The whole piece was brilliantly put together, I can’t imagine how someone could put all those notes together and make is sound like it did. It reminds me of listening to Jimi Hendrix on the guitar, or Bach on the Harpsichord.
Various pieces of art found thousands of years ago depict characters based on certain events and legends. I will be analyzing two works of art: The Sound Box of the Great Lyre, a wooden music box (33 x 11 cm) found in present-day Iraq c. 2600-2500 BCE, and Lapith Fighting a Centaur, a high metope relief (1.42 m) on the side of the Parthenon in Ancient Greece c. 447-432 BCE. The former represents a bull with a low relief under its head, depicting animals mimicking the lifestyle of humans. The latter exemplifies a nude man struggling against a mythical creature that is half-man half-horse2. Although these works are from across the world with completely different cultures, they both have similar
Composing works derived from styles already in existence, he created an extremely unique and unprecedented genre of works. Thus Mozart became a trailblazer of the classical age. Music from this period consists largely of a lighter and clearer texture than the preceding Baroque music and is less intricate. One trademark especially evident in Mozart’s contribution to the classical period is the use of homophony. Examples of the homophonic effect are displayed in his piano concerto No. 23 and sonata No 16 in C. In these, the distinct pattern of an indubitable melody can be distinctly and easily recognized above the adjunct chordal accompaniment. Although Mozart contributed primarily to the growth of the classical era, he was also influenced by the works of Handel and Bach. Both were prominent composers of the baroque era. In some of his later works, Mozart indulged more in the incorporation of the previous baroque
Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments of queer theory through Gilbert Herdt article Same Sex Different Cultures (1997). I will then discuss Queen’s portrayal of drag within the music video and how it can be seen as queer rather than heterosexual. Lastly, I will argue that
Night is a story that reveals some of the worst of the human race. It is a re-telling of a young Jewish boy, Ellie Wiesel, coming of age in the midst of the Holocaust. The book is quite short and very clearly written, but it is still a very hard book to read. The young boy who is also the author of the book makes us, the readers, accompany him through many in-human and near-death experiences. These are written in such detail that anybody taking the time to read the book will be left with an in-depth knowledge of what we as humans are unfortunately capable of and a desire to contribute in any way possible preventing this part of our history to ever repeat itself. This, I believe, is the authors goal, to teach us, make us aware through his own experience, and hence give us a reason to hopefully prevent it in the future.
After releasing from the police station, Elle’s father told his friends and relatives that, “The news is terrible, TRANSPORTS!” (Wiesel, P.13). The Jews thought that Hitler had given up his plan about the annihilation of Jews. They relaxed for a few months but Elle’s father had made people scared. They thought the German would kill all of them. After that, most of the Jews were not able to sleep and felt worried about their futures. At the same time, Night also told significant things in the Jews’ minds. One of the most touching things was about Elle’s friends, Juliek. Despite the cold weather during the transportation to another concentration camp, Juliek was persistently playing violin and he played a song during the night time. Elle mentioned in the book, “The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek’s soul had become his bow.” (Wiesel, P.95). It was important as many people in the concentration camp had lost their friends, families, or even interests. However, Juliek didn’t lose his interest in playing violin and his persistence became much stronger than German’s weapons. Night was symbolic in the Jews’ minds. It emphasised the helpless of the Jews, but at the same time, Night also witnessed lots of important things in the camp, which made them unforgettable.
The aria starts with a pedal (frame, according to Joel Lester's terminology) followed by a cadence harmonized according the regle de l'octave both in ascending and descending motion (MM. 5-8). The second episode starting at M. 8 consists of a sequence, precisely a modified sequence, in which the subsequent is slightly modified at the end introducing a new harmony on the second beat of M. 12 that leads to a final cadence with a modulation to the original key. The regle is always working also in the sequence, it is just applied
Even though the two pieces were composed in different centuries – Mozart’s piece in the 18th century and Strauss’ piece in the 20th century – some of the musical elements that they share transcend both time periods. The characteristics of music in the classical period had to do with the new view of human psychology. Mozart was one to introduce contrasting moods within movements or even within a theme. He was able to infuse strong contrasts of moods within the style of his music (Burkholder, Grout, & Palisca 475). In Figaro, Mozart includes an overture which is a piece in sonata form despite its lack of a development section. In Act I cavatina, “Se vuol ballare”, Mozart whimsically makes changes to the character of his music so as to correspond to Figaro’s machinations (Hambrik n.p). By doing so, he musically
Several of his twenty-two operas gained worldwide recognition soon after his death, and they still please audiences all over the world. The Marriage of Figaro (1786) and Don Giovanni (1787) are operas he composed with words in Italian. The Magic Flute (1791) has German words. Each of these contains arias (beautiful melodies for singers), recitative (Rapidly sung dialogue), ensembles in which several people sing at the same time, and choruses. The orchestra provides an ever-changing expressive accompaniment. The drama ranges from comedy to tragedy. Mozart wrote over forty symphonies, many of which are performed today. Some originally were overtures (orchestral introductions) for operas, and last only a few minutes. His later symphonies, which are the most popular, are full-length orchestral compositions that last twenty to thirty minutes. Most of them consist of four sections. Mozart’s last and most famous symphony, Number 41 (1788), is nicknamed the Jupiter.
Whenever the queen is displeased it usually results in somebody getting their head cut off. This can be seen when Alice is put on trial in front of the queen and her court. The queens ruling results in Alice being guilty and becoming defiant to the queen. As a result the queen shouts, “off with her head!” (Carroll, 102). This represents Alice and her madness because as I stated earlier, this was all in Alice’s dream. Therefore the queen is a representation of what goes on in Alice’s head. She has that dark mental side to her nature.
The Development of the Mozart is an open free-form section that bases its ideas on thematic materials from the Exposition. It is very modulatory and derivative. Mozart pays special attention to shaping factors in the pace, texture, plan of key relationships and order of all the melodic material. He emphasizes the sub dominant throughout the entire development. It creates a sort of fantasy of the earlier material. The Alberti bass is very prominent through out the entire section. It acts as a strong accompaniment to the new themes that are introduced. The development varies in length from the exposition and in other cases is quite long and detailed. However, it shows a greater degree of tonal, harmonic and rhythmic instability than the other sections. The last part of the developmental section is the re-transition or bridge. It helps prepares the return of the first subject in the tonic. It stresses and prolongs the dominant seventh of the tonic. At the height of the musical tension the tonic triumphs and it enters into the recapitulation.
Comprehending her lyrics, one may perceive from the understanding that her intended audience is actually anyone who may be feeling the same way as her and the effect in which she wishes to have upon them is to be like her in the