The Word Symph ?? Nia

Blanche Gangwere, Music History During the Renaissance Period, 1520–1550. Westport, Connecticut, Praeger Publishers. 2004, Pg. 52

Orchestrally, it is scored for strings, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, two flutes, one piccolo, two oboes, one English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four French horns, two trumpets, three trombones, two harps, and one cimbasso. Musically, this opera is very directly vigorous. It sticks to the widely used concepts of arias, duets, finales, and choruses. His fine music often excused the glaring faults in character and plot lines.

For the second and final concert report, I listened to the performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, as played by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Beethoven lived in Germany during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and was an influential figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in western music. The performance requires a large number of instruments, with woodwinds, brass, percussion, strings, and even a choir during the 4th movement.

From the beginning of times, music has played an important role in everyone’s life. At first, it started with drum-based and percussion instruments made out of what was available as rocks and sticks. Our ancestors proved that human beings have an innate need of music. Nowadays, no one teaches a baby to follow the beat of a song, he just naturally lets his body get involved with the rhythm. Since the prehistoric era to Christian times, several forms of music have developed leaving a trail to new genres of music. For Christianity, hymns and plainchants were the first forms of music considered as a worship to God. As time passed by, Christian music has evolved giving way to new and fresh sounds.

Also he had composed keyboard pieces, oratorios, symphonies, and operas. He performed his first major opera when he was fourteen it was staged in Milan in 1770 the style of the opera was opera seria, Mitriade.

The concert began immediately with the Chamber Orchestra’s performance of Mozart’s “Divertimento in D major”, K. 136. This piece consisted of the 3 movements, Allegro, Andante, and Presto, which follows the fast-slow-fast arrangement typical of the Classical era. Divertimento is one of Mozart’s “Salzburg” symphonies, which are symphonies performed by only string sections. After the performance of this piece, the conductor commented on the 2nd violin’s part, and drew the conclusion that Mozart must have saved that role for either himself or an enemy. The second piece performed by the Chamber Orchestra was Bach’s “Suite No. 2 in B minor”, BWV 1067. This piece did not require a conductor, and also featured a flute soloist, Maisa Peters. Their

Music played a significant role in the lives of ancient Greeks. They believed that music fostered one’s relationship with the gods, and some instruments, such as the lyre, were created by the gods. Music and dance were also taught

The development of the suite in French keyboard and lute music during the 17th century

By doing this, the sound made by the groups swells, portraying to the audience a sound of growth and progression. According to the textbook Music Appreciation Online, in this type of concerto, “a tutti section, a full orchestra (with basso continuo), and a small group of solo instruments usually referred to as the concertino or principale” is used. In the concertino section, two or more soloists are used. Arcangelo Corelli was the first major composer of the concerti grossi (the Italian form of the concerto grosso). The concerto grosso comes in two major forms: the concerto da chiesa (church chant) and the concerto da camera (chamber concert). The concerto da chiesa was used for formal occasions and alternated between adagio and allegro movements. For the most part, the movements were written in the same key, however there were occasions where one or more of the movements were in contrasting tonality. The sonata de camera was made up of a prelude and a succession of dances that were all in the same key. Its structure was that of a slow introduction, a fugued allegro, a cantabile slow movement and an energetic finale. This setup created its dancelike sound and feeling. The sonata da camera composition grew to be referred to as a suite, a partita, or in the French opera

Oratorio and cantata were two genres that re-emerged in the first half of the eighteenth century. They were already important musical alternatives to opera by the mid-seventeenth century, but differed in nearly every respect from the genres of the same names found in the early eighteenth century. As genres late in the period, they both bespoke the traditions from which they originally sprang and permitted new recombination of the musical elements of these same traditions.

During the Romanic period, there were many advances in regards to instrumentation, and the size of a typical orchestra increased in size and range, adding in more instruments to the wind, brass and percussion sections. Symphonie Fantastique, by Hector Berlioz, was no exception, and was written for an extensive orchestra of 220 players, including, piccolos, flutes, oboes, horns, clarinets, bassoons, cornets, trumpets, trombones, tuba (or ophicleides), timpani, bells, a wide variety of percussion, bells, violins, violas, cellos and double basses. Through this symphony, various instruments have programmatic purposes to develop the scene, such as the pizzicato strings in the 4th movement, representing the head bouncing after he was decapitated, and the clarinet in E flat and bassoons in the 5th movement, depicting bubbles rising in a cauldron.

Music in Ancient Greece was well integrated in their society, it played a large role in various ceremonies from marriages to funerals, as well as entertainment like plays or epic poetry. Although it is believed that music was invented in Africa over 55,000 years ago, music really began and took shape in Ancient Greece. Even the word music came from the Greek word muses who were believed to be the daughters of Zeus and were the patron Goddesses of creativity. There are many references to music in ancient Greece, from drawings on pottery of people playing, as well as literary works that even describe how the instruments sounded. Speaking of instruments, in addition to the voice being used as one, there are several instruments that are known to have existed in Ancient Greece, a few different string instruments including a lyre, a kithara (which is believed to be the ancient equivalent of a guitar), and a barbitos, which is a taller version of a lyre. They also had several wind type instruments including and aulos, pan pipes, a hydraulis (which eventually led to the modern day organ), as well as a salpinx, which was an ancient type of trumpet with a bone mouthpiece that was the origin of the many brass instruments that we know of today. Finally, we also know of several percussion instruments that were used by the ancient Greeks, these include a tympanum, which was like a tambourine, a crotala, and a koudounia. Music was actually one of the main teachings, along with gymnastics

The second symphony by French composer Berlioz (1803-1869): Harold en Italie, Symphonie en quatre parties avc un Alto principal, Op. 16 was commissioned but never performed by the Italian violin virtuoso Paganini who had an intention to showcase his new Stradivari viola. Even though Paganini trusted Berlioz to write suitable music for his new instrument, his disappointment about a sketch in one of the movements led to ill-fated conclusion. Unluckily, due to incompetent conductor, plentiful wrong notes and missed entries by the orchestra, the premiere was unsatisfactory for Berlioz who later commented “it was the sheer murder”.

They say what’s old is new again. There is nothing new under the sun. What goes around comes around. History repeats itself. These may be just a few banal sayings, but they might hold true for classical music as well. Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is one such example. Written during the neo-classical and neo-baroque movements of the early 1900s, this clever piece ties together French musical traditions, baroque styles, and World War I in just six short pieces. This essay will detail the origins of the suite form and the neo-classical neo-baroque movement, and compare Le Tombeau de Couperin with Bach’s French Suite no. 5 in G Major, BWV 816.

Taking influence from the canzonas and sonatas of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which consisted of contrasting groups of instruments to great effect, the concerto grosso changes a small group of soloists with a larger ensemble. Corelli compositions particularly his Op. 6 collection, provide the best known examples of the late 17th century concerto grosso. While Corelli’s works were mirrored in the 18th century, most noticeably in Handel’s Op. 6 collection, many 18th century examples of the concerto grosso show the increasing influence of the solo concerto (for example J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concertos ).