Listening 2

Listening: O Magnum Mysterium

• It's part of a larger motet that was written for Christmas
• Written by Giovanni Gabrieli 
• Harmonies are still old fashioned but alternating sound, monophonic sound, and monodic style are new

Uses two choirs 

• Each has 3 voice parts 4 instrumental parts plus organ
• Homophonic texture
• Instrumental and vocal soloists singing monody

Listening: The coronation of poppea 

• Written by Claudio Monteverdi
• Opera (based around monody and a very varied pallet of monody)

Story is about Poppea a mistress of the roman emperor Nero. 

• Poppea wants to have his wife deposed and his advisor (also female) killed
• She succeeds by seducing Nero and becomes crowned empress of Rome

Recitative

Poppea trying to convince Nero to stay after a night of lovemaking. She convinces him go return

• Nero has an extended passage where he is evading her called an arioso (mini aria)
• He eventually agrees to return 

Aria

Nero leaves and Poppea shows here true colors with a "victory dance"

Listening: Dido and Aeneas 

• Written by Henry Purcell
• His only true opera (and his most famous)

• No extremely difficult passages 
• Performed at a girls school
• He tailors the idea of an opera and fixes it to English

Very hard to do


Background 

From the Aeneid

• Aeneas (man/ soldier) and the queen of Carthage (dido) fall in love. 
• Jove (king of gods) tells Aeneas to move on
• He leaves and dido commits suicide 

Recitative 

• Dido expresses doubts to her confidante Belinda
• Dido is about to kill herself with a knife  
• Vocal line goes down

First sign of a lament 


Aria - " when I am layed"

• Usually known as Dido's lament
• Very mournful 
• Words are repeated a number of times to allow the music to develop
• Binary form AABB

B section makes the messo soprano sing very high (this is done on purpose to make her sound insane/uncomfortable) 

• Features a descending ground bass
• Lots of dissonance

Chorus - " with drooping wings"

Dido and her couriers mourning together

Even more meaningful because the chorus was for the match before

• Descending lines with lots of dissonance
• General style is a madrigal (polyphonic with homophony and word painting) but still has rhythmic accuracy and tonal harmony (some polyphony in small sections) that characterize baroque opera

Listening: Suite (canzona, balletto, corrente, and passacaglia)



Suite is actually a group of stylized dance movements so it is really not a suite


By Frescobaldi

Miniature suite made up of 2 short dances (balletto and corrente) and closed with a set of variations (passacagila) 

It is opened as Frescobaldi may have done why one of his canzonas

Canzona - opens with a point of imitation (imitative polyphony)

• A canzona is a sectionalized contrapuntal piece
• Sections of imitative polyphony

• 4 entries of this theme before a new theme is introduced
• New theme forms counterpoint with the first and he brings the two together to form a cadence

Balletto and corrente 

Two related dances (tones in bass line are same although the rhythm and meter  are different)

This changing of meter from one dance to another becomes common in suites from the late renaissance on (see pavan and galliard

Binary form (both are)

Passacagila

Set of variations on a brief series of chords/ bass line


Repeating baseline/harmonic pattern

Harmonies and bass line are from vocal music

• He does change the bass line while retaining the harmonies
• He is great at creating variations

• Listening:  Violin concerto in G, La Stravaganza, Op. 4, No. 12
• Vivaldi

First movement - spiritoso e non presto

• Triple meter
• Violins echo each other brightly

Lots of SEQUENCE

Repeated melodic motive at different pitch levels


Opens with Ritornello in 3 short segments

Catches attention and sets tempo

Very fast violin movement 

Jumping from string to string and fast playing

Ritornellos get more and more free until it pulls back together at the end

Second movement - largo

• In ground bass variation form (see below)
• Real melody is in the bass and cellos where a moving theme repeats

We double listen to the violin and the bass

• Violin variations add in 
• Continuo drops out except for violins who play the ground bass figure

Solo violin shows off expressive capability


Third movement - allegro

Fast and in Ritornello form 

Orchestra enters later creating the Ritornello

• randenburg concerto no. 5 
• bach

For flute, violin, harpsichord, and orchestra

• First time that harpsichord was used in an orchestra as a solo instrument
• Harpsichord part was also completely written out NOT FIGURED BASS

• Concerto grosso 
• Lots of alternation between orchestra and soloist
• Rapid movement through circle of fifths

First movement - allegro

• Ritornello form
• Motoristic rhythm
• Changes key ALOT
• Lots of sequence
• Solo instruments form imitative polyphony with each other

• Introduce new motives and patterns each time they enter
• Ends with a harpsichord cadenza 

"Solo break" in a concerto



Second movement - affettuoso

• Minor mode
• Slower and more emotional
• Only the three solo instruments and the orchestra cello playing continuo bass

Third movement - Allegro

• 6/8 metered
• Fugal style

Listening: Prelude and fugue no 1 in C major


From the well tempered clavier book 1 by JS Bach (1722)

• These books are an encyclopedia for fugues each book has a fugue in each key as well as a fugue in each mode (minor or major)
• 24 fugues and preludes total

Preludes are an improvisatory piece



Prelude 

Has a single musical gesture that is repeated over shifting harmony

In this case it's an arpeggio


Fugue

• Subject is introduced (this fugue has no episodes)
• This is all about stretto with voices coming in quickly after the exposition

There is a cadence in the middle in a minor mode to keep. Order

Fugue ends with a large cadence then the soprano flowing up to the highest note we have heard

Listening: Prelude and fugue no 1 in C major


From the well tempered clavier book 1 by JS Bach (1722)

• These books are an encyclopedia for fugues each book has a fugue in each key as well as a fugue in each mode (minor or major)
• 24 fugues and preludes total

Preludes are an improvisatory piece



Prelude 

Has a single musical gesture that is repeated over shifting harmony

In this case it's an arpeggio


Fugue

• Subject is introduced (this fugue has no episodes)
• This is all about stretto with voices coming in quickly after the exposition

There is a cadence in the middle in a minor mode to keep. Order

Fugue ends with a large cadence then the soprano flowing up to the highest note we have heard

Minuet and tambourin from Castor et Pollux prologue

• Written by jean-Philippe Ramea
• Minuet that is danced In an opera

Ballet music from the opera

• Almost every measure of b echo some fragment of a 
• No trio but runs into a fast dance called a tambourin

This one is in a duple meter

Minuet from the royal fireworks music

• George Frederic Handel
• Written to celebrate the end of a war in the 18 the century it's a suite
• The minuet in this suite was not meant to be danced to
• Was rehearsed and performed at London's Vauxhall Gardens 
• The rehearsal was attended by 12,000 people

Caused a historic traffic jam

Actual performance was set off by 100 brass cannons

The stage caught fire, the crowd stampeded, two people died, and the head of the fireworks had a mad fit

JS Bach

• Likes cello, lute, keyboard suites
• He loves chromatic, contrapuntal, virtuosic music

Also likes motorized rhythm

• Uses a lot of double stop in the cello to create the contrapuntal line
• Provides exhilaration by racing up and down 3 whole octaves
• Leaps and wide range in this piece are typical of a gigue
• Binary form

• Listening: Julius Caesar (Giulio Cesarean in Egitto)
• handel

Background

Roman history of Cleopatra seducing Julius Caesar

Lots of fake information thrown in in order to make it more interesting


Aria "la giustizia" 

• Sextus promises revenge on Ptolemy 
• Aria is set up by recitative 
• Begins with Ritornello in the orchestra
• Apart from the Ritornello it is in strict de capo form (ABA)

De capo aria

Listening: Messiah

• Written by Handel and is his most famous work as well as one of the most famous in western music.
• Produced in Dublin in 1741-2

Converted Handel from opera to oratorio composer

Does not have actual characters 

• Soloists are a group of anonymous narrators relating episodes from the life of Jesus  
• Chorus has many roles 

• Speaks as a chorus of angels
• Comments on the story of Jesus
• Or to praise god

Recitative

part 1(secco)


Boy soprano narrator with cello and organ


Part 2 (accompanied)

• Accompanied recitative used for special effect
• Angel appears and sings to the glory of god

Part 3 (secco)

Angel speaks more urgently than the narrator

Part 4 (accompanied)

Pulsating string parts paint the picture of the wings of lots of angels


Chorus- "glory to god"

• High parts sing "glory to god in the highest"
• Low voices sing " and piece on earth"
• Full chorus. Creates a fugue on "good will toward men"
• Then homophonic again
• This is a turba chorus

The chorus is part of the story



Hallelujah chorus

• Brings act II of the messiah to a close
• Uses monopsony, homophony, and polyphony

Amazing transition between each

King George stood when he heard it so now everyone has to

• Listening cantata no 4 - "Christ lag in todesbanden"
• Bach

• "Christ lay in deaths dark prison"
• For Easter

It is quite dark

• It may have been his audition piece for Weimar
• Every movement is based on a  chorale 

• Simple orchestra - string orchestra with continuo
• Lots of symmetry 

• AAB + hallelujah 
• Or bar form  

• Not every voice sings in every verse
• Stanza 3

• Tenor sings gapped chorale with the violin filling in the gaps 
• Continuo accompaniment 
• Completely stops then slows to show how death has no power 

Word painting


Stanza 4

• Alto doubled by organ sings the gapped chorale 
• Continuous music is in the other voices with imitative polyphony
• Bach works the chorale into this polyphony

Stanza 7

• No longer gapped and is played/sung as if the congregation had sung it with some beautiful harmony
• Chordal homphony

Listening: symphony no 40 in g minor k550


Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 

• Born in a musical family and traveled with his father who was a composer
• He premiered his first symphony when he was 8 years old
• He took his fathers position in the court where he was born with his father but hated it and left 

Because of his father and the archbishop 

He moved to Vienna

• Wrote his best operas here
• Including the magic flute

• Died while composing a requiem mass
• May have been poisoned 

First movement

• Homophonic accompaniment
• First theme is played twice then stops
• Second theme is divided between the strings and woodwinds
• Development section modulates and stops .

Uses fragmentation to bring back the first theme

Recapitulation

Has many small changes in the origional theme

• Listening: symphony 95 in c minor 
• Haydn

First movement 

• Sonata form 
• Starts in minor but the recapitulation takes it to major
• His recapitulation is much more free than Mozart 

Second movement 

Using variation form

He varies the sequence of the variations 

Binary form

With some slight edits




Listening: symphony number 95 in c minor


Franz Joseph Haydn 

Minuet

Bars are in sets of four or eight except for the very end which would have thrown off any real dancers

Trio

• Written more like a country dance
• Cello solo has to take a que from violins before continuing 

Minuet

Returns except for the repeats




Rondo form

• Introduce a tune and come back to it after episodes
• Many forms but the listening is ABACA coda
• Listening: symphony number 95 in c minor

Haydn

We hear the delicate A section

Form of the A section is |:a:||:bc:|

The b section is a fugue 

Very free 

• The a section returns without repeats 
• C starts with a fugue but turns into an explosive piece of music

• This was a joke for the audience
• This is extremely different than traditional classical style

We touch A again before the piece closes

Listening: sonata in F, op 1 no 3

By Francesca Lebrun 

• Born to a musical family in Mannheim
• She was brought up to be a soprano
• She was married to an oboe virtuoso and was one of the best divas of her time

Second movement: rondeau allegretto

• The a section of this rondeau is sparkling and keeps us interested
• B uses the same motives
• C changes to minor mode with variations in rhythem
• Return to a then a coda
• AMAZING EXAMPLE OF STIL GALANT

• Transparent
• Homophonic

• Is written by Mozart
• Text by Lorenzo da ponte (for all of Mozart's comic operas)
• Background

• Don Giovanni is the Italian name for Don Juan the Spanish libertine
• His tales are meant to stir laughter usually quite bawdy undertone
• But in his pursuit of women Giovanni ignores societal rules, and gods rules 

Commits crimes and moral sins against the woman he seduces

Kills one of their fathers

Once while hiding in a graveyard from his persuers he is joking blasphemously and a statue tells him to mend his ways

He invites the statue home for dinner and the statue comes and when Giovanni will not fix his ways the statue takes don to his home which is hell 



Act 1 

Scene 3

• Chorus of peasants is celebrating the marriage of masetto and zerlina 
• He promises masetto favors then tells him to leave
• Aria ho capito

• Sung by masetto 
• Says he will leave only because a lord like Don could make him,
• Tells his wife zerlina that she was always his ruin
• Mocks dons promise to turn her into a fine lady 
• At the end he forgets of don and only attacks zerlina 

Repeated cadences



Recitative 

• Only continuo accompaniment 
• Don invites zerlina to his villa promising to marry her and make her a fine lady

Duet "la ci darem la Mano

• Between don and zerlina
• Section 1 - andante

• A A' B A''
• Don sings the tune which zerlina replies with with hesitation 
• She gets more hesitant until A'' where she is singing with don with the words perfectly synced 

Once she says yes the lines get together and it becomes a dance


Section 2 - allegro 

Zerlina falls into dons arms

Listening piano concerto number 23 in A, K 488

Mozart

He was the one who made the concerto a virtuosic thing

First movement allegro

Orchestra exposition 

First played by strings and woodwinds then answered by the full orchestra it touches a second theme

Solo exposition

Piano adds to the origional exposition

Ends with a cadenza in piano

A new theme appears in the orchestra with the piano elaborating on it

Development

Rapid dialogue between orchestra and soloist

Recapitulation

• Orchestra and soloist share theme
• Ends with a soloist cadenza
• Orchestra plays its cadence from the orchestra exposition then we end the piece