Category: Music

Stravinsky’s masterpiece “The Rite of Spring” may be the most revolutionary piece of orchestral music ever written. It was the year 1913, and the manager of the famous ballet company “Ballets Russes”, Sergei Diaghilev, comissioned a new ballet from a then virtually unknown composer: Igor Stravinsky. This was his third ballet for the Ballets Russes, the first two being “The Firebird” (1910) and “Petrushka” (1911).

The Rite of Spring is about a pagan ritual, in which a virgin girl dances herself to death as a sacrifice to the goddess of Spring. The first thing that strikes us when we listen to this piece is its rawness and its earthiness, unlike any other piece of music ever before or since. Stravinsky perfectly encapsulates the sounds and the textures of primitive creatures and lands, while maintaining an utter and total control of orchestral technique while still being able to innovative musical elements such as new harmonies (plychords, chords composed by 5ths and 4ths, etc.), melodies, instrumentation and rythm. Indeed Stravinsky himself said “I had a dream, a fleeting vision of a pagan rite, in which a young girl dances herself to death”, “I was not guided by any specific (compositional) system. It is what I hear, and I write what I hear”.

Indeed, Stravinsky’s great work sounded so revolutionary and so avant-garde to the general public in 1913 that during its premiere, there was a riot in the concert hall. Fortunately, Stravinsky’s work was quickly acknowledged as a work of genius, and is still regarded as so to this day.

In this example, we can hear the whole string section (violins, violas, cellos and double-basses) playing a polychord (a chord composed of two different chords), composed of an E major chord and an E flat Major chord, and the accents are reinforced by a huge horn section consisting of 8 french horns. This chord is repeated a total of 59 times throughout this section.

We are now going to talk about Beethoven’s 6th symphony, the Pastoral symphony. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest pieces of the orchestral repertoire, and certainly one of the most played.

This was written in 1808, during one of the most difficult periods in Beeythoven’s life. By this time he was completely deaf and had seriously considered suicide. He was saved, however, by his passion for music and for nature, and often enjoyed long walks across the forests in the outskirts of Vienna.

The Pastoral symphony is one of a handful of works by Beethoven containing explicit programatic content, i.e. a piece of music that is intrisically connected to a extra-musical content, and in the example of this particualr movement, it depicts a walk in a forest, which precedes a storm (3rd movement). This depicts a walk across the forest, similar to the walks Beethoven often enjoyed. The first thing that is noticeable about this piece is the smooth, peaceful melody, which ineviatbly transmits the sensation of being surrounded by nature.

 

In the example above, we can hear the imitation of bird sounds: a nightingale, depicted by a flute, a quail, depicted by an oboe, and lastly, a cuckoo, depicted by a clarinet:

In conclusion, Beethoven’s 6th symphony is a perfect example of how music can (and indeed often does) depict the most diverse situations and moods, and can really take us to other places, sometimes unknown.

In this post we’ll be discussing fugue by Shostakovich which consists of nothing but perfect harmony. First of all a fugue is a complicated musical form which we’ll not be talking about today. It may, however, appear in this web page when we discuss form.

• First of all, what is harmony? Harmony is very simply the superposition of two or more notes together (for example, playing the notes C, E, and G (Do, Mi, Sol) at the same time). Now, in the study of harmony there are two groups: consonances and dissonances. Consonances are usually thought of as notes that sound good when they’re put together, and dissonances are usually thought of as notes that sound bad when put together.

The piece we’re going to be talking about relies only on perfectly consonant harmony, i.e. perfect major and perfect minor chords. Major and minor chords are groups of three notes put together, a third above each other. This means that if we take the diatonic scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B (american notation) or Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si  (british notation), in order to obtain a perfect chord, we have to take every other note until we have three notes, and thus a perfect chord. e.g., in order to make a C (Do) major chord, we take Do (C), skip Re (D), Mi (E), skip Fa (F), Sol (G), thus making our perfect chord Do, Mi, Sol (C, E, G). For Mi (E) minor, we start with Mi (E), skip Fa (F), Sol (G), skip La (A), Si (B), thus making our perfect chord Mi, Sol, Si (E, G, B). We will not be discussing the difference between major and minor chords.

 

• Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was one of the leading figures of 2oth century music worldwide.  Living under the crushing dictatorial regime of Stalin, his music is notorious for its immense use of dissonance in order to represent the agony and oppression he felt on a daily basis (listen to his Symphonies nºs 5 and 10 and his string quartets nº8 and 15). In this piece, however, he makes use only of perfect consonance. The reason why is virtually unknown, although, in my opinion, it’s a symbol of hope, as if the consonance here represents a beacon of light in the middle of darkness.