put on your wig everyone, here we go...
In a way I'm almost disappointed to be at the stage where I am familiar with most of the music, I enjoyed listening to new and modal things...
Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) - Trio Sonata #2 in D major
Corelli made a name for himself as a working musician in Rome. He got good gigs as a violinist, I assume he performed many of his own works.
There is development in this piece in several regards:\
Instrumentation -
Written for 2 violins and continuo - which is usually cello and some type of chordal instrument. This is a new development - a small chamber ensemble. Although it informally existed when various instruments were substituting or supporting part vocal music in the past, this is officially written for a small number of specific instruments and for their specific timbres and capabilities.
Form -
A sonata da chiesa, a collection of 4 movements with specific tempo and mood designation. This is also new since so far we've only seen multi-movement pieces in the church.
Although there are 4 distinct movement they are short and sweet. It obvious they were written more for entertainment then to fully explore the composer's artistry.
Imitation, counterpoint and harmonic progressions are the focus here, as well as a metric steady pulse.
Out of our key words, the one that comes to mind here is control. Corelli wrote the music he performed, as well as working basically as a gigging freelancer.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) - Prelude and Fugue in A minor
The big kahuna. We all know about his prolific writing, genius, and contribution to the development of counterpoint, theory, rhythm, motivic development and music in general.
A few notes about this piece and development through it:
Instrumentation -
Solo organ. The instrument allows a large amount of sound combinations, and with 10 fingers and 2 feet Bach milks it to its fullest potential. The instrument is part of the church (literally), bringing solo instrumental music to be part of the religious service. Although this piece among many other are more about intellectual exploration then the function they serve in the church. The sound of the organ is intimidating, maybe that's enough in a religious service...
Form-
2 parts, with especially the fugue dedicated exploring complex motivic, contrapunctal, and harmonic development while maintaining a metric steady rhythm.
Technique -
We are past 8th notes now! Similarly to Corelli, Bach played his own compositions and expand on keyboard technique and fast passages we haven't seen until now. The fact he would also improvise this stuff is baffling. Control is present here as well, not only over a large number of musical concepts but also physically with being able to execute yourself what you have written.
The affect here is awe, which is achieved by the sound of the instrument and fast, constant rhythm.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) - Excerpts from Massiah.
Hallelujah!
Sometimes I forget Handel and Bach are complete contemporaries, history likes to list Bach as first...
Instrumentation -
4 part choir, 4 part strings and a chordal instrument realizing chords. This is now brought to a church, although we already saw similar instrumentation in the opera.It is also easy to forget Handel wrote this piece for a fairly small ensemble and the bombastic version we are familiar with is an orchestration.
Form -
An oratotio, the religious answer to opera. Multi-movement piece consisting of a plot, choral movements, solo arias and instrumentals. No recitatives however.
Technique -
This piece is a huge push forward from the Italian opera as far as complicated part writing and counterpoint.
It is also technically more demanding from the performers with fast passages in the instruments and vocal parts. Wikipedia brings an anecdote of Corelli refusing to play in Handel's orchestra because the violin part went too high, only to be shamed by Handel who produced the note.
The focus here is on Handel's ability to handle (pun intended) all the different musical elements and complexities.
In the spirit of bringing contemporary artists' interpretation of our weekly material I offer these selections:
This is my colleague, NYC cellist Jessie Reagen Mann who worked with a DJ to create beats to Bach's cello suites. The beats drop around 5:00.
and this guy, beatboxing the Badinerie:
a gospel version of "Hallelujah". it's cheesy as hell. I sang it Carnegie Hall... it was pretty bad there too...
As always, this is amazing work - not only do you demonstrate thoughtfulness with regard to your analysis of these works, but you also share the most incredible old/new mash-ups. Where do you find these things?? I'm also curious to know whether you think the cellist and flutist do justice to these works, or whether you find their arrangements to be at all offensive.
ReplyDeletewait until we get to mozart...
Deletei'm not a big fan of the gospel because i don't think it's tastefully done, but the people involved and the audience seem to enjoy it so if using Handel in that way creates a good experience for them, why not?
in terms of adding beats to Bach - his music is easy to add beats to because of the motoric quality. although it's true there are many attempts to "update" the classics that are tasteless and unsuccessful, in this case I think it works because the musicians are also classically trained and fully understand and appreciate the original. They add something of their own out of love and respect. Whether it's successful or not is subjective, but I personally don't find it offensive.
I don't consider classical music to be "holy", but if you're going to mess with it you better do it right.