Listening Assignments For Brooklyn College 2.2 Essay, Research Paper

Brooklyn College

Instructor R. Janssen

7/15 Listening Assignment # 1

Organ Fugue in G Minor, J.S. Bach, p109-110

A highness in the pitch is the frequency in the vibrations are getting faster. A second tone is getting introduced, there is an interval between them. This second tone is low, as it gets louder the vibrations increase. It is the same tone in the first part, but the octave changes to low and high and the vibrations increase introducing other tones. In Class: The pitches of the melody are high, there are many pitches from low to high. There are three layers of pitches making every layer sound distinct. the music becomes more intense and it is like my adrenaline increasing to an intense point.

Rite of Spring, I. Stravinsky

Dynamics is soft (piano) and crescendo to forte and return to piano and it creates a sense of softness introducing the pure awakening of spring. There is a dynamic accent that is a forte, it comes at different times and it makes me nervous as if a tribal ritual will occur. The use of layers of soft and then loud creates a fore ground and background that gives me a very frightening feeling.

Loengrin, Wagner

Brass instruments but there is a back round of other instruments that are accompanying the piece of music. There is a contrast between the beginning, middle, and end of the song. It creates a mood that varies because of the dynamics. The brass instruments have a different tone color. They are loud and dominant. The woodwind instruments have a different effect then the brass instruments. When the brass comes in it changes our mood. The end of the song sounds scary but truly ends off with a happy ending. The Dynamics play a major role in the piece you hear, the pitch ranges in this song also the mood I feel listening to this is romantic and having a good time. However towards the end I feel a little tension and scared.

Take the “A” train, Stray horn

There seems to be a contrast in the rhythm and beat over and over. I hear the piano in the beginning however at the middle I hear the sax and other instruments accompanying. Then all at once all the instruments play. This type of music puts me in a dancing mood however back in the 1960’s it is. The duration seems to be changing from loud to soft but it does end with a deep soft tone.

7/19 Listening Assignment #2

Britten, Young persons guide to the Orchestra

It is fun to hear the sound of timbre in the piece. It sounds like an intense happiness or an awakening. The full orchestra was very exciting and the sounds separating on there own sounded like the same tune but a different tone color. The mood changed each time the instruments did. I think it was a full orchestra because all of them in the beginning and then only the instruments in the groups would play together.

Ritual Melodies, Harvey

The tone color began with the sound f bells beginning to crescendo and it sounded like a strong awakening. Another sound joined in and it sounded like a young child singing a single tune in the back round as if he were begging for some forgiveness. The flute then introduces the woodwind instruments that also begin to crescendo and it made the boys crying vibrate.

Mara-Bihag

There were two sounds that had two different ranges of pitch and dynamics and they were very pianissimo. It sounded like a person beginning to learn the string instruments for the first time. A string instrument being plucked with percussion in the back round. The string instrument is perhaps an electronic guitar. The percussion sounds like chimes are going back and forth. The chimes also sound like Xylophone.

Song from Angola

There are two tone colors. The first introduced was Drums, which introduced a solo of a mans voice, following a chorus and it made me feel like I was watching an African or Caribbean tribal dance. Percussion-drums are being played as a male is talking and another group is responding. We can clearly hear the drums being played. There was only one instrument being played.

Hallelujah chorus from the Messiah,G.F. Handel

An orchestra is playing Hallelujah. It sounds like woodwind instruments. Very harsh more like brass instruments. Perhaps a tuba or a timbre. I can’t really tell how many instruments are playing at one time. It’s defiantly a lot of them. But they all sound similar to me. However, I can point out that they are harsh and loud- seems to me like this is played while in church. It gave me the feeling of joy, achievement, and excitement.

7/20 Listening Assignment #3

Alleluia: Vidimus stellam, anonymous

IT sounded to me like it was a quadratic meter. There is a strong emphasis on the second and fourth beat. The tempo was adagio and the piece made me feel contempt and relaxed. The words in the song seem to be very stretched out. Definitely not an energetic song. The word Alleluia is repetitive. The pace of the song is very slow.

La Primavera, A Vivaldi

This music is very lively and it sounded very exciting. I could not count the meter because it kept on changing but I think that it is what made it so joyful. The tempo doesn’t change, it stays the same, but the rhythm changes and because of the speed of the rhythm we think that the tempo changes.

Symphony #40, W. A. Mozart

This piece was so beautiful. The rhythm varies from fast to slow and it made me feel like it was very organized. There was a lot of emphasis on every other note and the strongest accent on the last note of every meter.

Nocturne, F. Chopin

What a simple, grave tempo that makes me feel like I’m falling in love or putting a baby to sleep. The rhythm is a pull and pull feeling. It sounds like a triple meter beat with a syncopation on the third beat. But truly this is a special piece.

Five Pieces for Orchestra, A Webern

This piece is Adagio and calm, it starts with a layer with a duple beat meter overlapped with the solo of a violin vibrating. It was a disturbing, uncertainty feeling. However, because the rest of the piece doesn’t use accent, it has a calm feeling. Uses a sense of beat, but the music doesn’t have a beat, period of silence that creates rhythm.

The pieces that used rhythm is similar ways were La primavera and Symphony.

I feel that Nocturne was very different from the other because it was played with only one instrument, and it had such a strong push and pull emotion.

7/21 Listening Assignment #4

La Primavera, A Vivaldi

A very recognizable melody. It had an up and down movement of the pitches and it made me feel tension and release. The tones were played in a short, detached style called staccato and I enjoyed the short versus repeated themselves in different duration’s of pitches. It had four very distinct phases, one loud, one soft, one loud, and one soft.

Five Pieces for Orchestra, A Webern

A very unusual melody. I could hear the piece ten times over and not be able to repeat it correctly. It had a leaping gesture that makes the melody more expressive and dramatic.

Nocturne, F. Chopin

Another unusual melody. There is a legato melody, smooth, flow of music. This song is very relaxing. Something that you can possibly slow dance to in the older times. The melody is repetitive throughout the song, but again I would never be able to repeat it back correctly. It doesn’t seem as if there a motive but there is theme.

7/22 Listening Assignment #5

Major Minor Neither

Organ Fugue in G Minor, J.S. Bach

Rite of Spring, I. Stravinsky

Loengrin, Wagner

Take the “A” train, Stray horn

Britten, guide to the Orchestra

Ritual Melodies, Harvey

Major Minor Neither Mara-Bihag

Song from Angola

Hallelujah,G.F. Handel

Alleluia: Vidimus stellam

La Primavera, A Vivaldi

Symphony #40, W. A. Mozart

Nocturne, F. Chopin

Five Pieces for Orchestra

7/26 Listening Assignment #6

Alleluia: Vidimus stellam

Monophonic male voices. Music flows out of a regular meter from beginning to end. This is from the ancient middle ages where all music was monophonic.

Organ Fugue in G Minor, J.S. Bach

An example of Polyphonic texture, Starts with a monophonic, but continues polyphonic.

Nocturne, F. Chopin

Beginning to end has a homophonic texture. The end is monophonic for just a short while, and continues homophonic because you have harmony there.

La Primavera, A Vivaldi

Homophonic because there are three layers.

Song from Angola

Monophonic when he sings by himself and the drums. Then when the group goes in the same rhythm but different pitches leads to homophonic.

Ritual Melodies, Harvey

This is more timbre texture, there is no clear harmony or melody.

Take the “A” train, Stray horn

Can be both Homophonic and polyphonic texture. It is motion filled and has a melodic movement.

7/27 Listening assignment#7

Bach, Gavotte from French Suite

The musical form is Repletion. The form can be written as AABB because each part is repeated. The two parts differ in length and key, but are not related in melody.

Tchaikovsky, Dance the Reed Pipes

The musical form is contrast. This form is a three-part example of ABA’. The first section has flutes playing which is a staccato melody and has a light airy feeling, and is repeated several times. The B section contrast in tone color, melody, and keys. A’ is just a shorter version of A.

Concerto for Orchestra, Bartok

The musical form is in a duple meter of ABA’ form. In A a pair of Bassoons. Oboes, Clarinets, flutes, and muted trumpets play a chain of five melodies. The contrast in the middle section is B, which is a hymn like melody played softly by brass instruments. The A’ has a more active accompaniment.

A Little night Music, Mozart

The musical form is the three-part ABA form of the pull and push feeling of repetition and contrast. The A section is stately , mostly loud staccato, with a clearly marked beat. The contrast in B is a soft intimate and legato.

La Primavera , Vivaldi

I found this Musical form to be Repetition of AABAA. The repetition helps recognize and remember the melody. When the musical idea returns, the effect is not duplicated but balance and symmetry. I wasn’t in class to review and I’m not so sure about this one.

String Quartet, Beethoven

The musical form in this piece was a little confusing, ABACABA. It had the triple meter and between each was a contrast. The main theme is in minor, contrast with other themes, which are major. The B is a legato melody, while the C is a playful, with quick upward rushes.

8/3 Listening Assignment #8

Ave Maria, Desprez

Motet, Religious and it’s in Latin

As Vesta was descending, Weelkes

Madrigal- English, Polyphonic, religious running, fast rhythm. Tempo, pitch -descending , All- thick texture.

Tenor horale from Cantata

Instruments, religious text, voices with orchestra. More on a theme, played in church based on bible being religious wars.

Hallelujah Chorus from the Massiah, Handel

Oratorio, because a religious story is told.

The Earl King, Schubert

Solo piano with singer-there’s only one genre that fits this family which is art song. Galloping rhythm of the horses- creates tension. Earl King -image of death and comes to take a boy that’s sick-night gallery- image . He tries to entice the boy to come with him. Change in dynamics to a smooth one more like a dance like accompaniment.

A Survivor from Warsaw, Schoenberg

Cantata- composition in several movements, usually written for a chorus, one or more vocal soloists, and orchestra written for the 6 million Jews that died in the camps. Twelve tone composition. The music gets faster and louder to prepare us for the chorus. A solo male is speaking here. It paints running when the rhythm gets faster and pain when his tone of voice changes.

8/4 Listening Assignment # 9

Don Giovanni, Mozart

Leporelo is on a lookout to make sure nobody bothers DonGiovanni. Leporelo thinks he’s a Don Juan having a nice romantic affair. However, his master was doing something bad because he was really rapping her. But the servant claimed he didn’t know anything. In the beginning there is a pace. The servant is pacing and wasting time and waiting. Then he actually starts to sing. He wants to be a gentleman, and he says it in Laggato style, while the rest was in Staccato. There is change when Donna Anna and Don Giovanni come down. The dynamics gets louder and the rhythm gets faster. There is a chase in the music between the two. There is a polyphonic texture. The chases is because she wants to know his identity. When her father comes there is a dissonance in the harmony. There’s a lot of stopping and starting. When Commadant gets stabbed there is a minor harmony and a slow pitch, while he is dying.

La Boheme, Puccini

Mimi and Rudolfo fall in love. He helps her once her candle blows out, when she loses her key, they both look for it. There are many mood changes and the tempo helps us distinguish between them. There is an alternation between speech like and melodic phrases within there dialogue. When Mimi enters we hear a lite orchestra and that shows her fragility and tenderness. When Mimi faints I notice there is a solo by the oboe. When Mimi comes back to get her keys there is a new melody in a faster tempo. Roddolfo’s aria has repeated tones and the melody becomes warmer and higher.

Okalahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein

This song celebrates ” The beauty and richness of the land that would soon become the 46th state”. It can be outlined in AA’BA”. There is a very high tone on the first word Oklahoma. There is also a dance like rhythm- bouncy syncopation’s. It starts off with a male voice and a orchestral background. Then a group of people join in. It is a major key and a happy song.

Hallelujah Chorus from the Massiah, Handel

There is word painting on the word Halleluya. The words are played on high pitches to make things sound cheerful. Painted musical element of timbre with the use of full orchestra, full choir and by the element of high pitch that gave a striking quality. For ever and ever was stretched in the element of duration. Musical element was a polyphonic texture. Repetition of the theme and melody. Lord God Omnipotent has a monophonic texture. More staccato like a statement and Halleluya is accented. The kingdom of his word was a large, fast feeling in a homophonic texture. The kingdom of the lord has no timbre and when ” The Christ” comes back the trumpets and drums return. Every time the name Lord or He is mentioned there is a monophonic texture.