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CLASSICAL SPICE is a fun and creative way to listen to and study these wonderful classical compositions and to get to know the musical time periods. The CD Classical Spice is used for the musical examples , but I strongly recommend that you also listen to the full orchestrations of some of the pieces to fully understand the original style in which they were written. Historical facts, art, interesting anecdotes and catchy sayings are also used to help remember what happened in each of the time periods. We will cover FOUR main musical time periods. They are: The FOUR SAYINGS we’ll be using are: We will also be using art examples to help illustrate the musical style further. The websites are included in this guide so you can look up the pictures in full color. It will be helpful for you to look up the examples as you go along and put the music and art samples side by side. Musical terms in italics are defined at the end of each section. Okay, ready? Here we go!! BAROQUE (1600-1750) HISTORICAL FACTS MUSICAL FACTS MAIN COUNTRY BAROQUE COMPOSITIONS At twenty-two, he married his cousin , Maria Barbara Bach, and lived in Weimar, working for a Duke as an organist. Maria died in 1721 and he remarried Anna Maddalena. He had a total of twenty children. He was a prolific writer (as well as a father!), writing a different piece for each week of events for churches where he was employed. Music was not kept as it is now. Once a piece was played, many times it was discarded, therefore losing many of the precious manuscripts of great works. In fact, many of Bach’s manuscripts were used as fish wrappings! But if you were to study all of the pieces we have from JS Bach today, (and we only have a fraction of what he really wrote), it would more than fill a lifetime of study. His genius is shown in the details of form (pattern of his pieces) and his fugues (where one or more melodies are repeated in many different ways). When you analyze how he uses a main theme with three to five parts going at the same time, in different directions, you can get a glimpse of his genius. In 1721 J.S. Bach composed his six Brandenburg Concertos. In 1722, he finished the first volume of The Well-Tempered Clavier, and published the second volume in 1740. Due to the great amount of work he had been doing, Bach became totally blind in 1749. He died shortly after. When Bach died, so did the Baroque era. The Prelude in C is taken from a collection called the Well-tempered Clavier, two volumes of 24 preludes and fugues in each for the piano. They are a tremendous study in form and technique and are included in the repertoire of most pianists. The Prelude in C has so much rhythmic energy (driving repetition of a rhythmic pattern), and is very conducive to an added rhythm section behind the piano. It was fun going from the major key in the Prelude to the minor key in the Solfeggietto, then back to the major key in the Prelude, as the pieces are arranged in Classical Spice. Facts: J.S.Bach had 20 children, wrote for the church, organist, genius of form, ended the Baroque era. SOLFEGGIETTO in Cminor by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) Carl Philipp was the second son of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach. He did not follow closely in his father’s footsteps in his writing style, but did become the mentor of Haydn and Mozart (other great Classical composers), as was Beethoven. His art songs became the inspiration of Schubert (also a great writer of art songs). CPE Bach was a tremendous pianist, especially in improvisation (making up music as you go along). He wrote nearly 700 vocal and instrumental compositions. The Solfeggietto is a very popular piece among musicians. Not only do pianists like to perform the running sixteenth note arpeggiated and scale passages, but also many guitarists and vocalists. It is a fun, fast piece that demonstrates how good Carl Philipp must have been as a pianist. The sixteenth note pattern of the Solfeggietto matches the rhythmic patterns of the Prelude in C by JS Bach, thus the joining together of the two pieces work remarkably well in Classical Spice. Fact: CPE Bach was a great pianist, son of J.S. Bach SARABANDE by George Frederich Handel (1685-1759) Handel was born in the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach to non-musical parents in Germany. His father desired for him to be a lawyer, but from the age of seven, he had taught himself to play the harpsichord (ancestor of the piano), practicing on an instrument smuggled into the attic. When his father took him on a visit to a nobleman, the nobleman persuaded his father to give him lessons. Handel then learned to play the violin, oboe, harpsichord and organ and also studied harmony, counterpoint and composition. When his father died, he dropped law and accepted a position as an organist in a church in Dom. Handel went on to compose many operas (a musical drama where the story is completely sung with acting and props), and oratorios (a musical composition with a sacred theme with no action or scenery), with one of his most famous oratorios being Messiah, composed between August and September 1741 in London, England. At the rousing Hallelujah Chorus, audiences rise spontaneously to their feet today as they did at the first London The Sarabande is a Spanish Dance and is originally just a page long and in the time signature of 3/2 (3 beats to a measure, 1/2 note gets one beat). It is arranged on Classical Spice to focus on it’s Spanish theme and uses the instrumentation of mandolin, castanets and trumpet to do so. The time signature also changes several times from 3/2 to 9/8, then 7/8, 6/8, then finally back to the 3/2 as it was in the beginning. Time signature changes can help make a piece more exciting and interesting by making it feel faster or slower as the piece progresses.(tempo) As you listen to the Sarabande, see if you can feel the changes in mood between the sections. The melody and basic harmony remains the same throughout the arrangement (you can almost sing along), even though there are a lot of notes added with each section! Facts: Handel’s father wanted him to be a lawyer, wrote the Messiah, organist. ALLEGRO MAESTOSO (Water Music) by George Frederich Handel (1685-1759) (his biography is under the Sarabande) Allegro Maestoso is a movement from Handel’s Water Music, which he wrote in 1717. The Water Music consists of three suites for orchestra, 20 or so pieces in all, and the Allegro Maestoso, or the “Alle Hornpipe”, as it is called, is from Suite II in D Major. The Water Music was first performed with fifty instrumentalists playing from a city company barge (large flat-bottomed boat), accompanying the King’s royal barge and other rivercraft up the Thames river from Whitehall to Chelsea. There are barges today that just float along rivers, carrying trash that there is no room for. The King enjoyed the music so much that he had the entire composition played twice before and once after supper. The original orchestration alternates two horn fanfares (a trumpet “call”), with strings. You may have heard this piece in the movie Dead Poets Society. JESU JOY OF MAN’S DESIRING from Cantata #147 by Johann Sebastian Bach (his biography under the Prelude) This piece is the final choral section from one of Bach’s 200-plus cantatas (a piece for choir with some drama). When he was writing a cantata a week, Bach would start on Monday, composing and copying all instrumental parts for four days. The first rehearsal would be on Saturday and the performance would be at 8 A.M. on Sundays at church. He did four complete cycles of 52 weeks like this, and probably more. Bach’s cantatas are an incredible collection of great music that have attracted many great musical minds. The average cantata is about 30 minutes long and would be included with many other musical pieces, as church services many times would last all day. (we complain today about services over an hour!) Women were not allowed to sing in church, so boy sopranos were used for the high parts. Jesu Joy was first performed July 2, 1723. This is a very popular piece and is performed today with almost any instrument of the orchestra for weddings and other special events. ART EXAMPLES ISABELLA BRANT by Sir Anthony van Dyck. Flemish 1599-1641. 1621 Isabella Brant depicts the first wife of Peter Paul Rubens. The setting is the garden entrance to Ruben’s mansion. It seems that Van Dyck was not a healthy man, and in his paintings a languid and slightly melancholic mood often prevails MARCHESA BALBI 1621-2 by Sir Anthony van Dyck. In this work, Van Dyck took advantage of the austerity of Genoese attire. No matter how beautiful the fabrics, adults were permitted to wear only black and white. In this picture, Van Dyck defined the marchesa’s stark outfit with a cascade of gold embroidery that glistens in the shadows. Her skirt and lace make her dress unusually long for her body porportions. Van Dyck was so overburdened with commissions for portraits that he, like his master Rubens, was unable to cope with them all himself. He had a number of assistants, who painted the costumes of his sitters arranged on dummies, and he did not always paint even the whole head. SELF PORTRAIT Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rihn (1606-1669) Dutch painter. 1659 His paintings brought him fame during his lifetime. Of all the Baroque masters, it was Rembrandt who evolved the most revolutionary technique and who seemed to grow into the Italians' spiritual heir. He worked in complex layers, building up a picture from the back to the front with delicate glazes that allowed light actually to permeate his backgrounds and reflect off the white underpainting. Rembrandt painted a number of self-portraits. Other well known works include Night Watch and Simeon in the Temple. Self portraits. YOUNG MAN SEATED AT A TABLE Rembrandt 1659 (possibly Govaert Flinck), c. 1660 By the middle of the 1630s Rembrandt had long since abandoned conventional Dutch smoothness and his surfaces were already caked with more paint than was strictly necessary to present an illusion. BAROQUE TERMS CLASSICAL (1770-1800) HISTORICAL FACTS MUSICAL FACTS MAIN COUNTRIES CLASSICAL COMPOSITIONS Spring is a movement in a larger work called the Four Seasons, which was a hit in 18th century Venice during Vivaldi’s lifetime, then fell into obscurity before it’s revival just 40 or 50 years ago. The Four Seasons covers Spring (the first movement), Summer, Autumn, and Winter and is a set of four violin concertos, each with three movements. The arrangement of Spring included on Classical Spice uses the piano as the main melodic instrument, then uses the string orchestra and added rhythms for accompaniment. Spring is a very popular piece and you may have heard it on TV on one of many car commercials. Fact: Vivaldi was a great writer for the string orchestra and was better known than Bach in his day. RONDEAU from Sinfonies De Fanfares (Premiere Suite, 1st movement) by Jean Joseph Mouret (1682-1738) Mouret was a French composer of ballets, operas and instrumental works. He was in the service of the Dutchess of Maine in Paris from about 1707 and composed his first ballets in 1714. This Rondeau was written by Mouret for the court of Louis XV, King of France, in his Symphonies and Fanfares for the King’s supper. Today, it is best known for it’s use as the theme for the Masterpiece Theatre, a popular British-made educational television series that first debuted January 10,1971 and still runs today. The Rondeau is an excellent example of an early rondo form (RARBR, where R appears at least three times). R is the main theme that is repeated between the A and B sections. This is very similar to the ABACA form. The martial (military) character of the Rondeau is achieved through the use of trumpet and timpani in the original manuscript. Fact: Rondeau is an early Rondo: ABACA WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART (additional composer) (1756-1791) Born in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart was a child prodigy. He grew up to be one of the world’s greatest composers. Mozart’s father, Leopold, was an important musician in the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg. He conducted the court orchestra and was a also a harpsichord and violin teacher. When Mozart was around three years old, he could barely reach the keyboard but showed great interest in Nannerl’s music lessons. (His sister who also was a child prodigy) Mozart was four when he had his first music lesson. A year later he started to write his own music, some of which were the Minuet in F, Trio in G and the melody of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. He only had to hear a piece played once and he could replay it all from memory. Mozart went on his first concert tour at the age of six and kept performing, marrying Constanze at the age of 26. Mozart was the master of all musical forms and wrote many masterpieces including operas, symphonies, piano and violin concertos, string quartets, sonatas and others. His last composition, the Requiem Mass, was still incomplete when he died of typhoid at the age of 35. He was buried in a pauper’s grave. Fact: Mozart was a child genius, died at 35. ART EXAMPLES MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE AT SUNSET by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) 1764 Before the Revolution, Fragonard followed Boucher (until 1752) then he won the Prix de Rome. He came from the town of Grasse in southeastern France, which was and is the center of the French perfume industry. Fragonard was a rapid and spontaneous painter. He was as skilled as his teacher Boucher in sharing his pleasure in young women and their bodies, but more alert to their emotions. A GAME OF HORSE AND RIDER by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) 1767/73 From 18th century France. These boys benefit from a new attitude toward childhood, influenced by Rousseau, who argued that children should be left to follow their natural instincts. A YOUNG GIRL READING by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732-1806) 1770-72 Fragonard’s handling of brushwork and color embodies eighteenth-century painting aesthetics. Each texture is rendered in a different brushstroke; Her dress a thick weave of yellow and white, the pillows more loosely sketched, and her collar edged with the handle of the brush. MISS JULIANA WILLOUGHBY by George Romney (1734-1802) British 1781-83 Romney's sure sense of formal values is evident here in the effective balance of figure and landscape. In this portrait Romney successfully adapted his composition to a change in the sitter's costume, X-rays show that Juliana originally wore a small, brimless cap. During the two years it took Romney to complete the portrait, Juliana, who was by then almost six years old, had outgrown her mobcap and wore, instead, this broad-brimmed bonnet. Like many of his contemporaries, Romney traveled to Italy, where he spent two years studying the work of Renaissance masters, in particular paintings by Titian and Raphael. The impact of these artists on his work can be seen in the simply expressed folds of Juliana's dress, the case and certainty of his outlines, and the artful balance of broad areas of color. MRS. THOMAS SCOTT JACKSON by George Romney (1734-1802) Painted between 1770-73 Portrays the wife of a director of the bank of England. Painted just before Romney’s trip to Italy, this earlier work pays tribute to Sir Joshua Reynold’s influence in its cool gray tonality, dignified posture, and complicated details. SEÑORA SABASA GARCÍA by Francisco de Goya: Spanish (1746-1828) 1806-1811 The years between Goya's appointment as first painter to the court of Charles IV and the Napoleonic invasion of 1808 were a time of great activity and financial security for the artist. He painted some of his finest portraits at that time, Señora Sabasa García and several others in the National Gallery's collection among them. In contrast with his earlier work, Goya dispensed with the setting entirely and treated the costume much more impressionistically. His brushwork merely suggested the gossamer qualities of the señora’s mantilla rather than defining its details. Señora Sabasa García was the niece of Spain’s minister of foreign affairs. THERESE LOUISE DE SUREDA by Francisco de Goya: Spanish (1746-1828) 1803-04 Although her portrait was painted in Spain, she epitomizes current French styles. Her hair is combed in the “antique” manner, and her empire armchair is decorated with “Egyptian” heads. Therese sits erect with a self-conscious propriety and does not rely on the chair’s back for support. Since she holds her arms close to her torso, her form is tightly confined. CLASSICAL TERMS ROMANTIC (1800’s) HISTORICAL FACTS MUSICAL FACTS MAIN COUNTRIES ROMANTIC COMPOSITIONS Fuer Elise is a Bagatelle (a short piece of music written in a light, airy style), written in 1810. It has the very familiar 1/2 step, (the closest distance between two notes on a piano), turn at the beginning of the main theme that runs throughout the piece. The A (main) theme occurs three times and two other sections (B and C), alternate between the A themes to make an ABACA form. Fact: Beethoven became gradually deaf after 34 yrs. old. Link between the Classic and Romantic periods. WALTZ in A Flat, Op.39, no.15 by Johnannes Brahms (1833-1897) Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a double bass player. His father instructed him at first and by the age of ten, Brahms had already made his debut as a pianist. Bach and Beethoven were the composers on whom he modeled his style and he modeled his song writing after Schubert, but he also played in the local taverns for the entertainment of sailors and their friends. He became great friends with Robert and Clara Schumann, other great musicians of his time. As he grew older, he performed less and less in public and devoted most of his time to composition. Brahms knew that he was at his best when he was working at a leisurely pace in his simple bachelor’s quarters, alone. He rose every day at 5 A.M., prepared his own coffee because nobody else brewed it strong enough to suit him, and set to work. Brahms was a painstaking composer, who worked over and over his pieces before he pronounced them finished. It was ten years from the time he started to write his First Symphony to the day when he allowed it to be published. Brahms has often been painted seated at a piano, a bulky figure with a flowing beard. As a pianist, he was described as a fluent and brilliant performer. The Waltz in A Flat, included on Classical Spice, written in 1865, was with a group of waltzes (a dance in 3/4 time), first written for four hands (two players), then for two hands (one player). The form is ABABA, with the main theme (A) repeated three times. On Classical Spice, a Bolero style (a type of Spanish dance), accompaniment is combined with the waltz, as the waltz and bolero have similar time signatures (3/4) and merge together extraordinarily. Brahms uses full chords (groups of notes played together), in his writing with many doublings in notes. Having a chordal melody, most often in thirds or sixths, is a common characteristic of his music. The Waltz in A Flat starts with the melody in sixths, then uses thirds and full chords in the rest of the piece to make the piano almost sound like the full orchestra by itself. (Compare this with the single-note melody Beethoven uses at the beginning of Fuer Elise, making it a light, airy piece) Fact: Brahms used many chordal melodies. ROMEO and JULIET by Peter Ilyich Tschaikovsky (1840-1893) Born in Russia to a nonmusical family. He was not encouraged in his musical education, but took piano lessons along with his schooling. He was described as a “porcelain child” by his first governess, sensitive and charming, but fragile. At nineteen, he became a clerk, but continued his music education in a chorus class and piano lessons. At twenty, he composed waltzes and polkas, (dances), which he did not write down, but started realizing that he had chosen the wrong career. He decided to no longer be a clerk but a musician in 1863 (23 years old). He found quickly that it was hard to exist as a musician and took on some private students while continuing to write and study. He suffered the first of many nervous breakdowns when his his First Symphony, which he had labored with passionate intensity, was denied a performance. He became engaged to an opera singer who ended up marrying someone else and the yearning Juliet theme of the Romeo and Juliet Overture, composed at this time, may have been inspired by this passing affair. When he was thirty-four, a psychopathic young woman proposed that he marry her. She went so far as to threaten suicide if he refused. To save her life he gallantly assented, but after two weeks of marriage it was he who tried to commit suicide by standing immersed to his neck in the icy waters of the Neva river, hoping to catch pneumonia. Tschaikovsky was perhaps the greatest symphonist after Beethoven, and certainly the most popular. He was considered by many to be the most expressive Romantic composer that Russia produced, as he produced some of the most passionate music. He wrote the famous Nutcracker Suite, a ballet that we see and hear so much at the holiday season. The Romeo and Juliet Overture was written in 1869. The version you are hearing on Classical Spice is a reduction of the complete orchestral score for piano, but an arrangement where you can hear the beautiful, haunting melody Tschaikovsky wrote. The Romeo and Juliet Overture has also played in several movies, including Wayne’s World. Fact: Tschaikovsky was a brilliant symphonist. Considered most expressive Russian Romantic composer. RONDO CAPRICCIOSO by Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (1809-1847) Mendelssohn was born in Germany to a wealthy family. He seemed to have a lot going for him: looks, intelligence, sensitivity and loads of talent. His training was strict and he once said that he and his brother and sisters loved Sundays because on that day they did not have to get up to study at five in the morning! Felix played his first piano concert at nine, composed prolifically from the age of ten, and by the age of thirteen, was ready to conduct the Sunday morning musicals that were the delight of his youth. In the garden of their home on the outskirts of Berlin, friends, neighbors and musicians gathered to hear Felix play the piano, the viola, or the organ, and conduct his orchestra of brother, sisters and friends. He played his own compositions, too. The fairy strains of the Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, which he composed at seventeen, were first heard at one of these home concerts. Mendelssohn organized and became the director of the first German Conservatory of Music in Leipzig. He taught there himself and attracted to it a brilliant teaching staff. Besides teaching, he traveled frequently to give concerts and conduct the court orchestras. In perpetuating the ideals of Bach and Mozart, in encouraging the composers of his day, performing their music and in reviving neglected composers of the past, Mendelssohn did music a great service. The effortless flow, the glow and sparkle and delicacy and sweetness, the singing melodies, and fluency and polish of his own music are universally appealing. The Rondo Capriccioso is a character piece, a piece of keyboard music without any distinctive form or trait, and is very popular among most intermediate to advanced piano students. It starts with a very slow, expressive beginning, then bursts into Mendelssohn’s typical scherzo style; it’s light and fast, evenly moving and staccato (sharp, detached notes). There are sharp accents (emphasis on a certain note, chord or beat), on the off-beats and a very light texture. It is a beautiful, magnificent piece and the Fantasia-type arrangement on Classical Spice accentuates the staccato passages and the accents of the bass notes, contrasted with the smooth, almost orchestral sections. The Rondo Capriccioso is truly a piece that shows off the virtuosity of the pianist and shows us what a great pianist Mendelssohn must have been. Fact: Mendelssohn was a great melody writer and pianist. ART EXAMPLES THE DEAD TOREADOR by Edouard Manet, French 1832-1883 In 1864, Manet exhibited a large painting he called Episode from a Bullfight. Critics complained that its image of a fallen matador was out of proportion to the bull that had just gored him. At some point, Manet cut the painting apart, creating two smaller, more powerful works, this being one and the Bullfight, being the other. He repainted the background, extracting the figure from the context of the bullfight, and in so doing changed the nature of his painting. He uses rich, dark tones. THE OLD MUSICIAN by Edouard Manet, 1832-1883 1862 In the painting, Manet represented a strolling musician flanked by a gypsy girl and infant, an acrobat, an urchin, a drunkard, and a ragpicker--individuals the artist might have observed near his studio. Manet studied the urban poor with the careful neutrality of an unbiased onlooker. By placing pigments side by side rather than blending tones, Manet could preserve the immediacy and directness of preliminary oil studies in his finished works. Effects produced by this technique were sharper and crisper than those obtained with academic method. Future impressionists as Monet and Renoir admired his manner of paining and emulated Manet as they forged the style known as impressionism. FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, French 1796-1875 1834 Corots career began in the late 1820’s when the academic tradition of ladscape painting was being revived. The Forest of Fontainebleau is a historic landscape devised to elevate the status of landscape painting by combining with it the subjects of history painting. Contemporaries readily identify the reclining woman in the foreground as Mary Magdalene. The artist’s humble attitude toward nature, responsive paint handling, and conscientious clarity and freshness of vision distinguish his work from the formulaic landscapes of academic contemporaries. His influence was manifest in the impressionistic painters. BRIDGE ON THE SAONE RIVER AT MACON by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1875 1834 In May 1834 Corot set out on a six-month tour of northern Italy, traveling along the Mediterranean coast to Genoa, Pisa, and Volterra, and continuing to Florence and Venice. Classicist training and an innate disposition enabled him to integrate various studies in one well-ordered design, without strain or recourse to formulas. Corot became known as a painter of"historical" landscape. GYPSY GIRL WITH MANDOLIN by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1875 1870 Posing models in costume or in the nude, Corot stressed their physical presence, defining their bodies with sculptural vigor and their costumes with strong color. In 1866-1870 he suffered attacks of gout that forced him to curtail travel and outdoor work. Confined to his Paris studio, he painted landscapes from memory and posed models in portraitlike arrangement. ITALIAN GIRL by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, 1796-1875 1872 In a series of interiors from 1865-1872, Corot represented young women in Italian costume seated in his studio, in solitary meditation before an easel that holds one of his "lyrical" landscapes. LADY WITH A HARP: ELIZA RIDGELY by Thomas Sully, American 1783-1872 1818 When Thomas Sully painted fifteen-year-old Eliza Ridgely, he was widely regarded as America’s leading artist. In painting Eliza, Sully emphasized her privileged social status as well as her delicate, youthful charm. The satin of her Empire gown is carefully described through fluid brushwork and brilliant highlights. ANDREW JACKSON by Thomas Sully, 1783-1872 1845 Sully was America's foremost exponent of the highly romanticized, painterly (use of color rather than lines to represent shapes or structure a composition), and fluid style of portraiture practiced by the two contemporary British artists he had most admired during his year of study in England, Sir Henry Raeburn and Sir Thomas Lawrence. Andrew Jackson represented a new era for many Americans, winning with the first popular vote taken. He was the first president not to come from original colonies. Jackson was considered a true popular hero and used his popularity to strengthen the presidency. THE VANDERKEMP CHILDREN by Thomas Sully, 1783-1872 1832 Although he painted many of the most prominent politicians, clergymen, and military heroes of his era, Sully's fame rests mainly on his exaggeratedly elegant and idealized portraits of fashionable society women, and, to a lesser extent, his sentimental group portraits of children and "fancy pictures." Often painted with a nearly flawless mastery of technique, these ultra-refined images are fundamentally decorative, and the deliberately self-conscious affectations of the sitters create a sense of artificiality that precludes the achievement of any penetrating psychological insight into their characters. This aesthetic, however, appealed greatly to the elite social stratum from which Sully drew his patrons, and earned him the status of being the most successful American portrait painter following the death of Gilbert Stuart in 1826, until his gradual decline in the 1850s. ROMANTIC TERMS IMPRESSIONISTIC HISTORICAL FACTS MUSICAL FACTS MAIN COUNTRY IMPRESSIONISTIC COMPOSITIONS The tempo marking is in 3/4, but the arrangement on Classical Spice uses 6 pulses per measure (you can count it 1+2+3+), as you can hear in the drum loop introduction. Notice the contrast in the legato passages (smooth) and staccato passages (sharp and detached) and how they alternate quickly and help to create the playful mood. The main theme that you hear at the beginning of the menuet runs throughout the whole piece, a masterful characteristic of classical music. This theme connects even the larger, grander section at the key change. The menuet ends playfully with a quiet glissando (where a finger slides up the keyboard from one note to another) to a single quiet note, octaves apart. Fact: Debussy won highest honors at the Paris Conservatoire. THE SWAN (Le Cygne) by Charles Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) Saint-Saens was a French composer, organist and pianist. He started composing by the age of seven and started performing before an audience at ten. In 1852, when he was seventeen, he entered the competition for the Prix de Rome, and lost. But the same year, his composition for voice and orchestra won first prize in Paris. In the early years of his career, he composed constantly and achieved fame as a virtuoso (one who has mastered his instrument). Saint-Saens composed piano and organ music, symphonies (for large orchestra groups), chamber music (for small orchestral groups), cantatas (a piece for choir with some drama), oratorios, songs and choral works, operas, a ballet (a dance that tells a story in pantomime), and arrangements. He also wrote a book of poems and various papers on scientific topics. The Swan is from the Carnival of The Animals, a Suite of short pieces (14 in all), for small orchestra, written in 1886 as a musical joke. After the first performance at a Paris carnival, Saint-Saens put the Suite in a drawer and forbade it’s further performances. Because he was an accomplished musician and composer, he felt this piece would give a comic view of his writing. The Swan (Le Cyne in French) is the most elegant of the pieces. If you use your imagination, you can hear the water flowing with the running sixteenth note arpeggios, (notes running up and down on chord tones), and the swan gracefully gliding with the beautiful theme that was originally written for a cello. Fact: Saint-Saens wrote the Carnival of the Animals as a joke. IMPRESSIONISTIC TERMS ART EXAMPLES WOMAN WITH A PARASOL-MADAME MONET AND HER SON by Claude Monet, French 1840-1926 1875 Woman with a Parasol was painted outdoors, probably in a single session of several hours' duration. The artist intended this to look like a casual family outing rather than an artificially arranged portrait, using pose and placement to suggest that his wife and son interrupted their stroll while he captured their likenesses. The brevity of the fictional moment portrayed here is conveyed by a repertory of animated brushstrokes of vibrant color, hallmarks of the style Monet was instrumental in forming.Bright sunlight shines from behind Camille Monet to whiten up the top of her parasol and the flowing cloth at her back, while colored reflections from the wildflowers below touch her front with yellow. WOMAN SEATED UNDER THE WILLOWS by Claude Monet, 1840-1926 1880 THE SEINE AT GIVERNY by Claude Monet, 1840-1926 1897 From the early 1860s until 1889, not a single year passed that Monet did not paint the Seine. Its flower-strewn banks and watery reflections appear in nearly a quarter of all his paintings in the National Gallery. In 1896, though, he began a more systematic study of the river near his home at Giverny. Lured by the lifting haze and quickly changing light of early morning, he rose before sunrise -- at 3:30 a.m. -- to be at his easel by dawn. He worked from a flat-bottomed boat drawn up near the bank. But, as with his other series paintings, Monet only began the pictures outdoors, elaborating them over a period of months in his studio, taking special pains to adjust their light. These paintings, more precisely than his other series pictures, show the progression of time and the subtle changes in light as hours, even minutes, pass.Rather than focus on the trees, the line of the water, or sky, Monet subsumes shapes and reflections alike in the soft light. This picture shows the progression of time and the subtile changes in light as hours, even minutes, pass. JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE FLOWERS by Claude Monet, 1840-1926 1863/1880 There are practically no portraits and no figure paintings by Monet after the middle 1880s. THE DANCER by Auguste Renoir, French 1841-1919 1874 More than any of the Impressionists, he found beauty and charm in the modern sights of Paris. He does not go deep into the substance of what he sees but seizes upon its appearance, grasping its generalities, which then enables the spectator to respond with immediate pleasure. LANDSCAPE BETWEEN STORMS by Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919 1874/1875 A GIRL WITH WATERING CAN by Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919 1876 This displays a mature impressionist style attuned to the specific requirements of figure painting. Renoir’s colors reflect the freshness and radiance of the impressionist palette. Brilliant colors envelope the little girl in an atmosphere of warm light. Solid little girl though she is, she presents herself with the fragile charm of the flowers. Her sturdy little feet in their sensible boots are somehow planted in the garden, and the lace of her dress has a floral rightness; she also is decorative. With the greatest skill, Renoir shows the child, not amid the actual flowers and lawns, but on the path. It leads away, out of the picture, into the unknown future when she will longer be part of the garden but an onlooker, an adult, who will enjoy only her memories of the present now depicted. PICKING FLOWERS by Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919 1875 THE VINTAGERS by Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919 1879 HORSES IN A MEADOW by Edgar Degas, French 1834-1917 1871 FOUR DANCERS by Edgar Degas, 1834-1917 1899 One of the largest and most ambitious of his late works. Exists in several variants that show different kinds and degrees of modification. While Degas suppressed descriptive detail elsewhere in the painting, emphatic dark lines shape the heads and arms, underlining the artist's formal concerns. Theatrical lighting over the off-stage performers recolors the figures and creates a simple color scheme of complementary red-orange and green hues. In Four Dancers, Degas used oils to imitate the color effects and matte surface of pastels. GIRL IN WHITE by Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch 1853-1890 1890 In 1889, he became a voluntary patient at the St. Remy asylum, where he continued to paint, often making copies of artists he admired. His palette softened to mauves and pinks, but his brushwork was increasingly agitated, the dashes constructed into swirling, twisted shapes, often seen as symbolic of his mental state. Van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime. His paintings became popular after his death. Van Gogh committs suicide in 1890. ROSES by Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch 1853-1890 1890 Van Gogh was largely self-taught as an artist, although he received help from his cousin, Mauve. His first works were heavily painted, mud-colored and clumsy attempts to represent the life of the poor. He moved to Paris in 1886 where he discovered color as well as the divisionist ideas which helped to create the distinctive dashed brushstrokes of his later work IMPRESSIONISTIC TERMS TEACHER’S STUDY GUIDE STUDY QUESTIONS *this is a start for study questions. These can be customized for grade level. EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES DANCE and MOVEMENT ART STORY and THEATRE Art websites: |
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