Music is a very large and significant part of human history. The characteristics, style, and theme of music is affected by what is going on in the world during the time when it is written. The constant changes in technology and culture throughout history cause music to be an art that is always building on itself and evolving. The connection between the progress of human history and the development of music is highly evident when comparing Hildegard of Bingen's Alleluia, O virga mediatrix and Notre Dame Cathedral's Gaude Maria virgo.…
In this chapter the author is trying to express how John Winthrop sent his companion to the new world called America in 1962. The main idea of John Winthrop was to improve the population over the colonies with eyes on how to improve the economy. Back in England the over population, poverty, and famine was a really big problem that have to be solve. So then, in this new world, America, there are a lot of new resources that can be explored such as timber, furs, fish, and almost infinite portions of lands. At that time the first colonizers who migrated to America had their first task and it was to cultivate the “Lord’s…
John Gardner's passage touches upon the reasons we read and write, and what distinguishes true morality from that of prejudices elevated to ethics. I agree with the passage to an extent; his point on an artist needing to present a strong case, for people to judge for themselves, and not force their morals upon people is true. However, I disagree with his point of needing a strong character to be able to develop a message, and that the purpose of the plot is just that a placeholder for the characters. The Awakening and Ethan Frome can be related to this passage, both helping to support it and disenfranchise it.…
I. Music of the Medieval World (“When God saw that many men were lazy, and gave themselves only with difficulty to spiritual reading, He wished to make it easy for them, and added the melody to the Prophet’s words, that all being rejoiced by the charm of music, should sing hymns to Him with gladness.” -St. John Chrysostom [345-407]. 1:53)…
The 1620 and 1630 saw the reinforcement of the recititative and aria in secular music with the development of the cantata. Rossi’s early cantata Mentre sorge dal mareserves as an excellent example of this development. The opera, being prohibitively expensive to put on all the time, found its forms set in the cantata, a sort of mini opera, consisting of solo voice and figured basso continuo. The cantata contained the forms of opera ñ the recitative and various kinds (strophic, bipartite, ottonario) of arias, but without the stage production and orchestra. These were written for all sorts of special occasions and became quite popular.…
In the patristic period, following the primeval church, the song, as metaphor, originates mainly from the mythic anthropological images of the pagan world. This had an important effect both in preaching and in the cultivation of apology. Later the Christian kerygma, effected by the entering of the Hellenistic world took on the form of eloquence, which defined through several centuries its mainly deductive understanding and explanatory system. After this we find »preaching in song« in the era of the reformation. Martin Luther, in particular, was the great master of this, able to interpret theological concepts by song. (Luther’s preaching by song is discussed in…
Music has been a crucial part of every society since the beginning of history. Before western music developed, many other forms of music were prominent in the world. Gregorian chants are one of the first types of music to have developed in history. Gregorian chants were liturgical chants of the early Roman Catholic Church, named after Pope Gregory I. Although this “music” is not exactly what many people think of, it was still vital to their lives. Music has evolved in many ways, shapes, and forms, but the one constant thing is that music has always been prevalent in the world. Many people, like Don Campbell, think it should be even more prevalent in today 's world, and the love and knowledge of music should flourish.…
Carl Orff: Carmina burana for chorus and orchestra set medieval poems to goliard songs, neo-modal idiom. Pseudo antique style based on drones, ostinatos, harmonic stasis, strophic repetition.…
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of spiritual music and the bestknown 16thcentury representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He has had a marvelous influence on the development of church music, and his work has often been seen as the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. Palestrina's masses show how his compositional style developed over time. One of the symbols of Palestrina's music is that dissonances are typically credited to the "weak" beats in a measure.This produced a smoother and more consonant type of polyphony which we now consider late Renaissance music, given Palestrina's position as Europe's leading composer. In this piece, Sicut Cervus, Palestrina uses the smooth style of 16th century polyphony. It speaks of a deer longing for spring, a soul longing for you, and God. He had written three sections of music, with parts taken out then added in. Palestrina wrote this piece as the first part of a double motet.…
As social and political views changed throughout history, a revolution in the art world followed. Artists use their pieces to explain their point of view, this includes writers, painters, and especially musicians. The end of the French Revolution inspired hope and visions for the future, which musicians responded by entering the Romantic period. In order to compare musicians in the Romantic period and those in the modern era, we must look into the stylistic choices of individual composers.…
The madrigal is a distinctive type of secular song that originated in Italy. It was an aristocratic form of poetry and music that flourished at small Italian courts. In the piece, Cruda Amarilli, Monteverdi uses many musical devices that are typical of a madrigal. The lyrics in this song are repeated, the music accompanies the text in interesting ways, and there is a wide range of vocal notes. After listening to the piece just once you can immediately feel the unrequited love Monteverdi is displaying through his words and music. The music and instrumentation in this piece aid the voices to establish form and mood through word painting. He uses word painting and cadences to develop a theme of unrequited love.…
The music of this time was mostly performed in courts, from ten to sixty musicians. And women functioned as virtuoso singers in several Italian courts during the late renaissance. Renaissance music doesn’t indicate tempos and dynamics, or the specific instruments or number of performers on a…
Schubert’s completly revolutionized the idea of beautiful lyrisim using his true emotional connections and dedication to the poetry he used in his songs. In his song cycle Die Shone Mullin, Schubert uses classical techniques with a romantic flare to set the text in a meaningful fashion. In the sixteenth song of the set, Die liebe Farbe, Schubert uses these techniques and through a purposeful and precise setting of the text, he is able to make the text dense by giving it multi-dimentions.…
Another example of madrigalism is at the beginning at measure 8 of part 2 of Non havea Febo ancora. The text depicts: treading aimlessly on flowers and wandering here and there while lamenting on lost love. Monteverdi reinforces this text by having the singers tightly stagger their entrances on fairly disjunct melodies, thus creating a more confused or dazed sound in comparison to the music previously presented. His manner of madrigalism is a bit more complex than most of those introduced during the Renaissance.…
Lieder ohne Worte (Song without Words) is written by the Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. It is a collection of forty-eight short lyrical piano pieces of markedly song-like character that he wrote at various periods of his life between 1809 and 1847. They are well suited to the study of musical form because of their artistic value. Op. 19b, No. 1 Andante con moto in E major was written in 1830 and is the first in the collection. The piece is in the key of E major and modulates from E to B to G major.…