Piece Review. Prepared piano, Sonata V, John Cage

When I was first introduced to this piece I was not just surprised on how innovative this idea was but also how I enjoyed listening to it. John Cage is a well-known 20^th century composer and famous for his experimentation through the ultimate question of what is music. We can form many arguments about his “silent” piece, 4’33”, in addition to his Sonata V for prepared piano.

A little background about Cage is that he was a percussionist and he was into avant-garde art. He was constantly seeking out different ways of producing and making art. With his prepared piano pieces, it was said that he was stuck at a university with no percussion and felt empowered to turn a piano into a mini percussion ensemble. That is exactly how I listen to this song with its intricate patterns and variety of timbre and pitch. If I had closed my eyes to first hear this song, I would no doubt think it’s anything but a piano. One thing is how he modifies it so uniquely and producing nothing you would expect. Another being that it straight up sounds like a bunch of percussive instruments clacking away.

Some people are highly offended by how he sticks metal in between the strings and distorts the sound. It is ethnically wrong to do such a thing to the grand piano. I believe it is completely acceptable if he has any intention of making music by that means. Especially if it comes out being organized like how he planned it and with sounds that were never heard before in that way.

American Music and Charles Ives

Charles Ives’ Country Band March is an extremely important and influential piece because of his place as one of the first American Nationalistic composers. Being from New England, which is from of the first places of growth in Music Education, Charles Ives’ learned a lot about music from his father who was a band leader in the town. Ives’ father did a ton of things that would have been considered avant-garde for the time, like having the band march at each other or play from very large distances apart while playing different things.

Country Band March is a piece that is rooted in its’ position of Nationalistic American Band compositions because of the wide variety of styles and themes that he uses throughout the piece. We hear excerpts from Sousa marches and from different themes from across the ocean in Great Britain. To add an American twist, Ives uses ragtime rhythms and a huge amount of syncopation to add a very unique style to the already American Piece. In some instances of this piece, Ives was meaning for it to sound like a very bad marching, or even a few bad marching bands. You can hear the bands passing by each other in this ‘parade.’ At many points in the score, Ives also adds in wrong notes to make it sound more like a bad marching band.

I really enjoyed this piece because of how creative Ives is with the orchestration and the use of themes. I like how he worked to really paint a picture of America with this march, and he was a pioneer of the American voice in music.

Piece Review: Tonight Quintet from West Side Story

If you’ve ever fallen in love with a musical you know what it’s like to sing along with every single character, even when it’s a duet or quartet or in this case .. a quintet. You change your voice to go with each character and end up breathless trying to keep up with all the lines. The Tonight Quintet does such an amazing job building up all of your emotions and making you a little overwhelmed and certainly anxious about whatever is going to happen next. Plus, the contrast of all the different characters singing with such different emotions and tone is a really fun and interesting thing to listen to.

This Quintet is extremely well-known because of it’s important role in one of the most well known and loved musicals of today. West Side Story is iconic, it makes it’s appearance in books, tv shows, movies, music, and conversation. I’ve probably played music from it four times in different orchestras. It was first performed live in 1957 and went to theaters a short 4 years later, where it quickly became a favorite. Most people first think of the song America or maybe the song Tonight or Maria whenever they think of West Side Story, but I think this quintet does the best job of tying together all of the plot lines in the musical and truly showing you what’s important and what’s going very very wrong. So really I think that the most important moment in the musical is the number, because this is the point where everything starts to collide. Plus, the hopefulness in Tony and Maria’s parts always makes me so incredibly sad.

John Cage- Prepared Piano Piece Review

For my final piece review, I will be discussing John Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes. John Cage was an American composer born in California that lived from 1912 to 1942. He wrote this series of sonatas and interludes while experimenting with different sounds and techniques on the piano. Cage came up with the concept of a “prepared” piano in 1938, which is when you insert different objects between the strings of the piano. Different positions create different sounds and Cage’s invention broadened the piano by allowing it to sound like a percussive instrument simultaneously.

The Sonata V we covered in class was written in 1946. Sonata V is a piano piece that has a distinct binary form. Cage placed different sized screws, bolts, plastic, rubber, etc. in the body of the piano for Sonata V. To make the placement of each individual object match the sound intended, Cagw wrote a table of preparations that gives detailed accounts about the materials, their size, and exact placement.

I was completely amazed by John Cage’s innovative idea about a “prepared” piano. It is a very creative and courageous move as a musician to completely change things up and use an instrument in a entirely different way than intended, but it definitely payed off! The numerous percussive variations in sound that come from the “prepared” piano are both pleasing to the ear and completely unique. If I were a more skilled pianist, Cage’s prepared piano pieces would be an area of interest I would want to thoroughly study because it is extremely fascinating!

Piece Review: The Nutcracker

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was the first great composer to come from Russia as ballets became increasingly popular in Russia. Of the three ballets that he wrote, Tchaikovsky’s most famous was The Nutcracker. It became extremely admired and became a tradition during the month of December, as the scene of the ballet is set during Christmas time. Based on literary characters, the story of the ballet is full of sensations from dramatic to happy and exciting. The music plays a huge role in making those emotions come across and really telling the story and the Three Dances: March, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Trepak, especially demonstrate this.

In Act one the party scene begins with a popular French dance in the March. The first theme comes in, true to its name, with a very march like feel. The 8^th note 8^th rest rhythm is recurrent and repetitive throughout the piece. Simple at first, but as the piece continues its intensity increases and unexpectedly Tchaikovsky adds beautiful descending flourishes of the violin with the march-like quality. Dance of the Sugar Plum Fair and Trepak, or Russian Dance, are also typical dances of French tradition and take place in Act II and are celebratory of the characters’ love and heroic deeds. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy has a very different character from the first dance, as it is light, mysterious, and enchanting, as one would imagine a fairy to be. For the most part the Celesta piano has the enchanting twinkling melody that is prevalent throughout the piece. To change the mood once again, the Russian Dance happens soon after and is full of the sound of energy and joy. Like the other dances, Trepak, has a very memorable recurring theme and an A-B-A form. All three dances have a distinctive and vibrant orchestration that make the The Nutcracker such a memorable and captivating ballet.

Take the A Train

It feels so very fitting to close out my blog posts with a review on a piece that I absolutely adore.

I have somewhat of a weakness for jazz. It transcends me to a different world than the one we currently live in. There is something so infectious, so distinct, so magical about it. Whether I’m singing, playing, or simply listening, the music of jazz fills my heart and soul with an indescribable feeling.

One of these pieces is Take the A Train. Written and arranged by Billy Strayhorn, Take the A Train is performed with the traditional jazz band instruments: a collection of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. It was recorded in the year 1941 with Duke Ellington on the piano along with Ray Nance playing trumpet. The song consists of the introduction of an initial theme, then a 32-measure chorus . The second and third chorus are accompanied by trumpet improvisation.

I have heard numerous versions of this piece. Some were entirely instrumental, while others were accompanied by vocals. The vocals imitating some of the complicated rhythms and large interval jumps that the instruments also played; along with some very impressive scatting during the final chorus. This piece has been covered countless times since its creation over 75 years ago. It is fascinating to see how it has evolved and maintained it’s prominence over time.

Below is a video of one of my absolute favorites Diana Krall performing her own version/interpretation of Take the A Train, keeping all of its original integrity while adding her own spin. She is not only a remarkable vocalist, but also a killer jazz pianist.

Piece Review: Quartet for the End of Time

Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” is an eight movement quartet that stands today as one of the most iconic avant-garde pieces. Scored for piano, violin, cello, and clarinet, this piece features a significantly wide variety of sounds for such a small group. It was composed by Messiaen in the midst of the Holocaust, while he was held in a Nazi prison camp, and is made up entirely of biblical allusions (specifically those related to the apocalypse).  The second movement, Vocalise, musically represents the story of an angel who descends from heaven and announces the End of Time to the world.

The movement begins intensely with aggressive, dissonant chords in the piano, separated by chaotic runs in the clarinet, violin and cello. There is a marked triple meter, but the beat is obscured by the mostly syncopated piano chords and lines that begin and end in unusual places. This powerful introduction ends after only eighteen measures when the texture and dynamics suddenly drop to nothing. At triple piano, the pianist plays downward cascading chords that act as an ethereal accompaniment to the violin and cello, who play a unison melodic line two octaves apart. This gives the section an almost homophonic texture, and resembles the sacred chant sung in medieval times. The majority of the movement is made up by this soft section, but the intensity of the opening returns before the end. Just seven bars before the end the tempo picks back up with a fast descending line in the strings, followed by loud trills and five more disjunct piano chords that bring the movement to a close. The return to the style of the opening gives this movement a ternary form, as well as support for its symbolic meaning as a whole.

I’m writing my last blog…TONIIIIGHT

The “Tonight Quintet,” by Leonard Bernstein, is a quintet from the Broadway musical, West Side Story.  The musical, written in 1957, is an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that takes place in modern day New York.  Though this piece is considered a quintet, there is actually a whole ensemble of singers who sing it.  This is because two of the parts (listed as Riff and Bernardo in the score) are actually sung by the entirety of each rival gang.  Bernardo is the leader of the Sharks and Riff is the second in command of the Jets.  Tony, the leader of the Jets, Maria, Tony’s secret lover, and Anita, Maria’s best friend and Bernardo’s girlfriend, sing the other three parts.  This piece is very interesting because it is split into three sections and each section, though related to the others, gives a slightly different account of the upcoming night’s activities.  Tony and Maria are singing a reprise of “Tonight,” a ballad from earlier in the show about their forbidden love and how they are going to be together (formatted A-A’-B-A’), Anita is singing about how she and Bernardo are going to have a “private little mix,” and the Sharks and Jets are singing about how they are going to fight and beat the other gang.  If having three different parts and five different characters wasn’t complicated enough, each part comes in slightly differently, and they all vary in either melody or rhythm.  But, in the end, with both opposing themes being sung simultaneously, the two gangs are tied together by the single word, “tonight.”

Der Erlkönig

My personal favorite piece from the romantic era that we have studied in class this semester, Der Erlkönig by Schubert, is an imaginative journey of paranormal death told through words and notes. While such a multi-faceted piece of art is easy to make cheesy, I believe that Der Erlkönig achieves story and imagination while maintaining a hint of seriousness and allows for suspension in disbelief.

The story start out with some serious text painting on the pianos part, as it mimcs the gallop of the horse that is present during the entire story. It begins with a child and his father; the child warning the father of the mythical creature Der Erlkönig who is apparantely following them and persuading the child to come to him. He offers him his daughters, games to play, and even some golden rob swagger. As the different characters are introduced and have their parts in the dialouge of the story, the piano clearly changes to reflect the character through many musical means (harmony, dynamic, etc.). Not only is the piano doing the text painting though, in many of the version I have listened to of this piece the vocalist changes the timbre of their voice to show that different characters are being represented in the story. As the story goes on, Der Erlkönig seems to become more and more sinister, until he finally ends up leading the child to his death at the end.

I love the combination of prose and music that a work like this includes. It is very easy to imagine the imagry taking place, and I love the concept of different fields of art coming together to create something new; which especially applies to this piece since the text was written first and music added later.

Maple Leaf Rag

It’s hard to believe this is our last week of blog posts. For my final blog, I have chosen to do a piece review on Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. Scott Joplin was 20^th century African American composer and pianist. Scott Joplin was actually the first prominent African American composer. He is also known as the king of ragtime composers. Maple Leaf Rag was one of his first compositions, written in 1899, and was one of ragtime’s first, and probably most influential, hits. Now what defines ragtime music? Ragtime is characterized by its lively syncopated melodies that are played against a steady bass accompaniment.

Maple Leaf Rag is a sectional dance that is similar to the ideas of John Philip Sousa marches or Johann Strauss, Jr.’s waltzes. There are four different melodic sections, called strains, and each is sixteen measures in length. These strains are then each repeated giving Maple Leaf Rag the form of: AABBACCDD.

The reason that I chose Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag for my final blog post is that ragtime music just makes me extraordinarily happy. I could seriously be in any sort of mood and ragtime music will instantly perk me up. I can’t entirely explain why though. I just feel like I am in some sort of old black and white cartoon running around and making over exaggerated facial expressions. It’s music like Maple Leaf Rag that makes me wish that I stuck to piano lessons as a kid.