"little" Fugue in G minor by J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750)

This has been one of my favorite fugues of all time, but it wasn't really until we studied fugues in theory class that I realized how amazing they were.  Then, when I began playing organ at my church (not very well mind you), I realized how impossible the pedal parts would be, especially when you're keeping other parts of the fugue going in the hands.  Drummers are impressive because they can keep all their limbs independent and free of each other, but they've got nothing on organists who can play any of Bach's fugues.  The subject of the fugue is one of the most recognizable, since by the time each of the four voices enter you can hum the tune back.  The fugue is called "little" because there is another fugue by Bach in G minor that is longer in length.  It makes me want to practice more on the organ.  Oh if only I had 5 hours more in the day than anyone else...or, perhaps I could get trapped in an endless cycle like the movie "Ground Hog Day" where I am forced to keep reliving the same day over and over again.  I would use that time to work on musical stuff, or at least that's my plan when that happens to me.  Yeah, I'm kind of tired right now, but at least this blog is getting some really unfiltered free writing from my mind right now, eh?      

Cello Suite no. 1 - Prelude by J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750)

Okay, anyone who gets the wrong idea about Bach, that he is some "old wig" composer, with nothing beyond the stereotypical Baroque compositions in his offering, really needs to listen to the Cello Suites.  This prelude is so beautiful and moving.  It is for solo cello and shows me again what kind of genius Bach was.  I mean, is there anything he can't do?  How, as an organ player did he write something so amazing for cello.  This particular prelude can easily be found on youtube with perfomances by Yo Yo Ma, Rostropovich, and Mischa Maisky to name a few of the better performances I found.  To me this piece falls under the category of instrument changing (kind of like life changing).  It makes me want to switch from playing piano to playing cello.  I have always liked the cello, but this prelude makes it sound even more beautiful. Perhaps the biggest argument for becoming a composer is that you figuratively get to perform any instrument you want, or at least provide a voice for it.

Crucifixus from Mass in B Minor by J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750)

As I mentioned in my weekly writing response to the Mass in B minor DVD we watched in class, I find this piece very inspiring and moving.  I wanted to write a listening log about it in order to explore further what about this piece touches me so much.  I notice that I am often more moved by music that is primarily in the minor, than the major.  I wonder if I am unique in this, or if it is some kind of universal human trait.  It's not that I don't like music in the major keys, or anything along those lines, it's just that it lacks the emotive power to move me.  When I hear this piece, if I am alone, it almost brings me to tears.  I am talking about something beyond the meaning of the lyrics - I am not even really listening to the words right now - but something inherent in this modality and chord progression that makes me feel like everything is going to be okay.  I know I am sort of rambling right now, but that's what the purpose of this entry is supposed to be.  I am trying to figure out what makes me connect to this kind of music.  I may have to do some research on the subject, because I am not really sure if I have an answer.  First, I need to see if others feel the same way about slow, minor, somber movements.  If they feel this deep breath feeling.  If there are others feeling what I am feeling, then it will be worth finding out why.  Then, perhaps someday, I will be able to write something that makes other people feel the way I feel when I hear this music.  I have now listened to three versions, and all of them are beautiful and are effecting me the same way.  

Largo from Concerto in F minor for Harpsichord by J.S. Bach (1685 - 1750)

This is a fine example of Bach's ability to write for the harpsichord.  The accompaniment is sparse to non-existent at the beginning.  There is mostly harpsichord with a touch of bass adding to the sound.  Finally, after the entire piece is played out there are a few swells of strings at the very end.  All of the normal harpsichord-ish things to do are present in this piece, including many trills and flips and ornamental phrases.  The left hand part is only made up of single lines and the tertian harmony is mostly implied (since there are only two voices present most of the piece).  To me, this shows the brilliance of Bach, in being able to write only two voices and still not feel like the piece is missing anything in the way of harmony.  No wonder so many of us emulate Bach's way of doing things as a great way to understand harmony and composition.    

Concerto for Guitar by Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)

I love the guitar so I had to listen to this and see what it was like.  It is really very pretty.  The classical guitar in this piece is so mellow but prominent.  Vivaldi kept the harmony parts very light so as not to cover up the voice of the guitar.  It really reminds me of the way a song for a singer might be written.  All of the background music is there, and supporting but it never takes over or comes to the forefront.  The guitar continuously weaves its melody over the top of everything else, which from what I can tell includes only harpsichord and strings.  The piece mainly alternates between D major and b minor from what I can tell.  Once again I am inspired to try and write a piece like this for guitar, with just some light orchestration.  What is stopping me right now?  Time.  I need more time to be able to act on all of my ideas.

Adagio from Concerto for Oboe and Strings by Alessandro Marcello (1669 - 1747)

This is another Adagio piece and it is very stirring and beautiful to me.  I guess some of my favorite pieces tend to be slower moving.  The sound of the Oboe in this piece is perfect for bringing out a mood of serious meditation and reflection in me.  Not surprisingly, the concerto for oboe and strings from which this Adagio is taken is the composer's best known work.  Based on listening and looking at a score the oboe part has some fairly difficult moments, especially for the oboe (which I am told is difficult to get it to sound really good).    

Sarabande by George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759)

This memorable dance piece has always been close to my heart ever since I learned to play a version of it on the piano when I was 12 years old.  It is written as a theme and variations type of composition.  The melody stays the same each time through with little variations in either tempo, dynamics, bass lines, ornamental notes, etc.  What is kind of cool about this piece to me is that when I was younger, after playing the song the way it was written in the book I was using, I ended up adding my own variation to it, which kind of became a trade mark song for me for awhile.  I never even knew that by adding a variation I might have just been doing what performers in the Baroque era would do with a piece like this.  This particular piece has a majestic, stately sound to it.  The bass/chord pattern is: dm - A - F - C - gm - dm - Bb - A.
 

Adagio in G minor by Tomaso Albinoni (1671 - 1751)

This is one of the most famous pieces attributed to the composer Albinoni, it having been used in many film scores and television shows.  I began to read more about Albinoni's life and it turns out that many of his works were destroyed thanks to World War II.  We also know relatively little detail about his life in comparison to other composers of the time.  The funny thing is, this composition, which I picked because of how moving it is, was not actually written by Albinoni.  His biographer Remo Giazotto claimed to have found a manuscript fragment with the melodic themes and figured bass written by Albinoni, upon which he based his composition "Adagio in G minor".  So, does this actually count as a listening log for the Baroque Period?  The music is definitely written in a style like the baroque, with instrumentation fitting for the day.  It kind of reminds me of a Bach "Air" piece or something.  The music seems perfect for a touching moment in a film, so I can see why it has been used in so many movies (over 15 at least).  The dispute about whether any of this is really written by Albinoni or even inspired by a theme of his is still unsolved from what I can tell.  It could be an interesting topic to research.        

Marche pour le ceremonie des turcs by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 - 1687)

This music is fitting to it's title since it does sound like a march to me.  The only instruments in use in the beginning are strings and some percussion.  Then the second time through the whole form it adds some kind of flutes/piccolos to the melody.  The melody is fairly familiar to me, as it comes from a CD I own called "The Movies Go Baroque" and features 16 songs from the Baroque era that have all been used in a movie before.  I think I am going to pick 5 more songs from this CD for my next entries.  I am looking for a score to see if it matches what I am hearing because it says on the CD that it was arranged by two people.  I found the score and it pretty much matches up with what I am listening to except that the score shows the form to be AABB and in my version I am listening to it only goes AAB (doesn't take the repeat of the B).  It plays through the whole song three times in all, each successive time it builds a little more in volume and instrumentation.  It is a short and catchy tune, and I like humming it to myself.        

Opus 22: sonata by Biagio Marini

This piece seems to be a trio sonata texture, with two violins on top, a viola and a harpsichord doing the basso continuo.  We haven't talked about the "Baroque Sonata form" in class yet, so I'm not sure why this piece is called a sonata yet.  In listening to the music it sounds like it presents a theme and then several variations upon that theme.  Also, the booklet for the recording talks about this piece as being in the category of variations.  This piece by Marini is based upon a well known tune of his day.  After listening three times it becomes even easier to hear the tune woven throughout.  My first inclination whenever I hear music in a new genre is to want to attempt to compose a piece myself.  I have not had time to do so, but maybe when I have some free time I can go back through my blog and attempt to write music in the style of all of my listening logs.  It would be difficult, but fun.
    

Toccata III, primo libro by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643)

I found a really cool video on youtube of a woman playing this piece on a clavichord.  It sounds to me like "continuous improvisation" at work here.  In fact, I can almost picture a musical genius improvising most of this on the spot.  It switches between slow and dramatic arpeggios and very fast runs and scales.  It seems like a good way for the skilled keyboardist to show off.  The music itself (in this particular instance at least) seems a little bit lacking in the way of any coherent melody to grasp.  It truly sounds pretty random most of the time.  I like improvisation, but other than being amazed by the prowess of the musician, I am not much of a fan of this style of improvisation.  Maybe because it all starts to sound the same to me after awhile?  It's personal preference of course, but I like the way jazz music does improv better (head, solos, head).  I found a score for the piece on IMSLP and she is definitely taking a lot of liberties with the tempo of this music.  Of course there are no tempo markings or expressions in the score, so it's open to interpretation.  I've just always thought about the Baroque period as having a very rhythmically driving element to much of it's music, and yet she is using so much rubato, and adding so many fermatas that it almost sounds Romantic period.  Maybe this is just a common misconception on my part about Baroque music.      

L'Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi (1567 - 1643)

In listening lab on Thursday we watched a video of a performance of the opera L'orfeo by Monteverdi.  This opera is one of the earliest ever written.  It sets itself apart from many other operas of its day by breaking up the monotony of monody (I've been wanting to say that for awhile now!) with pieces for chorus and instrumental interludes.  In class we saw all of act I, plus snippets of acts II, III, and I think even IV.  The performance was very interesting to me and at times a little distracting.  Seemingly out of nowhere, people would run across the stage doing flips and acrobatics, and whole groups of people would mime laughing or kissing or other extreme gestures.  It was a little bit like a vaudeville act or something.  Despite all of those distractions, I was still enjoying the opera, and especially liked the variety of solo pieces, chorus numbers, and instrumental interludes.  The instrumentation was very interesting to me, as all of the musicians used period style instruments.  The quality of the performance seemed top-notch to me, and the singers were all very good (except maybe Euridice, who I felt was weak).  Some of the cinematography was strange, especially the ultra close-up shots of Orfeo and Euridice (like having a staring match with the tv).  I think the fact that this opera still gets performed today is amazing, and shows the genius of Monteverdi.  He truly set the standard of how to do opera the right way.    

La Vecchie Per Invidia by Adrian Willaert (c. 1490 - 1562)

In attempting to find a madrigal by Willaert I instead stumbled upon this Villanella, which is a light, Italian secular song originating in Naples (similar to the frottola).  Perhaps the most interesting thing about this song is the lyrics, which are a meaning that I would not have guessed at all.  Taken at face value the song is lewd and disrespectful to old women, however the "old woman" is in reality a personification of death.  One way to attempt to overcome the fear of death is to mock or insult it.  The version I found alternates between a four part vocal refrain, and a vocal solo with instrumental accompaniment for the verses.  The refrain begins the song and returns after each verse.  I think the words alone make this a worthwhile find...  

LE VECCHIE PER INVIDIA SONO PAZZE

Le vecchie per invidia sono pazze,

dicendo quella bella malnasciuta.

come son pazze ‘ste vecchie canazze.

LE VECCHIE PER INVIDIA SONO PAZZE

Old maids are crazed with envy,

saying that fair maid is ill-bred.

These old hags are crazy

Kyrie from Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem by Cipriano de Rore (c. 1515 - 1565)

I tried a new technique at finding a piece of music and listening to it this time around.  I picked the composer on Naxos but then I let my daughter pick which CD and which song from it.  She ended up finding this beautiful Kyrie form a composer who is more famous for his madrigals than his masses (he only wrote about five masses).  My daughter then proceeded to dance around the room calling this good ballet music (my daughter is five).  The music is fairly melismatic although with the overlapping of the different voices (many of which are imitating one voice or another) it gives the overall effect of almost always hearing the text in one voice or another.  Above all of the nuts and bolts of the piece it is very pretty and I'm glad my daughter picked it.  You can still trace the text, and the form of the piece back to the original plainchant.  It is amazing the musical history that these masses carry with them.    

Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c. 1525 - 1594)

We listened to the entire mass in class on Thursday and I was really struck by how chordal much of this music sounds.  It is so beautiful and full sounding.  Many of the movements are very homophonic that it is hard to remember this is music of the renaissance still and not something more modern.  The mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II who was only the pope for three weeks.  It was probably composed sometime in the 1560's and was possibly in response to the claim that polyphonic music was getting too unintelligible.  This would explain the prominence of block chords, homophonic textures, very little overlapping of texts, and overall modern sound that I hear when I listen to this music.  There are some legends about this piece proving to the council of Trent the beauty of polyphonic music, and therefore stopping them from banning it outright.  It could be an interesting topic to look into more.  Maybe there is a movie about it...    

Rompeltier by Jacob Obrecht (c. 1457 - 1505)

I found a couple of different versions of this song, all of which made use of instruments, and none of which were four part singing.  The song is secular, in a triple meter, and sounds like a good dance tune.  I searched around for a long time to try and find the text to this piece, but to no avail.  I found two different places that talked about many of the texts by Obrecht being lost, and that some of the songs we have are only fragments.  I am interested to find at least one example of text from one of his secular pieces.  If I am able to do so I will post that on this entry as well.  No luck finding any texts by Obrecht after searching on google, and the CD liner notes available on Naxos.  Oh, well.

Mille Regretz (Pavane) by Susato, Tylman (c. 1510 - after 1570)

In class on Friday this week our teacher taught us the basic steps to the Pavane (meaning we actually got up and danced the steps during class).  I believe this is the song that we used in class.  It is an arrangement of Josquin's Mille Regretz by Susato, as a Pavane.  The music is simple, and elegant sounding.  You can hear Josquin's original melody, but performed with only instruments.  This slow processional dance was rather popular in Europe during the 16th century Renaissance.  The steps we were taught during class were pretty simple and basic, but for many of us (myself included) it was harder to do without error than something more modern (and with more steps) like the electric slide.  Was I interested in learning more about the Pavane, how to dance it, and wishing it was used today?  Yeah, I guess I was.  I have been to many youth dances when I was younger, and most of the time the only dances that people participate in are the group line dances.  Well, this one is not only a group line dance, but it is slow enough and easy enough that the two partners could converse while dancing.  Maybe we should try to bring it back.  It would be better than Mr. C's Cha Cha Slide, right?    

El Grillo by Josquin des prez

Even though we listened to this in class on two different occasions, it is such a memorable song that I wanted to make an entry about it.  El Grillo (The Cricket) is a four part Frottole that speaks about the song of a cricket.  This song is a good, very lighthearted example of Josquin's awareness and connection of the music to the text.  There is definitely word painting going on throughout the song, and at one part in the refrain the voices are meant to mimic the chirp of a cricket.  This piece makes me smile.  I really like the recording by the Hilliard Ensemble, which I believe is the same one we listened to in class. 

El grillo è buon cantore,
Che tienne longo verso,    
Dalle beve grillo canta.

Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli,
Come li han cantato un poco,
Van' de fatto in altro loco
Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo,

Quando la maggior è'l caldo
Al' hor canta sol per amore.

The cricket is a good singer

Who sings for a long time

The cricket sings just for fun

The cricket is a good singer

But unlike the birds

who fly off when they've sung a bit,

The cricket just stays where he is

When the weather is really hot,

he sings solely for love.

Missa Prolationum: Agnus Dei I by Johannes Ockeghem (1410 - 1497)

The Missa Prolationum is famous because the entire thing is an example of what is known as a prolation canon.  This means that the accompanying voices to the main melody are all imitations of that melody but are imitating it at different speeds (prolation = speed).  It is a very beautiful piece, performed by the Hilliard Ensemble in the recording I found.  I did find a score of this music and have attempted to see if I could trace the melody line through each different part.  It is kind of hard without printing it out and highlighting each entrance.  The idea of writing a prolation canon sounds like a very difficult challenge, which makes me want to give it a try at some point.  The Hilliard Ensemble always perform these pieces so well.  This piece begins with a nice duet and then expands to four voices after the first phrase.  I think I will try and look up the rest of the mass when I have some spare time to just listen to music.    

Quam Pulchra Es by John Dunstable (c. 1390 -1453)

This piece is called a sacred motet, and is not the same as earlier motets which were built from a plain chant melody and could have two different texts in the upper two voices.  Now, in the renaissance we get a new version of motet.  All of the voices have the same words, but they are often sung at slightly different times. I can hear moments where the voices line up perfectly, sometimes even in unison, but at other times they are making use of imitative polyphony, and are mostly concerned with counterpoint between the two voices.  This particular piece is very peaceful and beautiful.  There is very little dissonance present, and much of the time the intervals between voices are 3rds or 6ths.   Dunstable's music helped influence all of those from the Burgundian school, including Dufay and Binchois.