Five Variants Of Dives And Lazarus Flashcards
Composer and year?
Ralph Vaughan Williams
1939
What instruments is it written for?
String orchestra and harp
Who commissioned him to write it and where was it first performed?
The British Council, to promote wider knowledge of the uk.
1939 Worlds Fair in New York
What type of movement makes it good for folk songs and hymns?
Stepwise movement
Describe the phrases..
Balanced with Q and As
They are repeated and similar
What presents rolling hills?
Predominantly Legato articulation
What imitates singing?
Tenuto markings and slurs replace words
What makes the peace quite peaceful?
Relatively quiet, only Variant V has a short lived FF moment.
What is the texture?
Predominantly homophonic with occasional moment of polyphony (Tudor church had lots of polyphony)
What is the first bar of the folk tune played in?
Unison
What’s interesting about instrumentation?
Melody is not always in the violins. Variant 4 open with a viola melody. End of Variant 5 had melody on the cello
How is the piece structured like a hymn?
There’s a tune followed by 5 variations of that tune
The harmony is modal, what mode does he use?
Dorian mode- transposed to start on B- makes the piece sound neither major nor minor
Why does he use modal music?
To invoke folk music and music of the distant past
Why has he chosen a single timbre ensemble?
Choral in nature, reflective of choirs of Tudor church music
Developments of rhythm?
Opening statement is simple, largely crotchets and quavers
Variant 2 has cross rhythms (3 against 2)
Variant 4 has a lot of semi-quaver movement
What time signatures?
4/4, 3/4 and 2/4
