WL: Vocal Music Flashcards
Vaughan Williams: OWE
Schumann: “Vogel als Prophet”, 1848
SIM: Undulating melodies, representing a natural subject (bird vs. wind)
DIF: Rolled chords, representing a bird
Vaughan Williams: OWE/IMTP?
Elgar: “Piano Quinet in A minor”, 1918
SIM:
- Piano Quintet (no tenor!)
- Begins with homorhythmic strings
DIF:
- Piano accentuates the beats the strings don’t play -> ominous atmosphere created
Vaughan Williams: OWE (/BH)
- Ravel: “Le Trombeau de Couperin”, 1915
- Debussy: “Voiles”, 1909
SIM:
1. First inversion chords
2. Parallelism -> BH!!
-> VW taught by Ravel, leading to his fusion of English folk and French Impressionism
eg. “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”, 1910
Vaughan Williams: ALL
- Butterworth: “When I was One-and-Twenty”, 1911
- Saint-Saens: “La Brise”, 1870
SIM:
- Tonal ambiguity
DIF:
- OWE: Written in Bb, feels Eb + moments of bitonality
- IMPT?: Dorian mode
-> 2. Saint-Saens: Dorian, but on E - BH: Mixolydian mode
-> 1. Butterworth: Dorian mode
Vaughan Williams: OWE
Bartok: “Romanian Folk Dances”, 1915
SIM:
- Folk inspired
DIF:
- Bartok used actual transcribed folk melodies
Vaughan Williams: IMTP?
Schubert: “Der Elrkönig”, 1815
vs.
Butterworth: IMTP?, 1911
(+ Standford: “Beati Quorum Via”, 1892)
SIM:
- Musically creates different characters/atmospheric juxtapositions:
Sch:
-> High register = Erlkönig - tempting, disconcerting
VW:
-> Soft, lower = dead
-> High, louder = living
+ highest pitches at the climax (eg. BH)
-> Standford: “Beati Quorum Via”
- SATB choir
Vaughan Williams: IMTP?
Vaughan Williams: “Whither Must I Wander?”, 1895
SIM:
- Disjunct intervals
DIF:
- IMTP: Fear of the man
- WWIW: Word painting on “de-parted”
Vaughan Williams: IMTP?
vs.
Butterworth: IMTP?, 1911
VW: Tenor + Piano Quintet
-> Soft, lower = dead
-> High, louder = living
vs.
B: Baritone + Piano
-> Higher, softer = dead -> sense of ghostly airiness
-> Lower, louder = alive
VW: Melody transposed up a 4th as it builds to climax
B: Melody kept the same throughout
Vaughan Williams: IMTP?/BH
Vaughan Williams: “The Lark Ascending”, 1914
SIM
- Rhythmic stillness/calm
DIF
TLA: Emphasise this beautiful emergence of the lark (solo violin)
IMTP: Sense of eeriness around the entry of the ghost
BH: Sense of despondency/melancholy
Vaughan Williams: ALL
Finzi: “Rollicum Rorum” from Earth and Air and Rain, 1936
English art song, song cycle
Vaughan Williams: BH
Debussy: “Submerged Cathedral”
SIM
- Conveying bells
DIF:
1.
VW: Parallel 4ths
D: Open 5ths
2.
VW: Pizz + arco for sense of ‘ringing’
D: Piano pedal
3.
VW: Stacked 4ths/5ths
D: Repeated ‘E’ in octaves
Bach: EFB 1
- Lotti: “Cruxifixus”, 1717
- Purcell: “Hear my prayer, O Lord”
- Bach: “Lobert den Herrn, alle Heiden”
SIM
- Layered vocal entries
DIF:
1. Not fugal - used to create repeated dissonance
2. Different sections finish off phrases
vs.
3. SIM: Fugal with a tonal answer
Bach: EFB 1
Handel: “Messiah” - “And the Glory of the Lord”
SIM:
- Strings double the voices
- Contrapuntal
- Sacred
Bach: EFB 1
Zelenka: “Laetatus sum”, 1726
SIM:
- Extended melismas (“Laetatus”)
- Layered entries, imitative texture
DIF:
- Soprano enters up a 4th, not a 5th
- Voices enter independently, then join in polyphony
- Duet for Soprano and Countertenor
Bach: EFB 1/2
Mozart: “Piano Concerto in C minor”, 1786
SIM:
Heterophony
DIF:
- Violin melody, piano ornamented above
- Classical, Piano + Orchestra
Bach: EFB 1/2
Vivaldi: “Gloria”, 1715
1.
SIM:
- Tonal answer in the altos
DIF:
- The answer starts a 5th down from the soprano line, on the first degree of the scale
2
SIM:
- Moto perpetuo strings
DIF:
- SATB + Orchestra
Bach: EFB 1
Albioni: “Adagio for Strings and Organ in G minor”
SIM:
- Similar bass line played by violone
DIF:
- Slower and pizz.
Bach: EFB 1
Bach: “Christ ist erstanden”, 1714
SIM:
- Chromaticism
DIF:
- Chromatically ascending passing notes -> a sense of rising: Christ is risen (vs. the tension of “der alte böse Feind)
- From his “Little Organ Book”
Bach: EFB 2
Finzi: “My Spirit Sang all Day”
SIM:
Rapid harmonic movement
DIF:
Often unexpected cadences, vs. V-I
Bach: EFB 2/8
- Bach: “Ich Hatte Viel Bekümmernis”, 1713
+ - Bach: “Jesu, meine Freude”, 1720s
SIM:
- Soprano and oboe create a heterophonic texture
-> Sometimes they double each other
- Cantata (2, not 8)
2.
SIM:
- 4-3 suspension
-> Tenor, over V-I (B-Em)
- SATB Chorale (8, not 2)
