The harpsichord works by Rameau are not as extensive as the ones of Couperin. A total of some sixty pages over a period of some forty years.
Nevertheless, the corpus is enormous by its quality and brilliance and remains a summit of the French music history.
It includes three collection of pieces for the harpsichord published in 1706, 1724 and towards 1728; five pieces extracted from "Piéces de Clavecin" published in 1741 that Rameau, himself did arrange for the keyboard and one isolated piece "La Dauphine" composed in 1747, composed on the wedding of the "Dauphin", father of the future Louis XVI with Marie-Josephe de Saxe.
Therefore, the harpsichord pieces by Rameau are mostly from his young, specially when compared to his lyrical output
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A work of the young composer, then 23, which, nevertheless, shows many important and audacious innovations.
This suite is made of a Prélude; two Allemandes; a Courante; Gigue; two Sarabandes; a Venitienne; a Gavotte and a Menuet.
The prelude in made of two parts, first an un-measured introduction followed by a fast section in 12/8. This is the only un-measured (without barlines) type of ecriture of Rameau. It follows the tradition on the French un-barred prelude, as there are quite a few in Couperin's works, but unlike them, it is not written with whole notes only but displays a variety of rhythms. The harmonic progressions already reveal the great theoretician Rameau will soon be.
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Deuxieme Recueil de Pieces de Clavecin (1724)
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First published at Hochereau et Boivin in 1724 it has been reprinted in 1731 and 1736 with the title "Pieces de clavecin avec une table pour les agrémens" (keeping with Rameau's original spelling): Pieces for the Harpsichord with a table for the
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Furthermore, in the first edition of 1724 was included an educational article containing instructions on how the music was to be played. It was titled: De la méchanique des doigts sur le clavessin [sic]. This writing is, even today, very accurate and it should be studied by harpsichord
The book begins with a prologue, in which a letter is sent from a musician working for a cardinal in 1347. It is sent from the papal court of Avignon and is received by some of the musician's ...
As a boy Johannes worked and studied with his father and learnt lessons from books with his mother, with whom he would play ?four-hands? at the piano, ?just for fun.? There were never any doubts as to his becoming a musician. From early childhood he learn everything his father could teach him, read everything he could lay hands on, practiced with undeviating enthusiasm, and filled reams of paper with exercises and variations. The soul of the child went out in music. He played scales long before he knew the notes, and great was his joy when at the age of six he discovered the possibility of making a melody visible by placing black dots on lines at different intervals, inventing a system of notation of his own before he had been made acquainted with the method which the musical world had been using for some centuries.
The music of the Baroque period was focused on having music be a tool of communication to its listeners; conveying an arousal of emotions. Composers of this time thought to use this tool to have this effect or one similar to it to correctly match music from the Roman time period. One composer that goes by the name of Georg Phillip Telemann. He was a German composer born in 1681, he was known as one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque era, “At the age of just ten years old he was able to play four different instruments and had written arias, motets and instrumental works”(Norton Grove Concise Encyclopedia of Music, 756). As well as learning many skills at a young age, his fame grew immensely in Germany becoming a very famous composer and was even assigned four times as much space as the famous J.S. Bach in some contemporary dictionaries. Telemann composed in all varieties of forms and styles, from Italian-style concertos to French-style overture suites and quartets. The Sonata in F minor was one of his pieces that was played at the concert. The piece first given appearance in 1728 in a German musical periodical; though it was originally written for a bassoon and continuo the piece was altered by the performers to be played with a bass trombone and piano. One way that an individual could tell it is a piec...
Composed at the age of 6, Mozart’s Minuet in F Major (K.2) was one of his earliest works. Written for piano, this “dance” features a homophonic structure with an upper and lower voice. The right hand plays arpeggiations of each chord while the left hand plays the roots to support the melody.
1709, Cristofori had demonstrated harpsichords built with hammer mechanisms that were capable of producing piano and forte effects. A few of these instruments even made their way into Germany the following years. Bach however, did not come into physical contact with such instruments until around 1740-a considerable length of time after the earliest pianofortes were being made. Gottfried Silbermann made the instrument that Bach came into contact with, and he was enthusiastic to receive Bach’s acclaim. Bach’s response however, was of initial disappointment: “…he spoke enthusiastically of the instrument’s tone and possibilities, but criticized its heavy touch and
First of all, the text is well organized in terms of its unity. The piece has seven movements. According to Fuller, "The first and last movements adopt the text of an established mid-seventeenth-century chorale by Johann Rist. The middle movements have new text by an unknown poet who occasionally quotes or paraphrases middle stanzas of the chorale." Moreover, this unknown pot himself repeates some words in the text.
Taruskin, R., & Taruskin, R. (2010). Music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rousseau was often in trouble for fighting and stealing. As a result of living this way, he fled to Paris in 1741 seeking fame. He composed an opera called Les Muses galantes, which led to a correspondence with Voltaire, Denis Diderot, and other French philosophers, some of whom were engaged in producing the Encyclopedia. Rousseau contributed several pieces on music to this project. But, it was not unt...
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
The next work of the program, Courtly Airs and Dances, is a multi-movement work composed by Ron Nelson. The piece is split into six movements: Intrada, Basse Danse, Pavane, Saltarello, Sarabande, and Allemande. Each of these present distinct characteristics that separate it from each other movement, yet all are united by being a style of dance. The first movement, Intrada, presents a fanfare-like opening to the multi-movement work. The trumpets and brass section as a whole lead this, as they create a sense of nobility. The key is major and the tempo is one that could be described as allegretto—it is not a fast tempo, yet more brisk than an andante pace. The texture is homophonic, as there are different parts being performed by different
Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians. It was only natural for him to pick up an instrument and excel in it. His father taught him how to play the violin and harpsichord at a very young age. All of Bach’s uncles were professional musicians, one of them; Johann Christoph Bach introduced him to the organ. Bach hit a turning point in his life when both of his parents died at the age of ten years old. Bach’s older brother Johann Christoph Bach took him in and immediately expanded his knowledge in the world of music. He taught him how to play the clavichord and exposed him to great composers at the time. At the age of fourteen, Bach and his good friend George Erdmann were awarded a choral scholarship to the prestigious musical school St. Michael’s in Luneburg. From then on, Bach began to build his career in the music industry. His first two years at the school he sang in the school’s a cappella choir. Historical evidence has shown that Bach at a young age would visit Johanniskirche and would listen to the works of organ player Jasper Johannsen. This was thought to have been the inspiration to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Studying at the prestigious musical school has help Bach network his way around and become acquaintances’ with some of the best organ players at the time such as Georg Böhm, and Johann Adam Reincken. Through his acquaintance with Böhm and Reincken Bach had access to some of the greatest and finest instruments.
Roseman, Ronald. "Baroque Ornamentation." The Journal of the International Double Reed Society Number 3. 1975. IDRS. [17 October 2003] .
There are two pieces in our Renaissance Era musical feature this evening, the first by Pierre Phalèse called Passamezzo d'Italye - Reprise – Gaillarde. Phalèse began as a bookseller in 1545 and not long after he set up a publishing house. By 1575 he had around 189 music books. Much of his work was devoted to sacred music but there was a small amount of Flemish songs and instrumental works. Phalèse borrowed work from many composers and did not hesitate to include other composer’s music in his works. The sec...
Bie, Oscar. A History of the Pianoforte and Pianoforte Players. trans. by E. E. Kellett
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.