Density 21.5
Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 for unaccompanied flute was composed in 1936 (revised in 1944) at the request of George Barrère for the première of his new platinum flute.Inspired by the flute’s capabilities, Varèse sought to showcase the platinum instrument’s full range of sound and explore its timbral capacity. Density is a monophonic work that is characterized by extreme dynamics, angular motives, timbral variety, and complex rhythms. During the span of sixty-one measures, Varèse exploits the flute’s full range of sound and color and almost every pitch on the instrument is realized.
The form of Density is partitioned into three sections: A measures 1 - 23, B measures 18 - 40, A1 measures 41 - end. The first A section can be broken into two parts: Aa mm1-14 and Ab mm.15-23. The B section may be broken into two smaller parts, the first Ba from measures 24-29 and the second Bb from measures 32-36 with the omitted portions (mm. 29-32 and mm. 36-40) functioning as transitional material. The unmistakable return of A occurs in measure 41.
Jonathan Bernard, in “Pitch/Register in the Music of Edgard Varèse,” notes the composer’s fascination with crystals and their influence on his compositional method. Bernard aptly states, Varèse “emphasizes growth through orderly expansion of a bare minimum of an idea that is cell-like in nature.” In Density, Varèse explores the possibilities of a three-note semitone motive through repetition, expansion, and elaboration. During an interview Varèse, the composer explained a “crystallization” analogy and its relationship to his compositions:
Musical form, considered as the result of a process, suggests an analogy with the phenomenon of crystallisation. The clearest answer I can give...
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The organum, which thrived at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, was one of the earliest types of polyphony. It was very much similar to a trope, as it added vertical notes onto an existing melody or plainchant. There is quite the development of the organum between the 10th and 12th centuries. French composers, Leoninus, and Perotinus, were leading contributors to the evolution of the organum advancing the terms “free organum”, and “discant organum”. Through examining the works throughout Musica enchiriadis of the 10th century, and the compositions of Leoninus and Perotinusis in the 12th century, it is made clear that the the organum endured influential alterations both melodically and rhythmically.
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In the following paper I will be exploring the beginning of Leonard Bernstein's career and his family background. I will also look into the influences he had in his life and look at two pieces that he composed, "Jeremiah Symphony No. 1", and "Candide". My reasons for choosing these two pieces is due to the fact that they are contrasting in genre, one being a symphony with orchestration and the other being an operetta, and that they were written at different stages in Bernstein's life. They both produced a number of responses and displayed his wide range of musical ability.
There is a growing body of work in the philosophy of music and musical aesthetics that has considered the various ways that music can be meaningful: music as representational (that is, musical depictions of persons, places, processes, or events); musical as quasi-linguistic reference (as when a musical figure underscores the presence of a character in a film or opera), and most especially, music as emotionally expressive. Here I will focus on the last topic, for I believe it will be useful for researchers in music perception and cognition to avail themselves of the distinctions that aestheticians have worked out regarding the musical expression of emotion.
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Here, Beethoven takes melodic expression to a new level: The appoggiatura in bars, 14 and 16 create a harmonic tension over a diminished 7th chord that creates “the highly expressive progression used by nineteenth-...
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