The Art of Composing for String Quartet: A Guide for Beginners String quartet music has been a favorite of composers and music enthusiasts alike for centuries. The intimate yet complex sound of two violins, a viola, and a cello working in harmony creates a unique musical experience. But what does it take to compose for […]
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An analysis that looks at modality (modulation & interchange), pedal points and chord voicing in RVW’s The Lark Ascending.
Unpicking the serenity of Pärt’s Spiegel I’m Spiegel: Tintinnabuli technique is recapped along with the identification of other creative constraints.
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A nifty way in which Bach modulates, particularly from a minor to a major mode, is by simply pivoting around the tonic of the previous minor key. In the final movement “Badinerie”, of his Orchestral Suite No. 3, for instance, he will often give the tonic chord a cape, turning it into a super-tonic chord
https://youtu.be/2Rtlqm0nSU4 If someone were to ask me what my favourite film was, I think I would be hard-pressed to answer with something other than 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon. The reasoning is vast should reason be required for doing something like declaring a favourite film. However, in one sense, my choice boils down to how
In their 1976 composition, Für Alina, for solo piano, Arvo Pärt introduced the world to his algorithmic technique, tintinnabuli. At first glance, the technique’s use in Für Alina looks similar to a two-part first-species counterpoint exercise. On closer inspection, however, one can see the two voices move in similar or oblique motion. Using two types
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In posthumously arranging Bizet’s Farandole [L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2], Ernest Guiraud takes half of the primary theme, Le Marche de Rois, and exposes it twice in D-minor. First, the theme is heard in homophonic texture, then a two-part canon. Modulating to the parallel D-major, Guiraud introduces part of the farandole melody, gradually increasing its intensity in the
In his 1959 Twilight Zone score, for the episode “Walking Distance”, Bernard Herrmann underscores protagonist Martin Sloan’s return to his childhood hometown. Mind-bending, Sloan slowly realises he has also travelled back in time, to when he was a child. Pursuing his child self, and meeting his parents, who are a similar age to adult Sloan,
In his 1944 Ballet for Martha, also known as Appalachian Spring, Aaron Copland uses the melody of the shaker song “Simple Gifts”. In the orchestral concert suite arrangement, Copland sets the melody six times. For the first two settings he places the theme against a pedal tone that oscillates between the fifth and first degrees
George Friedrich Handel’s “Overture” to the Royal Fireworks Music boasts a majestic stately opening that presents a melody and homophonic texture. Repeating this melody immediately in a similar form, Handel provides a subtle but poignant reharmonisation of the melody. Where the first statement presents more triadic harmony, the second adds more extensions or tension notes