Monody

J.S. Bach Johann Sebastian Bach was born on the twenty-first of March in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. Bach’s music is regarded as one of the finest in history and he is also credited of being a major musical influence during the Baroque period. Born into a musical family, Bach was introduced to music early on his life and became widely versed in many genres. With continuous musical training, Bach learned the organ and violin. He went on to shape the Baroque period with his unique structural and…

Life, Living, Death and Dying Is life a glad and cheerful gift that should be lived to the fullest, or is life just a dark and worsening pit of despair in which pain torments those who live it? Edgar Allen Poe wrote the poem “The Bells” to signify the grimness of the progression of life until death. William Cullen Bryant wrote the poem “Thanatopsis” to express the gift that is life and how it should be lived to it’s fullest. “My Life Closed Twice Before its Close” is a poem written by Emily…

I feel as though this part is more about the burial of the main character rather than the actual death itself. “What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!” (Stanza 4, line 3) This line gives me the image of a cemetery where those who are alive are mourning the dead who lie silent. The people in the steeple watch, parted from their recently deceased loved one, “And the people- ah, the people-/They…

Baroque music, which started around the 1600s, was the start of great growth in the composition timeline. In this period, composers like Bach and Purcell dominate and bring forth new forms like ritornello and fugue. Romantic music, starting in the 1800s, goes into a thematic transformation. Composers like Chopin and Schubert are popular during this time, and new forms such as cyclic and strophic arise. The Baroque music period focused mainly on the idea of tonality. Composers began to use new…

The Baroque Era stretched across a century and a half of European history. It took place between the years of 1600 and 1750. Baroque is derived from the term “barroco,” which means irregular shaped pearl. This term is used to describe this period because it was a time of turbulent changes in politics, science, and the arts. Milestones in intellectual history were reached as Galileo, Copernicus, Descartes, and Spinoza expanded the ideas in physics, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. William…

Music is all around the world and people listen to music everyday. Music came from Ancient Greek and music was seen as a gift from God. Music began around 500 B.C. and it lasted for 1000-year period. It was the longest period of music and it was different because there was no centralized government. The Roman Catholic Church had financial gains. The monarchy, kingdoms, and the Roman Catholic Church had power. The main form of music during the Middle Ages was the Gregorian chant named after Pope…

In “Mourning and Melancholia,” Sigmund Freud suggests that when an object of love is lost, the ego recreates an image of the loved one inside the self. This image, or “shadow,” is not fully integrated into the personality, thereby enabling the ego to split off. In this “ego splitting,” a part of the ego sits in judgment on the rest of the ego, criticizing it, attacking it. Suicide is the ultimate expression of this dynamic; because one cannot kill this person, one “kills” them by destroying the…

This paper will describe and critique a listening reaction to Hildegard Von Bingen’s “O Successores” and describe the use of timbre, pitch, melody, and rhythm to name a few examples. In addition, the introduction will discuss the work of the creator, the historic era, and give a general description of the background of this Gregorian chant. Furthermore, the aesthetic value of the work will be evaluated and questions will be answered to what was attractive, meaningful, and inspiring and what my…

The Baroque era was an important time in the construction of early music. Between the years of 1600 and 1750, musical composers were concerned with the effect that music could have on the interpretation of language, this lead into the creation of opera. Before the Baroque era, music was mainly produced with only an instrumental sound. This was the time when fresh categories of music were being introduced and the critiquing of existing techniques occurred (Forney 102). This time period brought…

In order to investigate the role of pity in causing Prometheus’s punishment, we must investigate the role of pity in his crime. The crime itself appears first early in the drama as Kratos explains it to Hephaistos in the opening speech: Your flower, the light of art-giving fire, He stole and gave to mortals. For such sins He must pay the penalty to the gods, So that he might be taught to bear the tyranny of Zeus, And to cease his man-loving way. (7-11) Here, Kratos marks the theft of fire from…