Vltava Die Moldau By Bedruich Smetan Song Analysis

When looking at musical piece from a deeper perspective than just how it sounds, it is easy to observe that the piece is telling a story most of the time. Other times, it is much more difficult to analyze the piece from a storytelling perspective. For example, the messages of songs without lyrics are understandably harder to interpret. Looking at music from that perspective shows how music can be identified as a narrative. A theory developed by Walter Fisher called narrative paradigm explains that all communication is a form of storytelling. In each story, there is a beginning, middle and end, conflicts, and eventually resolution. The fidelity and coherence of each story is what keeps it credible. All musical pieces, despite age or lack of …show more content…
These songs use other methods such as changing keys, tempo, dynamics, and recurring themes. An example of a song using different techniques to portray a story is Vltava – Die Moldau, by Bedřich Smetana. This piece is about a river in the Czech Republic. The piece takes the listener through the course of the river. It starts out very quiet where the river is just starting to flow. This is also where you hear the main melody of the song which I will come back to. Since the song starts out very quiet the listener sees it as the river is small and not flowing very powerfully yet. The piece then takes you through land where there is a wedding is taking place. The music changes its key and time signature to sound like dancing music. The main melody is heard yet again during this section. After the river flows by the wedding, it comes to moonlit forest where there are mermaids. The music gets quieter again and the key is changed, along with the time signature. After this section, the music becomes louder and the main melody comes back. Suddenly, the music changes from major to minor and gets very loud. This is supposed to show the river going through the rapids and the wild ride it has in store. Just when the listener thinks there is no hope for the river, the main melody comes back louder than before. The key changes back to major, and the volume stays loud until …show more content…
The beginning of the piece is clearly the start of the flowing river. The river is being created and formed by other rivers. The middle of the song includes many storytelling elements. There is a wedding which is portrayed by the dancing music, and there is a forest scene where the mermaids are out dancing in the moonlight. These two scenes show what kind of journey the river is taking. It also shows that the river is an important part of the culture of the Czech Republic because of the wedding taking place along the river. The end of the piece takes the listener through the rapids and chaos ensues. Then, in the final moments of the song, the river makes it through the rapids and out into Prague, where it then vanishes soon after. This shows a clear conflict and resolution in the story. The conflict would be the ride through the rapids, and the resolution would be the river making it through the rapids in the end. The coherence of this story is also very clear. The structure makes complete sense, with a clear beginning, middle and end. The fact that the story is geographically correct gives the story fidelity. What also adds to the fidelity of this song is the fact that the composer was using traditional dancing music for the wedding scene. Overall, this piece, although it does not have lyrics or a voice, tells a story through other elements and follows the model of narrative