Silly Symphonies

My son and I attended a percussion ensemble and steel band by Thad Anderson and Kirk Gay at UCF. To my surprised we enjoyed it very much. As noted in the first chapters of this course is the proper times to applaud and times to get up without interrupting the performance. All was brilliant music and beautiful harmony. My favorite piece was Reich: Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organs. This is a composition by Steve Reich in 1973. I believe this piece is a polyphonic texture. The…

Luigi Boccherini. Born 1743 in Lucca, Italy, and died 1805 in Madrid, Spain. He lived for 62 years. His body was buried in Pontifical Basilica of St. Michael in Madrid, until 1927 when Mussolini had him dug up and moved his body to the church of St. Francesco in his native place, Lucca, Italy. Luigi’s bloodline still goes on to live in Spain this day. Boccherini’s father sent him at a young age to study in Rome(1757). He later went on to Madrid, and worked for the younger brother of Charles…

The streaks of bright light outlined all of the grinning faces of the Vernon Hills High School Symphony Orchestra. The immense collaboration of endless hours of rehearing Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 for the Midwest audition piece to burning through Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini at Midwest. I can say that orchestra is part of who I am. Without orchestra, I would not have been able to encounter some of the amazing musicians that I have come to known. The fine arts is more than just a hobby or an…

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the most effective position and mass of a wolf tone eliminator for effectively suppressing the wolf so that it was undetectable to the human ear and, hopefully, completely suppressed. All correctly-proportioned and good quality violoncellos create an unusual phenomenon called a wolf tone when a certain pitch on the instrument is played, and the pitch at which the wolf occurs differs between instruments. On a well-crafted violoncello, this tone…

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a 20th century French composer who was regarded as France’s greatest living composter in the 1920’s and 30’s. He completed 85 works, although many were unfinished or abandoned. His works included pieces such as Daphnis et Chloe, Rapsodie espagnole and Bolero, his most famous composition, which was a one movement orchestral piece. He wrote pieces for piano, chamber music, two piano concerti, ballet music, opera and song cycles. His style of music was impressionism. He…

in both scenes and passages. The Austrian composer put his genius and emotion in each symphony,…

was written by Giacomo Puccini, an Italian composer who lived during the Post-Romanic Period, and is well known for his opera compositions. The libretto was written by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. The orchestra that performed was the National Symphony Orchestra. The woodwind section of the orchestra was made up of flutes, the piccolo, oboes, the English horn, clarinets, bass clarinets and the bassoon. The brass section was made up of the French horn, trumpets, and trombones. The percussion…

For my first concert I saw a recital performed by Hilary Hahn a violinist. She was accompanied by Robert Levin, a pianist. The two musicians played five compositions by famous composers such as; Bach, Antón Garcia Abril, Mozart, Hans Peter Türk, and Schubert. For this being my first concert review, I was astounded by the recital’s perfection and beauty. I knew going into this concert that it would be amazing, but it was much more than I could of hoped for. I will be reviewing my favorite pieces;…

Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time is scored for piano, clarinet, violin, and cello. It was premiered in a WWII POW camp where Messiaen was held. Messiaen had begun sketches of the piece before being captured, and he finished the piece in the POW camp for musicians that were present. The quartet was premiered in the camp for the prisoners. The piece is in eight movements, and Messiaen wrote an introduction describing the movements. His signature birdsong is featured prominently, as well as…

Richard Rodgers was very involved in music since an early age, he actually started playing piano at age six. He had already written two popular songs before going to University, but his success was heightened after then. He wrote music for two amateur shows before he started working with Lorenz Hart in 1919, but they also wrote many shows. Rodgers and Hart won acclaim for a review in 1925. They wrote nine stage shows between 1935 and 1942, the most famous of these being Jumbo (1935) and On Your…