Genres and periods of music development. Учебно-методическое пособие для студентов музыкальных вузов

UNIT 7

Suite Pre-reading activities

I.Statethepartofspeechthefollowingwordsbelongtoand translate them: differently, usually, simultaneously, particularly, principally, primarily, frequently

II. State the function of Participle I, II and translate the word combinations:

1.  dances linked by the same key, 2.  a preceding dance, 3.  collection of pieces extracted from an opera, 4.  including Bizet, 5.  corresponding to the standardisation of the form, 6.  Couperin’s suites entitled “orders”.

III. Suffixes of nouns: -tion, -sion, -ment, -ance, -ence, -ness, - ity, -er(or). Form nouns with the help of the suffixes and translate them.

-tion translate, dictate, imagine, produce, modulate, collect, educate

-sion discuss, profess, possess, express, impress, obsess, compress

-ment treat, move, develop, manage, enlarge, enrich, state, pay, enjoy

-ness tender, happy, attractive, ready, lonely, friendly, loud, exact, strange

-ity special, versatile, original, effective, productive, virtuoso, collective

-er/or teach, work, play, lead, lecture, instruct, compose, conduct, collect

-ance/ence are typical of abstract nouns such as: importance,

significance, ignorance, convenience, difference, preference, correspondence, violence

IV. Note the synonyms:

Binary=double, ternary=triple, short=brief, customary=usual, to make up=to invent, simultaneous=synchronous, to entitle=to name, to draw from=to extract, to eclipse=to outshine, key=clef, tuneful=pleasant, to degenerate=to worsen

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V. Note the antonyms:

to add — to delete, to precede — to follow, high — low, slow — fast, harmonious — discordant, to start — to complete, major — minor, introduction — conclusion

Definition of the form

Suite is a multi-movement work (generally instrumental) made up of a series of contrasting dance movements, usually all in the same key.

Read and translate the text

ASuite is a succession of dance movements. The three criteria which give this arrangement the status of a musical form are: number, character, and relations among them. They differed over the centuries.

The suite is the oldest of all instrumental forms: its origin goes back to the Middle Ages, when it grouped certain dances in pairs. However, only in the 16th century this arrangement in twos took clear shape, where the first dance was usually moderate and of a binary rhythm and the second was fast and of a triple rhythm as, for example, in the case of the pavane-gaillarde pair. But, simultaneously with this principle, and particularly with the lutists, rival suites appeared which contained as many as five dances, often linked by the same key.

Only in the second half of the 17th century the suite form stabilized principally under the influence of German composers like Froberger, Kuhnau, Pachelbel and Buxtehude. The suite, from then on, had a structure of four movements: allemande, courante, sarabande and jig to which other dances or an intro or prelude could be added, or which could be doubled by ornamental variants of a preceding dance. Corresponding to the standardization of the form, a normalization of the structure also occurred; whereby each movement tended to respect a binary division, the first part of which progresses from the initial key to the dominant, while the second then returns, by various modulations, to the principal key.At the end of the 17th century Francois Couperin's suites belonged to the major works of this type.

In the 18th century Johann Sebastian Bach, once again, brought the form to its highest level with his 6 English Suites,

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6 French Suites, 6 German Suites or Partitas, all for the keyboards,

3 Sonatas and 3 Partitas for solo violin, 6 Suites for solo cello and 4 Suites or Overtures for orchestra. But we must also mention — contemporaries of Bach J. P. Rameau's Pieces de clavecin and G. F. Handel's Orchestral Suites. From the second half of the 18th century, the baroque form of the suite degenerated and was more or less replaced by the divertimento and the serenade. The suite was eclipsed by the classical sonata and symphony.

However, in the 19th century and beginning of the 20th the suite reappeared in various forms, and principally in the form of stylistic pastiches such as those by Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin) and Schönberg (Suite opus 25). More frequently perhaps, the suite also consisted of the collection of pieces extracted from an opera, a ballet or stage music in the works beginning from Tchaikovsky to Stravinsky including Bizet and Berg. The suite also sometimes­ took on the shape of a cycle of miniatures (Moussorgsky's Pictures at an exhibition).

Tasks to the text

I.General understanding.Answer the questions:

1.When did the suite appear?

2.How was it arranged originally?

3.How many dances could a suite contain?

4.Under whose influence did the suite form stabilize?

5.How many movements are there in its structure now?

6.What division did each movement tend to respect?

7.Who brought the form to its highest level?

8.What compositions in this genre do you know?

II.Semantic analysis

1.Read the text and highlight the semantic parts of the text.

2.Title each part.

3.Find the key words in each part.

4.Write down the plan of the text.

III.Speaking practice

1.Outline the text using the plan.

2.Support your oral report by a presentation in Power Point.

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UNIT 8

Toccata Pre-reading activities

I. State the part of speech to which the following words belong to and translate them: generally, mainly, completely, clearly, rapidly, occasionally, rhythmically

II. State the function of Participle I and II in the following examples and translate them:

a)1.  the intention of emphasizing, 2.  the fingering of the interpreter, 3.  accentuate the appeal of the form by alternating fugatos;

b)1.  pieces composed to emphasize, 2.  a toccata played by trumpets, 3.  toccatas intended for harpsichord, 4.  works labeled as toccatas, 5.  a toccata form inserted in or preceding

produce, view, organize

IV. Note the synonyms:

Rapid=quick=fast, occasional=rare, to finish=to complete, to start=to begin, to continue=to go on, explicit=clear, precise=exact, to establish=to set up, to label=to categorize, to intend=to design, confusion=mess, appeal=attractiveness

V. Note the antonyms:

Explicit — implicit, occasional — frequent, rapid — slow, to insert — to extract

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VI.Analyse the structure of the following words:

Disuse, incontestable, reappeared, beginning, unforgettable, invaluable,misunderstanding,enrichment,considerable,discourage, rewrite, irregularities, undeniably, inseparable.

Read and translate the text

In its generally accepted sense, the word “toccata”(from the Italian toccare ‘to touch’) defines a musical form without a precise structure. Toccatas are pieces for keyboard instruments or an organ composed to emphasize the fingering of an interpreter.

The origins of this form are little known; it is possible that there is a link, as suggested mainly by the arpeggiato chords, between the toccata for harpsichord, organ and piano and the primitive toccata from the MiddleAges played by trumpets during the hunt and in war time, which also turns up, in an evolved form, in the works of the early 17th century, such as Monteverdi’s Orfeo which begins with a toccata con tutti li stromenti. From the 16th century, the era of the oldest known specimens of the keyboard toccata (pieces byAndrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Glaudio Merulo, and others), the harp­sichord and the organ almost completely monopolized the form in question. In the 17th century, under the influence of Girolamo Frescobaldi the toccata took the form of a musical piece in which homophonic sections and fugal passages are linked together. Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707) who was an incontestable master, before Bach, of the great toccata form, inserted in or preceding a fugue.

A clearly marked distinction between organ toccatas and harpsichord toccatas was established at the beginning of the 18th century. Before there was a certain confusion between authentic toccatas and works labelled as such but whose characteristics are more those of a sonata (“toccatas” by Leonardo Leo, Domenico Scarlatti, and others). J. S. Bach, the author of seven toccatas intended for harpsichord and four others for organ such as the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565, accentuate the epic appeal of this form by alternating recitative fugatos and nonarpeggiato chords. After Bach, the toccata fell rapidly into disuse. It reappeared occasionally in the 19th and 20th centuries, treated

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as pieces of great virtuosity for the piano by Muzio Clementi, Karl Czerny, Schumann (Toccata opus 7), pastiched (Max Reger, Prokofiev), arranged rhyth­mically like motu perpetuo (Debussy’s

Pour le piano, Ravel’s piano version of Le Tombeau de Couperin), oradaptedtotheclassicalstylewhichinspiredincertaincomposers the more or less explicit attempts at a “return” to Bach (Eugene Gigout’s organ toccatas).

Tasks to the text

I.General understanding.Answer the questions:

1.Has the toccata a precise structure in the generally accepted sense?

2.Was the toccata an instrumental piece for keyboard or wind instruments?

3.What was the intension of the toccata?

4.When was the toccata played by trumpets?

5.What form did the toccata take under the influence of Girolamo Frescobaldi in the 17th century?

6.After whom did the toccata fall rapidly in disuse?

7.How were toccatas treated in the 19th, 20th centuries?

II.Semantic analysis

1.Read the text and highlight the semantic parts of the text.

2.Title each part.

3.Find the key words in each part.

4.Write down the plan of the text.

III.Speaking practice

1.Outline the text using the plan.

2.Support your oral report by a presentation in Power Point.

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UNIT 9

Fugue Pre-reading activities

I. Say what part of speech the following words belong to and translate them: firstly, technically, exactly, slowly, quickly, finally,freely,gradually,principally,alternately,generally,explicitly, virtually, usually, constantly, mostly, primarily

II. State the function of Participle I, II and translate the word combinations:

1.  musical forms connected with polyphony; 2.  the subject played by the first voice; 3.  the antecedent read backwards; 4.  pieces defined by similarity of voices; 5.  vocal compositions constructed on sequences of imitative expositions; 6.  expositions built on many different subjects; 7.  contrapuntal development based on a theme; 8.  the form characterized by a greater thematic concentration;9.  amelodicmodificationcalledamutation;10.  the fugue style based on imitation; 11.  a fugue constructed outside the traditional tonal range.

III. Word structure. Form adjectives using the following negative prefixes:

IV. State the function of Participle I and translate the word combinations:

1.  obeying strict principals of imitation; 2.  entering in turn; 3.  becoming widespread throughout the 17th century in Spain; 4.  consisting of the successive introduction of the subject and its answers.

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Read and translate the text

From the Latin fuga (flight), the fugue is the most rigorous of all musical forms connected with polyphony. The behaviour of the different voices makes use of all the resources of contrapuntal skill. Firstly, a fugue results “exclusively from the combination of melodic lines, all of equal importance, without any note being able to form part of a chord without having first been justified melodically” (Jacques Chailley). Obeying strict principles of imitation, each of the voices which have successive entries — is thus derived from a base theme which dominates, called the subject (in Latin dux: leader).

Fugues always begin with the subject played by the first voice then, entering in turn, the second voice gives the answer (in Latin comes: accompanist). The first voice — that which proposed the subject — is modified by this answer; we now hear in it a countersubject whose function is to accompany the answer. In short, a fugue combines with its subject its own transformations which are created by taking bits from all of the resources of contrapuntal imitation. More technically, while the answer (or consequent) does not exactly reproduce the subject (or antecedent), it creates what we call irregular imitation; and these irregularities can be produced by the augmentation, or reduction of the rhythmic values of all the notes of the subject (which can thus be played twice as slowly or twice as quickly); by inverse movement, or inversion (the consequent is derived from the antecedent as if a mirror had been placed under it); by backward movement (here the consequent is the antecedent read backwards); or finally by a combination of these various processes. Thenumberofvoices—whoseentriesaresuccessive—mustremain constant throughout a given fugue.As a result of these principles no other musical form contains such a clear equivalence of voices or such a controlled stylistic unity.

Even though some of these principles were to be found in the motets of polyphonic songs of the 13th and 14th centuries, the term fuga was not used until the 15th century, to designate either simple canons (polyphonic pieces defined by the similarity of voices replicating themselves after a certain time interval) or

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vocal compositions, such as those by Ockeghem, constructed “on sequences of imitative expositions built on many different subjects” (A. Mellnäs).

Nonetheless, the fugue does not derive as much from these forms as from the ricercare (research), an instrumental form which emerged in 16th-century Italy and issues from the polyphonic motet, but which can be better distinguished in terms of the notion of contrapuntal development based on a freely devised theme. Becoming widespread throughout the 17th century in Spain, France and England and with the organists in the North of Germany, the ricercare was gradually modified. A new type of unity was also conferred on this form, characterized principally by a greater thematic concentration (multiple themes tended to give way to a single subject) and the successive entry of the voices. Composers who contributed to this evolution towards the stricter sense of the fugue include Frescobaldi, Sweelinck, Froberger, Pachelbel and Buxtehude.

But the fugue culminated, undeniably, in the 18th century with J. S. Bach (1685–1750), in the diversity and the complexity of solutions he brought to the form and in the level of development to whichhetookit.Ononehand,thisresultedfromthereliabilityofthe tonal system, for the fugue is best able to integrate tonality into its structure by exploiting the different possible relation­ships between keys. (For tonality demands that, if the subject modulates from the tonic key to the dominant, the response must go from the dominant to the tonic. This rule means that the intervals which separate the first and last notes of a subject and its response cannot be, in this case, identical, as they are alternately a fifth and a fourth — C-G, then G-C for example; due to this fact, the tonal fugue response generally brings to its subject a light melodic modification, called a mutation.)

The importance of the fugue for Bach goes far beyond the works in which he explicitly referred to it, for the fugue style, based on imitation, is virtually basic to his writing. Furthermore, Bach's mastery in this domain is so great that the definitions given of fugue are usually inseparable from his production.

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According to this model, the fugue — or rather the “academic fugue” as it is usually called — must respect an arrangement in four parts:exposition,development,recapitulationandcoda(thislastpart optional). Consisting of the successive introduction of the subject and its answers, the exposition allows for the gradual expansion of the composition to all the voices of the fugue. The development is made up of a series of sections of actual development, which are interspersed with divertimenti, also called episodes. As a general rule, the development sections have their own particular tone, while the divertimenti act as modulations (transitions). The last part of the development is called the stretta; it is an exposition in which the vocal entries are so close together that the subject and its answers constantly overlap; an example of predilection for contrapuntal virtuosity, the stretta corresponds to the point of greatest tension in a fugue. The recapitulation, which presents the subject in the principal key for the last time, advances either towards the conclusion or towards a coda.

After Bach the fugue, was confined to Church music. It is mostly in the form of fugatos (fugal fragments) that the fugue is found in many classical and romantic works. While we find in Mozart very accomplished integrations of fugues, it was Beethoven, primarily, who revived the fugue within the framework of the classical style. Among the romantics, Liszt and Brahms, as well as Franck, used the form and increased the possibilities of modulation.

In the 20th century, the first movement of Bela Bartok's

Music for strings, percussion and celesta (1936) is one of the rare instances of a fugue constructed outside the traditional tonal range (oscillating between very distant keys). And Anton Webern, in the third movement of his Quartet opus 28 (1938), even created a fugue which obeyed the organizational principles of serial music.

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