TEST ON FRIDAY

We will have a brief listening test on Friday. You should be able to identify 70 percent of the pieces we have listened to.

The Concerto (for class Friday Nov 16)

A concerto (plural: concerti or conceros) generally refers to a piece where a solo instrument is featured as the main voice and the orchestra is playing off of it. This was largely a development of the Baroque era and has been major form for composers ever since.

Concertare can have two opposite, or complementary, meanings in Italian: it can mean “to contend or dispute” as well as “to agree”.

In Baroque music the concerto began as a small orchestra playing in the foreground of a larger one. This was called a Concerto Grossi. Over time some composers began giving a solo instrument extended passages to play. Soon, the solo instrument was foregrounded alone, and the concerto was born.

Antonin Vivaldi did more than anyone to create the standard form of the concerto. The ritornello is wehen solo passages alternate with passsages of the orchestra playing all at once (known as tutti). His “Four Seasons” is likely the most famous of all the concertos. He is also most responsible for the 3 part structure, the first part being fast, the second slow, the third fast.

Bach inherited a fully developed polyphonic concerto form. Typically he exploited it fully, to the limits of both the players of the time and the instruments themselves. Many of these pieces are among his most famous, for instance, The Brandenburg Concertos.

Be sure to pay attention to the different combinations of instruments in each of these concertos:

Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord and strings in A minor, BWV 1044

Concerto for harpsichord and strings in D minor, BWV 1052

Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor, BWV 1043

Bach Test Preview

The exam will require you to listen to a piece of music,
identify it, and use some of the following terms in a description of it.
I will post a sample response later on. The exam will be on 11/23.
A more extensive list of terms will be posted soon.

french overture

¾ time

dissonance

canon

fugue

concerto

cantata

toccata

aria

The following pieces will be on the exam:

Brandenburg Concerto #1 F minor
The Goldberg Variations
Suite for Cello #3 C minor
Cantata 106
Orchestral Suite #1

There will be others as well...

The Rest of the Term

The rest of the term will be mostly devoted to listening to pairs of musical works. This will allow us to hear the great variety of Bach's music, identify different musical structures, and learn to listen more deeply.

Wed Nov 7: Orchestral Suite #1 BWV 1066 and Cantata 106
Mon Nov 12: The Art of Fugue
Wed Nov 14: (pete out) Lute Suite in E minor; Viola da Gamba Sonata G minor
Fri Nov 16: (pete out) 3 concerti: for 2 violins D minor;
for flute harpsichord, strings et al; for harpsichord and strings
Mon Nov 19: review of previous pieces
Mon Nov 26: Violin Partitas, Solo cello, and Violin Concerti
Wed Nov 28: The Goldberg Variations
Fri Nov 30: The Goldberg Variations