Restez

Welcome to my music blog. Restez is a musical term and means to remain in the same position for the duration of a passage. If you are a real music nerd, you will find my posts very interesting. If you have and comments or questions, please share! If you are a keen music student and need help with any musical terminology ask ask ask! Get inspired!! Enjoy!

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Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755-1824)

The Italian classical composer and violinist, Giovanni Battista Viotti, was born May 12th 1755 in Fontanetto da Po and died on March 3rd 1824 in London. He studied with Pugnani from 1770 and after som years in the royal chapel orchestra at Turin travelled to Paris, where he made  a highly successful solo debut in 1782. He soon retired from the concerto hall, however, to take up various operatic administrative posts and to compose numerous violin concertos and other works. In 1792 he moved to London where, apart from brief spells in Germany and France, he stayed for the rest of his life. Although his concert career briefly about the turn of the century. He remained, however, one of the most influential technicians of his generation. 

Adding a link to one of his “famous” violin concertos, No. 24 in B minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT_0xkdpPNQ

A piece I’m currently working on myself! Love it! A bit of a contrast to what I have been working on before. Like Mozart and Sarasate. However, you can clearly hear, if you compare Mozart to Viotti, how Mozart was influenced by Italian music and techniques. Not so important today. Lets move away from the music we are used to listen and study and rather cherish Giovanni B. Viotti for his violin compositions. 

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The VIIth Degree

There is nothing in the world that pleases me more as a “music theory nerd” than a book with a good and reasonable message. Introducing to you, Arnold Schoenberg’s ‘Theory of Harmony’, is what I would call the Holy Bible for us musicians. The book contains everything you need to know about theory. But its the great philosophy of Schoenberg which amazes me the most. Just the way he has written the book will give you “the chills”! But I’m the person to force my opinions on people :) so you gotta read it and makeup your own opinions. Here is a small excerpt from the book. Maybe I’ll posed more from it later:

The passing tone is nothing else but a ‘Manier’ as it was fixed in the notation. As the notation always lags behind the sound (not only in melody, perhaps even much moron rhythm, where, with the compulsion of the bar line, the written symbols are often hardly even approximately correct), so the notation of these ornaments is often course also imperfect if judged by the sounds (composers surely) imagined. It can be understood, however, as one of the simplifications the human intellect must create if it is to deal with the material. The supposition prevails here, too, then the system that simplified the object was stake to be the system inherent in that object itself and we can safely assume that our traditional treatment of dissonance, although originally based on a correct intuition, nevertheless proceeded more to develop the system of simplification than really to reach an understanding of the nature of dissonance. Perhaps I fall into the same error if I retain here this same manner of handling dissonance; but I can cite two considerations in my favor: first, I gave the instructions necessary for complying with the system, but not (as I have often emphasized) as rules, nor as aesthetics; and the second consideration is that our present-day ear has been educated not only by the conditions of nature imposed on it, but also by those produced by the system, which has become a second nature. At present we can hardly , or just gradually escape the effects of this artificial, cultural product; and reflection on nature may have value for the theory of knowledge without being thereby necessarily capable of bearing immediate artistic fruits. It is certain that this path, too, will be taken again sooner or later, the path that leads to new secrets of nature. It is certain that the old system has to be got out of the way. The line of thought I have presented here can perhaps see as a means to that end. 

Arnold Schoenberg’s “Theory of Harmony”. Chapter IV, page 48.

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Hi! I was wondering if you'd like to go on a date! With regards from a music interested man, who's just moved to Norway!

Hehe really sweet of you. But I don't know who you are 😋

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when the conductor is frantically pointing at you during a piece and you’re there like

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LITERALLY ME AS HELL

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CLARINETS THAT WAS AWESOME; trumpets what the hell

my band director (via clarinetfool)

*all band directors

(via the-sassy-composer)

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Set the metronome to Fuck Yeah!

[r0llcake]

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Theme and Variations - Classical period (1750-1820)

The form called theme and variations was widely used in the classical period either as an independent piece or as one movement of a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. In a theme and variations, a basic music idea - the theme - is repeated over and over and is changed each time. This form may be outlined as theme (A) - variation 1 (A') - variation 2 (A'') - variation 3 (A'''), and so in; each prime mark indicates a variation of the basic idea. 

Each variation, through usually about the same length as the theme, is unique and may differ in mood from the theme. Changes of melody, rhythm, harmony, accompaniment, dynamics, or tone color may be used to give a variation its own identity. The core melody may be heard together with a new melody. The variations may appear in the bass, or it may be repeated in a minor key instead connected to each other or separated by pauses. For the theme itself, a composer may invent and original melody or borrow someone else's.  Beethoven once borrowed a little waltz tune and put it through thirty-three brilliant variations. 

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The Oratorio

Together with the opera and cantata, the oratorio stands as a major development in the barque vocal music. Like an opera, an oratorio is a large-scale composition for chorus vocal soloists, and orchestra; it is usually set to a narrative text. Oratorio differs from opera in that i.e. has no acting, scenery or costumes. Most Oratorios are based on biblical stories, but usually they are not intended for religious services. Today they are performed in either concert halls or churches.

An oratorio contains a succession of choruses, arias, duets, recitives, and orchestral interludes. The chorus is especially important and serves either to comment on or to participate in the drama. A narrator's recitative usually relate the story and connect one piece with another. Oratorios (which sometimes last over 2 hours) are longer then cantatas and have more of a story line.

Oratorios first appeared in  early seventeenth-centry Italy as musical dramatizations of biblical so tires and were performed in prayer halls called oratorios. During  the baroque period, the oratorio spread to other countries and assumed many forms. Messiah, by George Frederic Handel, has for decades been the best-known and most-loved oratorio.

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Because yesterday's post was about lute music and accompaniment; why not vocal?

During the Renaissance, secular vocal music became increasingly popular. Throughout Europe, music was set to poems in various languages, including Italian, Frence, Spanish, German, Dutch and English.

The development of music printing helped spreading secular music , and thousand s of song collections became available. Music was an important leisure activity; every educated person was expected to play a instrument and read notations. The Elizabethan composer Thomas Morley described the embarrassment of being unable to participate in after-dinner music making: "But supper being ended, and Musicke books (according to the custom) being brought to the tables, the mistresse of the house presented me with a part, earnestly requesting me to sing. But then, after many excuses, I protested unfeignedly that I could not: every one began to wonder. Yea, some whispered to other, demanding how I was brought up."

Renaissance secualr music was written for groups of solos and for solo voice with the accompaniment of one or more instruments. Word painting - musical illustration of a text - was common. Composers delighted in imitating nature sounds such as birdcalls and street cries. In a famous piece entitled La Guerre, the Frenchman Clément Janequin (1485-1560) vividly imitated battle noises, drumbeats, and fanfares. Secular music contains more rapid shorts of mood than sacred music. As Morely advised one composer, " You must in your music be wavering like the wind in the music, sometimes wanton, sometimes drooping, sometimes grave and staid; ... and the more variety you show the better shall you please."

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A simple type of secular music than the madrigal is the song for solo voice and lute. The lute, which drives from the Arab instrument ūd, is a plucked string instrument with a body shaped like half a pear. The lute's versatility - like that of the guitar today - made it the most popular instrument in the Renaissance home. It could be used for solos or for accompaniments; to play chords, melodies, and rapid scales; and even in polyphonic music.

In England the lute song was widely cultivated from the late 1590s to the 1620s. In contrast to much Renaissance music, lute songs are mostly homophonic in texture. The lute accompaniment is secondary to the vocal melody. During the Renaissance, singers could accompany themselves, or have the lute accompaniment played by another musician.

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The Baroque Style (1600-1750)

Through the word baroque has at various times meant bizarre, flamboyant, and elaborately ornamented, modern historians use it simply to indicate a particular style in the arts. An oversimplified but useful characterization of baroque style is that it fills the space - canvas, stone, or sound - with action and movement. Painters, sculptors, and architects became interested in forming a total illusion, like the stage setting. Artists such as Caravaggio, Gentileschi, Berini, Rubens, and Rembrandt exploited their materials to expand the dramatic potential of colors, depth, and contrast of light and dark; they wanted to create total structured worlds.

Such a style was vert well suited to the wishes of the aristocracy, who also thought in terms of completely integrated structures. In France for example ,Louis XIV held court in the palace of Versailles, a magnificent setting that fused baroque paintings, sculpture, architecture, and garden design into a symbol of royal wealth and power.

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School of Notre Dame: Measured Rhythm

After 1150, Paris - the intellectual and artistic capture of Europe - became the center of polyphonic music. The University of Paris attracted leading scholars, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame (begun in 1163) was the supreme monument of Gothic architecture. Two successive choirmasters of Notre Dame, Leonin and Perotin, are among the first notable composers known by name. They and their followers are referred to the school of Notre Dame. 

From about 1170 to 1200, the Notre Dame composers developed rhythmic innovations. Earlier polyphonic music was probably performed in free, unmeasured rhythms of Gregorian Chants. But the music of Leonin and Perotin used measured rhythms, with definite time values and clearly defined metro. For the first time in music history, notation indicated precise rhythms as well as pictures. At first the new notation was limited to only certain rhythmic patterns, and the beat had to be subdivided into threes, the symbol of Trinity. Despite these limitations, much fine polyphonic music was composed during the late twelfth century and the thirteenth century. 

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Gregorian chant conveys a calm, otherworldly quality; it represents the voice of the church, rather than any single individual. Its rhythm is felxible, without metre, and has little sense of beat. The exact rhythm of chants melodies is uncertain because precise time value were not notated. But the free-flowing rhythm gives Gregorian chants a floating, almost improvisational character. the melodies tend to move by step within a narrow range of pitches. Depending on the nature and importance of the text, they are simple or elaborate; some are little more than recitations on a single tone; others contain complex melodic curves.

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Gregorian chants. As told in the description :Nearly one hour with calmness. The prayer sung in perfect fifths all the way through the piece. With the amazing acoustics in the room and the perfect harmony sung my male vocal creates an relaxing atmosphere. Perfect during the exam-weeks!

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Have somebody tried this bow? it genius! Why haven't anybody thought about this before?

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Praeludium and Allegro, Kreisler,6yo (by mrimrasp)

I'm just amazed!! If she can make it, I can :D