Theme and Variation
Today was a busy day!
We started off back at GSA with their special jazz combo class of seven kids, a mixed group of sophomore, junior, and senior students. We jumped right in with a fiddle tune by the Danish String Quartet called ‘Shine You No More,’ focusing on the variation in accompanimental figures over a repeating fiddle melody. We transitioned from this upbeat piece to the gorgeous, lyrical second movement of Haydn’s Op. 76, No. 3 ‘Emperor Quartet.’ This tied in quite nicely as the movement also features a consistent theme being passed around over various instrumental, harmonic, and rhythmic accompaniments. We gave some history on the origins of the theme and how it has evolved from Haydn’s melody to the German national anthem! The students had prepared the main theme from this movement in advance so we were able to bring them into our quartet, students playing the melody, the rest of the quartet playing Haydn’s own variations. We discussed the techniques utilized by Haydn, such as chromaticism, voicing, and instrumentation.
We then had a brief Q&A about the audition process and preparation since most of the students are preparing to audition for the All State band in a few weeks. We finished up the session with a performance of one of their required audition pieces for the band audition.
We were enjoying our time with Steve and his students so much, we ended up staying a few minutes over for the next class that came in and played some of the Danish String Quartet tunes for them as well.
After a lunch break break we headed to the Bay School for an assembly of about 80 kids between the ages of 7-14. Here again, we played ‘Shine You No More’ and got specific with moods and textures with each iteration of the fiddle theme. The kids had all kinds of thoughts about why things sounded and felt different with each section we played. We moved into the Haydn after this and had the kids (and teachers) sing the main melody of the movement all together and then identify it as we played each variation. Again, we asked how things sounded or felt different.
They kids were so engaged and excited to share! After a little Q&A, we were off to the library!
The library ended up being attended mostly by adults, so we had a small open rehearsal on the second movement of Dvorak’s ‘American’ quartet before performing the first movement, as well as Haydn and the Danish String Quartet tunes.
It was such a satisfying day of workshops and music making! Now, time for rehearsal!