• jessie montgomery
    ​    strum

    DIVE IN!
    Jessie Montgomery (1981- ) began sketching ideas for Strum as a string quintet in 2006, published it as a string quartet in 2008, and revised it for string orchestra in 2012.  It is a piece of music that captivates audiences and has recently become a staple of concert repertoire. ​
    RESOURCES:
    A live performance of the quartet version, with the composer on 2nd violin!
    An excerpt of the string orchestra version, recorded by Minnesota Orchestra in 2020.
    HIGHLIGHTS:
    Jessie Montgomery composed Strum between 2006 and 2012 when she was just 25–31 years old.   

    Montgomery writes: "Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration."

    Strum lasts for about 7 minutes and is made up of a few short sections of music which flow into one another.  There are brief solo moments for the first chair string instruments with shifting textures being spread through the larger string sections.
    NERD ASSIGNMENTS!
    ​Do Your Own     Research!
    Familiarize yourself with other music by Jessie Montgomery.  Check out her website here, and giddily follow the YouTube rabbit-hole of seemingly endless recordings of her works.

    Actively listen to Jessie Montgomery's Banner.  For extra nerdery, listen to Montgomery speak about her work and then listen to it again with a detective's ear for the embedded tunes she mentions.

    Read, Consider, Discuss!
    In just the past five to ten years Jessie Montgomery has become one of the most celebrated and performed newer voices among today's composers.  This 2021 New York Times article highlights her meteoric rise and how it relates to the social relevance problems which persist in "classical" music.  Read the article and/or consider the following excerpts, do some additional curiosity research, and start your own conversations about representation, commissioning, self expression, curation, and the stewardship responsibilities of composers, performing artists, presenters, and audience.
    • The history of classical music in the United States is one long identity crisis: the search for a homegrown sound, free from European influence. That anxiety has manifested itself time and again as self-sabotage, with some composers — almost always white men — exalted as pathbreakers, while truly original work coming from artists of color has been overlooked.
    • Part of the swiftness in her [Montgomery's] rise to prominence is the result of orchestras finally featuring composers of color — an achievement that can sometimes feel like a burden on a single artist to speak for a whole race or nation.
    • “I’ve been talking with my colleagues of Black descent, and we’re all feeling that sort of thing of being put on,” she [Montgomery] said. “I’ve been realizing that there’s this shared desire to just be able to create without that kind of pressure or expectation that you’re going to be the spokesperson for the race or for classical music being better or more diverse or whatever.”
      “A commission that addresses the injustices on Black people, as a way for the institution to admit or confront their own compliance in the atrocities against Black people, doesn’t allow that composer to express total joy, for example,” she [Montgomery] said. “It boils down to the simple fact that Black people — any people, probably — want to own our own narrative, and not necessarily be put on to be responsible for undoing institutional crimes."

    Listen Critically!
    Listen to the Colorado Symphony performance of Jessie Montgomery's Strum and again via multiple different recordings if possible.  Take note of what you observe and how it affects your idea of texture, pacing, and expression in the different sections of the piece.  How do you think Montgomery keeps an improvisatory feeling when there is rhythmic grooving and written out structure?

  • ANTONIO VIVALDI
    ​    THE FOUR SEASONS

    DIVE IN!
    Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741 ) was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque era.  He wrote The Four Seasons in 1718-1720 when he was 40-42 years old.  These four concertos for violin and string orchestra immediately captured the imagination of audiences, in part due to the descriptive title and accompanying sonnets describing each season's characteristics.
    ​RESOURCES:
    All four Seasons, with lines from the accompanying sonnets (see below!), performed on original instruments by Voices of Music.
    "Spring" from postminimalist composer Max Richter's 2012 reimagined Four Seasons
    "Primavera Porteño" (Spring) from Argentinian composer and 'tango king' Astor Piazzolla, inspired by Vivaldi's Four Seasons
    (special note: fully 3 minutes of the end of this recording is applause!)
    HIGHLIGHTS:
    The Four Seasons is a set of 4 concertos for violin and string orchestra.  Each concerto is made up of three movements, or musical "chapters", in a typical tempo/character structure of fast-slow-fast.  The collection begins with Spring and then progresses naturally through the cycle with Summer, Autumn, and Winter.  In total it lasts about 45 minutes.

    The Four Seasons is one of the earliest known examples of "program music" - instrumental music that follows a text.  In this case a set of sonnets on each season was published along with the sheet music .  Each line of text corresponds to musical elements and sound effects that Vivaldi composed to illustrate the text.  Bird calls, hazy heat, wind storms, and cracking ice are among the sounds that bring drama to these concertos.

    It was an immediate success at the time of its premiere and is so popular now it's hard to believe it, along with much of Vivaldi's music, fell from public attention and was lost for 200 years.  A major discovery of Vivaldi's music in storage in 1926 led to the first performances and recordings of The Four Seasons in the mid 1900s, bringing this piece back into international attention.

    Composers Max Richter and Astor Piazzolla have each composed reimagined versions of The Four Seasons.
    NERD ASSIGNMENTS!
    ​
    Start with a Conversation:
    A concerto is a type of musical form that creates dialogue and drama between a single instrument or small group of instruments, and a much larger group of instruments.  What exactly is dialogue? How is dialogue made? Think about constructing a brief dialogue between two people. What can you do to alter this dialogue so that one participant becomes a whole group of people? What are some examples of this type of dialogue you can think of in your every day life? [call and response in pep rallies, a religious service, etc.] Now imagine what it might be like if each person in the large group had an individual response in this dialogue. Would we be able to understand all the responses simultaneously? In music, many different sounds (often called ‘voices’) can be processed simultaneously by the human ear. Because of this it’s possible to have a two part musical dialogue with many individual voices!  

    Try an Activity!
    Vivaldi based many elements of his Four Seasons composition on the descriptive sonnets he published with the music.  Some of them are very obvious, like the trilling bird calls in the violins at the beginning of "Spring".  Some of them are a little more conceptual, like the hazy hot sighing atmospheric sounds at the beginning of "Summer".  Think of a typical day in your life.  How might you illustrate the markers or characteristics of your day using sounds?  You might make scooping sounds to illustrate your cat's "meow" or your dog's lazy afternoon stretches.  Maybe you would use very fast notes to depict a frantic rush to beat traffic on the way home from work.  Try spending one day noting the structural highlights you observe, and then return to reflect on those observations considering how you might tell the story of that day in music.  You might find this a fun way to reimagine your daily life even in the moment!

    Listening for dialogue and drama in Vivaldi's The Four Seasons
    Listen to the performance of Vivaldis The Four Seasons and again via recording if possible. Try to listen carefully for musical dialogue and dramatic elements of weather, activity, and human perception in this composition. Can you imagine yourself in each setting of these seasons? Think about some musical elements Vivaldi uses to depict the seasons as you listen. How did the conversation and composition activities help you to better engage as a listener?
    The Four Seasons text:
    ​    "Spring"
    Allegro [first movement - "quick"]
    Springtime is upon us.
    The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
    and murmuring streams are
    softly caressed by the breezes.
    Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar,
    casting their dark mantle over heaven,
    Then they die away to silence,
    and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

    Largo     [second movement - "slow"]
    On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches
    rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps,
    his faithful dog beside him.

    Allegro     [third movement - "quick"]
    Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes,
    nymphs and shepherds lightly dance
    beneath spring’s beautiful canopy.

    "Summer"
    Allegro non molto [first movement - "quick, not very"]
    Under a hard season, fired up by the sun
    Languishes man, languishes the flock and burns the pine
    We hear the cuckoo's voice;
    then sweet songs of the turtledove and finch are heard.
    Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening
    the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside.
    The shepherd trembles,
    fearing violent storms and his fate.

    Adagio e piano – Presto e forte     [second movement - "slow and soft - fast and loud"]
    The fear of lightning and fierce thunder
    Robs his tired limbs of rest
    As gnats and flies buzz furiously around.

    Presto     [third movement - "fast"]
    Alas, his fears were justified
    The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail
    Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain.

    "Autumn"
    Allegro [first movement - "quick"]
    Celebrates the peasant, with songs and dances,
    The pleasure of a bountiful harvest.
    And fired up by Bacchus' liquor,
    many end their revelry in sleep.

    Adagio molto     [second movement - "very slow"]
    Everyone is made to forget their cares and to sing and dance
    By the air which is tempered with pleasure
    And (by) the season that invites so many, many
    Out of their sweetest slumber to fine enjoyment

    Allegro     [third movement - "quick"]
    The hunters emerge at the new dawn,
    And with horns and dogs and guns depart upon their hunting
    The beast flees and they follow its trail;
    Terrified and tired of the great noise
    Of guns and dogs, the beast, wounded, threatens
    Languidly to flee, but harried, dies.

    "Winter"
    Allegro non molto [first movement - "quick, not very"]
    To tremble from cold in the icy snow,
    In the harsh breath of a horrid wind;
    To run, stamping one's feet every moment,
    Our teeth chattering in the extreme cold

    Largo     [second movement - "quick, not very"]
    Before the fire to pass peaceful,
    Contented days while the rain outside pours down.

    Allegro     [third movement - "quick"]
    We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously,
    for fear of tripping and falling.
    Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and,
    rising, hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
    We feel the chill north winds course through the home
    despite the locked and bolted doors...
    this is winter, which nonetheless
    brings its own delights.
    ​

  • Pyotr Ilyich tchaikovsky
    ​    symphony #4

    DIVE IN!
    ​Composer Richard Strauss is perhaps best known for his tone poems — music that tells a story or evokes a character. Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche celebrates a legendary prankster from fourteenth century Germany. Literally translated it is "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks". In the piece we hear some of the character of Till, as well as his adventures and eventual capture.
    RESOURCES:
    A performance recording of the full symphony.
    For comparison: a recording of the folk song "Little Birch Tree" followed by Tchaikovsky's use of it in the 4th movement.
    HIGHLIGHTS:
    Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky composed Symphony #4 in 1878 when he was just 38 years old.

    Symphony #4 was not an initial success and received a number of negative reviews.  Even in 1890 a review in the New York Post said "The Fourth Tchaikovsky Symphony proved to be one of the most thoroughly Russian, i.e. semi-barbaric, compositions ever heard in the city. ... If Tchaikovsky had called his symphony 'A Sleigh Ride Through Siberia' no one would have found this title inappropriate."

    In spite of its early critical reviews, Symphony #4 is now one of the most frequently performed symphonies of the late 19th century and is one of the top three most performed symphonies by Tchaikovsky.
    ​
    Tchaikovsky uses a Russian folk song ,"In the Meadow Stood a Little Birch Tree", in the final (fourth) movement of the symphony.   It is first introduced about 2 minutes into the movement and is heard many times in many ways throughout the movement.

    Symphony #4 lasts for about 45 minutes and is scored for a standard Romantic era full orchestra of winds and brass in pairs, 4 horns, timpani, percussion, and strings.

READY TO ENGAGE!
Please share your experience with ​me – [email protected]!  
​​I’d love to hear about it or see any of your ​activities,  journaling, or creations!
Catherine Beeson © 2023