Month: January 2019

The Life and Works of Beethoven (Audible Audio Edition), Jeremy Siepmann, Naxos

Jovan Stosic January 31, 2019

 

For many people, Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived. In this portrait-in-sound, actors’ readings combine with his music to reveal a titanic personality, vulnerable and belligerent, comic and tragic, and above all, heroic, as he comes to grips with perhaps the greatest disability a musician can suffer. No man’s music is more universal; few men’s lives are more inspiring. In every sense but one – his modest height – he was a giant.

The Life and Works of Beethoven (Audible Audio Edition), Jeremy Siepmann, Naxos was last modified: January 31st, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Understanding the Fundamentals of Music by Robert Greenberg

Jovan Stosic January 29, 2019

We all know that beneath the surface of music, beyond the joy or excitement or even heartache that this beautiful language of sound can stir within us, lies the often mysterious realm of music theory—a complex syntax of structural and instrumental resources that composers may draw on.

No matter what kind of music we listen to—symphony or string quartet, saxophone solo or vocal ballad, hip hop or Gregorian chant—we feel the impact of that music and have done so all our lives, even though we may not know how such impact is achieved, or understand the fundamental processes of musical composition.

But what if we did understand how certain musical effects were achieved? What if we could learn to follow the often-intimidating language of key signatures, pitch, mode, melody, meter, and other parts of musical structure used by composers? What if we could recognize these various components at work as we listened to our favorite music? What if we could “speak” the language of Western music?

In this course, Professor Greenberg offers a spirited introduction to this magnificent language—nimbly avoiding what for many of us has long been the principal roadblock, the need to read music.

For anyone wanting to master music’s language, being able to read musical notation is a necessity. But this course, as Professor Greenberg notes, is a basic course, designed to introduce you to music’s language in a way that is similar to the way you learned your own native language, by “discovering and exploring musical syntax through our ears—by learning what the parts of musical speech sound like—rather than what they look like on paper.”

By sidestepping the necessity to read music, these lectures represent an extremely rare opportunity in musical education—an opportunity to experience a solid introduction to music theory’s basics in a way that is not technically intimidating, yet provides a substantial grounding in the fundamentals. As such, Professor Greenberg has devised a highly individualized approach to music theory. There is simply little or no literature in this field that can teach as much without recourse to music notation. Thus, it can appeal to those who are not learning, or even planning to learn, to play a musical instrument or to compose. It can even be beneficial to musicians who do not play a keyboard instrument and may have had difficulty grasping some of the more abstract concepts of music. As much as anything else, the course is designed to help deepen and intensify the experience of Professor Greenberg’s other Teaching Company Courses, currently 21 in number.

Source: Understanding the Fundamentals of Music by Robert Greenberg

Understanding the Fundamentals of Music by Robert Greenberg was last modified: January 29th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Late string quartets (Beethoven) – Wikipedia

Jovan Stosic January 29, 2019

Ludwig van Beethoven’s late string quartets are the following works:

Opus 127: String Quartet No. 12 in E♭ major (1825)
Opus 130: String Quartet No. 13 in B♭ major (1826)
Opus 131: String Quartet No. 14 in C♯ minor (1826)
Opus 132: String Quartet No. 15 in A minor (1825)
Opus 133: Große Fuge in B♭ major (1825; originally the finale to Op. 130; it also exists in a piano four-hands transcription, Op. 134)
Opus 135: String Quartet No. 16 in F major (1826)

These six works are Beethoven’s last major completed compositions. Although dismissed by musicians and audiences of Beethoven’s day, they are now widely considered to be among the greatest musical compositions of all time and they have inspired many later composers.
 

Source: Late string quartets (Beethoven) – Wikipedia

Late string quartets (Beethoven) – Wikipedia was last modified: January 29th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Scherzo – Wikipedia

Jovan Stosic January 29, 2019

A scherzo (/ˈskɛərtsoʊ/, UK also /ˈskɜːrt-/; Italian: [ˈskertso]; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often refers to a movement that replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. The term can also refer to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work.

Source: Scherzo – Wikipedia

Scherzo – Wikipedia was last modified: January 29th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic

Simple past

Jovan Stosic January 28, 2019

The simple past is used for a single event (or sequence of such events) in the past, and also for past habitual action:

He took the money and ran.
I visited them every day for a year.

It can also refer to a past state:

I knew how to fight even as a child.

For action that was ongoing at the time referred to, the past progressive is generally used instead (e.g. I was cooking). The same can apply to states, if temporary (e.g. the ball was lying on the sidewalk), but some stative verbs do not generally use the progressive aspect at all – see Uses of English verb forms § Progressive – and in these cases the simple past is used even for a temporary state:

The dog was in its kennel.
I felt cold.

However, with verbs of sensing, it is common in such circumstances to use could see in place of saw, could hear in place of heard, etc. For more on this, see can see.

If one action interrupts another, then it is usual for the interrupted (ongoing) action to be expressed with the past progressive, and the action that interrupted it to be in the simple past:

Your mother called while you were cooking.

The simple past is often close in meaning to the present perfect. The simple past is used when the event happened at a particular time in the past, or during a period which ended in the past (i.e. a period that does not last up until the present time). This time frame may be explicitly stated, or implicit in the context (for example the past tense is often used when describing a sequence of past events).

I was born in 1980.
We turned the oven off two minutes ago.
I came home at 6 o’clock.
When did they get married?
We wrote two letters this morning.
She placed the letter on the table, sighed, and left the house.

These examples can be contrasted with those given at Uses of English verb forms § Present perfect. Also, for past actions that occurred before the relevant past time frame, the past perfect is used.

Various compound constructions exist for denoting past habitual action. The sentence When I was young, I played football every Saturday might alternatively be phrased using used to (… I used to play …) or using would (… I would play…).

The simple past form also has some uses in which it does not refer to a past time. These are generally in condition clauses and some other dependent clauses referring to hypothetical circumstances, as well as certain expressions of wish:

If he walked faster, he would get home earlier.
I wish I knew what his name was.
I would rather she wore a longer dress.

For more details see the sections on conditionals, dependent clauses and expressions of wish in the article on uses of English verb forms.

For use of the simple past (and other past tense forms) in indirect speech, see Uses of English verb forms § Indirect speech. An example:

He said he wanted to go on the slide.
Source: Simple past – Wikipedia

Simple past was last modified: January 28th, 2019 by Jovan Stosic