2014 Term 1, Week 11: Elgar's Variation IX - Nimrod. Preparation for Anzac Day

This week we will be looking at some of the music associated with Anzac Day, and practising some of the songs for our Anzac Assembly  next term.

The Last Post is played to commemorate the war dead - at funerals or other public commemorations. It is also played on Anzac Day before a two-minute silence.

This is a video of the Last Post being played at the Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park in London.

Here's a video of the Last Post being played at the Gallipoli Dawn Service. Can you see the flags of Australia, New Zealand and Turkey?

This is Reveille played at the 2011  Dawn Service at the National War Memorial in Wellington.
What do you think is the purpose of the drums?

This is a recording of the Maori Battalion marching song sung in Maori.
Here's Howard Morrison singing part of the the Maori Battalion marching song.

Here's the Australian National Anthem - which we should know because they are responsible for the A in Anzac... 

This is called Nimrod by Edward Elgar.  It's from a longer piece of music called Variations on an Original Theme for Orchestra ("Enigma"), Op. 36, or the Enigma Variations for short. Nimrod is Variation 9.

Elgar was a British composer, who wrote this in the 1890s. It was not written about war at all, but it has come to be associated with Remembrance Day in Britain, and is often played at commemorative or solemn occasions.  Many people  have used this as background music when they create video memorials for loved ones lost in war.

The visual quality of this video is not that great, but you can really see the conductor (Daniel Barenboim) working to get the best feeling and sound out of the orchestra.It is a live recording so you can hear background noises.

Listen to  the music start softly and get louder and stronger.
Can you hear the themes in this music?
What instruments can you hear?
What instruments play for only some of the time? 
How does the conductor get the orchestra to play louder or softer?
Why do you think this piece of music became associated with commemorating those who died in war?

Vocabulary:

wreath -  an arrangement of flowers - often a circle - to place at the cenotaph in remembrance of thos who died in war
cenotaph - is an 'empty tomb' erected  in honour of people who are buried elsewhere - or  in unknown places
Last Post -  is music played by a bugle at military funerals or to commemorate those who have been killed in war
bugle - is a simple brass instrument, a bit like a trumpet, but it has no valves or buttons to press. The notes are played by moving the position of the lips. A bugle is usually used to play the Last Post and Reveille. Follow this link to read an article and see a video about a bugle that was used at Gallipoli by  New Zealand bugler and which will be used to play the Last Post and Reveille this Anzac Day.
The Ode - is a verse from a poem (For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon) which is said after the Last Post. One person usually says The Ode, then everyone repeats the last line, "We will remember them". After that there is silence of about one to two minutes.

Here's an interesting  link  called Last Post, First Light from the  Stuff  website.  It has lots of videos and articles relating to Anzac Day  and New Zealand's involvement in any conflicts from World War 1 onwards. It also includes interviews and videos of Anzac Day commemorations. It is updated any time a relevant article is added to the Stuff website.

2014 Term 1, Week 10: Beethoven's 5th Symphony

Ludwig van Beethoven

 Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December 1770, in Bonn in Germany.
His exact birthday is not known but he was baptised on December 17th, 1770. 

Beethoven's  mother's name was Maria Magdalena Keverich. His father, Johann, was a musician  and singer who worked at the court of the Elector of Cologne, in Germany.  Beethoven had two brothers who survived to adulthood. His father taught him to play the violin and piano, but he was very cruel and would punish young Ludwig whenever he made mistakes. He wanted his son to be like Mozart and would make him practise  the piano for hours.   Young Beethoven struggled with spelling and mathematics at school  - and throughout his whole life - and said that music came to him much easier than words.  He left school at age ten to study music.  By the time young Beethoven was 12 he was earning money composing and playing the organ.

Beethoven at age 13

Like Mozart, Beethoven was a child prodigy - but he didn't travel until he was 17 and went to Vienna where he had a few music  lessons from Mozart. He returned to Bonn  to help look after his siblings when his mother died and his father became an alcoholic. He played the viola in the orchestra for court and started to compose music. He was a also a very clever pianist.

He moved to Vienna again in 1792 and stayed there for the rest of his life.  He became very popular with the wealthy and important people.

In 1801 he started to lose his hearing, and by 1817 he was completely deaf and could no longer play in concerts, but he continued to compose.  Some of his greatest works were composed after he became deaf.

Beethoven in 1803

He is one of the best known composers of all time, and he wrote music for the piano, orchestras, and other groups of instruments. He wrote symphonies, sonatas, concertos,  chamber and choral music, and an opera. Many people are familiar with much of his music - even if they don't know that he wrote it.

Beethoven's music was very different to music that had been composed and played before. It was so original that other composers and musicians were inspired to change the way that they composed.

Beethoven never married. He proposed many times but was turned down every time  - possibly because he was very bad tempered and scruffy, and because he was of 'low birth' status.

 One of his favourite foods was macaroni and cheese, and he loved strong coffee - with exactly 60 beans to one cup.

Beethoven's funeral procession

Beethoven's Grave in Vienna

 

He died on March 26th, 1827 - in Vienna - and many thousands of people  lined the streets to pay their respects.

This week we are looking at Beethoven's Symphony Number 5 in C Minor - the first movement.
This movement is written in a very common format in classical music called sonata form. Sonata form has roughly four sections.

The first section is called the Exposition. The main themes of the symphony are laid out. Then we move into the Development, where the themes are broken down and played around with (a bit like improvisation). Then we come to the Recapitulation where the main themes return again (slightly different, but mostly the same). Finally, there is a Coda, which is the ending where the whole movement is wrapped up.

 This is a live performance of  Beethoven's Symphony Number 5 - first movement.  This conductor is Gustavo Dudamel.  Watch for all the different ways he uses to get the orchestra to play louder or softer, stronger, smoothly,  or faster or slower.
- Can you hear a person in the audience coughing occasionally?
- Can you see how the orchestra and the conductor could find this distracting?  
- What sounds and patterns can you hear repeated?
- How does Beethoven make the repeated sounds different each time?

Here is a black and white video  of  the conductor Arturo Toscanini conducting Beethoven's fifth symphony - first movement. There is a commentary written along the bottom of the video explaining what is happening.


Look at pages 4 and 5 on this pdf to see a listening map for Beethoven's 5th Symphony.

Here's a bit more of a complicated listening guide with lots more music vocabulary and symbols.
And here's the answers to the questions in the listening guide. 


 Here is violinist David Garrett playing a modern arrangement of this - with dancers in the performance as well. How many instruments are there playing which would not have been around for Beethoven?

Here's another modern arrangement - Beethoven's 5th in salsa.

Here's the music - changed round a bit - with krumping / hip hop.  

Here's a fun version. Timon  is trying to conduct Beethoven's 5th, but Pumba keeps changing it to a different style. Watch how Timon conducts.

Here's another fun version where some musicians are using boomwhackers on plastic drums to beat out the rhythm of Beethoven's 5th.

Here some singers have made up a song about pumpkins  (called gourds here) to promote their churches Great Pumpkin Giveaway.

And this is just someone having a bit of fun making silly sounds into music.

Here's a group called Beethoven's Wig - and they've made up a song about Beethoven's wig. 

Here's Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) conducting an (invisible) orchestra. What makes it funny?

Air guitar time - to Metallica! These are just still photos, but you can see some pretty good moves to follow.

And here's Swedish guitarist and songwriter Yngwei Malmsteen with a classic guitar version - from 1985, so the video quality is not thaaat great.

This is quite a bit longer, but funny- especially if you understand anything about music and sport.  There are two commentators talking over the top of the music as if they were  the commentators at a sports event.

Here's a graphic score of Beethoven's Fifth. Can you see the patterns of the short, short, short, long?

Here's the score  of the beginning of the this music. Can you follow it?

Here's Walt Disney's Fanstasia version of Beetoven's 5th symphony.

This is a fast version - played, apparently, at the speed Beethoven intended it to be. the conductor is Benjamin Zander.

 This movement is written in a very common format in classical music called sonata form. Sonata form has roughly four sections.

The first section is called the Exposition. This is where the main themes of the symphony are laid out. Then we move into the Development, where the themes are broken down and played around with (a bit like improvisation). Then we come to the Recapitulation where the main themes return again (slightly different, but mostly the same). Finally, there is a Coda, which is the ending where the whole movement is wrapped up

2014 Term 1, Week 9: Mozart's Turkish March - Rondo alla Turk

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27th 1756 and died on December 5th 1791, at age 35.  He was born in Salzburg in Austria, where his father, Leopold, was also a musician and composer.

Wolfgang's family called him Wolferl. He was called a child prodigy which means he could do something extremely clever at a very young age. He composed his first piece of music when he was just 5 years old. He was 7 when his first music was published, and when he was 12 he had written his first opera. He was an accomplished violinist and pianist by the age of 6, and he and his sister Maria Anna (called Nanner by her family) travelled around Europe giving concerts and even performing for royalty. Nanner was a very clever musician and composer herself, but she stopped travelling and giving concerts once she reached marrying age.

When he was older, Mozart moved to Vienna to earn a living as a composer and pianist.  He was used to being a famous child musician and having a great fuss of him, so it was difficult for him to settle to being an adult performer and not the centre of attention anymore - even though he was still a musical genius.

Mozart married Constanze Weber in 1782. They had six children, but only two survived past infancy. He earnt a lot of money in his life time but wasted it and ended up dying of kidney disease at 35 years old. He was buried in a common grave with no special ceremony.

Mozart composed an enormous amount of music in his short life. It would take over 8 days to play all his music without stopping. He also composed in a wide range of musical forms, such as operas, symphonies, concertos, masses, and chamber music.


This week's music is called: Turkish Rondo from Piano Sonata in A, K. 331. It's also known as Mozart's Turkish March of Rondo alla Turk.

Here's a version  of it on the  glass harp (glasses of water filled with water). This musician uses sticks instead of wet fingers to achieve his special sound. This piece uses an orchestral backing track.

Here's two people playing musical glasses with no accompaniment.

Here is an orchestra dressed in the clothes of Mozart's time. How many instruments can you name? 

This group is a Russian group called  Soprano 10 and they play violins as well as sing Rondo a la Turque.

This woman plays a jazz version on some of the 50 pianos around the streets of London during a festival.

Here's a jazz version played by a guitarist.

Air guitar time!

Here's the drumming video which we seem to be able to find for most of our music choices.  How many drums and cymbals can you count?

And here's David Garrett playing Rondo alla Turk with  a modern orchestral backing.

This is a clever - and fun - version of the music made by recording men singing different notes then using each note to represent a key on the piano. Which keys are used the most and which are hardly used at all?  At the end, you will hear the two makers of this video talking in Spanish.

Here's a music map of Rondo alla Turk. Can you see a pattern? 

Try this different listening map and see if you can follow it. It shows the rondo form of music. It comes from this teacher's music blog.

This is a powerpoint showing the rhythm pattern of the music in each theme of the rondo. Can you keep up while you are following it?  

This shows you what the music looks like if you were reading it while playing the piano.  

And this one is just a little crazy - and funny. No animals were harmed in the making of this video. 

Here is a video of a violinist and a pianist having a bit of fun with this piece of music at a concert in the Netherlands. The pianist wants to change the key from a minor key to a major key. 

Here are two people playing the this music on the one guitar at a concert in Poland.

Here's very fast song version of the rondo.

Here's the biggest piano keyboard you may have seen.

A 5-year-old boy plays this on the piano.

This is what it looks like when you are playing the piano. Look for the ascending and descending notes. 

And for the adults: This is the group called Beethoven's Wig singing a song to the tune of Ronda alla Turca. It's all about the Mozart effect - where children are supposed to  be smarter if they listen to a lot of Mozart. This is

Here's a game you can play while learning more about Mozart.

This is an interesting site where you can learn a lot more about Mozart.