Musical observation (Research Paper Sample)

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MUSICAL OBSERVATION OF "A DEBUT SERIES EVENT"
Introduction
The concert that I attended was known as "A Debut Series Event." It was held on May 5, 2013 at the Vanderhoef Studio Theater. There are three pieces that I will discuss in this paper. The pieces include Sonata for Violin and Piano by Janáček in Con moto - Ballada: Con moto - Allegretto - Adagio. The second one is Sonata for Violin and Piano by Debussy in Allegro vivo - Intermède: Fantasque et léger - Finale: Très anímé. The last one is Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, Op. 24 by Beethoven in Allegro - Adagio molto espressivo - Scherzo: Allegro molto - Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo.
The Sonata form is the most important of all the true forms, so important that you can often feel sonata processes at work in forms called by other names. A sonata movement consists of three mandatory elements: the exposition, a presentation of the musical materials for the movement; development, a further investigation and exploration of their possibilities; and recapitulation, where these materials are restated in modified fashion. Optionally there can be an introduction (sometimes slow), although nearly every work begins with some sort of initial gesture, and a coda, or distinct conclusion. One would not call the first solo piano sonatas a gripping sort of music. That was not the point. Symphonic music and opera dealt in the grander issues, while piano music was for the pleasure of those who played it. Haydn reveled in composing piano sonatas, where we often find him at his most witty and playful.
The pieces in the concert:
The first piece in the concert
* Sonata for Violin and Piano by Janáček in Con moto - Ballada: Con moto - Allegretto – Adagio.
The Sonata’s first movement, a compact and quirky sonata form, is built from two thematic elements: a broad, arching violin melody and a sharp, stabbing rhythmic motive of two, or sometimes three or four, quick notes. This piece achieved prominence between 1924 and 1921. The composer was prompted to write music for the purpose of avoiding depression that resulted from the hardships in life. LeoÅ¡ Janácek was among those many Czechs at the turn of the 20th century who longed for freedom for their native land from the Habsburgs. He was born on 3rd July, 1854 in Hukvadly, Moravia and died on 12th August, 1928 in Ostravia. Janácek believed that this end could best be achieved by an alliance of all the Slavic peoples led by Russia since, as he wrote in a letter to his friend Richard Vesely.
There is steady progression of the rhythmic transitions in the piece. The violin alone introduces the stabbing motive at the outset, which is then taken over by the piano and extended to become an anxious accompaniment to the violin’s broad theme. While the piano whispers the broad melody, the stabbing motive is reinforced by the pizzicato violin to serve as a transition to the lyrical transformation of the main theme that provides a sort of formal second subject. The development juxtaposes the piano’s obsessive repetitions of the stabbing motive (while the violin trills) and the violin’s fragmented recollections of the broad melody (while the piano trills). The Ballada tells a peaceable story, quiet, nocturnal and almost completely unruffled. The third movement fills its three-part form (A–B–A) with a folkish dance melody in the outer sections and a melancholy strain at its center.
The elegiac finale describes an unusual formal arch. At first, the piano tries to give out the movement’s main theme, a hymnal melody, only to be interrupted by stuttering interjections from the violin. The piano continues, however, and the violin is gradually won over to the hymn tune, which it states in its full form as the climax of the movement. Doubt is here not to be held long at bay, however, and the Sonata ends with the broken statements and stuttering interruptions of the movement’s opening.
The second piece in the concert
* Sonata for Violin and Piano by Debussy in Allegro vivo - Intermède: Fantasque et léger - Finale: Très anímé
For the Violin Sonata’s inspiration, style and temperament, Debussy looked back far beyond the Impressionism of his earlier works to the elegance, emotional reserve and textural clarity of the music of the French Baroque. Claude Debussy was born on 2nd August, 1862 in St. Germain-en-laye, France and died on 25th March, 1918, in Paris. The first of the Sonatas, for Cello and Piano was completed in July and August 1915during a holiday at Pourville. A sonata for Oboe, horn and harpsichord never went beyond the planning stage. The remaining projected set did not fully materialize. The violin Sonata, completed in 1917 was his last important work. He later premiered the piece on 5th May, 1917 in Paris alongside violinist Gaston Poulet. He played it again in September at St-Jean-de-Luz, where he was spending the summer time. This was the last public appearance he had.
The form of the first movement is tied together by the iterations of the simple falling triadic motive given by the violin at its initial ntrance. Various episodes separate the motive’s returns, some passionate, some exotically evocative in their sliding intervals, some deliberately archaic in their open-interval harmonies. Debussy said that he had tried to evoke the spirit of the Italian commedia dell’arte in his earlier Cello Sonata, and much of the wit and insouciance of that old satirical stage genre carried over into the central Intermède of the Violin Sonata, which is instructed to be played "with fantasy and lightness." The finale begins with a ghost of the first movement’s opening theme before proceeding to a modern mutation of the traditional rondo form, which takes as its subject a violin melody in flying triplets that Debussy.
The third piece in the concert
* Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, Op. 24 by Beethoven in Allegro - Adagio molto espressivo - Scherzo: Allegro molt...