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Music Appreciation 3e Kamien | |||||
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Music Appreciation 3e Kamien | |||||
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Instrumentation: flutes (2), oboes (2), clarinets (2), bassoons (4), trumpets (2), cornets (2), French horns (4), trombones (3), tubas (2), timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, strings
CD 2, Tracks 52-55, Duration 4:55
The Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony) is in five-movements and may be considered one of the finest examples of musical romanticism. Each movement is given a descriptive title: 1. Reveries, Passions, 2. A Ball, 3. Scene in the Country, 4. March to the Scaffold, and 5. Dream of a Witches' Sabbath. The work was scored for an unusually large orchestra (a feature which influenced many composers of the late romantic period) and incorporates many instruments which had not been used to any extent before that time (i.e., English horn, tuba, bells, cornet, and harp). Through the course of each movement the unbridled passion of the young musician is reflected in the mysterious and fascinating program on which the work is based:
A young musican of morbidly sensitive temperament and fiery imagination has poisoned himself with opium in a show of lovesick despair. Too weak to kill him, the drug only serves to plunge him into a deep sleep accompanied by strange visions. His sensations, emotions, and memories are transformed in his sick mind into musical thoughts and images.The loved one becomes to him a melody, an idée fixe (fixed idea) which he encounters and hears everywhere.
The program to the March to the Scaffold, specifically, is provided below:
In this movement the composer dreams that he has killed his beloved. He has been condemned and is being led to his execution. The procession moves to a march-like theme with sweeping contrasts in mood. Toward the end the idée fixe returns briefly, only to be interrupted by the death blow.
52) Timpani, pizzicato basses, syncopations in muted French horns, crescendo to ff chord.
53) Basses and cellos alone, downward scalewise melody, minor, decrescendo. (Note the descending melodic line depicting the composer's impending doom.)
:13 Downward melody repeated with countermelody in high
bassoons.
:25 High violins, downward melody, major, accompanied by staccato
lower strings. Sudden ff. Melody repeated by violins.
:51 Staccato bassoons together with pizzicato strings, minor,
decrescendo to pp, quick crescendo to
54) Brasses and woodwinds, syncopated march tune in major.
:13 Theme repeated.
:25 Very loud brass and woodwind fanfare inroduces
:31 Splintered downward melody, pizzicato and bowed strings,
staccato winds, minor. Pizzicato violins and timpani, crescendo
to
:42 Brasses, woodwinds, syncopated march tune, major, active
string accompaniment
:54 March tune repeated.
1:06 Very loud brass and woodwind fanfare introduces
1:12 Splintered downward melody, pizzicato and bowed strings,
staccato winds, minor.
1:20 Brasses, shortened downward melody repeated on higher
pitches, active string accompaniment, crescendo.
1:35 Whole orchestra, downward melody, timpani, cymbals, minor,
decrescendo to pp.
1:45 Sudden ff, whole orchestra, upward scalewise
melody, major, timpani, cymbals.
1:54 Staccato strings alone, orchestral
punctuation.
2:02 Excited dotted rhythm in strings, repeated figure in brasses
and woodwinds.
2:19 Downward staccato strings lead to
2:22 Wind and string chords alternate, decrescendo to pp.
Sudden ff, full orchestra.
55) Solo clarinet, idée fixe,
:11 Interrupted by short orchestral chord ff (fall of guillotine blade) and string pizzicato (bouncing of severed head), powerful timpani roll, brasses and woodwinds, repeated major chord, strings, cymbals, ending chord by full orchestra, ff.