Catherine Johnson

WebDropin #2

                                                          Music in the Different Time Periods

 

Activity #1                                          Renaissance     (1450-1600)

Visit Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia’s page on The Renaissance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_music

Read the page, and then answer the following questions:

1)  In the 3 periods of Renaissance Music, (the Early, Middle, and Late) describe some characteristics of each.

2) List some common sacred genres that composers composed.  (In literature, an author can write poems, fables, novels, short stories,

fairy tales.)  In music, in the renaissance, popular genres were…

                                               

Activity #2                                        Baroque (1600-1750)

Visit the Wikipedia’s Baroque Site – Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_Music

Study the site.  Baroque, meaning decorated or ornamented, is a style of music that takes place after the Renaissance is over. 

Often, a player will simply improvise the ornamentation during a performance!

The Baroque period is generally said to have ended when the primary composer, J.S. Bach, died in 1750.

 

1) Can you describe some of the ways that Baroque & Renaissance music are different?

2) Pick a genre, vocal or instrumental (such as an Oratorio or Fugue) and describe it a few paragraphs.  For example, if you pick

the fugue, what were the primary instruments fugues were played on?  What composer was a master-fugue writer?  What is a fugue?

 

Activity #3                                        Classical (1750-1825)

W.A. Mozart, classical composer

Use: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music_era#The_early_Classical_style_.281760-1775.29

Help me to fill in this chart by filling in the blank squares with the correct information.  Copy this chart onto some paper.

Time Period in the Classical Style

Name some compositions that define each time period.

Master of the Style

(Name Composers)

 

Describe what happened in this time period-such as new musical ideas, genres, socially, etc.

The early Classical style (1760-1775)

 

 

 

The middle Classical style (1775-1790)

 

 

 

The late Classical style (1790-1820)

 

 

 

Question:

1)  Pick a composer from the classical style (Click on the list of classical composers and choose one) and tell me what that composer did to change classical music.  Did he invent something that became very popular?  Did one’s opera make people angry enough to throw rotten tomatoes at the performers?   It can be a good change, or a bad one.

 

Activity #4                                        Romantic (1825-1900)

The topic for this activity:

What makes a Romantic Era Symphony different from a Classical one?  What are characteristics of a Romantic Symphony?  For example, one of the main ones is that orchestras were MUCH bigger in the Romantic Era.  A small Mozart orchestra may have only a handful of each instrument, but a gigantic Mahler-like symphony could have almost 40 violins!  And the brass and percussion sections can be deafening!  I want you to come up with come other differences after reading the articles below:

Compare Wikipedia’s Romantic description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romantic_music_era to its Symphony description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony

Also compare those to About.com - http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/symphonyfaq/f/difference.htm

 

Activity #5           Impressionistic/Contemporary/Jazz (1875-Present) 

                                                           

First, visit these websites and get an introduction to the Impressionistic, Contemporary, and Jazz eras:

Impressionism

McFly - http://www.mcfly.org/wik/Impressionist_music

The Impressionist Era - http://www.gprep.org/music/musikbok/chap15.html

Contemporary

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contemporary_music   

Jazz

History of Jazz - http://www.hypermusic.ca/jazz/mainmenu.html

The Melting Pot.fortunecity.com - http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/zaire/721/introframe.htm

 

Next, listen to this Impressionist piece by Debussy at this site: http://jagor.srce.hr/~fsupek/explorer.html

It’s called “La cathédrale engloutie” or “The Sunken Cathedral”.  "The Sunken Cathedral" depicts a huge sunken cathedral that rises out of the mist and water at sunrise and sinks back down at sunset.  The large, parallel chords in this piece create the sensation of rocking and bubbling waves, swelling over and around the sunken cathedral.

In the box below tell me how you feel when listen to this piece.  Can you imagine a huge cathedral?  Do you like the piece?