Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
He collected many hundred national ballads, hymns and dances, and called attention to their richness and variety as thematic material for a school of national music.
And, certainly the most amusing passage of "Sinfonia Domestica" is that complex of Bavarian lustihood, Bavarian grossness, Bavarian dreaminess and Bavarian good nature, the thematic group that serves as autoportrait of the composer.
Though the words are serious, the closing apostrophe is none the less meant to have a cheering and hopeful effect; and, to produce this, I counted upon that simple thematic combination, the rhythmical movement of which was intended to proceed smoothly, and was not meant to assume a pompous character, except just before the end, when the chorus enters.
There was no "form" no statement of first and second subject, no working-out section measured off with compass and ruler, no recapitulation and coda; and mid-nineteenth century ears and brains were utterly baffled. The thematic luxuriance, the richness of the part-weaving, the blazing brilliance of the colouring these were a mere vexation; and the volcanic energy was quickly found exhausting.
He never conceived a single new melody, but substituted instead, sadly mauled and pinched thematic fragments of Liszt, Berlioz, and Beethoven, combined with exaggerated fairy-tales, clothed in showy tinsel and theatrical gauds, the illusion being aided by panoramic scenery; scenery that acted in company with toads, dragons, horses, snakes, crazy valkyrs, mermaids, half-mad humans, gods, demons, dwarfs, and giants.
The first movement, if you wish to observe traditional terminology, is conspicuous chiefly for the skill, yes, fancy, with which thematic material of no marked apparent inherent value is treated. The pastorale is fresh and suggestive. The ordinary pastorale is a bore.
It is only fair to say, however, that A.J. Goodrich, in his "Musical Analysis," praises "the strength and dignity" of this chorus; and gives a minute analysis of the whole work with liberal thematic quotation. The psalm, as a whole, though built on old lines, is built well on those lines, and the solo "God Is in the Midst of Her" is taken up with especially fine effect by the chorus.
There is great beauty, great eloquence, in this music. It has sincerity, dignity, and reserve, yet it is both deeply impassioned and enamoringly tender; and it is as absolutely personal, as underived, as was Tristan forty years ago. The score of Pelléas et Mélisande ill brooks the short and ruthless method of the thematic annotator.
It refused you for the greater part the true adamantine hardness of the artist, the inviolability of soul, the sense of style. It made you, the prodigiously fecund inventor, the mine of thematic material, prodigal; unable to refine your ore, to chase your ideas, and give them their full value.
Too much thematic beating out is the bane of the sonata. A few bars of gold are worth more than many square yards of gold leaf; and Chopin's bars are solid gold. Moreover, there is no organic unity between the different parts of the sonata, whatever may have been said to the contrary. The essentially artificial character of the sonata is neatly illustrated by a simile used by Dr.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking