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Tag: quartets
_____
if a trio is a sonata written for three instruments,
a sonata, a piece of music consisting of more
than one segment, or movement, written for
four instruments, is called a quartet
a quartet is also what we call the group itself
of four players
quartets can play more than just quartets, they
can also play waltzes, nocturnes, rhapsodies,
for instance, just as trios, groups of three, can
play more than just trios
but quartets, the form, have had a long and
glorious history, from Mozart and Haydn,
the Classicists, through Beethoven, an
ardent Romantic, to the more political
Shostakovich, enemy, for a time, of his
repressive Soviet state, and on to
Messiaen, who composed his own
concentration camp
let me start with the Messiaen, now that I’ve
whetted your appetite, and work our way back
to Mozart to see where we came from, and
how
there are seven movements in Quartet for
four, atonality abounds, discordant, not
unexpectedly, progressions, repetition also
takes its punches, not easily identifiable
throughout, but tempo, the third pillar of
Western music, more or less holds its
own, keeping the tradition, however
precariously, together, listen
it’s 1941, we’re in a concentration camp,
Messiaen is caught between hope and
despair, give the guy a break, he hasn’t
many absolutes to hold onto, tempo
might be one of them, the heartbeat,
pulse, perseverance, an actual human
pace, a rhythmic instinct, by which
eventually, hopefully, meaning
transpires
hope is in one’s creativity, he says, each
individual answer can be a tribute to
one’s own tribulations, our responses
can be poetry, lessons rather than
invectives, epiphanies rather than
agonies, may the Force, in other words,
be with you, in the face of even the most
trying difficulties, honour can supplant
trials, he concludes, given grace and
integrity
Beethoven says pretty much the same
corroboration
R ! chard
_______
as I was about to listen to Stravinsky’s
I thought, combination, I came upon,
entirely inadvertently, his Concerto for
Two Pianos, which, to my confusion,
was for only two pianos
a concerto is a piece of music consisting,
indeed, of more than one movement,
but with an accompanying orchestra,
according to the definition, Stravinsky
must’ve been playing with words, his
suits my project, a month of, specifically,
sonatas, irrespective of his erroneous
nomenclature
and it is entirely delightful, though
maybe in your face, listen
this is where I might elaborate on the
meaning of sonata, it is nothing more
than a piece of music consisting of
more than one segment, called
movements, anything can happen,
much like in a novel, consisting of
chapters, where anything also can
happen
the term sonata is used for pieces of
music written for one or two instruments,
for the one which can only play one note
at a time, anything not a keyboard,
requires harmonic accompaniment, it is
a tradition, though not absolute
a piece of music written for three
instruments consisting of more than
one segment, movements, is called
a trio, for four, a quartet, five, a
quintet, and so forth, until one stops
counting and we call it a symphony,
a symphony is a sonata written for
an indefinite number of instruments,
which is to say an orchestra
a concerto is a symphony with a
soloist, it’s named according to
the soloist’s instrument
but they’re all, essentially, sonatas
a piece of music consisting of more
than one segment of music, or
movement, written for two instruments
only, as far as I’m concerned, is called
a sonata, so, to my mind, this Concerto
sonata
but that’s just my opinion
what do you think
I think one should ever read the fine
print, even with Stravinsky
R ! chard
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