About the Music
It’s Elemental
May 5, 2014
Melody and Rhythm
Melody and rhythm are usually the first two
things we notice about the music we hear. There
are many other things that make music what it
is—harmony, the range of loud to soft, even just
the sheer sound of it all—but melody and rhythm
are at the head of the line.
A melody might be happy or sad, calm or
exciting, noble or scary. It’s what we hear first in
music and it’s often what we remember the best.
Rhythm, on the other hand, is always working
“behind the scenes.” Rhythm is how music
happens in time: the sounds in music may be
fast or slow, and notes may be long or short. How
they’re arranged is what we call rhythm. Rhythm
helps to create the mood of the music in its own
way: long, slow notes may help make music quiet
and serene, while short fast notes may make us
want to get up and dance!
The music we will play in this concert will
show how melody and rhythm combine to make
music express many different moods, and how
they make music fun.
Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
In The Hall of the Mountain King
Edvard Grieg (Greeg) was a Norwegian
composer who wrote this music to accompany a
play called Peer Gynt. It’s a great example of melody
and rhythm working together to create a mood.
In the play, Peer Gynt visits the Mountain
King in his dreams. The music starts off very
quietly and slowly, with the string players of the
orchestra plucking their strings instead of using
their bows. And what a spooky melody! There’s a
good reason it’s spooky: the hall in Peer’s dream is
filled with goblins and trolls!
Both the melody and the rhythm of this
piece make the music exciting. The music starts
off very slowly with its spooky melody, but as it
goes on it gets faster and faster. As the piece
speeds up, the melody stays the same, repeated
over and over. But by the end, when the music is
as fast as can be, both the melody and rhythm
change into something new for the exciting finish.
Those changes seem like a surprise when they
come, but they make the music sound as though
we have arrived somewhere—at the throne of the
Mountain King!
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
“Mambo” from West Side Story
Leonard Bernstein (BERN-stine) was one
of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. He
was not only a composer, but he was also a great
pianist and conductor, too. Even better, he always
seemed to know how to get people excited about
music.
Bernstein wrote a Broadway musical
called West Side Story that re-told the story of
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in modern times. In
the musical, the song “Mambo” is played at a dance
in a gym. A mambo is a kind of song and dance
that comes from Cuba. When Cubans immigrated
to America, they brought the mambo with them.
Bernstein’s “Mambo” shows us that even
though a song may have a very simple melody—as
this one does—its rhythm can make it very exciting.
First, we’re going to play just the percussion parts
for you, so you can hear the many layers of rhythm
that are going on in the piece. Then, at the end of
our concert, we’ll play it with all the orchestral
parts.
Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899)
Blue Danube Waltz
In Vienna in the mid-19th century, ballroom
dancing was very popular. People danced to many
different kinds of music, but the waltz was by
far the kind they liked best. A waltz is a piece of
music that has three beats to the bar, which poses
a question: how do people with two legs dance to
music with three beats in it without falling down?
The answer is simple. If you make those three
beats fast enough, we end up counting only the
first beat of each three. So waltz music sounds like
ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, and the steps go
according to each bar, not each beat.
Johann Strauss Jr. (YO-hann Strouss) wrote
so many great waltzes that he was known as the
Waltz King. His most famous waltz is called the
Blue Danube Waltz, named after a river in Germany.
This music is so famous that it can be heard in
movies, cartoons, even television commercials! Its
melody is very graceful—so much so that it’s easy
to imagine a ballroom full of elegantly-dressed
dancers, all whirling to the sound of this wonderful
tune.
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)
“Finale” from the William Tell Overture
Italian Gioachino Rossini (jo-a-KEEN-o
ro-SEEN-ee) was a great opera composer. He
composed over forty operas, many when he was
only in his twenties. They were hugely popular: “I
woke up one morning and found myself famous,”
he once quipped.
One of Rossini’s operas was based on the
story of William Tell, the famous archer of old
England. We are going to play part of the opera’s
Overture for you. An overture is a piece that is
played at the beginning of the opera, to set the mood
for the story to come. This overture is Rossini’s
most famous, because the music is so good it’s
been used in countless movies and cartoons. It
was even the theme song for a television show
called The Lone Ranger! We are going to start
with the trumpet fanfare that gives us the rhythm
of the entire piece. After the fanfare, the strings
and winds of the orchestra continue this rhythm,
and eventually everyone joins in. This rhythm is
sometimes called a galloping rhythm, because it’s
hard to hear it and not think of horses and their
riders galloping along!
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 3, third movement
Johannes Brahms (yo-HAHN-ess Brahms)
was a wonderful German composer who wrote
symphonies and concertos (con-CHAIR-toes)
that we regularly play in the Portland Symphony
Orchestra. In this part of his Third Symphony the
rhythm is simple and unchanging. But the melody
is something very special. Music often tries to
express what people are feeling. Strong feelings
are fairly easy to produce in music: happy feelings,
sad feelings, or angry feelings. But with this melody
Brahms seems to feel wistful: not really happy, not
really sad, but longing for something—perhaps
even wishing for someone who isn’t there. Notice
how the melody goes a little higher, then a little
higher—as if we were wishing more and more—
then how the melody falls, when we realize we
will have to wait.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 5, first movement
Ludwig van Beethoven (LUD-veeg van BAYtoe-ven) was perhaps the most famous composer
of all, and so popular that the Portland Symphony
plays his pieces every year. As you will see in
his Fifth Symphony, his music is powerful and
exciting.
The opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
is so distinctive that it is famous by itself. There’s
not much melody here—just four different
notes. Beethoven did that on purpose, because
he wanted people to notice the rhythm instead.
This rhythm—three short notes and a long one—
comes to us right at the beginning, where it’s
played twice by itself. Then the movement actually
starts. As it does, you can hear this three-shortone-long rhythm constantly. Even when a new
melody comes along in the winds, you can hear
the three-short-one-long rhythm accompanying
it in the strings! In fact, there are only a few very
short places in the music where this rhythm isn’t
present. In this piece the rhythm moves the music
forward, ever forward, building excitement as it
goes.
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (1756-1791)
Symphony No. 41, fourth movement
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart (VULFF-gong AMa-day MOTE-zart), one of the greatest composers
ever, wrote symphonies to perform at his own
concerts. His 41st was his last, and many say it was
his best. We are going to play the fourth movement
for you.
This movement shows melody and rhythm
working together in a way that’s never been
equaled. It starts with the main theme (or melody)
of the whole movement—a theme that’s only four
notes long! But from this simple beginning Mozart
spins out many, many other themes, almost too
many to keep track of. While the main four-note
theme has a simple, slow rhythm, these other
themes are much more rhythmically exciting. By
the end of the movement, Mozart has combined
all his themes in every way imaginable: shortened,
lengthened, even backwards and upside-down!
This shows Mozart’s craftsmanship—the skill of
working his musical themes in ways that make
the overall piece hang together. Yet when we hear
the movement’s joyous final pages, with all his
themes, in all their variations, all at the same time,
we don’t admire it as we do a well-crafted piece of
furniture—we say “What amazing music this is!”
And it is!
Paul Hindemith (1895-1964)
Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by
Carl Maria von Weber, fourth movement
The German composer Paul Hindemith
(HIN-di-mith) was one of the 20th century’s
greatest. He happened to love the music of
another great composer, Carl Maria von Weber
(1786-1826), and decided to write this work using
Weber’s melodies. The melodies were not taken
from Weber as they were—Hindemith made
variations of those melodies. (As the word implies,
“variations” are changes made to the melodies,
usually with enough of the original melody left so
you can tell where it came from. In the title of this
piece, “metamorphosis” [met-a-MORF-a-sis] is just
a fancy way of saying “variation.”)
The movement begins with a rather scary
brass fanfare, but before you know it the piece
turns bright and sunny and full of life. There are
many melodies being combined—much as Mozart
did in his symphony—but listen especially for all
the drive and excitement created by the neverending profusion of rhythm. It never stops!
Now we will finish the concert with Bernstein’s
“Mambo” for real—with the whole orchestra
playing. You might even hear the orchestra
members shout “Mambo!” from time to time!
We hope you enjoy our concert about melody
and rhythm. These two elements of music are
very simple, really. We hope we’ve shown you just
how amazing they can be in the hands—and the
imagination—of a great composer. Enjoy!
—Program Notes by Mark Rohr;
the bass trombonist for the PSO.