Nostalgic Blog Post: The Feeling We Once Had, from The Wiz

This song is for solo voice and orchestra, and comes from the musical The Wiz, written in the 1970's. We can see this because of the compositional devices used in the song. For example, the song uses a lot of rubato and improvisational ornamentation in the voice. This is typical of the ballad style, from which the song obviously comes, due to its rich harmony and meaningful lyrics. Some of the instruments used are also modern, for example the electric keyboard and synthesised instruments.
The song begins with just one chord on the electric keyboard (BM), and a slow drum beat, that plays on the off-beats of the bar (beats 2 and 4- another typical feature of modern ballad music). The voice comes in on the tonic note (B), and its melody has a pivotal contour, centred around the B. The chords of this part are BM and CM only, alternating. Next the synthesised solo violin comes in at 0:23, with a short melody that follows on from the vocal note (beginning on it, a G), then has a suspension note (D), which resolves to a C (chord V in G) and then returns to the tonic, G. At 0:45, the accompanying instruments have an ascending counter melody/pedal notes that take the song up to the key of Eb, which then repeats. At 1:26 we get a change in section, which is highlighted by the sudden quaver-movement drum beat and more interesting accompaniment (the violins suddenly have a syncopated counter melody that incorporates staccato as well as the usual legato notes, adding interest to the music. At 1:55, the violins have a descending chromatic scale, that builds tension because of its atonal quality. This however leads into a more resolved section, where they have sustained notes again, as before. At 2:39 the violins have the syncopated section that has the different types of articulation again, giving a sense of balance and coherence to the song. Then follows a period that is almost stretto-like in nature, although the sections come horizontally, rather than vertically (they come one-after-another in quick succession rather than all at once). This, as with stretto, builds interest and tension, before finishing the song.

I used this recording and my perfect pitch to work out the notes used in the song.

Unheard Blog Post- La Cenerentola by Rossini

Having begun studying some of Rossini's music in class, I know a few things about him. For example, he wrote many operas, for which he was most famous. Hence this piece is very operatic, like an aria (with soprano singer and string-dominated orchestra included). This type of orchestra is very typical of Romantic period opera, the period in which Rossini was composing.
The piece opens with a solo piccolo, accompanied only by a call-and-response style pizzicato on the strings, which creates a very light, gentle effect for the introduction. The only chords used here are I and V, which is very harmonically strong. Then at 0:11 the singer comes in, with a melody that begins exactly like the piccolo's, creating imitation. This melody then repeats, with different lyrics, but at 0:29 it is different, with the vocal part having a leap of a 6th, followed by descending scalic patterns, to return to the tonic. The orchestra then play a short, chromatic melody (0:35-0:40), which the singer joins in with half way through, before she ornaments the last note. They then repeat this. Next the singer has a florid (heavily ornamented) melody that plays upon the opening, giving a theme and variation structure to the piece. At 1:21, the piece moves into the second variation, which is faster and even more ornamented than the previous one. Throughout these two variations, the orchestra's texture is pulled right back, so that they are only playing pizzicato (or staccato notes for the woodwind etc.) At 1:33, the woodwind have a short descending scalic melody, that imitates the voice in a comical cadence (a perfect cadence). At 2:12 this variation ends, with the orchestra coming back in fully with repetitive semiquaver movement. This begins the long, extensive cadence, as is so common with opera, and arias in particular, in which the music moves through many different keys, returning, of course, to the tonic.


I used this recording