Musical questions and answers thread

[teamsaint]

ah, we never did find about about those shopping trips.

any road up, Interesting movement structure in the Beethoven op5 cello sonatas of 1796 ( 1 and 2 one of which Wiki lists as being in two movements, 1.Adagio sostenuto – Allegro
2.Rondo. Allegro vivace) although elsewhere described as three movements.

and interestingly the 1784 Haydn Keyboard sonatas, , Nos 40 to 42 are also in two movements.

was there an experiment in structure going on?

or not?

save me some heavy duty googling please !

edit: listening to the Haydn no 42 sonata, what an interesting piece that is.

Apologies for any dumbness above !!

[teamsaint]

ok, not really sure of my ground, or where to put this....but

here's a rather excellent old Motown record.

Have a listen. Anything a bit unusual about it?

It has the verse in a major key, and a chorus in the minor, which a flick around google does suggest is rather unusual, at least in mainstream pop.

Edit: Without the sheet music or plodding through it at the piano, I'm not quite sure what IS happening, but the chorus feels in a minor key, mostly due to that repeated guitar note.

is this actually not that common? If not, why not? what about in other song genres?



anyway, just a potential discussion point, if anybody is interested.

other examples of songs following this pattern are " Under the boardwalk," , " I'm still Standing", and " The fool on the hill ".

and Brel's " Ne me Quitte pas," kind of......

[EdgeleyRob]

ah, we never did find about about those shopping trips.

any road up, Interesting movement structure in the Beethoven op5 cello sonatas of 1796 ( 1 and 2 one of which Wiki lists as being in two movements, 1.Adagio sostenuto – Allegro
2.Rondo. Allegro vivace) although elsewhere described as three movements.

and interestingly the 1784 Haydn Keyboard sonatas, , Nos 40 to 42 are also in two movements.

was there an experiment in structure going on?

or not?

save me some heavy duty googling please !

edit: listening to the Haydn no 42 sonata, what an interesting piece that is.

Apologies for any dumbness above !!

I'd like to know the answer to this too ts,and how does a composer decide how many movements a piece will have ?

Also,having followed some Bach/Busoni piano scores on you tube,I wondered if there was a difference between staccato and non-legato.
Busoni seems fond of using the term non-legato,and there's a lot of staccatissimo,and what on earth is mezzo staccato ?

[Pabmusic]

I'd like to know the answer to this too ts,and how does a composer decide how many movements a piece will have ?

Also,having followed some Bach/Busoni piano scores on you tube,I wondered if there was a difference between staccato and non-legato.
Busoni seems fond of using the term non-legato,and there's a lot of staccatissimo,and what on earth is mezzo staccato ?

Two issues here: first, the number of movements.

There are probably two answers to this:

(1) They're using a template, such as 'standard' sonata/symphony form. I doubt that many composers of Stamitz's era thought of using anything but three movements for a symphony; by the end of the century the standard had become four. Most never considered the number of movements, just accepting the template. There are exceptions. Dittersdorf was one who'd experiment, perhaps beginning with a march and ending with a minuet, and inbetween having three more standard movements. As the 19th Century progressed, the pattern of using templates didn't change much, though many composers experimented occasionally. Beethoven runs movements together (Symphonies 5 & 6, for instance), copied by Schumann and Elgar; Berwald has the scherzo of the Singuliere embedded within the slow movement. But in essence these are all using 4-movement forms.

(2) They're trying to be quite deliberately 'different'. One-movement symphonies are a good example, but even here Sibelius's 7th (for instance) moves clearly between 'movements'. You could just about argue that Tapiola could justify being called a 'symphony'; I have said this about Elgar's Falstaff. In most cases, though, the finished product has echoes of several independent movements - and usually of movements that the listener can recognise as such. It's part of the plot; the composer wants to demonstrate something he or she has created out of the expected, so needs us to realise that.

As far as the questions about degrees of staccato go, it does depend on individual composers (at least a little - they often have favourite terms). But there are differences. Non legato (not smoothly) does mean something different from staccato (short). The opposite of 'not smoothly' is 'smoothly'; the opposite of 'short' is 'not short'. This is all very subtle, of course, and it is arguable whether a real distinction can be achieved in most instances. I'd say that such subtleties are easier to realise with an orchestra or chamber group than they are with a piano. Busoni was a fabulous pianist of course and perhaps could have produced real differences. So could Percy Grainger, whose piano scores are replete with subtleties of expression. Terms such as staccatissimo may require a conscious effort to emphasise the staccato-ness, perhaps.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A couple of extra possibilities:

1) The Music "decides" for itself - there have been a number of instances where a composer has set out to write a multi-movement work, only to discover that nothing more needs to be "said" after the first or second - or that what was originally conceived as a single-movement piece might need a couple of extra "companions".

2) The time allowed for a piece (from a commission, for example) allows for only one or two Movements, in which case the composer will gear the Music to fit that time frame.

It's not unlike a painter - if someone asks for a work to fit an already-existing space, the Artist will think in terms of that particular size of canvas (/bit of wall). If they have an "idea", they'll buy the canvas to suit the idea (or see a huge wall and have an idea of an image that will "fit" it perfectly).

[Pabmusic]

A couple of extra possibilities:

1) The Music "decides" for itself - there have been a number of instances where a composer has set out to write a multi-movement work, only to discover that nothing more needs to be "said" after the first or second - or that what was originally conceived as a single-movement piece might need a couple of extra "companions".

2) The time allowed for a piece (from a commission, for example) allows for only one or two Movements, in which case the composer will gear the Music to fit that time frame.

It's not unlike a painter - if someone asks for a work to fit an already-existing space, the Artist will think in terms of that particular size of canvas (/bit of wall). If they have an "idea", they'll buy the canvas to suit the idea (or see a huge wall and have an idea of an image that will "fit" it perfectly).

I wholeheartedly agree, Ferney. (No-one's ever commissioned anything from me with such precise parameters. Oh, 'twere so!)

[MrGongGong]

Slightly OT but with regard to Q1

A few years ago I watched a documentary about U2 recording in the Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin.
At one point the film crew managed to capture the exact moment where (and it was a while back so I can't remember the exact songs), while jamming around some ideas for a link section in one song a completely new one split away and became a new piece. Sometimes music does that, one thing becomes two. (as said in #725)

and as for Q2

"Conventional" notation is very imprecise about these things, some composers want more precision. On the spectrum from shortest click to B and F# held for ever there are many places to be, and many to move between.

[Pabmusic]

...there are many places to be, and many to move between.

Is this Zen composition?

[Richard Barrett]

how does a composer decide how many movements a piece will have ?

One. The answer is always one.

[P. G. Tipps]

One. The answer is always one.

I do feel confident that there must be a huge subtlety in that answer but I'm still struggling somewhat ...

[MrGongGong]

Is this Zen composition?

Always

[ahinton]

A few years ago I watched a documentary about U2 recording in the Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin.
At one point the film crew managed to capture the exact moment where (and it was a while back so I can't remember the exact songs), while jamming around some ideas for a link section in one song a completely new one split away and became a new piece. Sometimes music does that, one thing becomes two. (as said in #725)

Another example (though more different to the above than is any chalk from any cheese, I imagine) is George Lloyd's first piano concerto which gave rise to his second which begat his third and which ultimately resulted in his fourth; perhaps it's no wonder, then, that the first is entitled Scapegoat (it was written for John Ogdon). I will refrain from comment on this particular exercise, however.

[EdgeleyRob]

Many thanks to you all for your interesting and fascinating replies

[Richard Barrett]

I do feel confident that there must be a huge subtlety in that answer

Quite the contrary I'm afraid. I was just speaking for myself, on the possibly mistaken assumption that anyone might be interested. How do I decide how many movements a composition should have? I don't need to decide because the answer as I said is always going to be one. Writing a piece in several movements seems to me to presuppose certain kinds of ideas about form which I don't share. I'm not sure whether that's a contribution to the discussion or not though.

[Pabmusic]

Quite the contrary I'm afraid. I was just speaking for myself, on the possibly mistaken assumption that anyone might be interested. How do I decide how many movements a composition should have? I don't need to decide because the answer as I said is always going to be one. Writing a piece in several movements seems to me to presuppose certain kinds of ideas about form which I don't share. I'm not sure whether that's a contribution to the discussion or not though.

Indeed it's a valuable contribution which rather echoes my post about either using templates or reacting against them.