James Baquet

    For a few months we’ve been focusing on authors and literature. Let’s begin looking again at other disciplines, such as science, philosophy, art, and — today — music.

    For people not terribly interested in classical music, an easy entree is so-called programmatic music, also called program music. This is a style of music that attempts to tell a non-musical story musically.

    One of the best-known examples is Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture.” Many listeners recognize the booming cannons and ringing church bells in the work’s finale, but if we listen to the full 15 minutes or so, we will hear the story of Russia’s successful defense against Napoleon, which the work was written to commemorate. Along the way we will hear a hymn as the Russian people prayed to God to protect them; the sounds of approaching battle; the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” as Napoleon’s army arrives on the scene; Russian folk music representing the people’s response to the attack; an interlude in which a Gypsy caravan passes by; the blowing of winter winds that freeze the French guns; and finally the Russian victory celebration.

    The “Overture” was first performed in 1882, near the end of the Romantic Period of classical music (1804-1910). This was program music’s heyday. Though program music had appeared as early as Bach’s “Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother” (perhaps 1704) and one outstanding example is Vivaldi’s 1725 “Four Seasons,” in which every movement represents a time of year. It is in the 19th century that we begin to hear such works as Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” where each section represents one painting, and Camille Saint-Saens’s “Danse Macabre” and “Carnival of the Animals.”

    Other programmatic works are Paul Dukas’ “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” based on a story from the German author Goethe; Richard Strauss’ portrayal of the trickster “Till Eulenspiegel”; and Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee.”

    Find and listen to any of these works and you may discover that classical music can be fun.

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. period of greatest success or popularity

    2. access, ability to get into something

    3. very, extremely

    4. honor the memory of something

    5. country’s patriotic song

    6. gruesome, horrible, pertaining to death

    7. last part of a musical piece

    8. large bee

    9. a free, irregular musical composition

    10. a song about, or directed to, God