Essay On Claude Debussy's Waltz

For Chamber Orchestra I have chosen the pieces Waltz by Claude Debussy/arr. Matthew Moreno, Symphony #104 F.J. Haydn/arr. Jan Farrar-Royce, and The Bells of St. Genevieve by Marin Marais/arr. Smolensky. These three pieces represent composers across three eras of Western classical music, and I picked these to ensure that students could become familiar with what it is like to play different music from different periods. These three pieces are challenging, but well within the capabilities of my fellow students in Chamber. When presented with challenging music in the past, we always try our best to learn it, and have even stayed after school to get the job done. Depending on the time frame of how long we have to learn the music, staying for

In Debussy’s Waltz, students will be tested a lot on intonation and expression. The Waltz has lots of accidentals throughout the piece, with the most being concentrated in the first violin section starting at measure 46 and ending at measure 59. Debussy is an Impressionist composer (even though he rejected the term) and as such he work is extremely expressive. Haydn is a composer of the Classical period. I picked a piece by Haydn because I wanted students to be able to experience the lighter, clearer texture that classical period music offers and how it is less complex compared to Baroque music. Haydn’s Symphony #104 is the easiest of the pieces I picked, and as such it should not be overly challenging for the group. However, shifting in the viola section might prove to be an ultimate test for their ability to maintain clear intonation. The last piece I chose is The Bells of St. Genevieve by Marin Marais. The piece is the most difficult of the ones I have chosen and is from the Baroque period. Students will be tested on their ability to perform correct rhythms, sustain passages of sixteenth notes, shift correctly, and play with correct intonation regardless of accidentals. The piece might require extra effort from the students if they want to successfully be able to play this. After-school rehearsals might need to be called for students to be able to successfully perform this