ipl-logo

The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra Analysis

839 Words4 Pages

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell) is a piece written by Benjamin Britten in 1946. The piece has woodwinds, brass, percussion and strings. The piece goes through all the families, and each section has different instruments playing the variation. The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is 16 minutes long and 33 seconds, and it begins in a minor key which is played by the fill orchestra. The medium of the composed piece is a full symphonic orchestra. The piece is a formed through theme and variation, and throughout the piece they key changes between minor and major keys.

Variation one consists of the woodwind family, where the violin, harp, and triangle were added in during the solo. The first variation was peaceful, and reminded me of the forrest. The flutes and piccolos sounded like singing birds in the forrest, while violin had a way of smoothing the variation out. The transition to the second variation was very subtle and gentle. The strings had a way of carrying on the sound, until the solo oboe came in. During variation two , the timpani has a nice way of complementing the strings. When the strings had a crescendo, the timpani accompanied them to help the strings raise in sound. …show more content…

While the tube played rigid notes, the clarinets played a sweeping sound. The notes would go up, then come back down, while the strings accompanied them. The transition into variation four was quite harsh as well, but went into a soothing solo by the bassoons. The section made me think of a group marching to and fro. Then Variation five made me think of a different time, a time of ball room dancing. The strings were heavily featured in this section, while the brass and bass drum kept a back beat for the

Show More
Related
652 Words | 3 Pages

This piece was actually one of the longer pieces that were played in this concert and it had some interesting turning points to the point where I felt like I was in a scary movie. This piece started off with a solo trumpet and drum, sounded like I was going to go to war. This piece had an allegretto tempo throughout the whole piece. This piece also had a lot of minor keys. This piece also had both a crescendo and decrescendo because the dynamics of this piece gradually get louder in the piece then gradually gets quiet has the trumpet

Read More
772 Words | 4 Pages

Then the rest of the band joins in with the flutes maintaining the melody while the low brass is the background. The form is situated in A B A form. The dynamics in the A parts are louder then the B part. There is no temp change in the first part. The second part, Barbara Allen, has a much slower tempo and is in ¾.

Read More
1436 Words | 6 Pages

It started out with a very strong march played at a fast tempo, and at a mezzo forte. The melody within the march was disjunct as it bounced up and down from note to note. It then went into a slow section that sounded ominous, with the brass playing in a minor key, and the woodwinds playing the harmony below that. The song played the march again, then played an accented version of the march for a few phrases. The song ended abruptly within the

Read More
1104 Words | 5 Pages

This idea was an interesting start, because it caught the audience’s attention to really listen to what was going to happen next. Then the song, went into a lighter more atmospheric section, where there were many crescendos and decrescendos. The instruments in the piece included the chimes, maracas, timpani,

Read More
709 Words | 3 Pages

Kitty Hart-Moxon, born December 1, 1926, is a Polish-English Holocaust Survivor. She was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1943 at the age of 16, where she survived two years with her mother, and was also imprisoned at other camps. This is her story. Kitty’s family went to the vicarage of Father Krasowski, where her father bribed some officials and obtained false documents for her and her mother.

Read More
1089 Words | 5 Pages

It has counterpoint with the trumpets and clarinets, which I thoroughly enjoyed since I played clarinet and my brother played trumpet in middle school. There was a gradual crescendo during this movement as the brass and percussion became easier to distinguish, but it receded again near the end as the winds prevailed and carried the piece to a calm end. The fourth movement, “Wolsey’s Wilde,” had lots of counterpoint. There was some counterpoint between the trumpets and the whole band, and also between the clarinets and flutes, which were both marked by consonant melodies. The fifth movement, “The Bells,” starts with a counterpoint between the trumpets and the French horns and eventually the whole band joins in on the counterpoint which was an amazing way to begin the conclusion of this piece and the ensemble did a brilliant job of coming in at the right times and not being too loud or abrupt.

Read More
697 Words | 3 Pages

The piece opens with a viola accompaniment that supports the violin. The fast-pace, high-pitch opening gives a feeling of anxiety and edginess to the music. The piece progresses to the second phrase, where woodwinds instruments are added to the piece. Then the piece goes back to the first phrase with the woodwind instruments

Read More
769 Words | 4 Pages

It started off pretty slow and peaceful, and the audience became relaxed. It began to increase in speed, and all of sudden the percussion came out in full force. It woke the whole audience up and brought life back to orchestra, who had begun to lose energy. It was funny when the violinists stop playing and it got quiet, and then they picked back up again, and stopped. The audience was so confused.

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

The introduction of the piece is the same as that of “The Raiders March”, but with strings playing in the background. The A melody begins with the trumpet as the strings fade out (0:07). The first minute and a half of the song is played the same as that of “The Raiders March”, though due to differing sound equalization, some parts stick out more or less than they do in the original. For example, in the third repetition of the A melody, one can more clearly hear the xylophone accompanying the melody here than in “The Raiders March”. The piece begins to differ more significantly after the break following the third repetition of the A melody when the piece modulates down a half step instead of up like in the original (1:37).

Read More
234 Words | 1 Pages

The music opens with a Friar Laurence theme, a figure representing peace and the voice of reason. He stands outside the main conflict yet enables the course of love between the two lovers. The piece starts with a hymn-like music accompanied by an organ-like sound produced by a low woodwind instrument to render a calm yet ominous mood and setting to not only represent Laurence’s position in the story but also tease the audience with intimations of the upcoming conflict. Tchaikovsky specifically uses a minor key here to produce an additive effect to this mood in order to convey uneasiness to the calm and sombre mood. Additionally, Brown suggests that Tchaikovsky’s use of string music with forced dissonance later depicts “smothered restlessness”.

Read More
613 Words | 3 Pages

The beginning of the piece sounds really sad and slow as well as a little dark. The French horn starts the piece off, which is followed behind by the singers. The tempo is slow and the pitch range is narrow with a homophonic texture. This piece had very few dynamic changes and there were no tempo changes, yet there were some mood changes. I enjoyed the emotions behind the piece and how it changed from sadness to something heavenly like.

Read More
411 Words | 2 Pages

There were several loud and intense parts in this piece, but there were also quiet and suspenseful parts. This piece has a quick tempo, with a few slow

Read More
974 Words | 4 Pages

The stringed instruments were the accompaniment; therefor, they began with harmonics, chromatics, and tremolo for various measures rather than having a moving part. The melody was given to the flutes and soloist, Sami Junnonen, who was also very talented. The song was about 22 minutes long and he had the whole piece memorized. It sounded very sad, but soothing simultaneously. There were visuals around the theater, which made it easier to understand and visualize what Lopez was trying to describe when writing the song.

Read More
680 Words | 3 Pages

The melody of this song described as restlessly chromatic and undulating, a swaying Arabic-sounding tune. The melodic line is filled with emotion and oddly unbalanced consisting of seven alternating sections of held tones and movement. The harmony is added behind the melody is dissonant but simultaneously lush. The rhythm was played with in Ella’s version making the classic song her own giving the clarinet a smooth solo. The simple rhythm of the song has an AABA pattern it sticks too.

Read More
491 Words | 2 Pages

First of all, the piece is quite interesting as a prelude – an introductory piece of music as it start off with dynamic and vibrant sounds that include the whole ensemble. This piece is structured as a three-part or ternary form which consists of ABA’ form. The idea of this piece is mainly act as an introductory of a story because this piece is only an excerpt from a bigger orchestral performance. From what I have heard, the solo performance is mainly comprise of the woodwind instruments in part B that indicated the slight sign of relief and calmness. The piece has a lot of variation where the composer include different timbres and dynamics such as the high dynamic structure during the first and the last part with the associating crashes of cymbals.

Read More

More about The Young Person's Guide To The Orchestra Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document