Dante Warner
Synthesis Draft
11/18/14
One of the three vocabulary words that prior to me being a student in music appreciation class that I was unfamiliar with is, thematic unity. Thematic unity during chapter sixteen “Prelude: Music after Beethoven: Romanticism”. Thematic unity increases tendencies to use themes throughout the entire works. Thematic unity is literal, of obvious return or looser relationship possibilities. It also gives new version of a theme which is called thematic transformation. Thematic unity has vague similarities most typical and vagueness is preferred over clarity, suggestion over statement, and feeling over form. The second of the three vocabulary terms I am using with which I was previously unfamiliar with is “Aria”. Aria is now is a melody and is now a very famous melody. Aria is a strophic for and a strophic form is the term applied to songs in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music, also called verse repeating or chorus form. Each stanza is introduced by orchestra and has vocal candenza. The melody repeats through recitatives that follows. The third vocabulary term that prior to me being a student in music appreciation class that I was unfamiliar with is, “Coda”. Coda always begins with a broken version of love theme for example the Romeo and Juliet theme is one of them. Coda has woodwind sound and optimistic note also. In coda harp strumming introduces love theme so if you hear harp strumming you know coda is present. I learned about coda while going through chapter nineteen titled “The Late Romantics”. The composition Montervdi, the coronation of Poppea, from act one represent the early baroque period in music and the composition, Schubert, “Erlkonig” represents the early romantic period. Both of these pieces have thematic unity they both increase tendencies to use themes throught the entire works. Both of these musical pieces do not have coda i am certain that I hear coda in the Montervdi but not the Erlkonig. They both don’t start start off with the harp strumming which introduces it as a love theme but the montervidi does. They both do not begin with a broken version of love theme but Montervdi does. In Erlkonig there’s an eight stanza poem with many voices and themes of death and supernatural presence. In Erlkonig there are fast triplets that suggest hoof beats. The fathers music is low gruff and stable. The sons music is high frantic and unstable. The demon’s music is ominously sweet as he attempts to lure the son in nicely only to murder him. Tension lets up as they reach homes and start recitatives announces the boy’s death in the end. In the Montervdi is a love theme to people are fighting to be together but have to say fair well to each other. The themes from both don not have a similar story line at all. The Beethoven symphony No five in c minor represents the early and the classical period and the Berlioz fantastic symphony represents the romantic period. There is most definitely coda in the Berlioz fantastic symphony you can hear the woodwind sounds and the harp strumming introducing the love theme but there is no coda in the Beethoven symphony at all. Both of the musical pieces don’t have thematic unity but Berlioz does. Both of these music pieces do have aria and strophic for similar. The Beethoven symphony used trumpet I didn’t hear any trumpet in the Berlioz at all but they both had violins sounds. The violin sounds is another similarity they share. The Berlioz had a theme the pointed out more of a story than the Beethoven did. I have come to the conclusion that even though music has its different periods because times change, that you will still find similarities when you compare one with the other no matter which music periods your comparing, and I never realized that but it’s very