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  • Prof: Now today we're going to be talking about

  • musical Impressionism--next time modernism, but today musical

  • impressionism.

  • Impressionism, generally speaking,

  • is a period in the history of music running from 1880 to 1920.

  • It's mostly a French phenomenon although it did expand,

  • as we will see, to England and to Italy and to

  • the United States even to some degree.

  • We have the American Impressionist School of Art,

  • for example.

  • Let's turn to the board here and visit some familiar names

  • and faces.

  • You know of the painters: Manet, Monet,

  • Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro,

  • and the American--interesting enough--American woman,

  • Mary Cassatt.

  • Any time an art museum needs to raise cash, what sort of

  • exhibition do they put on?

  • A blockbuster exhibition of Impressionist painting.

  • That's what brings everybody in.

  • It is the locus, somehow, of what art is

  • supposed to be.

  • Everybody loves these Impressionist exhibitions

  • whether it's Boston, New York, Chicago,

  • wherever it might be.

  • So we have those artists.

  • We also have the poets--though interestingly enough they're not

  • called so much Impressionist poets.

  • They're called the Symbolist poets,

  • and I'm sure in literature classes and in French classes

  • you have studied some of them: Charles Baudelaire,

  • Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud,

  • and Stephane Mallarmé.

  • Turning now to the composers, the most important of these,

  • really, is Claude Debussy.

  • He sort of started this school of French composition,

  • the Impressionist style.

  • We list others up there--Maurice Ravel.

  • We've bumped into Bolero of Ravel;

  • Gabriel Fauré wrote some beautiful

  • Impressionist music.

  • You may have heard of parts of the Fauré

  • "Requiem" from time to time;

  • Ottorino Respighi, an Italian, suggesting that

  • this also got to Italy; and the American,

  • Charles Griffes, who died of the influenza in

  • New York City but wrote some Impressionist piano and

  • orchestral music.

  • In terms of the works of these individuals,

  • we've listed more over here for Debussy than any one else--

  • Clair de Lune, that we're going to be talking

  • about today, that's important,

  • Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun.--

  • we'll be hearing some of that and you have your Listening

  • Exercise 40 on Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun,

  • other orchestral pieces, Nocturnes--

  • sort of night mood pieces, La Mer,

  • a big orchestral composition, Images,

  • more orchestral works, and then preludes for piano.

  • And we'll be foregrounding those preludes for piano here

  • today and a couple of pieces that we listed on the board:

  • the "Ondine" from Gaspar de la Nuit

  • that will be performed for us later in the hour today,

  • and the Bolero that we have mentioned before.

  • So those are the players.

  • Let's take a look now at what this music sounds like.

  • I'm going to start with playing some of this piece that you all

  • know.

  • I'm sure you've heard this before: Clair de Lune

  • (1890) <<plays piano>>

  • And we'll pick it up from there in just a moment.

  • But obviously-- <<plays piano>>

  • we've talked a little about this before--this general

  • relaxation caused by the falling down motive only to rise up

  • >

  • at this point.

  • But also of interest here is the absence of any kind of

  • clear-cut meter.

  • That's, I think, the big-ticket item here.

  • You'd be hard pressed to tap your foot to this,

  • to conduct this in any way.

  • So that takes us through, oh, the first twelve,

  • fifteen bars of this piece.

  • Now a different kind of music.

  • >

  • Let's pause on this for a moment.

  • I'll be emphasizing the phenomenon of parallel motion

  • today--parallelism today--and here is a moment of that.

  • >

  • , all the voices.

  • They probably have six different notes <<plays

  • piano>>

  • in that chord, but the next one <<plays

  • piano>>

  • all six are going in the same direction rather than

  • having--going in the opposite direction.

  • We'll continue to elaborate on that as we proceed.

  • >

  • Okay.

  • Now another idea comes in here, >

  • lovely, really nice, >

  • could be Chopin, right, that kind of rich sound

  • with the <<plays piano>>

  • almost guitar-like accompaniment underneath it,

  • but something really neat happens here.

  • >

  • We have this chord >

  • and then we have this chord >

  • --kind of a surprising or shocking, unexpected chord.

  • So that's something else we get here with this impressionist

  • style: unexpected chords, new chords.

  • We might have normally >.

  • Then we could go <<plays piano>>

  • and that kind of Beethoven-type sound, but here we get

  • >

  • , going to, not chords a fourth or a fifth away,

  • but chords just a third away.

  • >

  • Okay.

  • >

  • Now that's another interesting moment.

  • We've had--we've got this sound here to begin with <<plays

  • piano>>.

  • Well, that's kind of-- >

  • And then the next chord is >.

  • We haven't had those chords before.

  • We've had major triads, we've had minor triads,

  • we've had diminished triads and now we've got the kind of flip

  • side of the diminished triad-- the augmented triad.

  • This is the fourth of our triads.

  • Major <<plays piano>>

  • --we've got a major third on the bottom and minor third on

  • top.

  • Minor, <<plays piano>>

  • changes those around, >

  • a minor third on the bottom, major on top,

  • major, <<plays piano>>

  • minor.

  • Then we could have--we have got this sharp, biting chord called

  • >

  • the diminished if we just two minor thirds.

  • It's the most narrow of the triads, <<plays

  • piano>>

  • but supposing we had two major thirds in this aggregate,

  • >

  • yeah, that kind of sound.

  • Well, it's a little bit weird >

  • so we get once again a new chord here with the

  • Impressionist--the augmented triad, <<plays

  • piano>>

  • --and we might kind of pile them up <<plays

  • piano>>

  • in this fashion.

  • >

  • It's a different sound, kind of a strange sound.

  • All right.

  • Well, that's a little bit of Clair de Lune of Claude

  • Debussy and that introduces us to the Impressionist style.

  • We're going to move on now to first--

  • the first orchestral piece of Debussy and that's the

  • Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun that's listed on the

  • board there.

  • In 1894, Debussy lamented that he had never created a

  • masterpiece.

  • Well, he sort of did with this piece.

  • It's really a wonderful, wonderful composition.

  • It goes about ten minutes and you've got the full composition

  • there on your CD No.

  • 5..

  • What can we say about it?

  • Well, first of all, Prelude to the Afternoon of

  • a Faun: its point of inspiration was a poem by

  • Stephane Mallarmé.

  • Mallarmé was an aesthetic mentor of

  • Debussy.

  • They were close friends.

  • Once a week they would meet and talk about aesthetic issues in

  • Paris in the Boulevard Montparnasse area.

  • So he--Mallarmé--had written a poem called "The

  • Afternoon of a Faun."

  • Now this faun here is not f-a-w-n, the little baby

  • deer-type fawn, but f-a-u-n,

  • a sort of randy satyr, half man, half beast,

  • who spends his afternoon in pursuit of sexual gratification

  • in the heat of the midday sun-- so it's a bit more sexually

  • supercharged than the story of Bambi.

  • Let's go on and think about the type of music that we're about

  • to hear here.

  • It's a different kind of music, and maybe the best thing to do

  • is just jump into it.

  • For us, it's difficult to appreciate how strange this must

  • have sounded.

  • We're kind of used to this sound.

  • We've gotten--and maybe you've heard <<plays

  • piano>>

  • augmented triads and there are a lot of <<plays

  • piano>>

  • major seventh chords in Debussy, sounds a bit like a

  • jazz chord, yeah, because jazz <<plays

  • piano>>

  • performers like that sound.

  • They heard it in the Impressionists and they drew it

  • into their music.

  • So there are strange chords here, but there's also strange

  • orchestration, and once again we should

  • remember how unusual this must have sounded at the time it was

  • created.

  • So let's listen to a little bit of the Prelude to the

  • Afternoon of a Faun, picking it up about-- it's in

  • ternary form.

  • We're picking it up in returned A.

  • See if you can tell me what the meter is here.

  • >

  • Okay.

  • Let's just pause it there for a moment.

  • Anybody know what the meter is?

  • No. I don't either.

  • I'd have to look at the score and I never look at the score

  • for this course.

  • That seems like cheating.

  • I shouldn't have any more advantage than you do.

  • So it's a little hard to know what it is there.

  • We--I'd really have to go get the music and find out what it

  • is there.

  • You heard kind of little harp glissandos in the background.

  • We'll be talking more about that--the harp playing away

  • there, arpeggios periodically, >

  • or >

  • , just little dabs of color underneath by way of a

  • supporting accompaniment.

  • So let's listen to a little bit more here.

  • Focus on the flute line.

  • That's got the melody but it's a kind of different melody than

  • the melodies that we have been listening to.

  • >

  • Passed it to the oboe, >

  • , okay, pausing it there.

  • So that melody, >

  • is kind of like a roulade, kind of ill-formed in a way.

  • It's very beautiful, but it's difficult to sing.

  • It's chromatic, it doesn't have any regular

  • structure to it, and this is typical of the

  • Impressionists' approach to melody.

  • Well, as I say, this was somewhat shocking at

  • the time.

  • This is Debussy's response to a poem, and you have the poem

  • there.

  • It's given to you on the sheet for today.

  • Everybody got the sheet?

  • We're not going to read it because we don't have time for

  • it.

  • It's a good example, however.

  • It's a wonderful example of the Symbolist poetry,

  • where the meaning comes not from any kind of logical

  • semantic-- no--syntactical presentation of

  • ideas, one word following the next in

  • a logical fashion, but just sort of placing key

  • words at interesting moments that stimulate our thinking.

  • These words have resonance in and of themselves.

  • And I think that in some ways gets to the essence of this

  • Symbolist poetry, so you can take a look at that

  • on your own there.

  • So Debussy was not trying to write program music here.

  • He was just trying to use this as a point of inspiration,

  • and here's what he said at the time about his approach to this

  • piece.

  • Quote: "The piece is really a sequence of mood

  • paintings throughout which the desires and dreams of the faun

  • move in the heat of the afternoon."

  • So Mallarmé then went to the first concert

  • of this piece and here's what he said in turn about Debussy's

  • music.

  • Quote: "I never expected anything like it.

  • The music prolongs the emotion of my poem and paints its

  • scenery more passionately than could colors,"

  • -- paints it, so music as painting.

  • Well, with this idea of music as painting--

  • because these two artistic disciplines can't be separated

  • really from one another-- let's turn to our first slide

  • for today and we'll see how this works.

  • What's this? Anybody know this?

  • Kind of a classic of Impressionist painting,

  • "La Grenouillère,"

  • the frog pond, painted by Monet.

  • I don't know the date, probably 1874 or 1875,

  • I would guess.

  • And we get this general impression of it.

  • If we look, however, at the brush work of it,

  • and let's go to that, a kind of close-up,

  • we see--here we are--that it's really made up of a series of

  • individual gestures.

  • There's a mark there, a mark there,

  • and so on, but when we--let's go to the next slide--

  • stand back we do get this sort of shimmering impression,

  • and there'll be a lot of that, the same kind of effect,

  • worked out in music.

  • Yes, you can have a chord, but that chord could be played

  • as an arpeggio, and you could pedal with it and

  • you could play it very rapidly and you wouldn't notice the

  • individual notes.

  • You would get the effect of the impression of this general wash

  • of sound so that, in some ways,

  • is a similarity here between these two artistic disciplines .

  • Let's go on to the next or maybe that makes that point.

  • No. This is fine.

  • We're going to go on to a sailboat here now.

  • And we needn't mention where this comes from but this is a

  • picture of sailboats sort of luffing more or less listlessly

  • at anchor here at a harbor probably out near Argenteuil,

  • a few miles to the west of Paris.

  • And with this as something of a visual set-up,

  • let's turn to the next piece by Debussy.

  • It's one that you have on your CDs.

  • It's called Voiles or Sails--from these

  • preludes for piano of 1910.

  • And I'm going to start just by playing and then we'll talk

  • about what it is that I'm playing.

  • >

  • All of that music up to that point is made up out of a new

  • kind of scale, a scale we haven't talked about

  • before but now's the time.

  • It's called a whole tone scale.

  • Remember when we have >

  • our octave <<plays piano>>

  • with our--it may take a major scale in there--our octave

  • divided into seven different pitches, five whole steps and

  • two half steps.

  • But supposing we traded in those two half steps for one

  • whole step.

  • So instead of going >

  • C to C in that fashion, we would be going <<plays

  • piano>>

  • --now I got to do a whole step >

  • --so that's a whole tone scale, all whole tones within the

  • octave.

  • There are a total of six of them there--just converting two

  • half tones into one whole tone.

  • So all of this business >

  • and so on, just running up and down a whole tone scale.

  • All right.

  • Then at this point where we stop, <<plays

  • piano>>

  • well, underneath there--you're listening to the whole tone

  • scale up above--but underneath we're getting <<plays

  • piano>>

  • , kind of a rocking anchor.

  • What is this in music, when you just repeat something

  • over and over again?

  • >

  • A.J.

  • Student: Ostinato.

  • Prof: Ostinato.

  • Thank you very much.

  • So we have ostinatos coming back into music here in the

  • Impressionist period.

  • They were there in Baroque music.

  • They kind of went out of fashion in the Classical period

  • and in the romantic period.

  • Romantic is too expansive for ostinatos, but they come back in

  • here in the Impressionist period and they're really important in

  • the Modernist period.

  • So it's a harbinger of things to come in the Modernist period.

  • All right.

  • Now let's go on just a little bit farther <<plays

  • piano>>

  • where you can hear the ostinato up above, and that's a good

  • example of <<plays piano>>

  • parallel motion, all of the chords going up and

  • going down at the same time.

  • >

  • What's that?

  • Well, it's a classic example >

  • of a glissando. Right?

  • They use a lot in television and stuff.

  • What's behind curtain number three?

  • >

  • "Tell us, Vanna,"

  • or whatever.

  • So it's simply playing an arpeggio--an arpeggio that's

  • very rapid family, kind of--or fashion.

  • * That'd be another sort of glissando,

  • just playing every white note or every <<plays

  • piano>>

  • black note, okay, up on the keyboard.

  • So we had this glissando >.

  • All right.

  • Now let's talk about the scale we have here because he's

  • actually changed scales.

  • We did have <<plays piano>>

  • whole tone but now we get >

  • a pentatonic scale, just using five notes.

  • >

  • We've bumped into the pentatonic scale before.

  • Anybody remember when, way back early on?

  • Roger.

  • Student: >

  • Prof: I didn't hear that.

  • A little bit loud.

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Yes, to some extent.

  • It was in that lecture where we were talking about blues.

  • Blues tends to use more of a six-note scale,

  • but it was at that very point.

  • What kind of music was it?

  • Emily.

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Chinese music.

  • Good for you.

  • Chinese music.

  • We had the Moon Reflected in the Distant Pool and it was

  • played by an erhu.

  • >

  • Well, here we have another five-note scale that involved

  • whole steps and minor thirds >.

  • The simplest way to think of it is just the black notes of the

  • keyboard, and that's kind of what he's using here.

  • >

  • Now one other interesting thing going on, and that is the

  • combination <<plays piano>>

  • of--which is what he's doing here--of parallel motion and the

  • pentatonic scale, because-- <<plays

  • piano>>

  • Does that conjure up any--Chris is smiling down here.

  • Why are you smiling, Chris?

  • What does that remind you of?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: What?

  • Student: The Far East.

  • Prof: All right.

  • The Far East. Indeed.

  • But when I was a kid growing up if I heard <<plays

  • piano>>

  • I would be watching Indians coming over the horizon in the

  • West and the good guys or the bad guys were chasing--it was a

  • sign of the Indians.

  • What this was--what this became in terms of film music was a

  • kind of racial stereotyping.

  • We had "us" and "us"

  • went along <<music playing>>

  • in major and minor scales, and then we had these other

  • people <<plays piano>>

  • who generally moved in parallel motion and used a lot of

  • pentatonic sounds.

  • So the people in Hollywood were painting here ethnically with a

  • very blunt brush.

  • It was "us" in Hollywood in major and minor

  • and functional harmonies and it was "them"

  • who went around in pentatonic scales and in parallel motion.

  • It was a very interesting kind of moment there in the history

  • of American musical culture in a way.

  • So in any event, that's what we have in this

  • particular piece.

  • Debussy is using this here, and I'll come back to this a

  • little bit later on, because Debussy was very much

  • influenced-- and we can document where and

  • why-- very much influenced by the

  • Orient, by the East.

  • He was hearing these Eastern sounds in Paris beginning in

  • eighteen eighty-nine.

  • All right.

  • Well, then this thing goes back >

  • to a whole scale--a whole tone scale and then finally--

  • >

  • And he instructs the pianist there just to leave the foot on

  • that sustaining pedal there, that rightmost pedal,

  • the sustaining pedal, >

  • so we get, again, this wash of sound.

  • Okay?

  • Now one other point about pedals, while I've got--

  • while I have the--I'm at the keyboard here--

  • and that is the following: We've talked about the

  • rightmost pedal <<plays piano>>.

  • It gives us <<plays piano>>

  • this kind of wash sound.

  • What's it called, once again?

  • What's the rightmost pedal called on the piano?

  • Yeah, I hear it over here.

  • Who's got it?

  • Kristen?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Okay.

  • Who said that, please?

  • Student: >

  • Prof: Okay. Thank you.

  • This is the sustaining pedal, right, and it gives us the wash

  • of sound.

  • What's the leftmost pedal do?

  • >

  • Frederick.

  • Student: And that's the one that moves it over

  • >

  • Prof: That's right.

  • Moves the whole keyboard over so those hammers are only

  • striking two strings rather than striking three strings.

  • It makes it a little softer.

  • The middlemost pedal, however, is a very interesting

  • one.

  • It doesn't get used nearly as much, and I was thinking this

  • morning.

  • I was looking in my office on my Steinway upright and there is

  • no middle pedal.

  • And that's because it doesn't get used very much.

  • But when it does get used, it's used for sort of special

  • effects.

  • I'm going to show you a good example in another prelude of

  • Debussy.

  • And this is a bit, oh, hokey I suppose but it's

  • called La Cathédrale Engloutie,

  • the engulfed, or sunken cathedral.

  • And of course Monet painted the cathedral over and over again,

  • all sorts of different views of this cathedral in different

  • kinds of lights.

  • Which cathedral was it?

  • Notre Dame de Paris?

  • No.

  • Any art folks here? Sure.

  • Jacob, which cathedral is it that Monet--show the next slide,

  • please.

  • It's an impression of the Cathedral of Rouen,

  • which is about a hundred miles or so up river--

  • no--down river toward the mouth of the Seine so you go the Seine

  • toward Harfleur and you come to Rouen.

  • And he painted this, and Debussy also constructed a

  • musical equivalent of it.

  • It goes this way.

  • >

  • Notice all the parallel motion here.

  • >

  • All right.

  • So then the sun comes up on the cathedral.

  • Let's see if we can get the sun to come up here a little bit on

  • our cathedral.

  • There we go, a little bit sunnier,

  • and we get this kind of music and we'll get to our middle

  • pedal here.

  • >

  • Well, now Debussy is going to show you what the bells sound

  • like on the cathedral.

  • But as is the case with most of these French cathedral bells,

  • there is one bell.

  • It's called the bourdon, this huge,

  • big, low bell, and he's trying to give us the

  • impression of the bourdon here and he instructs that we

  • should use the sostenuto pedal.

  • This is a bit counterintuitive because we have the sustaining

  • pedal to the right; now we've got this thing called

  • the sostenuto pedal that also sustains but it sustains in a

  • different way.

  • It allows you to hit a note >

  • and hold that note >

  • and then you can play other stuff and clear that other stuff

  • with your sustaining pedal while that note is still sounding down

  • there.

  • And he uses it here to get the effect of this large bell

  • >

  • as the other bells sound above it >

  • and then a fade-out at that point.

  • >

  • Okay.

  • So that takes us to the end of this particular prelude,

  • and I have a lot of other things I'd like to say about

  • Impressionist music, very interesting stuff.

  • I think I'm going to cut to the chase,

  • however, with just showing you a few slides because we have a

  • guest that we want to talk with and she is here,

  • and we want to move on to that.

  • In the textbook, and you can read about this in

  • the Impressionist chapter in the textbook--let's go on,

  • Jacob, to the next slide.

  • And the point here is the association of color.

  • So we're going to make a point here and that is that musicians

  • in this Western tradition of Bach,

  • Beethoven, and Mozart and so on always tie line to color.

  • In a section one day, I think it was Roger--

  • where's my Roger--asked me--there he is back there--

  • "How do we know it's a melody?"

  • Well, one reason we know in all this complex of music that

  • something is a melody is that in orchestrated pieces when it's

  • melody time the composer will bring in a new instrument.

  • It's like telling you, holding up a sign again,

  • "Hey, here's the melody."

  • The instruments are quiet.

  • Then they come in to play the melody so let's listen to a

  • famous passage of Tchaikovsky here out of "Romeo and

  • Juliet" where you work up nicely in the strings.

  • When we get to "melody"

  • time, in comes the flute playing the

  • melody and a French horn now enters to play an accompaniment

  • with it.

  • >

  • Melody time.

  • >

  • Now that's one approach, but Debussy starts doing

  • something a little bit different.

  • He's going to start working just with color--a little bit,

  • if we can get to it, of an orchestral piece with

  • Debussy where he's using a new instrument.

  • It's the human voice.

  • What's the instrument singing here?

  • >

  • Not singing much of anything, just singing "ah."

  • It's just--what he wants there is the warm sound,

  • the stable, warm sound of the human voice,

  • and--as Thomas Mann said--and he just brings that in,

  • a little dab of color there, a little dab of color there.

  • What's interesting him is not line but just color.

  • He's going to pull in color away from line,

  • and that begins to happen here in the painting of the period.

  • They begin to intensify color and separate color from line.

  • Here we have Matisse, nineteen oh-nine,

  • "The Dancers."

  • This is version one of this.

  • You may not know that he actually painted this particular

  • scene twice.

  • Version one, notice just the kind of

  • flesh-tone colors; notice the position of the

  • knees.

  • Now we're going to go to version two, two years later,

  • much more intense.

  • The position of the legs and the hamstrings here is much more

  • angular and we have a much more visceral response to this

  • because of the addition of the red color to it.

  • And red becomes a very important color with the

  • painters of this period and they begin to take this color and

  • just play with the color itself outside of line,

  • which is what Debussy is doing.

  • So let's go on to the next slide here.

  • Here is Matisse's "Red Studio,"

  • for example, where the color red begins to

  • overrun everything or in musical terms let's go to Duffy's

  • "Red Violin" here where the red varnish

  • quality of the violin is spilling out--

  • outside of the line or normal confines of the instrument.

  • So that's an interesting point, I think--to watch these two

  • arts work in tandem at this particular moment in history.

  • All right.

  • I'm going to stop here and introduce our guest,

  • Naomi Woo.

  • Naomi, come on up.

  • I've never met Naomi, right.

  • But it's nice to see you.

  • Thank you for joining us today.

  • So you're a pianist here at Yale, and we'll--So here's Naomi

  • and we're going to turn the lights back on.

  • So tell us about yourself nice and loud if you would,

  • please.

  • Are you a music major?

  • Naomi Woo: I'm not sure yet.

  • I'm a freshman-- Prof: You're a freshman.

  • Naomi Woo: Yes, I am.

  • >

  • Prof: Interesting.

  • So why didn't you go to Juilliard then,

  • or Eastman?

  • Naomi Woo: I actually decided to come

  • here 'cause I wanted to do a liberal arts degree

  • >

  • Juilliard and then realized that I didn't want to be sort of

  • at a vocational school like that >

  • Prof: That's a smart move.

  • I did it the wrong way.

  • I went to--and it was a wrenching experience to go to

  • the Eastman School of Music first and then go to Harvard

  • after that because you really felt like a dummy.

  • At least I did and rightfully so.

  • So you're doing it the correct way.

  • I think generally, whatever your trajectory is in

  • terms of your particular profession,

  • get your broad liberal arts background first and then focus

  • more and more intensely on your specialty and then subspecialty

  • and on it will go.

  • So here you are taking piano lessons.

  • With whom do you study?

  • Naomi Woo: With Wei-Yi Yang

  • Prof: So he is a faculty member of the School of Music

  • across the street and our most talented undergraduates go over

  • there to get their lessons and they do their practicing.

  • How many hours a day do you get to practice?

  • Naomi Woo: I try to practice two hours

  • a day but I usually can't do that more than a couple times a

  • week.

  • Prof: Okay.

  • Well--yeah.

  • That's hard.

  • That was the thing that was so weird about these

  • conservatories.

  • They go down in these practice rooms and six hours later they

  • come out.

  • They spend their entire time in there.

  • It was like learning to be a great plumber or something like

  • that.

  • It's not a very broadening experience.

  • Okay.

  • So you're practicing two hours a day.

  • Does that annoy the people all around you?

  • Naomi Woo: Well, they're

  • >

  • Prof: Okay, but how--I thought that was

  • just for the School of Music students.

  • Naomi Woo: They--for the

  • undergraduates who are taking lessons at the school--

  • >

  • Prof: I see.

  • So you're kind of a special group.

  • If Daniel decides he wants to practice over there,

  • they're not going to let Daniel have a key to the treasury.

  • Okay, but we are right across the street.

  • What are we building over there?

  • A new music department building so we're going to have a lot

  • more practice facilities in the basement of that principally for

  • undergraduates.

  • All right.

  • So this is something that always interests me.

  • We have a little time to talk about it.

  • How good is your--these kids that are good at this music

  • business, they're good for a reason.

  • It's because they have some talent and oftentimes this is

  • aurally perceived talent.

  • So how good an ear do you have?

  • I'm not going to quiz you on this.

  • I like to quiz people on this but tell me about this.

  • Naomi Woo: No.

  • I have a really good ear and I don't know how much of that is

  • innate or whether it's because I've been listening to music

  • since I was a kid.

  • My parents were always playing music--

  • Prof: Were they musicians?

  • Naomi Woo: They're not musicians at

  • all.

  • They-- Prof: What do they do?

  • Naomi Woo: My mother's a doctor and my

  • dad's an economist.

  • Prof: Okay.

  • So they're into quantitative reasoning in some kind of way,

  • and this is not incidental, folks--

  • Naomi Woo: And I'm actually

  • considering being a math major.

  • Prof: Yeah.

  • I knew that was coming.

  • So you may not have absolute pitch.

  • You probably don't have absolute pitch.

  • Right?

  • Naomi Woo: No. I-- Prof: Yeah,

  • but you probably have a very good sense of relative pitch.

  • What would have happened if you started out--well,

  • was piano your first instrument?

  • Naomi Woo: It was piano.

  • Prof: It was.

  • Supposing you had started out on--and what--how old were you

  • when you started?

  • Naomi Woo: I was five.

  • Prof: Five.

  • Okay.

  • So you were a late starter.

  • No.

  • >

  • Sometimes--Kensho, who was in here--what did he

  • say?

  • He was three when he started with the violin.

  • Had you started with the violin, do you think you would

  • have absolute pitch?

  • Naomi Woo: Definitely,

  • I think I would have.

  • I do play violin.

  • I play in the YSO and-- Prof: Wait a minute.

  • You play >

  • violin also.

  • >

  • Really?

  • Naomi Woo: Yeah-- Prof: You play in the

  • YSO.

  • That's really hard to get in the YSO, folks.

  • That's very competitive.

  • Oh.

  • Okay.

  • So how old were you when you took up violin?

  • Naomi Woo: I started violin when I was

  • ten and I--my sense of pitch didn't develop for the violin--

  • Prof: Okay.

  • So what did you learn from that and what do we conclude from

  • that experience?

  • If you wanted to develop absolute pitch,

  • what would have been the sequence in which you would have

  • been exposed to these instruments?

  • Naomi Woo: The violin first.

  • Prof: The violin first because it forces you to think

  • about pitch constantly, like the Eastern languages

  • are--so many of them are tonal languages.

  • You have to think about this issue of pitch early on and

  • statistically you-- somebody did a study of

  • violinists of Asian nationality or descent at the Eastman School

  • of Music and something like sixty-four percent of them had

  • absolute pitch, and it's a combination,

  • I think, of working with a stringed instrument and working

  • with a tonal language, in many cases.

  • So it's a very interesting phenomenon and it sure is very

  • helpful when you go to play these instruments 'cause you

  • don't have-- if you can stream the music,

  • you're not going to have memory lapses and things like that.

  • So now we have a piece and we're going to have you play

  • this piece, "Ondine," from beginning to end.

  • It's based on another poem.

  • We've given you the poem for today but it's not really

  • relevant--or that relevant.

  • What's this poem about, Naomi?

  • Have you ever looked at the poem?

  • Naomi Woo: Yes, I have.

  • Prof: So what's it do for us?

  • Naomi Woo: The poem's about a water

  • nymph and she's trying to seduce this mortal man and she sings

  • and she asks him to sort of come in the lake with her and be the

  • king of the lake with her, and he--in the end,

  • he says, "No, I can't.

  • I love a mortal woman," and she pretends to cry a

  • little bit and then she just laughs and says,

  • "Well, I didn't love you anyway,"

  • but that's sort of the story that's going on,

  • and it's very well reflected-- Prof: Uh huh.

  • And so when you play this do you think of--because we do have

  • the text there--do you think of particular moments in the poem?

  • Naomi Woo: Definitely.

  • Prof: Oh, really.

  • Naomi Woo: Most of the-- Prof: Do you want to

  • play one and--yeah.

  • Naomi Woo: Sure.

  • Yeah.

  • Well, with the water that happens in the whole piece,

  • just a constant background-- >

  • Prof: Interestingly enough, that chord is an

  • augmented triad.

  • I had-- I cheated.

  • Are you supposed to know--recognize an augmented

  • triad?

  • No.

  • I did go get the score on this 'cause I don't--I didn't know

  • this piece particularly well.

  • So--no.

  • You're not supposed to recognize a whole tone scale

  • from a pentatonic scale, maybe recognize it's something

  • different, but it is interesting to know.

  • It starts right off the bat with an augmented triad so

  • that's the water that-- Naomi Woo:

  • That's the water and then near the end--

  • well, and then it sort of gets really tumultuous when she's

  • getting really passionate about it.

  • Do you want me to play-- Prof: Yeah,

  • play a little of that.

  • That'd be great.

  • >

  • Naomi Woo: So that's sort of when

  • she's getting really passionate and really pleading with him to

  • come into the water-- Prof: Yeah.

  • Does that sound easy or hard to play?

  • >

  • There's a reason she's playing this and I am not,

  • yeah, 'cause that's--I took the easy stuff, big chords,

  • not--no.

  • You should look at the score, and the other interesting thing

  • is that the hand-- the chord positionings change

  • each time they go up an octave and that's really hard.

  • Rather than repetition of an arpeggio,

  • up an octave, repeat it, same hand position,

  • up an octave, the particular hand positions

  • are changing as you go up octave to octave.

  • Anything else--I--at the very beginning of this,

  • I did notice--if you could play the left-hand part just so we

  • can hear this melody at the beginning--

  • >

  • Okay.

  • So there we have the outlines of a pentatonic scale at work

  • here, and you're going to hear that at the beginning and then

  • you'll hear at the end.

  • So the general form here, as if often true with these

  • Impressionist composers, is just ternary form,

  • A, B, A with the second and final A slightly modified.

  • So we're going to hear this now from beginning to end,

  • Naomi Woo playing "Ondine"

  • by Ravel.

  • >

  • Wonderful.

  • Thank you so much.

  • That was wonderful.

  • So as Ondine flies off, you will fly off now to your

  • next class.

  • Thanks very much.

Prof: Now today we're going to be talking about

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第21講.音樂印象主義與異國情調。德彪西、拉威爾和莫奈 (Lecture 21. Musical Impressionism and Exoticism: Debussy, Ravel and Monet)

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    Jeng-Lan Lee 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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