Music Timeline

1. Music Timeline Gr. 5-7 Vocal Music Elective Class

2. Last Week

3. Side Two, notes.

4. Side One Hildegard von Bingen Chant Plainsong 1098-1179 Chant:a type of singing, with a simple, unaccompanied melody line and free rhythm.

5. You should have this info! Hildegard Born of nobility, wealthy family, she was the 10th child Tithe: giving one tenth of what you have…(she was the tithe) Family was Christian…at 8 years old, her family dropped her off at the Convent, and she spent the rest of her life as a nun. - She created her own language - She was a naturopath, a ‘natural’ physician. -- She had visions. - She became an advisor to many important people. - She was a composer of women’s music, and was the first composer to record her music. Most important!!

6. Hildegard’s Music Writing No 5 line staff, No clef, No time signature, No notes as we know them today, and everything written by hand.

7. Hildegard

8. Johann Sebastian Bach

9. Johann Sebastian Bach Born 1685- Died 1750 , died at 65. Composed music during the Baroque Era. Was an orphan by 10, and his brother Christoph took care of him, taught him harpsichord and organ. Christoph was a church musician. Bach followed in his footsteps and was a church musician for his entire life. He was married and had 20 children, several of whom became composers. He wrote for orchestra, concertos, chamber music, choral music and keyboard…never for opera which he thought was silly. He established the many rules for writing harmony & counterpoint. When asked to describe his life as a composer he said “I worked hard”.

10. The Harpsichord The harpsichord, a stringed keyboard instrument, was developed during the 14th and 15th century, and was widely used until the early 19th century when it was followed by the piano. Revivals of the instrument feature music of the 16th to 18th centuries, where it was the main keyboard for music of that time , especially Bach’s.

11. Watch Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto No. 1 in D Minor BWV 1052 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcsfDxojdV8

12. The Classic Period • Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) • Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782) • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) • Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) • Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) • Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

13. Mozart • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756-1791, less than 35 years old. • Native of Austria, and a musical genius. • Played the clavier by 4, began composing by 5, by 10 he had written his first symphony. • He could play any music put in front of him on the clavier, organ or violin. • He wrote his first opera at 14. • He was a musical genius, having written hundreds of musical works. A short man with piercing eyes and long hair which he kept well groomed. Outgoing, always friendly, and enjoyed the company of others. • You have to know ‘how’ to sing to perform some of Mozart’s vocal pieces. They are very challenging. (Queen of the Night aria) • One of the greatest composers of the 18th century.

16. Mozart listening! • Mozart on opera: https://www.classicsforkids.com/shows/shows.php?id=103 • About Mozart: https://www.classicsforkids.com/shows/shows.php?id=65

17. The Romantic Era Verdi and Wagner Operas

18. Giuseppe Verdi • Came from modest means. • Took organ lessons and by 10 yrs he was the village organist. Married by 23. • Wrote his first opera Oberto, and was comissioned to write 3 more. While writing the first his wife and 2 children died. The opera was a failure, and Verdi was very discouraged. • By 1853, the success of his operas Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviatamade him Italy’s most famous composer. • Aida was his most famous (best money making) opera.

19. His later life… • He got married and bought a farm he purchased from the performances of his operas. • He felt his operas were dated, but was given a libretto from the Italian author Arrigo Boito…based on Shakespear’s script, Othello. • Othello and his last opera Falstaff which followed were his last works…he died at 80 years old. • He was a modest, confident composer who devoted his life to opera.

20. List of Verdi’s operas

21. Wilhelm Richard Wagner Born May 22, 1813 in Germany, Died February 13, 1883, in Venice, Italy at 70 years old.

22. Wagner was known for his operas, or later known as his “music dramas” In school he was not particularly interested in music. It wasn’t until he went to the University of Leipzig, Germany where he developed an interest and began studying it seriously. Between the ages of 19 and 24, he conducted for several opera and theatrical companies, and began to compose his operas. He wrote the script and the music score which few composers did! (Scott Joplin also did.) Wagner had a grandios idea of himself, as well as of his operas. He created “Wagner societies”, a kind of fan club, to help pay for performances. He was known to live ‘beyond his means’.

24. Most famous operas…The Ring of the Niebelungen. His last: Parsifal.

25. Eric Whitacre

26. Notes on Whitacre • Born in 1970 • Known as a choral composer • Became very visible because of his “Virtual Choirs’ (virtual choirs are where singers tape themselves from their homes, singing to tracts that Whitacre gives them, and record themselves. All those many voices are put together in the studio to create a several thousand person ‘virtual choir’.) • Put him in the last square: 1900-Present!

27. Lux Aurumque A Christmas piece based on a Latin poem of the same name, which translates as “Light, warm and heavy as pure gold, and the angels sing softly to the new born babe”. • First Virtual Choir • 185 people singers from 12 countries

28. Virtual Choir 2: Sleep • 1999 singers from 58 countries

29. Virtual Choir 3: Water Night • 2945 singers from 73 Countries

30. Virtual Choir 4: Fly to Paradise • 5905 singers from 101 Countries • Remix page : https://soundcloud.com/search?q=Fly%20to%20Paradise

31. And yes I did sing in this one 

32. Virtual Choir 5: World of Color

33. World of Color https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy_yOiWHHHs Here is the link to all of Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choirs- https://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir

34. I hope you enjoyed this little walk through 5 incredibly important periods of musical history. Please use some time to listen to the links in this Ppt, and learn about the sounds of the ‘times’. Every composer listed began their journey writing music just like you. They all needed to understand the language of music, and how to write down their musical thoughts. This is something you can do at any time, and at any age…Mozart was 5, and Verdi was 80.