Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

SECTION 1 – EXPLORATION OF DIVERSE MUSIC

INTRODUCTION

For my exploration of diverse music, I have decided to study Music for Socio-Cultural and Political Expression
(Area of Inquiry 1) and Music for Listening and Performance (Area of Inquiry 2). The enticing nature and contrast
between these subtopics have intrigued me and persuaded me to choose these to further explore and learn
about them. Throughout my exploration, I wish to broaden my knowledge of music and develop and
appreciation for varying styles and genres throughout history. I intend to form a greater understanding of this
diverse range of music and attempt to understand how it is created.

For Area of Inquiry 1 I will be investigating the pieces Te Recuerdo Amanda by Victor Jara, Threnody to the
Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki and A Survivor from Warsaw by Arnold Schoenberg. The
preternatural of the Penderecki’s and Schoenberg style and technique is complex and unorthodox. I find it very
interesting to examine how different audiences perceive music, and what determines if an art form is beautiful
or disgusting. On the other hand, Victor Jara’s music was received with love by the audience, both past and
present and due to its more conventional techniques and sounds, making it more accepted. For Area of Inquiry
2, I will be investigating Sonatine for Violin and Piano by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Sonata for Clarinet by John
Cage. These pieces utilize unfamiliar techniques to create a unique sound. All these pieces are of a global
context, representing a diverse range of cultures and communities unfamiliar to me.

AREA OF INQUIRY 1

Area of Inquiry 1 has a specific focus on music relevant to socio-cultural and political movements. Te Recuerdo
Amanda, directly translating to ‘I remember you, Amanda’ is written by Victor Jara. Victor Jara was a Chilean
theatre director and a singer-songwriter of the mid-20th century. He is renowned for the development of Nueva
Cancion, or in English, New Song. This style of Chilean folk music Fwas developed in 1966 and its purpose was
to spread the message of love, peace and social justice. Composed and first performed in 1968, Te Recuerdo
Amanda is a song expressing the love between two working class people. Jara draws his inspiration from his
parents, Amanda and Manuel and illustrates an idealistic and imaginary romance that he wished they had. He
wrote this song after his daughter; too named Amanda was diagrnosed with diabetes. The purpose of this piece
was to capture the falsified image of love he idealised for his family and is an untrue depiction of his actual life.

The structure, or form of this song can either be interpreted as Song form, Verse Chorus and Repeating Binary.
In order to create a peaceful ambience, Jara performed this piece at an easy walking pace: Andante. The time
signature of the introduction alternate between simple duple and simple triple time signature, before moving
insto a steady boom-cha-cha waltz-like simple triple for the rest of the piece, before returning to the
introduction as a coda for closure. (See: Upload 3 0:00-0:24)
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

The tonality of this piece is major to further enhance the romantic feel of this piece, and as a reference to
Chilean folk music, the melody moves in a stepwise, conjunct motion with a relatively small range of a major
seventh. The homophonic texture with fingerstyle nylon stringed acoustic guitar complemented with Jara’s
baritone-tenor voice intends to make the piece easy and pleasurable to listen to, and the simplistic chord
progression create a warm and soft ambience.

Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima was composed too in the 20th century, however the
genre and style of this piece is very different to Victor Jara’s Nueva Cancion. This piece, as indicated by the title,
is a lament. This piece was originally called Canon for 52 Strings, but when Penderecki heard it performed, he
decided to dedicate it to the victims of Hiroshima, hence the name. Composed in 1959, this piece was highly
recognised in the music industry and won a third-place prize in the Gtzegorz Fitelber Composers’ Competition
in Katowice one year later. The unorthodox nature of this piece produces chilling sounds reminiscent of sounds
that may have been heard at the time of the Hiroshima bombing.

Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima uses unconventional notation and uses instructions such as ‘playing the
highest note possible’ as seen in the introduction of the piece. This piece is written in a style called avant-garde,
meaning cutting edge. It is through composed and the piece evolves, following no traditional form or structure.
It is played in real time. The opening of this piece features violins coming in at scattered times and holding the
highest note for 15 seconds. (See: Upload 3 00:24-0:46) It is intentionally atonal and dissonant and has no
melody and utilizes tone clusters.

Similarly, A Survivor at Warsaw by Arnold Schoenberg is a six-minute cantata that expresses a recount from the
perspective of a group of Jews as they are ‘conducted to their death by Nazi Soldiers’. In his youth, Schoenberg
too was Jewish, but later became catholic. Thus, when conflict sought out and Jews became oppressed, he felt
connected with and could empathised Schoenberg utilizes a technique known as Sprechstimme that he
developed himself, that sounds in half sung and half spoken (See: Upload 3 0:46-1:06).
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

The pieces Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima and A Survivor at Warsaw are written in the style of Avant-
Garde music. Correspondingly, the form and structure of both these pieces is Through Composed and sound
dissonant. Both pieces use a combination of sounds and experiment with instruments to create one whole
sound. The textures of the pieces vary and show a range of thin and thick or dense. Hyper-tonality and
quarter/microtones are used, as well as a pictorial score with no sense of pulse.

AREA OF INQUIRY 2

This area of inquiry focuses on music for listening and performance, including absolute music; music purely for
the purpose of music and aesthetics. The piece Sonatine by Karlheinz Stockhausen explores the use of the
twelve-tone system established by Arnold Schoenberg. (See: Upload 3 1:08-1:33). The 12-tone system was
devised by Schoenberg with the purpose of helping him pick the next note and enabling him to focus on other
elements of the music that he composed. The overall principle of this system is to play each note only once
without returning to it until all the other notes had been played. This results in an atonal work that often is
rejected by the public audience. This piece, like many 12-tone pieces alternates between a sparse and dense
texture, with the first section being polyphonic and the second homophonic.

An elegy is a piece usually written to express sorrow for someone who has died, however, Faure, a late romantic
French composer, organist, pianist and teacher, wrote Elegy (See: Upload 3 1:33-1:57) piece after his
engagement was broken off. This piece is played at a slow, lamenting and melancholic tempo in order to
exemplify Faure’s emotions. The piece is written in AABA CC trans D AC'C'coda form. I find this piece rather
challenging to play both technically and performance-wise because I have not experienced such heartache or
pain yet. The piece begins at a forte dynamic, then proceeds to repeat itself, like an afterthought. Overall, this
piece is a representation of Faure’s thoughts through this time of ordeal and emotional suffering.
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

Etude 1 (See: Upload 3 1:57-2:20) is written by a Bohemian cellist and composer and is the first of 40 from his
Forty Etudes for Cello, Op. 73. David Popper has also composed many other works, including 4 concertos, and
is more famous piece, Requiem. Popper wrote etudes for his students and published them as the book High
School of Cello Playing. These etudes aimed to target different aspects and techniques of cello playing. This
particular etude was written for the intention of teaching students string crossings and shifting, while
maintaining a steady pulse. Every note in this piece is to be played staccato. The time signature of Etude 1 is 4/4
and is played at a relatively quick tempo. In addition, the notes are grouped as triplets.

SECTION 2 – STATEMENT ON THE CREATING EXERCISE WITH REFERENCE TO THE SCORE EMBEDDED IN THE
WRITTEN TEXT AND THE AUDIO EXCERPT IN UPLOAD 2

My creating exercise (See: Upload 2 0:00-1:00) draws elements from both Area of Inquiry 1 and 2. I have
incorporated and based my creating exercise around the twelve-tone technique, however the music is purely
for aesthetics rather than socio-cultural or political statements, thus fitting into Area of Inquiry 2. In order to
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

tell the story of how sauerkraut is made, I researched a sauerkraut recipe and developed my piece based upon
it. Below is an adapted extract from the site Cultures for health. (See endnotes for referencing)

1. “Chop or shred cabbage. Sprinkle with salt.

2. Knead the cabbage. or pound with a potato masher… until there is enough liquid to cover.
3. Stuff the cabbage into a quart jar, pressing the cabbage underneath the liquid…
4. Cover the jar with a tight lid…
5. Culture at room temperature… for at least 2 weeks until desired flavor and texture are achieved…
6. Once the sauerkraut is finished, put a tight lid on the jar and move to cold storage…”
7. Eat!

Pictured above: The tone row I developed. Violin 1 – P3, Violin 2 – P0, Viola – P2, Cello – P7

Within my exercise, I have embedded the motif of C-A-B-B-A-G-E as a reference to the motif B-A-C-Bb, which
was used as a tribute to Bach in many 12-tone pieces. As a tribute to Schoenberg’s Austrian background, the
piece was named ‘Sauerkraut’. In the creation of my exercise, I elected to choose instruments that I am familiar
with; string instruments, in order to ensure playability. First, I divided the 32 bars into six sections for each step,
plus an intro and outro. Below is the layout I used to plan my piece.

4 bars intro, 4 bars for each step, 4 bars outro

Intro

- Introduce theme (CABBAGE)

Part 1 – Chop cabbage

- Watched a video on cabbage being cut to work out how it sounds and speed at which it is cut
- When chopping cabbage, knife movement creates varying pitches, alternating between high and low
before hitting the chopping board.
o Attempted to replicate this with
o No sure pitch of cutting cabbage; dissonance and clash to create ‘sound cluster’-like noise
- Scraping cabbage to the side produces a shrill screechy sound with increasing pitch.
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

- Pizz at end of first part is the knife being put back down on the table
- Question and answer type
- Scattered entries

Part 2 – Knead or pound cabbage to release juice

- Slow, thick sound

- Squelchy grudge
- Reintroduce CABBAGE motif
- Instrument percussion is the pounding the cabbage

Part 3 – Put cabbage into jar

- Percussion to mimic cabbage going into the jar

- Glissandos in violin 1 to further demonstrate this

Part 4 – Airtight lid

- Familiarity in traditional song. Mimic security and safety of childhood like the security of cabbage in
an anaerobic environment where mould cannot grow. Obliviousness as to what is to come
- Short
- Plucked as if to restrict airflow in sauerkraut
- Finality of double octave
o Disregard for Schoenberg’s rule to argue that double octaves in the correct context of
expressionist music can be used

Part 5 – Leave to culture

- Every instrument does their own thing; unrelated to each other

Part 6 – Eat

- Moves very quickly in order to mimic the idea of eating sauerkraut quickly.

The score includes instructions on how to play the instruments in order to create the desired sound.

SECTION 3 – STATEMENT ON THE PERFORMED ADAPTATION WITH REFERENCE TO THE AUDIO EXCERPT IN
UPLOAD 2

(See: Upload 2 1:00-1:58)

(See: Upload 2 1:58-3:59)

The piece I have chosen to perform an adaptation of as studied earlier is Te Recuerdo Amanda by Victor Jara.
In my approach to adapting this piece to the cello, there were many things I had to consider. Te Recuerdo
Amanda, is a vocal piece accompanied by fingerstyle guitar, as noted in Section 1. In order to recreate the
soulful and emotionally provoking tone of this piece, I had to choose how to play the cello very carefully.

I decided in order to recreate the guitar accompaniment, I should use pizzicato instead of playing with the bow.
However, instead of being able to play multiple strings with ease like on a guitar, I found it rather challenging
to play like this on a cello. Thus, I decided to layer the different plucked pitches using Garageband. However, as
evident in the recording, it is still imperfect, and the introduction sounds slightly syncopated and not exactly on
the beat. Despite setting the tempo and metronome, I was unable to keep time as my reactions were delayed
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

resulting in the cello not sound at the right time. It is also important to note that this piece is not strictly
metronomical and utilizes rallentandos and ritardandos. Thus, the constant unforgiving metronome tapping
was rather off putting, and I ended up just turning it off.

To mimic the baritone-tenor register of Jara’s voice, I only played the melody using the G and D string. I did not
use the C string because it was not the correct range, and I did not require the husky gravelly sound produced
by this string. It was also evident that I could not use the A string to mimic his voice as it was too shrill and clear.
Thus, I elected to only play with the middle two strings in order to recreate his voice. In addition, I decided to
play the melody arco, as pizzicato seemed to be restricting and I was able to express and retain more of the
emotional value of the piece with the bow.

When I was recording the melody, I kept backtracking and re-recording; I wanted it to be perfect. However, it
came to my attention that music is not perfect; it is the expression that makes music, music. It didn’t matter if
I didn’t hit all the notes I wanted to. The aim of my adaptation was not to be pitch perfect and nail everything;
it was to preserve and recreate the feel of the music. In order to recreate Jara’s yearning and melancholic tone,
I copied his sighs and breaths by determining where to change bow and used dynamics to further enhance this.

SECTION 4 – BIBLIOGRAPHY

Roger Kamien, Anita Kamien (2015) Music: An Appreciation TWELFTH EDITION, McGraw-Hill Education, USA.
Accessed May 22, 2019

Claudio Abbado (2015) Schoenberg: for Piano and Orchestra, Op.42 – Adagio, G. Shirmer, Inc. Accessed May
24, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmmXwJabXyQ

Pelodelperro (2011) Anton Webern – Variations for Piano. Charles Rosen. Accessed May 27 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e665XqlgSL8

Rhea Paschen (2015) John Cage- Sonata for clarinet/Rhea Paschen, clarinet. Rhea Paschen. Accessed May 28,
2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KldiYRIm6cY

Pelodelperro (2013) Karlheinz Stockhausen – Sonatine. HAAWK for a 3rd Party. Accessed May 28, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dyOg4dfw6I

Thomas, A. (2001, January 01). Penderecki, Krzysztof. Grove Music Online. Ed. Retrieved May 30 2019, from
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-
9781561592630-e-0000021246

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2018, November 19). Krzysztof Penderecki, POLISH COMPOSER.
Britannica. Retrieved May 30 2019 from
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Krzysztof-Penderecki

The Gale Group Inc. (2004). Krzysztof Penderecki. Encyclopedia, Retrieved May 31 2019 from
https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/music-history-composers-and-performers-
biographies/krzysztof-penderecki
Exploring Music in Context – (2019)

cookusinterruptus (2010), How to cut up a cabbage. Accessed May 31, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndIG9BLVgS0

Cultures for Health (2012). Natural Fermentation – Sauerkraut. Accessed May 31, 2019 from
https://www.culturesforhealth.com/learn/recipe/natural-fermentation/sauerkraut/

Victor Jara – Musica (2015). Victor Jara – Te Recuerdo Amanda (audio official). Accessed June 1, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2_zOfuGcA

Leo Marillier (2011). Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw op. 46. Accessed June 1, 2019 from
https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CFnJiElpks

Patricio Apaez (2009). Penderecki: Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. Accessed June 1, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp3BlFZWJNA

TheExarion (2013). Gabriel Faure: Elegy Op. 24 (Sheet Music for Cello and Piano). Accessed June 2, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUJKqHTOEI

Joshua Roman (March 26, 2009). POPPER PROJECT #1: Joshua Roman Plays Etude #1 for cello by David
Popper. Accessed June 5, 2019 from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6yIRucCupo

Unknown (Unknown). David Popper: High School of Cello Playing (40 Etudes). Sheet Music for Cello. IMSLP.
Accessed June 6 from
http://ks.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/5/53/IMSLP59073-PMLP121199-Popper,_David_-
_High_School_of_Cello_Playing._40_Cello_Etudes_op._73.pdf

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