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Music Revision - Notes (BERNSTEIN)

– Film was made in 1954- about union corruption in New York dockyards
– Leonard Bernstein - 1918 - 1990
– 1955 - Orchestral Suite written for Concert Hall performance

Instrumentation

– Large string section, standard brass section, large woodwind section - piccolo and double bassoon,
– Eb Clarinet (minor 3rd higher), Alto Sax (major 6th lower), Bb Clarinets and Trumpets (tone lower),
Bb Bass Clarinet (major 9th lower), F Horns (perfect 5th lower), piccolo (octave higher), double
basses (octave lower)
– Jazz Influenced - emphasis on wind instruments, alto saxophone - long solo (bars 42 to 53), large
use of percussion, piano (low in register)
– Special Effects - unaccompanied horn (high register), muted trombone and trumpets, rim shot
(snare drum), flutter tonguing on trumpets and upper woodwind, glissando on timpani

Texture
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Monophony (1-6, solo)
Two part canon (7-12, doubled at octave)
Fugal style (20)
Homorhythmic tutti (78), homophony (85)
woodwind brass and percussion have repeated chords over long held string chords (108)

Structure

– There are 3 main sections (Tripartite structure), Opening section (Andante - 1-19), Presto Barbaro
(20-105), Adagio Coda (105-end)
– Opening Section, a (1-6), b (7-12) - repetition of the first theme, c (13-19)
– Presto Barbaro, a (20-39) - percussion fugal section, b (40-53) - 2 bar riff on percussion accompanying a solo, c (54-62), d (62-77), e (78-87) - based on fugal theme, f (88-105)
– Adagio Coda, begins with a version of the three note motif from bar 62

Tonality
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Horn solo is in pentatonic style based on F
Gb in bar 5 - transforms it to a 6-note blues scale - flattened 3rd, 5th and 7th
Fugue is the same - based on G - the B naturals complicate this
Bitonality - 26 + 78 - G and C#
The music can occasionally be described as atonal (72)
Diminished 5th - tritone - tonal ambiguity (bar 14)

Harmony

– Dissonance - F and Gb (sounding at Fb) - bar 16 - compound diminished octave
– Bitonality causes dissonance - bar 26 - augmented 5th (F# and Bb Timpani)
– Coda - two simple triads - F major and B major - played simultaneously

Melody
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Use of the pentatonic scale
Blues notes - flattened 3rd, 5th and 7th
Interval of minor 3rd - key feature - rising or falling - occasionally extended to a perfect 4th
Diminished 5th is often used - unsettled feel
Melodies are constructed from development of smaller motifs

Rhythm
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There is use of syncopation
Use of triplets (bar 3)
Time signature changes - 4/4, 3/4 - continuous alternation in fugal section
The coda is in simple common time



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