Julius Weissenborn’s Two
Pieces: Arioso and Humoresque.
Terry B. Ewell provides performance and practice suggestions with an
introduction to the performance of Romantic music. BDP #315, 2reed.net.
[Music: Weissenborn Humoresque]
Welcome to this discussion of two
little compositions by
Julius Weissenborn. I am Terry Ewell.
When you perform music, it is quite
important to understand what
period the music is from because this will influence how you perform
the work. For
instance, compositions from the Baroque period are performed quite
differently
from those from the Romantic period. These two pieces are from the
Romantic
period and provide excellent examples for how to approach that style of
music.
Music from the Romantic period is characterized by open displays of
emotion. The
emotions are expressed with dynamics, changes of tempos, and phrasing
of
melodies.
Let’s see how these
romantic tendencies are expressed in the
Arioso. Weissenborn’s choice of the title
“Arioso” is a reference to song in
opera. So, this must be quite lyrical and perhaps you can even picture
yourself
using the bassoon as your voice. You will need to phrase the melody to
climaxes
or important arrival points. Musical phrases usually feature first
crescendos
to the musical goals and then decrescendos away from them. Determining
the climax
of each gesture or phrase is not always easy, but there are some common
tendencies you can keep in mind:
In phrases or gestures, climaxes
usually occur:
1) halfway or later (often later);
2) on stressed beats, usually down
beats;
3) sometimes they are given with an
appoggiatura.
In addition, the shorter value notes
move to longer value
notes. Think of little children being attracted to their parents.
Consider that
notes are not orphans, rather they are families.
The printed music edited by Bernard
Garfield provides
contradictory indications for phrasing. The dynamics given for the
first two
gestures do not agree with those in the second two gestures. For the
reasons I
just gave, I prefer the crescendos in different places.
Here we have the crescendos that I
prefer. You can see that
they follow in parallel with the crescendos of the third and fourth
phrases. These
crescendos feature climaxes on the downbeats. There is even a downbeat
down
here. This phrasing also features appoggiaturas. Here is the
appoggiatura in
the second gesture. Here is the appoggiatura in the fourth gesture. An
appoggiatura is a dissonance, a non-chord tone on the downbeat that
most often
resolves downward. Now, this is an extremely important gesture in
Common
Practice music. That is music from the Baroque period (and later) and
frankly
even into the 20th century. This is one of the
most expressive
devices and one that you need to master if you are going to understand
phrasing
and musicality.
Here is an example of the little
notes going to the bigger
notes. Again, this is one of the tendencies in music that we often see.
Musicality is usually expressed in this way.
Here is the music again for you to
study.
[music—opening of Arioso]
Although the Humoresque is not as
serious in nature as the
Arioso, it is still quite Romantic in style. This composition features
flexible
tempos. You can also use a bit of rubato to show phrases and gestures
as well.
For instance, in the first measures
of the work it would be
appropriate to push forward the tempo slightly in the first two
measures and
then relax it in the third. “Commodo” means motion,
to move, so do not feature
static tempos in this piece.
[music-opening of Humoresque]
The animato section starting in m. 17
features tempo
variations. The term animato, which means animated, indicates more life
and a
faster tempo. Later the ritenuto returns the tempo back to the opening
speed.
Ritenuto means to slow down. Tempo 1, of course, means to start at the
same
tempo as the opening of the Humoresque.
[music—later portion of
Humoresque]
Communication with your accompanist
is important in all of
these tempo changes. Be sure that you and your accompanist can
communicate by
gestures to each other while playing the music.
Well, I hope that you enjoy these two
little compositions
and now you can perform them with confidence! Bye.