THE MIDNIGHT SONG
To hear the music, go to my webpage and scroll down, or go to youtube. It's probably too long (9 minutes) to email.
ALSO KNOWN AS "The Drunkard's Song," this is a movement from the Viennese composer, Gustav Mahler's Third Symphony. I thought it would make an interesting assignment to have students listen to this relatively brief movement (about nine minutes long) and then prepare a discussion with a classmate on it.To hear the music, go to my webpage and scroll down, or go to youtube. It's probably too long (9 minutes) to email.
The goal is not necessarily musical appreciation or understanding, since one can hold a good conversation saying how much one disliked, or was indifferent to, a piece of music (or book, movie, etc.). But ideally a student's musical appreciation may be broadened by engaging with a piece of music several times, especially when one prepares to discuss it.
Who knows? Perhaps you will begin a lifelong love of this kind of music, conveniently called "classical music."*
But ours is a conversation class, not a musical appreciation class. Therefore the main goal is to build a vocabulary of response in order to discuss it. After all, in society one is often compelled to see movies with friends even though one ends up disliking the movie. Yet one is expected to discuss it afterwards.
Gustav Mahler was a late nineteenth century composer who wrote ten symphonies (the last incomplete) and died in the early twentieth century. His music (long, bombastic, turbulent, and sentimental) was almost entirely forgotten except by his own peers, and many symphonies had yet to be recorded.
But in the 1960s there was a huge Mahler boom. Suddenly the music of Mahler was everywhere. It blared from student dorms. Conductors competed with one another to record the definitive cycle of all his symphonies as well as his song cycles. His music was frequently used in movies, most famously the adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, used in the movie about his life, Death in Venice.
Scholars have tried to pinpoint the sudden emergence of Mahler's popularity, certainly related to a postmodern ethos after the atomic bomb, and the Holocaust. Regardless, Mahler's popularity has not abated, and there is no reason to expect it will. Today, recordings of Mahler's symphonies take up large bins in the Classical Music section of CD stores.
For Chinese students, Mahler should have special relevance, because he set to music the texts of several Chinese poets, including Li-Po, Wang Wei, and Mong Kao-yen in his mastework, Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth). The poems are used in free German translations.
It's best to find a speaking partner with whom to discuss the music so you can practice a vocabulary, point-of-view, and share responses.
What to discuss? The music is a setting of a poem from Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), by the German philosopher and poet, Friedrich Nietzsche. Fortunately the text is subtitled in the youtube copy of the movement so it's easy to follow along with the music. German-language students can also improve their German this way.
So a student can discuss the music, but also the music in relation to the text. The student can also discuss the message of the text, as well as information learned about the composer you wish to share with your classmates.
Other areas of discussion can include the mood of the music, its orchestration (assignment of instruments in different parts), how the music affected you, and how this music is different from other music you may be familiar with.
In sum, this assignment is not based on your musical sophistication. It's a conversation class and the assignment is based (as it should) on your ability to engage in fluent conversation on any topic.
*The term "Classical Music" has long been used of music written for a large orchestra and performed in concert halls with a "serious" intent (hence the alternate but even worse term, "serious music"!). (Clearly all good music is serious or it would not be good; while most of what is called "serious" music is actually more playful and fun than a great deal of pop. I know of no pop music (except maybe Chuck Berry's Rock 'n' Roll classics) more playful than a Mozart aria, a Beethoven scherzo, or the maudlin "Frere Jacques" setting in Mahler's First Symphony.) The problem with the term is its imprecision and even its illogic. Strictly speaking, the classical period in music followed the Baroque period (Bach, Vivaldi) and preceded the Romantic period (later Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Brahms) as well as the modern movements in music (atonality, serialism, etc.). Before the Barqoue there was early chuch music, often designated Early Music and (from a later period) Renaissance music. Classical music, strictly speaking, would include the music of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven, among the most famous names from that period. Film music is mainly derived from the Romantic tradition (Schubert, later Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Brahms). Mahler belongs to the period known as Late Romanticism. Modern composers include Stravinsky, Copland, Gershwin, Schoenberg, Barber, and many more who wrote music in the 20th century and maybe even only a couple of decades ago, yet their music is still called "classical." Thus "classical" now has a generic (kind) meaning, rather than a period (era) meaning. I personally prefer to use the term "concert music," which I think more accurately types this kind of music, intended for the concert hall and strictly for listening appreciation (rather than for dancing, etc.). Though even there one runs into problems, since the great Viennese waltzes of the Strauss family were intended for dancing too. But the problems are fewer than with using a term like "classical" to describe concert music written in the 20th century.
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