BBC Ten Pieces Secondary, Part One
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KSKS35 BBC Ten Pieces Secondary, part one Jane Werry is a by Jane Werry specialist leader in education, and director of music at Hayes School in Bromley. She is an A level moderator for INTRODUCTION OCR, and a regular contributor to Music The BBC’s Ten Pieces initiative aims to foster interest in classical music among schoolchildren, with films to Teacher online accompany the two sets of pieces (one for primary and one for secondary schools). This resource is designed resources. to complement – but not duplicate – the many excellent resources that exist on the BBC Ten Pieces Secondary website. It includes a cover lesson, and ideas for workshopping creative responses to three of the pieces: Bizet’s Habanera Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending Bach’s Toccata in D minor The second part of the resource will include workshopping ideas for more of the pieces, plus a homework project. You may already have a DVD of the Ten Pieces film, but if you have not, each of the clips is available separately on the BBC website here. You can also download all of the audio as mp3 files. COVER LESSON This is the kind of cover lesson that relies on no specialist knowledge from your cover supervisor: the class simply watches the video and fills in the sheet as they go along. Depending on the length of your lesson, you might cover all of the Ten Pieces in one lesson (you would need an hour for this) or be selective about which of the pieces you want your class to study. Whichever of the pieces you choose to cover in your lesson, include the final question where the students have to choose their favourite piece, and justify their choice. This can form the basis for a useful summary discussion when you next see the class, and may throw up some surprises. Prior knowledge Students will need some understanding of the families and names of orchestral instruments in order to complete the cover work. Part of the BBC resources for the Ten Pieces is a free interactive Guide to the Orchestra ebook for iPad, Android or Kindle. It may be possible to do some preparatory work using this. If they have not covered orchestral instruments before doing the cover lesson activities, or require some revision, some time in the lesson will need to be set aside for watching some or all of the following videos, which introduce each family of instruments: Woodwind Strings Brass Percussion: a very brief introduction or a much longer and more comprehensive guide 1 Music Teacher February 2016 Adapting the cover lesson Alongside this resource, you’ll also find aWord document of the questions shown here on the Music Teacher website, which you can edit as appropriate to cover whichever of the Ten Pieces you choose. Here, answers to factual questions are shown in green. Students are bound to come up with questions as they watch the videos, and these are as important as their answers to the questions on the sheet. Encourage them to make a note of any questions they have as they go along: these can be returned to in subsequent lessons. Some of the background information about the pieces is covered quite rapidly in the intro to each clip on the video: you may want to instruct your cover supervisor to make it clear to students that they will need to be very attentive at these moments. In the questions where students are asked to describe the music (such as Q7 and Q8 on the Bizet), it is helpful to give a list of what to consider, assisting them with listening out for the right kind of features in the music and using appropriate vocabulary. Alternatively, these questions could be presented in a grid format, as shown on the Word document in the supporting resources. Piece 1: The Ride of the Valkyries 1. Who is the composer of this piece? Richard Wagner 2. What are the Valkyries looking for on the battleground? Heroes to guard Valhalla 3. What is Valhalla? The home of the gods 4. Who are the Valkyries? Death’s cavalry/warrior women/grim reapers on horseback 5. Which section of the orchestra plays the main Valkyrie leitmotif (melody)? Brass 6. Which percussion instruments feature most prominently? Timpani, snare drum 7. Give three adjectives to describe the music. Piece 2: Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra 1. Who composed this piece? Gabriel Prokofiev 2. Where does the composer get his samples from? The orchestra 3. What is unusual about the way the violins and violas are played in this piece? Held like a guitar and plucked 4. What unusual percussion instruments can you see and hear? A bottle, slapstick 5. How is this music different from ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’? Give at least three differences. Piece 3: Carmen Suite – Habanera, Toreador’s Song 1. Who composed this piece? Georges Bizet 2. Who is Carmen? A gypsy girl 3. Describe Carmen’s character. Fiery, seductive, dangerous 4. Where is the story set? Spain 5. Who is Escamillo? A celebrity bullfighter 6. Describe Escamillo’s character. Proud, fierce, charming 7. How does the music of the Habanera reflect Carmen’s power over men? You could mention instruments, dynamics, tempo, melodic shape, rhythms, or anything else that you think of. It is slow, mysterious, rhythmic, with slinky melodies and dramatic changes of dynamics. 8. How does the music of the Toreador’s Song reflect Escamillo’s character? There is a heroic-sounding brass fanfare, a bold trumpet melody, the loud dynamics and marching feel make it sound dramatic and important-sounding. Music Teacher February 2016 2 Piece 4: Trumpet Concerto 1. Who composed this piece? Haydn 2. In which century was it composed? 18th 3. In which country was it composed? Austria 4. Why was it important that the composer wrote successful music? To please his employer, who was a prince. 5. How many symphonies did this composer write? 104 6. What is a rondo structure/formation? The main melody keeps returning, like a chorus, but alternating with contrasting episodes. 7. How is the role of the trumpet in this piece similar to that of the turntable in the concerto for turntables? It has a solo role, the orchestra provides the backing/the soloist takes it in turns with the orchestra. 8. Which is the only percussion instrument that you can see/hear in this piece? Timpani Piece 5: Symphony No.10 1. Who composed this piece? Shostakovich 2. Who was the dictator of the Soviet Union when this piece was written? Stalin 3. What was life like in the Soviet Union at this time? There was a lack of freedom. People feared imprisonment and the secret police. 4. What event enabled the composer to finish writing this piece in 1953? Stalin’s death 5. How does the music create a feeling of tension and fear? You could mention instruments, dynamics, tempo, melodic shape, rhythms, or anything else that you think of. Loud dynamics, clashing harmony, sudden changes, fast tempo like a chase, quiet sections sound secretive, buildups of dynamics and texture are like mounting fear. Piece 6: Toccata and Fugue 1. Who composed this piece? JS Bach 2. When was it written? 1706 3. What instrument was the Toccata and Fugue originally written for? Organ 4. What is the difference between a toccata and a fugue? A toccata is an opportunity for the musician to show off and grab the audience’s attention. A fugue is a musical pattern with a melody that repeats and changes pitch and shape. 5. What order does the opening of the toccata go in – low to high, or high to low? High to low 6. What does fugue mean in Italian? Flight Piece 7: The Lark Ascending 1. Who composed this piece? Vaughan Williams 2. What country was the composer from? England 3. What event interrupted composition of this piece? World War One 4. What is there in the music that represents the song or movement of a bird? You could mention instruments, dynamics, tempo, melodic shape, rhythms, or anything else that you think of. High pitch like a bird in the sky, soaring long notes, sudden quick notes and trills like birdsong, moving up and down quickly in pitch like a bird moving through the air, slow tempo and quiet dynamics sound peaceful. 5. Two of the other Ten Pieces heard so far have a soloist playing with the orchestra. Which word do they have in their titles that is missing from this piece? Concerto Piece 8: Night Ferry 1. Who composed this piece? Anna Clyne 2. How did the composer start getting her ideas together? By painting a picture. 3. What does the music describe? A ship’s journey through a stormy sea at night. 4. What is there in the music that goes with the theme of the piece? You could mention instruments, dynamics, tempo, melodic shape, rhythms, or anything else that you think of. It has mostly loud dynamics with sudden quiet sections, like a storm raging and briefly calming down. Scales rushing up and down sound like waves or howling wind. Low drum rolls sound like waves crashing and thunder. The harmony is clashy. 3 Music Teacher February 2016 Piece 9: Requiem – Dies irae 1. Who composed this piece? Giuseppe Verdi 2. What language is Dies irae in? Latin 3. What does Dies irae mean? Day of Judgement 4. When do the events described in the piece take place? At the end of the world. 5. When was the piece written? 1874 6.