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South Bay Chamber Music Concert
On Friday, October 27, 2017, at 8:00 PM, the South Bay Chamber Music Society presented a string quartet concert, featuring the New Hollywood String Quartet, at the Los Angeles Harbor College music recital hall. The New Hollywood String Quartet consists of violinists Tereza Stanislav and Rafael Rishik, violist Robert Brophy, and cellist Andrew Shulman. The quartet played to close to a full house consisting of mostly older chamber music aficionados and a sprinkling of students.
The concert began with a work by Bernard Herman, Echos, which was composed in 1965. It was not listed in the program, and the violist, Robert Brophy, announced that they were substituting It for the planed Quartet No. 64 by Franz Joseph Haydn. Herman, a composer of Hollywood film music during the Golden years of the 1940s and 1950s, claimed that the work was echoes aspects of his film music. (Mosaic Classics)
For the rest of the concert, the program was followed. The second piece on the first half was Beethoven’s Quartet No. 5, Op. 18, No. 5, an early work that demonstrates a strong influence from Haydn. After intermission, Robert Schumann’s Quartet No 1, Op. 41, No. 1 was performed. In 1842, Schumann studied the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, and then wrote three quartets demonstrating what he had learned. These works are less performed than the quartets of the masters he had examined, but this particular quartet is a powerful piece demonstrating Schumann’s excellent compositional skills. (Christiansen, Kai)
Ludwig van Beethoven, perhaps the most recognized composer in the history of Western music, was born in Bonn, Germany, in 1770. He was born into a musical family. He went to Vienna at the age twenty two, and stayed there for the rest of his life. In Vienna, he had a very successful career as a pianist and composer. In his later years, he became almost completely deaf and was no longer able to perform publicly as a pianist. His first six quartets, Opus 18, are considered brilliant, but not very bold. These quartets, including No. 5 performed on the program, were still the works of the developing composer and do not really reflect his mature style. (Swafford, pp. 92 – 95)
The New Hollywood String Quartet is excellent. All of the musicians are extremely experienced, and all perform in the major performance organizations in the Los Angeles area. These truly virtuoso musicians brought a couple of hours of superb music to Harbor College.
Works Cited
Christiansen, Kai
(http://www.earsense.org/chamberbase/works/detail/?pkey=670)
Mosaic Classics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Wxo3He_RM
Swafford, Jan. Language of the Spirit, Basic Books, 2017
CONCERT REPORT GUIDELINES
Concert reports are to be handed in using Turnitin. There is a link to Turnitin on the Canvas website. You will attend a live, “CLASSICAL MUSIC” concert and report on the event. The concert report should be written with complete sentences in paragraph form. (Don’t write it in an outline form.)
BE SURE TO READ THIS:
The concert must be a live performance and NOT a performance on radio, television, CD, DVD, or the Internet
After you have submitted your concert report to Turnitin, and after it has been read and graded, you must return to Tutnitin and read the comments.
15% – Spelling, grammar, style
Your report should contain all of the following information:
Your name and the date the report is to be submitted. Then in paragraph form answer the following questions:
1.Type of concert/recital (For example: Solo piano recital, Voice Recital, Choir Concert, Chamber Music Concert, Orchestra Concert, etc.)
Give details of the concert:
Who? (Name of the person or group performing,)
What? (Instruments they played, names of all the pieces they performed, etc.)
Where? (The name of the venue where the concert took place,)
When? (Day, date, and time of the performance.)
5% – All above information clearly and accurately presented.
- What musical style periodswere represented on the program? (You can figure this information out by looking at the dates that the composers of the music on the program lived. Save your concert program when you attend concerts. There is a lot of useful information there.)
The dates of the different style periods are listed in your textbook –
Choose from:
* Middle Ages 450-1450
* Renaissance 1450-1600
* Baroque 1600-1750
* Classical 1750-1820
* Romantic 1820-1900
* Twentieth & Twenty first Centuries 1900-today
What are the musical characteristics of the period or periods represented in the music of the concert? How were these characteristics displayed in the music? In other words, rather than just listing the characteristics of a given style period as stated in the book, try to discuss one or two of those style period characteristics that you heard in the music of the performance. Refer to the relevant pages in the textbook. If you know what music will be performed in advance, it might be a good idea to review the characteristics of that style period BEFORE you go to the concert, so you’ll know some things to listen for.
20% Total for this question. (ABOVE AVERAGE – the student correctly identifies the style period of each piece performed and discusses some of the characteristics while giving examples from the music performed on the concert.
AVERAGE – The student identifies the style periods correctly and lists characteristics of those style periods with minimal, or no examples heard in the concert.
BELOW AVERAGE – the student incorrectly identifies style periods and/or fails to discuss the characteristics.)
- Did you prefer one selection more then another? Why?
20% Total for this question.
ABOVE AVERAGE – the student demonstrates an understanding of aesthetics, the use of musical elements, and/or the demands of the performance of a particular piece. AVERAGE – the student gives some details about what appealed to them about a particular piece on the program while using some of the terminology discussed in class. BELOW AVERAGE – the student discusses the piece using only superficial emotional language. “The piece was kind of boring at first but overall kind of pretty.” “I liked it because it was soothing.”)
- Pick one composer from the concert and give some biographical informationon that composer. Remember that a COMPOSER is the person who WROTE the music. Refer to the concert program to see who wrote the music you heard. Mention any research reference sources. You will find information on many composers right in our class textbook, in encyclopedias, on the Internet, or you can go to the library and look in “Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians,” which is a wonderful source of material. DO NOT COPY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION FROM A SOURCE AND THEN POST IT AS YOUR OWN WORK. Research the information that you need and then put it in YOUR OWN WORDS!
20% Total for this question.
ABOVE AVERAGE – the student demonstrates that they have done a little bit of research and gives accurate, concise, biographical information and presents it clearly. AVERAGE – the student gives somewhat cursory biographical information, or presents the information poorly.
BELOW AVERAGE – the student copies and pastes information from the book or another source, or provides inaccurate information, or writes about the wrong composer or one of the performers instead of one of the composers.)
- Describe your personal reaction to the concert.This can include comments on the quality of the performance and individual performers, comments on the venue, how the audience behaved, or general comments on how you felt about the experience and why.
20% Total for this question.
ABOVE AVERAGE – the student demonstrates an understanding of aesthetics, the use of musical elements, and/or the demands of the performance of the concert.
AVERAGE – the student gives some details about what appealed to them (or not) about the concert while using some of the terminology discussed in class.
BELOW AVERAGE – the student discusses the concert using only superficial, emotional language
These are guidelines. For this class, the Concert Reports will be given a number grade. Each report will be graded on content (12 points) and writing style (8 points) for a total of 20 points.
17 – 20 points = A 14 -16 points = B 9- 13 points = C
5 – 8 points = D Under 5 = F
Avoid Plagiarism! (“Plagiarize – to take ideas, writings, etc. from another and offer them as one’s own.” Webster’s New World Dictionary). In the US academic world, this is a serious offense and is grounds for academic dismissal.
“Include punctuation inside the quotation mark,” warned Professor Oakes.
