Concert Music Review at San Francisco Conservatory of Music - Essay Example

The Current Review of the compositions by Bedrich Smertana, Bela Bartok and Franz Schubert will concentrate both on the message as well as the innatedetails of their respective masterpieces. ‘From My Life’, a semi-autobiography by Bedrich Smertana provides an insight into the various turns that he underwent during his lifetime. Smertana has managed to achieve this elegantly by using different tones in the four constituting movements. The first of them ‘Allegro vivo appassionato’ is quite descriptive and depicts his quest for the undefined.

‘Allegro moderato a ala polka’, as the name suggests, projects his youth while ‘Largo sostenuto’ defines his love for the women of his life. Finally, ‘Vivace’ is reminiscent of his attachment with Bohemian music. However, the most notable aspect of this composition is the use of the high E, which enlightens the listener of the hardships he has had to face in life. Therefore, ‘From My Life’ is noteworthy of using tones to project different aspects of Smertana’s life. Perhaps the most notable feature of Bela Bartok’s ‘Contrasts’ is the amalgamation of different forms of music, namely the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian flavors.

Such a confluence has generally been considered as an innovation of the 20th century in difference with earlier compositions. ‘Contrasts’ therefore reflects towards a deviation from the earlier approaches. The First of the three constituting movements ‘Verbunkos’ alternated between slow and agitated rhythms. The second movement, ‘Piheno’ was added to provide a sense of relaxation while ‘Sebes’ provides the balancing off-balance tones. The purpose of involving these three varieties was to induce complex tones by providing subtle variations at various phases.

Owing to its different approach, Contrasts was referred to as something away from concert music and instead belonging to the chamber music category. However, the composition is held in high regards as it requires greater technical application and preparation and demands the use of diverse instruments and the quality of the music is further determined by the physical arrangement of the musical group. Contrasts used low E-notes. The ‘E-Flat D.929’ was one of the two Piano Trios that were composed by Franz Schubert during the last two years of his life.

As such, these works were concentrating on the darker side of human relationships and attempt to touch the spiritual side of the listener. This note is called as the piano trio as it is played with the help of three instruments namely the Piano, Cello and Violin. The Piano Trio E-Flat Major is composed of four individual movements and can be described as starting with a sonata movement, which unassumingly shifts to a B-minor. The second movement, known as ‘Andante con moto’ was composed on the lines of a Swedish folk song, whose impression can be felt throughout the movement.

‘Scherzo’, which is the third movement, was derived from an Austrian country dance form ‘Allegro’, the final movement, was a completely new innovation, which was achieved by re-introducing the rhythms of the Swedish folk music used in the second movement. This method of reintroducing previous themes has been immensely utilized thereafter.