Air Music

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Air Music is a set of ten variations for orchestra by the American composer Ned Rorem. The work was completed in 1974 and was first performed by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra on December 5, 1975. The piece won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Music. [1] [2] [3]

In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which mixes instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as violin, viola, cello, and double bass, as well as brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Ned Rorem is an American composer and diarist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 for his Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra.

Contents

Structure

Air Music has a duration of approximately 20 minutes and is cast in ten movements:

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

  1. All players
  2. All players
  3. Woodwinds, piano and strings
  4. Solo tuba and violin with flutes, oboes, english horn, contrabassoon, and violins
  5. Three clarinets, three trumpets, snare drum, solo violin and strings pizzicato
  6. Trombone and cello, with piano, violin, and violas
  7. Flutes and violins
  8. Solo viola with bassoon, four horns, and harp
  9. Two oboes, english horn, violas
  10. All players

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a large orchestra consisting of three flutes (doubling piccolo), three oboes, four clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, percussion, harp, celesta, piano, and strings. [1]

Western concert flute transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

Piccolo small flute musical instrument

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Oboe musical instrument of the woodwind family

Oboes are a family of double reed woodwind instruments. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. Oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais, or oboe d'amore

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References

  1. 1 2 Rorem, Ned (1974). "Air Music". Boosey & Hawkes . Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  2. ↑ Tsioulcas, Anastasia (October 23, 2013). "Get To Know Ned Rorem, Now That He's 90". Deceptive Cadence. NPR . Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  3. ↑ Smith, Steve (October 25, 2013). "An Eternal Youth, Now 90: Celebrating Ned Rorem's 90th Birthday". The New York Times . Retrieved November 15, 2016.
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