Free The complete idiot's guide to classical music by Robert Sherman, Philip Seldon, Naixin He Page B

goes, is what makes horse races.
     
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      Music Word Modulation is the shifting from one key to another within a musical composition, the idea being to accomplish this in a continuous musical flow. It’s no fair just stopping something in C Major and starting something else in G.
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Colorful Sounds
    Color or timbre refers to the unique sound of each musical instrument of voice. A composer’s judicious use of color, and clever combinations of different timbres, can help shape a melody, emphasize the rhythmic foundation of a piece, or widen its emotional range. Some composers, including Rimsky-Korsakov and Scriabin, saw music as reflections of color, and believed that each key had its own special visual counterpart. Both used G-sharp minor to paint moonlight portraits, for instance, and E Major for rippling waters. Scriabin went much further in this color connection than his older colleague: He saw the key of C Major as red, F-sharp Major as bright blue, and so forth.
     
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      Bet You Didn’t Know
In his 1910 composition “Prometheus,” Scriabin wrote in a part for a color organ, a keyboard contraption intended to project changing colors in step with the musical progressions. The coordination was too complex, and the technology too primitive. It was not until 1975, 60 years after the composer’s death, that a reasonably successful fusion of music and color was accomplished (with a laser apparatus) at the University of Iowa.
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    Few composers have taken the parallel between sound and color so literally, but virtually all use instrumental and vocal timbres to evoke a mood, spirit, or emotion. And more generalized “light shows,” with large screen projections added to a performance, have helped illuminate the essence, if not the specifics, of musical works.
Form-Fitting the Structural Guidelines
    Each era of music is identified with particular forms and structural guidelines. The baroque suite contains certain stylized dances and Mozart sonatas have a recognizable shape (opening theme, second theme, development of both melodies, recapitulation of one or both of them); even Beethoven, ready to break with tradition at the drop of a baton, followed the prescribed four movement form in his symphonies. Adherence to such prescribed structures may seem too inherently limiting, but the genius of the great composers ensured ongoing creativity, as they were pouring exciting new wines into those familiar old bottles.
    New forms came into being with the romantic era: The nocturne was pioneered by the Irish composer John Field, but elevated to never-eclipsed heights of beauty and inspiration when Chopin got hold of the form. Liszt developed the symphonic poem, fusing music and literature; Tchaikovsky broadened the musical scope of the ballet, with his full-length masterpieces The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker ; Wagner took the opera, with its set piece arias and ensemble numbers, and turned it into expansive music drama; in our own country, Charles Ives turned barn dances and hymn tunes into classical sonatas and symphonies; and John Cage blew form and structure out of the water altogether with his “4' 33”, a piece where the pianist is instructed to sit at the keyboard in silence for four minutes and 33 seconds. (The piece was later transcribed for other instruments, so five players came out and sat there for the required duration.)
    Repetition and contrast are key words in describing musical structure. Repetition helps the listener keep track of the musical progress; it’s like the windows in a house, the milestones on the road, it helps us keep our musical bearings. Sometimes the repetition can be exact; more often the theme or rhythmic motif is varied, shifted from key to key or major to minor, played by different instruments, or presented with different harmonies. Think of the familiar opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: You’ll hear it again and again in the course of the