Moving on from opera towards instrumental and orchestral compositions, involves a major shift and transition in the way in which one needs to view the structure and form of a musical piece. As Greenberg and Copland state, an opera utilizes the existence of words and speech in order to create transitions, and organize the entirety of the musical piece. Pure instrumental compositions however, do not have this luxury and therefore have other tools and elements which are applied in order to give pieces a musical structure. I choose to emphasize and mention the information within Greenbergs and Coplands books since I had no idea how to approach a purely instrumental musical piece.

The first movement of Bachs Brandenburgisches Konzert begins with a joyous and uptempo rhythm accompanied by flutes and violins which compose the melody. One element which stood out to me immediately is the baseline instrument which persists throughout the entirety of the first movement. While listening to this specific instrument, (which i do not know the name of) I was able to infer that the first movement possess a duple meter which is pretty much consistent throughout the whole piece.

Greenberg stated that four major components compose the structure of instrumental music, being repetition, variation, contrast, and development. Merely from listening to the first movement of Bachs Brandenburgisches Konzert, three of these four components are extremely prevalent.  First of, this movement contains repetition due to the presence of a ritornello at the 3:54 mark, which again reoccurs at 4:41 and at 8:54. Secondly, there is a notion of development within this movement of the piece, since a crescendo is used, which sets up and introduces the ritornello at the 3:54 mark and the 8:54 mark. The re occurrence of the ritornello at the 8:54 mark is also developed with a crescendo. However, this crescendo was created with the persistent baseline instrument which I referred to at the beginning of this response (the instrument of which I do not know the name of) and while this creschendo was developed, it was difficult to detect the meter simultaneous. This was an interesting observation for me personally, since the loss of the meter immediately caught my attention and made me pay attention to the development of the crescendo which got released with the re-occurrence of the ritornello. Lastly, the first movement also contains contrasts since the ritornellos are composed of instruments such as the violin while the instruments which are used to develop the crescendos do not incorporate the violin.

Greenberg mentioned the importance of form within his text, emphasizing that “the art of the Baroque is, at a structural level, about control, about logic. about discipline” (Greenberg p. 101). This statement holds completely true in regards to my listening experience with this piece, due to the persistence of the underlying baseline instrument!

In Bach’s Brandenburgische Konzerte it is interesting that the song starts out very loud and very strong with many instruments at the same time, but right after 20 seconds less instruments play and it becomes more mellow. The rhythm is quick and there is a base or a background music of a harpsichord that is playing throughout almost all of the song.

In the beginning of the piece there are two or maybe three recorders introduced (I can’t tell) and they provide a hovering quality over the music. The recorders are played throughout most of the piece and when they do it sooths the piece and sooths the audience. There are also many ritornello’s which means a repeating passage in the orchestra, and since there is no lyrics it happens a few times.

There are many repetitions of the melody throughout the song. The beginning of the song plays a few times throughout the song. I think Bach does this to familiarize the audience with the piece that he wrote and so it is memorable. Around 3:44 it is the just the harpsichord and the flute but then there is a crescendo and more instruments join at 3:55 and the first melody starts again. This could mean that after the melody he will go into a different tone or tune. The music is not necessarily chaotic most of the instruments are playing together and there is not a lot of dissonance.

At the very end of the first part the beginning melody repeats again, but this time it is sped up and louder than when it first started. It has more power than the beginning. The audience can tell the first movement is coming to a close because Bach reinvents the music he began with. There is also an introduction to the “finale”. It is slower but the finale is chaotic and not very well put together.

As Greenburg points out, the form of the musical piece would have been familiar to the audience, and that the knowledge creates an expectation that the composer can use to develop intricacies in the music. Although I played in an orchestra, I didn’t spend much time looking at the formal features, so I thought the proper thing to do would be to learn what kind of form this movement should take on and why it’s called the “Jupiter” symphony. The Jupiter Symphony is Mozart’s last symphony. After some research and more careful listening, I began to understand the structure and the remarkable feat of Mozart to present the numerous themes in the piece. The fourth movement consists of 5 main themes that are passed around within the string section and between the string and the woodwinds. The first couple (the opening four notes and the phrase that comes after) are obvious as they are present in isolation, but the next three are a little harder to pick up, but present nonetheless. Unlike the Brandenburg concerto in which Bach gives a variation of the themes by changing keys and creating a progression, Mozart seems to strictly use the themes without any change, creating perfect repetition. For this reason when I listened to the themes, I didn’t associate any particular affect or scene with each of them, so I felt that Mozart’s music carried meaning in the music itself.

A notable section outside of the themes for me was how Mozart transitioned from one theme to the other. One can clearly distinguish the end of sections as the music comes down and the dynamic becomes more piano. If anyone has experience playing music written by Mozart, one should recognize the apparent soft cadence that comes at the end of the phrase. Between the transitions, Mozart switches into a minor key, unassociated with any of the themes he presents. This is present at 4:01, 6:50, and 7:26. In both of these phrases, the minor key creates a rising chord progression that elevates the tension because it differs from the patterns established in the previous themes. Rightfully, Mozart relieves the tension created in each of these moments by delivering the familiar theme.

A unique feature of this piece is the ending. At 7:36, Mozart remarkably uses all five themes he presents throughout the piece. To some it might be chaotic, and to some it might be refreshing. I had a hard time distinguishing all five themes as the first violin and the woodwind section stuck out for me. After showing off all of his themes, Mozart comes to a magnificent closure that is very full, includes a flourish in the end, and it certainly meets the expectation that he sets at 7:36 for the grandeur of the piece.

For those having trouble seeing the themes just from listening, here is a video that visually represents the piece, and it makes clear the different themes in the music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiX3z_fOR5k

Shifting from operatic music, which was often driven by text, to Bach’s concertos, which have no words, I was worried that I would perceive his music as lacking structure or as chaotic and muddled. To my surprise, however, I found that in the first movement of Bach’s Bradenberg Concerto No. 5, I felt a sense of geometry in the form that the music took. The concerto begins with an orchestral ensemble of many stringed instruments playing together. At twenty seconds, there is a distinct shift from the orchestral ripieno to the soloist concertino (which Greenberg tells us is made up of a flute, violin, and a harpsichord). This is the first of many such transitions that occur throughout the movement, allowing the listener to move back and forth between a complex ensemble to a simpler concertino. As per Greenberg’s description of Bach’s concerto, the ritornello theme itself is only played at the beginning and end, and there are different variations of it that pop up throughout the middle of the concerto. However, I felt that the general affects of the ripieno and concertino were distinctive enough that even when they were played slightly differently than before, I was still able to differentiate between the two and experience a sense of continuity in the piece. For example, at 1:06, the listener once again hears the ripieno, and even though it sounds like there may be less instruments here than there were when we were first introduced to this theme at the beginning, it is similar enough to the original ripieno that I could easily recognize it. Moreover, the transition from this shorter-version ripieno to the concertino at 1:12 is distinct and dramatic. While the ripieno always sounds showy, a little brusque, and faster-paced, the concertino is softer and more fluid.

While this back-and-forth between the concertino and ripieno occurs quite dependably for much of the piece, what was particularly interesting to me was the sort of chaotic descent that occurs at 7:52. After the concertino, instead of transitioning back to the ripieno, there is a long solo by the harpsichordist. The rhythm and melody of this section does not seem to jive with the previous melodies of the piece. Moreover, from 8:17 to 8:43, the same short melody is played at different pitches one after the other.  This section seems to escalate in intensity with each repetition, and as I listened, I felt myself losing sense of the structure I felt before. However, at 8:54, Bach returns to the ritornello theme we heard right at the beginning of the piece.  Thus, despite feeling momentary tension during the harpsichord solo, I felt a release of this tension with the return of the theme that I fondly remembered from the beginning of the piece. Through repetition and symmetry, the piece therefore came together for me and ended with a satisfying sense of finality.