Mozart's Musical Phrases

As I have said earlier in my blog, my honest initial reaction to studying classical music was not too thrilling, but I have been pleasantly surprised lately. The music we have been studying (Haydn, Mozart, etc.) is very beautiful and catches my attention. Although to me it is still the “stereotypical” classical music with the orchestra, I have developed a new appreciation for the music. Even with no words, I feel the emotions of the song by analyzing how it makes me feel.

The piece that I have chosen for this assignment is one that I have once had a connection to but have since forgotten about. I used to play piano as a child and I was pretty good (for what I could tell). At home, we had a kind of cheap but also very cool keyboard that could play some songs. One of them was “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Mozart. My sister and I made up our own little dance to it and whenever we “practiced” piano at home, we would always somehow end up playing the symphony and dancing around the living room, making my mom not too happy about our priorities. After my sister and I stopped playing piano for several reasons, I forgot about the song and our lovely memories that went along with it, but when I set out to search for a piece that I could analyze, my face lit up when I saw the familiar title on the internet, underneath Mozart’s name. So…here it is. Here is my attempt to analyze a phrase of this wonderful masterpiece.

“Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSL5-wxgvFY

To start off, the overall texture of the piece is homophonic. There seems to be one melodic line that is backed up by different chords and sounds. Also, the rhythm seems to be allegro overall. Most of the song is upbeat, jumpy, and fast-paced, but sometimes the allegro melody is slowed down and played with a more passionate, elongated string of notes played by what seems to be the violin. (For example, 1:55 in the video). The melody is one that is easily recognizable. As soon as I started playing the song, I started to sing with the melody. The  dynamics within this piece help it to be a memorable one. Like the pieces we have studied in class, Mozart has cleverly added crescendo, decrescendos, pace-changing parts, and others to make the piece unique, and not boring. Overall, the piece sounds upbeat and joyful, giving the audience something to smile about.

I have decided to try to analyze the first 21 seconds of the piece. At first, I thought that the phrase within the first 9 seconds would be some type of parallel period, but when I sang the notes of the cadences, they seemed to be the same one, but in a different octave, making it impossible for it to be any parallel period because there are no half or imperfect authentic cadences. I also thought that the section from 0:09 – 0:21 would be its own sentence. It may be, but I started to doubt myself and therefore have determined that I believe that the entire first section that I am analyzing (0:00 – 0:21) is one sentence. With the section from 0:00 – 0:06 being a basic idea, then repeating itself until 0:09, where it then kicks off into the continuation, ending in a cadential idea. Granted, this may be wrong and probably is wrong, but to me it seems like that is pretty reasonable, other than the fact that if this is true, then the continuation of the sentence seems pretty long. But, hey, who knows. Maybe the continuation of this phrase was meant to be longer than usual. Mozart did break some musical rules along the way, didn’t he?

Here is what I imagine the diagram of the phrase is: A sentence

        

To be honest, I’m not sure if this is exactly what the phrase structure is, but from what I’ve learned, this is best I could analyze it.

Being music from the Enlightenment period, this piece is bound to have Enlightenment qualities found within the music. Mozart mimics a salon with this piece by changing up the melodies and intensity/loudness that the instruments are playing. Listening to this song makes me think that there is a conversation going on between the different instruments in the orchestra, similar to a salon where there would be conversations between philosophers about theories and ideas of the time period.

The changing of keys can also represent the Enlightenment. During this era, lots of changes to society were being made and the countries that were involved with the Enlightenment (most European countries) were advancing with respect to science, music, art, and more. The changing of keys symbolize these changes within society.  As soon as you think that you know all of the parts of this song, Mozart changes the key and it surprises you, just like those involved and living in the Enlightened world would probably feel whenever a new idea was contributed to society.

In this piece, I also found sounds that reminded me of ornamentation. For example, at 2:50, the instrument playing does not simply just play one note, but makes a sort of frilly sound and dances around the main note of the melody. To me, these notes are flirty and are used to provide extra flare to the piece. Just like Versailles, a magnificent structure of beauty created in the Enlightenment period, this piece has ornamentation to make it more appealing.

Almost everyone knows of Mozart. He will (hopefully) always be a recognizable name. Saying that, though, I have never truly dove into his music and really listened before this class. Thanks to this seminar, I realize now how much beauty can be presented through classical music like Mozart’s. It is simply amazing!