Prompt 2: Listen to the first movement of “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste” (1936) by Bela Bartok: https://ucsd.nml3.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/00028948302062 (Links to an external site.) (track 1) In this part of your writing I ask you to describe the piece in the greatest possible detail. To the best of your ability, identify musical elements such as instruments, register, pacing, placement of sound in time, loudness, density, silence, articulation, anything you can hear and describe. Describe all these elements in your own way, showing a detailed and careful listening process. When new elements arise, or changes in the qualities of the music occur, note the timing. Try to listen forensically, so to speak, and describe the music in the most precise terms available to you. Then, stepping back from individual details, point out any larger musical landmarks, moments when the music changes abruptly or decisively, again giving timings. Based on this, try to describe the global shape of this long movement, suggesting its overarching structure. Indicate how this global structure is made audible, with reference again to the local detail you have already described. Finally, suggest what this music is doing in an aesthetic, expressive or atmospheric way. What does it convey to you as an overall artistic experience? What I am asking you to do here is to give an aural analysis of the piece, based on listening. It’s my belief that this particular piece of music lends itself to this task. It is easy to find material online analyzing this piece, since it’s one of the most famous pieces from the mid-20th century. You are welcome to read any and all of these analyses and interpretations, but your writing must reflect ONLY your own close listening and observations. Prompt 3: Imagine that you are present for the world premiere of one of the works we have studied. Choose a piece that captures your imagination as a social event: a performance which would have disrupted audience expectations, puzzled or provoked the listeners. Describe the scene and the situation, the audience’s (and your) reactions, as a fictional story, but based upon an actual, historical work of music that we have studied. Try to capture the experience of encountering the music for the first time ever, in the kind of environment in which the music would have first been performed. Most importantly, describe the music in the greatest detail possible, based on your re-listening to the recording, or on descriptions of the piece from lecture. Convey to the reader the actual, non-fiction details of the piece in question, from the standpoint of a musically informed, interested listener. Leave out any knowledge that a listener of the time would not yet have had access to; but get very specific in what that listener would have heard and witnessed, showing a definite understanding of the materials and structure of the piece in question. This is a creative writing exercise, but one based on fact, and I urge you to find a good balance between the fictional and factual aspects, indulging your whimsy but holding firmly to the actual details of the music.
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