Beethoven
Beethoven
MUS HST 70
Mindy LaTour O’Brien
Listening Journals #1
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 1 in F Major (1st movement)
I enjoyed listening to this piece. All throughout the first movement, I constantly felt tension rising and relaxing (tension rising because of the repetitive melodies with crescendo and changing the melody key to a minor key and tension relaxing when it has descend or a key changes to a Major); I think this was Beethoven’s intention to have the audience keep their attention on his music rather than have the audience become inattentive during the middle of the performance. Also, in this movement, I noticed that there were many opening and closing phrases or sections—like a book with many brief chapters. I know this because I noticed a very brief pause whenever a phrase ended and then right after there would be a section that sounds totally different or similar to the previous phrase. I have played many of Beethoven’s piano pieces and I have noticed that in all of his pieces, he chooses very simple notes (for this movement the notes he chose was F-G-
F-E-F-C) of its Major or minor key and utilize those several specific notes to create music. He constantly changes keys of that same melody as if he is trying his very best to hear them. That was what I concluded on the reason why he repeated the same melody with the same rhythm—as if he was pondering which will sound better; for example at 0:00~0:06 or at 2:40~2:46, at first the quartet plays the notes (F-G-F-E-F-C) but as if Beethoven were not satisfied or wondered if he have not chose the notes right, he writes (F-G-F-E-F-D) right after. This tells me that I believe Beethoven was trying to experiment with is melody. I also want to share that I liked the parts (for example at 0:34 ~ 0:44) where the music builds tension by making a crescendo; soon after the tension relaxes by a quick decrescendo at the end of the phrase. Furthermore, I like the part at
MUS HST 70
Mindy LaTour O’Brien
Listening Journals #1
Ludwig van Beethoven
String Quartet No. 1 in F Major (1st movement)
I enjoyed listening to this piece. All throughout the first movement, I constantly felt tension rising and relaxing (tension rising because of the repetitive melodies with crescendo and changing the melody key to a minor key and tension relaxing when it has descend or a key changes to a Major); I think this was Beethoven’s intention to have the audience keep their attention on his music rather than have the audience become inattentive during the middle of the performance. Also, in this movement, I noticed that there were many opening and closing phrases or sections—like a book with many brief chapters. I know this because I noticed a very brief pause whenever a phrase ended and then right after there would be a section that sounds totally different or similar to the previous phrase. I have played many of Beethoven’s piano pieces and I have noticed that in all of his pieces, he chooses very simple notes (for this movement the notes he chose was F-G-
F-E-F-C) of its Major or minor key and utilize those several specific notes to create music. He constantly changes keys of that same melody as if he is trying his very best to hear them. That was what I concluded on the reason why he repeated the same melody with the same rhythm—as if he was pondering which will sound better; for example at 0:00~0:06 or at 2:40~2:46, at first the quartet plays the notes (F-G-F-E-F-C) but as if Beethoven were not satisfied or wondered if he have not chose the notes right, he writes (F-G-F-E-F-D) right after. This tells me that I believe Beethoven was trying to experiment with is melody. I also want to share that I liked the parts (for example at 0:34 ~ 0:44) where the music builds tension by making a crescendo; soon after the tension relaxes by a quick decrescendo at the end of the phrase. Furthermore, I like the part at