Concert Report
Qiujie (Blair) Pan
I went to see a wind band concert that was played by UTSA University band on Oct 1, 2017. The concert was extremely impressive. Even though it was my first time listening to the live wind band playing, I enjoyed it very much.
The band played six songs in total. All the songs were composed in the 20th centuries. Among these songs, I really like the song named Ride by Samuel Hazo (1966). It is a fast song and I did have a feeling that the tempo of this song is taking me for a ride on an endless countryside road. So, I did some research on this song after the concert and tried to analyze this song. In the overture, the trumpets play important roles in introducing the tension. Then the music transferred to a faster …show more content…
The saxophone gives the audience very romantic feeling, like the jazzy style. This transition helps with breaking the tension and the fast tempo before. Then, the heavy percussion increases the volume and increase the intensity by ascending the pitches. Later on, the xylophone was played at this session. It makes me feel that I am sitting on a wagon and riding towards to the castle. I believe that a lot of songs for Disney movies used the xylophone. It created a very mysterious and romantic environment which emphasis on the topic: ride again.
I also went to listen the UTSA Orchestra concert on October 3rd. I am really happy that they played Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. There are four movements. Each movement is relatively long compared with other symphony.
The first one is Poco sostenuto; Vivace. As an overture, it is a slow introduction to the main theme. The flutes solo is very unforgettable. It repeats over and over again to increase the mysterious atmosphere. I think the purpose here is to build up the main …show more content…
This movement gives the audience a very lively feeling. NPR provides more information about the 7th Symphony and its second movement: “The Seventh Symphony's premiere concert [on December 8, 1813] was performed to benefit the soldiers wounded a few months earlier in the battle of Hanau. It was one of Beethoven's most successful concerts.” This is the creation of Beethoven No. 7 Symphony’s second movement. That is why the King’s Speech chose this movement as background music for the King’s most famous speech to against the war. According to a musical analysis that is written on Gene De Lisa. Com, “Beethoven was fond of ostinato (the repetition over and over of a musical line, usually in a lower voice),” The amount of repetition that Beethoven used increased the tension and emphasized more on the main theme. As what we learned, his second movement shows characteristics of 19th century music, which are dynamic contrasts, explosive accents and longer movements. The use of low horn helped with the transitions back to the main theme and also introduce the third movement, which