Corelli Vs. Davis
Music. Music is a strange and wonderful thing. Music can capture your attention and drag you into a world that is unknown to many others. Music can captivate and create, heal and hurt. Regardless of what the music sounds like to you, it wouldn’t sound that way if it weren’t for articulation and dynamics. Those two aspects create the wonderful sounds that music can produce.
Articulation is the manner in which successive notes are joined to one another. Articulation determines how the beginning and end of each note are to sound. Articulation is a principle component of phrasing or the lining of music. Certain types of articulation include staccato, short separate articulation; and legato, smooth flowing articulations. Articulation is key in the type of sound wanted.
Dynamics is an aspect of musical expression, which results from variations in the volume of the sound, either successively or simultaneously. Successive dynamics include crescendos, diminuendos, forte and piano. Simultaneous dynamics include the balance between parts of a chord, instruments or voices in combination.
I’d prefer to talk about Baroque and Jazz. The Baroque era lasted from about sixteen hundred to seventeen fifty anno domini. Arcangelo Corelli was a composer from the middle Baroque era. He was born on seventeen February 1653 in Fusignano. Corelli was an Italian composer and violinist from a family of prosperous landowners. At the age of seventeen, Corelli was admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna, which was not far from his birthplace. In March of 1689, he directed a large band in two solemn masses; Il Gesu and Santa Casa di Loreto. Both ensembles included brass trumpets. Corelli had his own style that was used to differentiate him from other composers. He used broken chord figuration, avoided extremes of register, used sequential progressions in which the roots of chords travel alternately a fifth in one direction and a forth in the other, and also used counterpoint or leap-frogging of two violins. Corelli also popularized the walking or running bass. Corelli composed music in three genres: solo sonata, trio sonata, and concerto. Arcangelo Corelli died in Rome on eight January 1713.
The Jazz era lasted from about the beginning of the 20th century and is still pretty popular among several types of people. Miles Davis was a Jazz trumpet player who was born in Alton, Illinois on May 25, 1926. Davis worked with bands in St. Louis, then traveled to New York where he played with Charlie Parker in 1945. In 1946 and 47, Davis was a member of the Parker Quintet where he played with Benny Carter and Billy Eckstine and was considered a distinctive yet immature soloist. In 1949, Davis appeared at the Paris Jazz Fair with Tadd Dameron’s band. Miles Davis performed with unique tonal and melodic characteristics that were later accommodated to the fast tempos and dense harmonic changes of bop. The repetitive rhythms and electronically amplified melody instruments combine to create a finely detailed but passive musical fabric.
In Arcangelo Corelli’s Sonata VIII transcribed by Bernard Fitzgerald in trumpet, which has four movements, there are many dynamic and articulation variations. The first movement is a prelude, or beginning. The prelude starts out in mezzo forte, which means medium loud. The articulation style is legato, long flowing tones which are tied together. At once there is a crescendo to the end of the second measure. Then in the forth measure there is a de crescendo or diminuendo, which means to get softer. At a measure labeled 1, the legato notes start out at piano, which is soft or quiet. From there, there is once again a diminuendo. Corelli has this piece going at such a slow speed that the dynamics flow right into each other. Towards the end of the section marked 2, there is a ritardando, or a slowing down of speed. This ritardando ends in a piano or pianissimo, which is very soft. Now, while seeing or hearing this flowing style in the music, one can imagine a beautiful stream or river. The flow of water over the hills and rocks can be compared to the rising and falling of the volume played. The undisturbed flow can represent the legato style of the music. If need be, compare the piece to any scenery of your choosing. This should help one see the flows in dynamics.
The second movement, however, is nothing like the first one. This movement is the Allemande, which was a famous style at the time. The Allemande is mainly in a staccato articulation, but there are some ties in the piece that are more legato. The Allemande starts out at forte, which means loud. Consider the notes as a heartbeat, separate and distinct. The movement goes into a crescendo and eventually drops to a mezzo forte. As in the first movement, there is a slight speed diminish, a poco ritardando. The allegro or fast speed highlights many of the wonderful dynamics in the piece. The movement eventually goes piano, but keeps the staccato feeling. There are notes that have accent marks over them which look like partial triangles. The marks mean that you would have to stress the beginnings of the notes, but separate them enough to get a type of majestic feeling. The movement ends with a ritardando.
Now for a moment, I’m going to talk about a Jazz piece by miles Davis. The piece is known as Four which was recently used as an audition piece for my high school jazz band. Four has a different feel, a different style from the Baroque piece by Corelli. This certain jazz piece has a legato and staccato type of style. The piece starts out with three eighth notes tied together, but the last note is staccato. There are no real dynamics in the piece, mainly just articulation. No where is there a written a piano(p), forte(f), mezzo forte(mf), pianissimo(pp), etc. So as you can see, the majority of this piece depends on the performer’s ability to play with articulation. If the performer just feels the music and applies his/her own dynamics, the piece will turn out really well.
Now, I could probably go back and talk about the other two movements of the Corelli piece, but that would just be a waste of time and space. The third movement, which is known as the Sarabande, is almost identical to the Prelude. A slow piece with legato characteristics. The forth and final movement, know as the Gigue, is somewhat like the Allemande, but with far less dynamic variation. The Gigue is also in allegro with the staccato styling along with legato characteristics.
So, if you’re reading this investigation right here on the Internet, you can probably see as well as I can that there are far more differences than similarities between Arcangelo Corelli of the Baroque era and Miles Davis of the Jazz era. The Baroque music was so restrictive, so professional. The Jazz music was very playful, with lots of improvisation. But regardless of the many differences, dynamics and articulation play a big part in how the music sounds and makes one feel. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this little investigation. I really enjoyed writing it. Now, until next time Web surfers. This has been an Internet investigation of music.
Bibliography Page
1. Stuckenschmidt, H.H. Twentieth Century Music. McGraw-Hill Book Company: New York,1969.
2. Blume, Friedrich. Renaissance and Baroque Music. W.W. Norton & Company INC: New York, 1967.
3. Palisca, Claude V. Baroque Music. Prentice Hall: New Jersey, 1968.
4. Kahn, Ashley. Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece. Da Capo Press:New York, 2000.
