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Course: Music | All-Star Orchestra > Unit 3
Lesson 12: Augusta Read Thomas: Of Paradise and Light"Of Paradise and Light": The composer and her work
Watch the full performance here. Created by All Star Orchestra.
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Can anyone better describe what is meant by the 'color' of the music?(12 votes)
The color of music does not directly relate to visual colors, such as purple, blue, and green; instead, it has to do with sound color, such a the dark, ringing quality of the gong, or the bittersweet, "tart" sound of the oboe. When we deal with musical colors, you will notice that references to taste, small, and sight are often referenced, such as above. Sound is a unique sense, just as all the others are, but we still often bring in the other senses when we try to describe something we hear. When looking at art, we often say a color is "loud" or "silent," just as we say that a timbre of the orchestra is "bright" or "dark." Everything is interrelated in the arts, and music is no exception.(23 votes)
When the composer is talking about how the music feels, it reminded me of something. My son is a trumpet player and said he will literally see shades of color when he is playing. A sad piece of music turns the sheet music a tint of blue, fast up beat music will cause him to see shades of yellow, red, or orange. Has anyone else experienced this or heard of this?(9 votes)
its a condition called synesthsia. but many people with this condition turn out to
be amazing musicians or composers. my favorite pop artist charliexcx has it and shes epic.
enjoy it and expect an amazing musical life.(11 votes)
The text on the screen spells the composer as "Augusta Reed Thomas" and then at one point we see the title page of a work of music and the name is spelled "Augusta Read Thomas"...
Which is correct?(3 votes)
Augusta Read Thomas is the correct one, NOT Augusta Reed Thomas.(5 votes)
- What is an Orchestra with only Violins? How is it "pure heart" without the Woodwinds or Percussions or Brass Instruments?(3 votes)
Actually, the orchestra started out as only strings in the 16th century, because the string instruments were the most developed ones at the time and you could create the most homogeneous timbres with strings as opposed to flutes, reeds and other early wind instruments. When it comes to "pure heart" though, that's just a matter of taste, although you could still argue that the strings are the most homogeneous instrument combination.(3 votes)
It is very interesting to hear about Augusta Read Thomas' process of composition, what she does when she feels something does not sound right. This makes me wonder, in general: what does it take for a composer to be recognized as a composer? Firstly by themselves and then by others? For their work to be chosen to be played by an orchestra and therefore transferred to the ears of a listening audience? What are the criteria? Taste in music is clearly subjective, having listened to the stories of composers whose work was rejected and later accepted and loved. So how is this decided, that someone is a legitimate composer whose work it is worth "putting out there" for people to listen to? Is there some kind of an organization that decides? And what features are their decisions based on? Thank you in advance to anyone who might be able to provide insight on this.(2 votes)
To be called a composer, you must create and produce a body of written music for various ensembles and instruments. To be called a working composer, you must have these pieces played by actual musicians. However, all compositions are not equal, and there are a number of broad things that judges, teachers, and music directors are looking for when they select a composition to be performed, commissioned, or as a winning entry into a competition, etc.: originality of a) melodic, harmonic, and motivic material, b) orchestration and instrumentation, and c) subject matter, as well as clarity, concision, play-ability, and natural flow of the aforementioned qualities. Obviously, a lot of this is subjective, but there is definitely a distinction between bad, good, and great compositions that well-trained ears can perceive. Hope this helped answer your very good question!
Maya(3 votes)
- When he hear the piece in03:30, is that secundal harmony that we hear?(3 votes)
What family is the Violin in? Is it a string instrument? I'm not quite sure. I see a lot of violins in the orchestra.(1 vote)
Yes the violin is in the string family because of the strings used to play the instrument. Other instruments in the string family is: the viola, the cello and the double bass. Most orchestras use violins but there are some orchestras that only use the woodwind family. (that is instruments that makes their sound if you blow into them. Like a flute, clarinet and lots more.)(4 votes)
- Why did she write it for the San Francisco girl choir?(1 vote)
- why do violins have a f next to the strings(1 vote)
Those are the f-holes- they are there to further enunciate the sound from the violin.
-Meow(2 votes)
03:30Video transcript
(slow orchestral music) - When I'm first starting a composition, there is not one particular
way in which I work. So every composition starts maybe from a different impulse. Of Paradise and Light came about when I received this
wonderful letter from Gerry. - When I was asking my friends of long standing to write works for my final season in Seattle, I asked 18 composers and
Augusta was one of them and she immediately accepted to write one of these Gund/Symoni commissions and we premiered the piece
in September of 2010. (bright orchestral music) - Because Of Paradise and
Light is an arrangement of the work I wrote for the
San Francisco Girl's Choir, the structure of the piece
is in many ways related to the original text, which
is text by e e cummings and very beautiful poem
that has a particular form with a repeating line. Now of course, when one hears
the string orchestra version, they're not gonna be hearing that text, but in some ways it's
a song without voices. Of course there are many of
those in the history of music. - It's a very short
work, but full of things and it just jumps from one idea to another and yet it does have a tremendous ability to feel like a whole work. But she has the great descriptions, she wrote resonant, with more emotion, energized and spry, joyful, suddenly warm, resonant, faster with
sunlight in mood and color, inner and calm. In a way, her words are as poetic as e e cummings's words are,
I think, as is her music. She writes only for the strings, but with no double basses. And it gives a very different color and a very different sound
to the string orchestra. - I love writing for strings. It's been a huge passion
of mine for 30 years. And in fact, it's hard
for me to write music that doesn't have strings in it. One of things about in Paradise and Light is just the pure beauty of these incredible musicians
in this all-star orchestra with incredibly careful bowing and vibrato choices and the way that these harmonies are voiced. The piece in some ways is
very simple and elegant. But on the other hand, it builds up to these rich harmonic
fields that kind of melt and reemerge and things of this kind. And the way that one plays that is very important on a string. I think another
characteristic of the piece is that it's relatively high in register. It's moving up and that's why this image of Of Paradise and
Light, that we're moving toward some other, other
world, or other place and I think that the technique
of playing it is something that the audience would really enjoy because it's very simple and
therefore it becomes very hard. There's no makeup in this piece at all. It's just pure heart. (building orchestral music) - Augusta Read Thomas's Of Paradise and Light is a short work and it's interesting the
way it's constructed. It's constructed in what
I would call gestures. So you have a first gesture,
and then there's a stop. There's an actual feramata and then there's a moment of pause. It's not an arbitrary moment of pause. She actually writes that. And there's another gesture. And there's another moment of pause. And then another gesture,
and it continues in that way. At the same time, it does feel unified. The language is consistent. The material isn't really repeated. It's just developed constantly. I think part of the reason is because the tempo is pretty
much the same throughout. Yes, some a little
faster, a little slower. The color of the orchestra
is just those two violins, viola, cello, with doublings obviously. There aren't woodwinds,
brass, there's no double bass. There's no percussion. It helps us see this
work as a unified whole because the color is very
much consistent throughout. And she uses this silences
in very poignant ways. (music swelling) - I think it's wonderful
when the notes feel right. I mean, in other words,
when I'm composing, if it doesn't feel right, I stop. If I'm sort of (grumbles)
can't get this section right, I just stop because I know that I will just be putting band-aids on something that's not correct. I have to go back to the drawing board, start over, get the flow, get the feel, get the line, sing it, feel it, dance it, and then I know that it's going. (music continues) - Augusta Read Thomas's
Of Paradise and Light is a hugely effective piece, very different than most of her music, but
I think equally wonderful. (bright music continues) (music swells)