Page 102 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

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in television history, and over the course of more than forty years Mouret’s mu- sic (but not the composer’s name) came to be known by millions. With his Suite de symphonies, Mouret intended to showcase the newly brilliant French orches- tra and thereby grab the attention of his employer, King Louis XV. What surely caught the ear of the king is the same element that appeals to us today: the bril- liant color of the trumpet. Imagine if Mouret had orchestrated this Rondeau (see Listening Cue) from beginning to end with only strings and oboes—not very in- teresting. The moral? In music, as in painting, sometimes we are affected by the color of an idea as much as the idea itself.
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Jean-Joseph Mouret, Rondeau from Suite de symphonies (1729)
Form: Rondo (ABACA)
Texture: Homophonic
what to listen for: The continually returning refrain (A) of the rondo performed by a brilliant trumpet
read . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online.
listen to . . . this selection streaming online.
watch . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online.
do . . . Listening Exercise 5.3, Mouret, Rondeau from Suite de symphonies, online.
Pachelbel and His Canon
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Today most of us remember the name Johann Pachelbel (rhymes with Taco Bell) only because of a single musical composition, the famous “Pachelbel Canon” in D major (see Listening Cue). In his day, however, Pachelbel was known as a composer of a great deal of instrumental music and a respected teacher (he taught Bach’s older brother). Although almost everyone knows the Pachelbel Canon, there is an oddity about it: we don’t hear the imitative canon, or at least we don’t focus on it. Pachelbel has not used orchestration to help guide the lis- tener’s ear. He composed the three canonic voices all in the same range and assigned a violin to play each one. Because the lines don’t stand out from one another by range or color, the unfolding of the canon is difficult to hear.
Instead, we perceive the bass line churning inexorably in the low strings. This bass, together with the harpsichord, forms the basso continuo (Example 5.6). A strong bass is typical of Baroque music generally, but Pachelbel’s bass is unforget- table. It has a pleasing intervallic pattern to it (fourths alternate with steps), and it gravitates strongly away from the tonic and back to the tonic in an eight-pitch cy- cle. Pachelbel knew he was onto a good thing, so he gives us this bass line twenty- eight times, a classic example of a basso ostinato. The allure of the bass is such that
chapter five baroque art and music
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