Hi.
Welcome to the Listener’s Guide.
I’m Steve, and we’ve talked some about short musical forms on this channel, and we’re
gonna get to some longer ones, but before we do, it may be a useful to go briefly into
the nitty-gritty of how musical ideas worked in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
I like to compare this kind of music to writing, and before we get into how to read an essay,
it will be useful to learn how we can build an idea out of clauses and sentences.
In music, we refer to these smaller structures as “phrases.”
These are more or less complete musical ideas that a composer can string together in different
ways to make a much longer piece.
One type of phrase we’ll discuss today is called a “period.”
Many people like to talk about this as a musical question-and-answer.
It’ll probably make more sense if you listen to it—let’s have an example!
So this is the main theme of Haydn’s last symphony, number 104.
Let’s listen to the question that he sets up.
[music]
You can tell we came to a resting point at the end of that musical idea, but
it does not sound final.
If you remember from our cadence video that is because we’ve reached a cadence, but
not the root of the scale.
This musical idea ends just a little higher than the root and it feels incomplete.
So Haydn has to provide an answer to his question.
Just as your teachers probably told you to do on a test, he starts by repeating part
of the question, but he comes to a more final conclusion.
[music]
This is called a “parallel period” because of that structure—the answer starts
out the same way as the question, which helps create a sense of musical unity in the idea.
Let’s hear another example of a parallel period, this time from Mozart.
Here’s the question…
[music]
and the answer.
[music]
You can see the same basic concept, but this time the answer to the question starts
on a different pitch.
And that’s okay!
It doesn’t have to be an exact repetition of the notes, but as long as you can tell
it’s the same material, we still call it parallel.
The second main type of period is called a contrasting period.
This is one where the answer to the question does not repeat any of the question, but instead
gives something entirely new.
Here’s the “question” from one of Beethoven’s more famous periods.
[music]
Hopefully after hearing a couple of periods, you can intuitively understand the
break there and the sense that more music has to come to finish the idea.
Maybe you’ve even got some ideas of how that could happen, and that’s great!
Or maybe you’re still trying to get your bearings and you’re mad that I haven’t
given you the answer yet.
Well, here it is!
[music]
Even though Beethoven repeated nothing of the musical question,
this answer brings it to a satisfying conclusion.
And that’s really all there is to musical periods!
These tiny building blocks may seem simple, but they form the foundation of musical works
that are much, much longer.
Now, of course, they’re not the only way eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers
would write phrases, but to learn about the rest, you’re going to have to like and subscribe
to stay with us when we bring you: the sentence! ...we really oughta come up with better words
for these things, that name is ruining my writing metaphor...
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