As Music Gershwin Study Guide - Summertime

AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime

George Gershwin Summertime

A guide for students

Developing musical understanding works for 2011....31

© Nick Redfernwww.nickredfern.co.ukContact: [email protected]

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AS Level Music

Unit 3: Developing musical

understanding

Vocal music 2011


Instrumental music........................................................................3

Vocal music...................................................................................3

About this document.....................................................................3

The exam......................................................................................4

Gershwin.................................................................5

Text.........................................................................5

Setting....................................................................5

Structure.................................................................5

The score.................................................................6

Harmony..................................................................6

Introduction..................................................................................6

Verse 1.........................................................................................8

Chromaticism..............................................................................10

Texture..................................................................12

Melody..................................................................13

Swung time.................................................................................14

Orchestration.........................................................15

2© Nick Redfernwww.nickredfern.co.ukContact: [email protected]

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Developing musical understanding works for

2011

Instrumental music

Bach Sarabande & Gigue from Partita in D

Haydn String Quartet The Joke, movement 4

Webern Quartet Op. 22, movement 1

Tippett Concerto for Double String Orchestra

Vocal music

Dowland Flow my tears

Bruckner Locus iste

Gershwin Summertime

Berio Sequenza III for female voice

Cliff You can get it if you really want

Gallagher Don’t look back in anger

About this document

This document is designed to support the study of AS Level Music (edexcel)

Unit 3 Developing musical understanding, Vocal Music. The guide is available

at www.nickredfern.co.uk and is produced in conjunction with student

workbooks, PowerPoint documents and other related material. I have tried

not to include detail which is extraneous to the exam, such as dates and

biographical detail, analysis of text, etc.

For further information or enquiries please contact me at

[email protected]


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mailto:[email protected]

http://www.nickredfern.co.uk/


The exam

There are two questions which relate to the set works which are constant in

format.

Part B: Investigating Musical Styles

(b) Vocal Music

(i) Describe the stylistic features of XXXXX (one of the set works)

which show that this is an example of XXXXX (style/period/era)

(10)

(ii) Compare and contrast the XXXXX and XXXXX (two compositional

devices: harmony, tonality, melody, structure, vocal writing,

texture and word setting) of XXXXX and XXXXX (two different

set works)

(18)


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Gershwin

George Gershwin, American composer and pianist (1898 – 1937, was a

prolific composer of songs, musicals and operas. The Opera, Porgy and Bess,

from which Summertime is taken, was first performed in 1935.

Text

Summertime an’ the livin’ is easy,

Fish are jumpin’, an’ the cotton is high.

Oh yo’ daddy’s rich, and yo’ ma is good lookin’,

So hush, little baby, don’ yo’ cry.

One of these mornin’s you goin’ to rise up singin’,

Then you’ll spread yo’ wings an’ you’ll take the sky.

But ‘till that mornin’ there’s notnin’ can harm you

With daddy an’ mammy standin’ by.

Setting

The setting of the text is almost entirely syllabic, that is one note per

syllable.

Structure

Introduction bars 1 – 7. The vocal part begins on an anacrusis, or an up-

beat.

Verse 1: bars 7, beat 3 – 24

Verse 2: bars 25 – 46 (Coda bars 41 – 46)


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The score

The score is a piano reduction of an orchestral score which does not truly

represent the music of the recording. For the purpose of this document I will

refer generally to the score alone.

Harmony

Introduction

The octave unison texture of the introduction is triadic. Bar 1 outlines a

diminished tonic, B diminished chord (the key of the main body of music is

B minor). The Fª, a flattened 5th of the tonic chord, acts as a blues note and

immediately signals a strong stylistic trait of this blues infused music. In bar

2 the F# is established and the B minor tonic is established. Here an F#

dominant pedal is established.

In bars 3 and 4 the descending quaver pattern falls in thirds, which also

implies harmony. Here the harmony implied is a B minor 13, which is an

extended chord, or a triad with additional thirds added above the 7th, and is

indicative of the jazz style of the harmony. The chord is rich and sonorous

and contributes to the sensuous and evocative feel of the introduction.


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The ostinato on F# and G# in bar 4, beats 3 to bar 4 is in crotchets and

augmented to minims in bars 6 -7 and echoes in the bells are the

sharpened 6th & 7th degrees of B minor, the A# being the leading note.

This ostinato therefore has the effect of preparing the statement of the

tonic minor at bar 8.


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Verse 1

The harmonic language of the verse is characterised by the employment of

chords with added notes. In bars 8 – 11 a harmonic ostinato is

established, painting in music the act of gently rocking a sleeping baby. This

work is, after all, a lullaby. The two minim chords are B minor with an added

sharpened 6th and C# minor with an added sharpened 6th.

Chord ostinato Chords represented in one octave

These chords, written in parallel motion, or moving by step whilst

maintaining their shape. Parallel motion was a stylistic trait of the French

composers Debussy and Ravel. Gershwin was highly influenced by European

modern music and did try and obtain composition lessons from Ravel. The

sharp 6th is a stylistic characteristic of the French school and also the

emerging Jazz style of harmony.


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Bars 12 – 13 have a change in harmonic expression, with an ascending

pattern of rich, Blues informed chords. The chromatic embellishments

add to the languid feel to the music, represented here by circles.

In reduction the exact nature of the harmony is revealed.

E minor 7 E minor 7 Em G^7 G^7 E# dim

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1st inv. 2nd inv. 1st inv.1st inv. 2nd inv.

Inversion B pedal


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At bars 14 = 15 the chromatic language which characterises the work and

Gershwin’s harmonic idiom is stated fully.

The use of blues notes or false relations lends the work an expressive

dissonant bite: bar 14 F# - Fª and E# - Eª; bar 15 Dª - D#.

Chromaticism

The harmonies of this moment are quite exquisite. Here they are

represented in reduction.

F# 1st inversion C#7 F# D#m7 F#¨5/7

maj/min 3rd inv 2nd inv.


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At bar 19 there occurs yet another example of Gershwin’s exotic harmonic

language.

The ascending whole tone scale ensuring the E¨7 chord of beat 3 has an

added dissonance, a sharpened 4th. The melody then raises a minor third to

add a sharp 6th to the chord. The F# of the vocal melody adds a further 9 th to

the colour of the chord. Here are the chords in reduction:

The complexity of the chord is diluted through the spacing of the notes

throughout three octaves. The final cadence of verse 1 reveals yet more

complex harmonies. The melody of bar 20 clearly outlines a B minor 7, as

does the bass, which is an example of heterophony (see Texture)

Bar 21: E major to A major 11 (no 3rd or 5th)

Bar 21: B minor (tonic)

This VII 11 to I cadence is highly effective.


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A major 11 (no 3rd or 5th) A major 11 (complete)

As the work is strophic there is no variation in the harmony of the individual

verses until bar 41, the Coda.

E A 11 D G 11 C F# #6/7 Bm

The combined affect of the tonic pedal in the Soprano, the cycle of fifths in

the Bass, the extended 11th chords and the Blues cadence results in

powerful and highly functional harmony. The chromaticism of the chord

progression is evident in the top note of each chord, whose chromatic decent

is expressive and enhances greatly the directional quality of the progression.

Texture

Homophonic. The first two bars are in octave unison in the score and at

bar 20 there is a brief example of heterophony. This is where the melody

occurs in one or more independent parts simultaneously but in variation.

There both parts outline the chord of Bm7.


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The counter melody of bars 26 - 37, beat 1 does offer very brief moments

of heterophony, but these are too insignificant to warrant further

investigation. However, the countermelody does bring some contrapuntal

interest to the passage.

Melody

The melody is not pentatonic but clearly based on a 6 note scale with the

semitone between the 2nd and 3rd degrees.

The narrow range of the melody sits within an octave between F# and F#:13

© Nick Redfernwww.nickredfern.co.ukContact: [email protected]

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The range is a stylistic allusion to the Black American folk music of the late

19th and early 20th Century as is the pentatonic feel to the modality. The

leading note (A) is a tone or major second from the tonic (B) which is

typical of the Blues mode.

The use of a portamento at bar 21 is also a stylistic allusion to Black

American folk music.

Swung time

Swung time is a method of rhythmic interpretation which alters pairs of

quavers or dotted quaver + semiquaver into a triplet of a crotchet + quaver.

Here is verse one in swung time as sung by the Soprano on the NAM

recording.

This is a stylistic allusion to jazz and blues where this is a common feature.

Bar 12


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Here, at bar 12 the triplets are notated.

Orchestration

As the score is represented in piano reduction discussion of the scoring is

not really feasible. However, the addition of a wordless chorus at bar 26

does extend the colouristic range of the orchestra.

Bars 30 - 33

However, there material is a simple doubling of the orchestral chords.

Where the wordless chorus does make a significant impact is the manner in

which the upper Soprano enhances the chromatic decent of the cycle of

fifths chord progression at bars 41 – 44 of the Coda.


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As Music Gershwin Study Guide - Summertime

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