AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
AS Level Music
Unit 3: Developing musical
understanding
Vocal music 2011
George Gershwin Summertime
A guide for students
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
Developing musical understanding works for 2011 .... 3
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
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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
education@nickredfern.co.uk
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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 upbeat.
Verse 1: bars 7, beat 3 – 24
Verse 2: bars 25 – 46 (Coda bars 41 – 46)
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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
7
1st inv.
2nd inv.
Inversion
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B pedal
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1st inv.1st inv.
2nd inv.
AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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
maj/min
10
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F#
D#m7
F#¨5/7
3rd inv
2nd inv.
AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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 9th
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
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.
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
The narrow range of the melody sits within an octave between F# and F#:
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.
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AS Music study guide Gershwin Summertime
Bar 12
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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