Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Defying Gravity: S Swchwartz (Melody (The text setting is syllabic…
Defying Gravity: S Swchwartz
Melody
The text setting is syllabic throughout with rhythms moving in a speech like manner.
The melody is in a conjuncted/step wise manner.
There is vocalisation at the end in bar 175 to the word "aah".
The verse and chorus combine conjuncted and wide angular leaps in the melodic line.
Texture
The opening of Defying Gravity has a spars texture with punctuating instrumental chord slabs, with some monophonic unaccompanied bars.
In the verses there is a melody and accompaniment or melody-dominated homophony.
The ending is contrapuntal with three different musical ideas with different lyrics.
There are homophonic chordal moments.
Tonality
The opening tonality is ambiguous with chromatic movement and unreleased chord progressions.
It is in the key D major.
Harmony
Chords are in root position.
Chord progressions are often unrelated and in the opening we can see shifts downwards in parallel semitones.
There is some use of dissonance.
In the end there is a pedal at bar 168.
Performing forces and their handling
Defying Gravity is duet for Elphaba and Glinda with some spoke dialogue.
The two characters either deliver their text spoken, half sung/spoken with music notated on the stave with crosses.
These two singers need extremely versatile voices with large vocal range of just under two octaves from G below midle C to F.
Wicked uses a large orchestra.
Background info
Stephen Schwartz is an american music theater composer and lyricist, he was born in 1948 in New York.
It was part of the music for the musical Wicked, which was created in 2003.
"Defying Gravity" is the final song of the first act, when elphaba discovers that the wizard of Oz is not heroic figure she thought he was.
Structure
There is a distinct verse-chorus form.
Within that structure this piece has multiple sections which are defined by tempo, contrasting moods and melodic material.
IT starts of with a Free tempo and ends with Andante to Maestoso.
Tempo, Rhythm and metre
Dotted rhythms and triplets are used.
Syncopation is frequent throughout.
The time signature change form 3/2 - triple time, to 2/2 - duple time in the opening and remains their until bar 88 where it changes to 4/4. At bar 115 it returns to 2/2.
There are many tempo changes:
Free tempo
Andante
Allegro
Moderato.