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Music for a While (Texture (Imitation of vocal part in harpsichord…
Music for a While
Texture
Imitation of vocal part in harpsichord (sequencing)
Melody Dominated Homophony
Constant Harmonic Rhythm
Interjections with harpsichord
Ground bass constructed by harpsichord LH and bass viol - basso continuo
Only 2 melodies during intro but turns to 3 with voice
3 instruments create polyphony
constants playing means melody is never thin
Harmony and Tonality
A minor
Dissonant harmony (for word painting)
Repeated ground bass played by Harpsichord left hand and bass viol
Altered ground bass (bar 21) for modulation
Suspensions used
Mostly diatonic
Arpeggiation on harpsichord- due to lack of sustain
Melody
Mostly syllabic but lots of long melismatic phrases
Lots of word painting
Lots of ornamentation-grace notes,mordents
Mostly conjunct
Lots of apoggiaturas
Instrumentation and Sonority
Bass Viol
Soprano in recording
Originally for castrati
silent lute
harpsichord
Expression and Dynamics
Strucutre
Based on Ground Bass (3 bars long which is unusual and gives a sense of tension)
A B A1 structure (modulation in B section to relative major)
Ternary form
No dynamics due to harpsichords inability to do so
No written expression
No written dynamics
Rhythm, tempo and metre
4/4
Steady pulse-no tempo changing
Seems lento or largo but due to the ground bass being quavers its actually 130BPM
Lots of swung quavers in harpsichord
Context
Composed by Henry Purcell
Writen for the play of Oedipus
written in 1692
Music is to calm Alecto + put her to sleep