Copland Mendelssohn Mashup

My iPod recently shuffled to a track that begins with a lone bassoon holding onto to a B. My ears immediately assumed it was the held-over bassoon note that links the 1st and 2nd movements of Mendelssohn's violin concerto; I was surprised to discover it was a passage from Copland's "Appalachian Spring." The two composers don't have a lot in common, but these two passages are remarkably similar.

In each case, a long held B on the bassoon resolves up to a C. Mendelssohn (upper staves) then moves up to a G-sharp at roughly the same time Copland moves through an E-flat to an A-flat, the A-flat being enharmonically equivalent to Mendelssohn's G-sharp. (In other words, they'd be played by the same note on a piano, even though they're notated differently.)

From there, the two pieces go in different directions. There's some lovely polytonal tension, and by the end of this brief mashup, we have Mendelssohn's C Major chord against Copland's A-flat Major chord. The chords still clash, but they each still feature that same C to which the bassoon had resolved. Remarkably, the barlines come close to lining up throughout this little mashup, even though Mendelssohn is in 6/8 and Copland's in 4/4.

Note that the Copland passage features some bitonal tension of its own as the 3rd and 5th measures feature an A-flat chord against and E-flat chord. (This passage is almost an exact repeat of the opening of "Appalachian Spring," excerpt there the harmonies are A Major and E Major.)

Read more here: http://mmmusing.blogspot.com/2009/11/name-that-bassoon.html

Category:

Music

Tags:

• mendelssohn
• violin
• concerto
• bassoon
• copland
• appalachian
• spring
• polytonal
• mashup

[vysehrad]

I have also discovered recently the joys of putting a mostly-classical iPod on shuffle. Beethoven gets an unfair share for complete Brendel and Schnabel sonata recordings, though.