Mozart's The Magic Flute

833 Words2 Pages

The Magic Flute, written in 1791, was made just 3 months before Mozart's death. The Magic Flute was composed as a specific form of opera called Singspiel, which means “sing and talk”. To sum up, it includes both spoken monologue and dialog in addition to sung recitatives, arias and ensemble pieces. The text in The Magic Flute was written in German by an old friend of Mozart names Emanuel Schikaneder. Mozart’s creation of The Magic Flute became one of the most popular examples of Singspiel opera. The pitch some of the characters were able to reach were extremely impressive in the performance. For example, the queen of the night in “Der Holle Rache” was able to reach some extremely impressive pitches in the performance. It's weird that such …show more content…

It's cool to be able to listen to music from so long ago with lyrics and understand what the song is about. Just like lots of songs today, this piece is about summer arriving and all the things that come with it. This is definitely still a prevalent theme in present day music. It's interesting when you compare the songs of today and from the 13th century and the ways that the happiness and new beginnings of summer was expressed in music back then. Although the song was made in Middle English, translators can give listeners today a good understanding of the types of things people noticed back then and what signified the beginning of summer to them. One of the lines of the song talks about how a billy-goat farting signified summer to the people. I don't think i have ever heard someone use that idea to express summer in my life. Because of this, I am now interested to listen to music from other time periods and countries to see what they think symbolizes the start of summer. It can teach you a lot about a specific time or …show more content…

When I first heard the song, I thought it was from the Medieval era of music. It sounded like something that was played a long time ago and not something that would have been played in the 1900’s. To me, it had that mysterious and creepy feeling to it that reminded me of the Medieval style of music. The one we listened to in class, which was with Harolyn Blackwell in the Porgy and Bess opera, definitely seemed creepy to me. Then, when I did more research, I found out this opera was actually a lullaby. This shows how much music can change over time and how things we hear today that seem happy or angry or even creepy wasn't always this way. With different time periods, there are different feelings towards different sounds, and I think that is really cool. What seems like a horror movie to kids today was a lullaby to kids back then. I think through this experience I will be more open to different types of music. What i feel about one piece or performance could be the exact opposite of someone else. Now, instead of saying music is good or bad, I feel that it would be more knowledgeable to just say it is different or not my style, because music can mean so many things and I think we have to learn to appreciate

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