Igor Stravinsky: Song Analysis

562 Words2 Pages

The two piece of music I have compared are “The Rite of Spring, Part One” by Igor Stravinsky, composed in 1913, from the twentieth century and “Hello” by Adele, composed in 2015, from the album “25”. The two songs contrast, largely in terms of musical elements. “The Rite of Spring, Part One” belongs to the genre: Ballet whereas “Hello” can be classified as soul music. They differ in almost every aspect. Not only the elements of the music but things such as purpose of the song, instruments used, audience, time period of composition etc. The melody of “The Rite of Spring, Part One” has a distinctive fragmentary nature, which seems to start and stop suddenly, without warning. These fragmented melody is mostly in a pentatonic scale. An ostinato figure occurs at (3:14). From (06:56) to (08:22), the short melodic fragments runs up and down multiple times. In …show more content…

Some are sections more regular than other section, for example, at (03:36), strings are heard in full force and can be considered duple meter to some extent. The tempo of the song is also undergoes numerous changes. One instance of this is from (06:12) to (06:56), where the tempo gradually increases with the dynamics.
“The Rite of Spring, Part One” is an instrumental musical piece. A variety of sounds, in all families of instruments is heard in this piece due to the enormous size of the orchestra for the ballet. Wind instruments predominates, in the opening of the piece. There are many instances of timbre change throughout the piece, and one such example can be heard from (06:56) to (08:22), where the heavy beating of the bass drum and the timpani can be heard. Woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion are the varied instruments heard in this orchestra.
There is only one single main voice in the piece “Hello” and the piano and the drums are the only two significant instruments heard thought-out the

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