Academic Thesis in Master of Music Composition
Abstract:
The present piece named "Fantasy for Violin and Symphony Orchestra" is written in the form of the first movement of a concerto (sonate form) and contains various parts of the first movement of a violin concerto, including introduction, exposition, development, cadenza, reprise and coda.
Although this piece It is written in the form of a sonata (which adheres to the tradition in a way) and uses 20th and modern materials, which are in the form of melodic rotations, free tonal background in themes and expansions, the type of harmony used, orchestra coloring, etc. It is obvious that it will be analyzed in detail in the analysis section of the piece.
It should be noted that the color and smell of Iranian music can be felt everywhere in this piece. In general, thematically, the first and second themes are tonal or modal at the beginning of their expression, which gradually move towards free tonal as they expand, so that the instability of tonality in our development reaches its maximum.
Foreword:
This thesis entitled "Fantasy for Violin and Symphony Orchestra" is the author's first personal experience in the field of writing for cello and symphony orchestra, and considering my specialized instrument, the violin, and familiarity with the character and techniques of this instrument, I decided to write music for cello and symphony orchestra in sonata form. In this piece, the free tonal space is experienced along with the tonal method, so that the tonal method is used in the expression of themes and subjects, and with their expansion, the piece moves towards the instability of tonality and its successive changes. In this piece, we see very quiet and lyrical moments of the cello and the quiet accompaniment of the orchestra in front of the highly technical and fast parts of the violin (which is an arena for displaying soloist techniques), sometimes as a solo instrument and sometimes accompanied or alongside the noisy parts of the orchestra, which has created many contrasts in the piece.
Since this piece deals relatively freely with the sonata form and the traditional rules of the sonata including tonal relationships between departments and It has not been observed much and this piece was written in only one movement and I chose its name "Fantasy for violin and orchestra".
In the theoretical part, after looking at the sonata form and a brief about the concerto, the piece is analyzed and the piece is examined and analyzed in terms of form, harmony, counterpoint and orchestration.
Looking at the form Sonata:
Of course, this plan is only a general plan of the first movement, and it is not necessary to follow this form as a fixed principle. In the classical definition, sonata form is based on the opposition of two themes that have contrast both thematically and tonally (theme 1 in the main tonality and theme 2 in the secondary tonality) and after the development, both are repeated in the main tonality. In older examples, the repetition of parts is seen similar to the repetition in the simple triplet form, for example:
Often only the exposition is repeated and in many cases there is no repetition. Contrast between themes (of whatever kind) is one of the main driving forces in the sonata form. The word sonata may refer to a multi-movement piece or a specific movement form of the piece (usually the first and last movement).
In most symphonies and concertos, at least the first movement is in sonata form, and it can be thought that this form is a manifestation of symmetry and balance in the glorious history of classical music. It can be said that the sonata form has the same importance in the eyes of the people of the classical period and later as the fugue form had in the eyes of the people of the early 18th century. Of course, at the time of Bach and Haydn, sonata was often a word that was placed in front of cantata [1], that is, sonata was a piece for playing with an instrument and cantata was a piece for singing. It is said that the sonata form is one of the initiatives of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the eldest son of Bach, which was later perfected by Mozart and Haydn.
Generally, the sonata form is usually used for the first movement of a sonata (in the sense of a large multi-movement piece), string quartet, symphony or any other work of similar importance.According to some, the sonata form originated and grew from the double form, but as soon as it was able to grow enough and become an independent and recognizable form, it has three distinct and prominent parts, which according to the classical tradition are as follows:
Part of displaying the subjects (Exposition [2]):
which literally means presentation, presentation and presentation and includes the presentation of the first theme or group of first themes in tonic tonality After that, transitional passages connect the first theme to the second theme and provide a space for the presentation of the second theme, which is mostly lyrical and lyrical, and is usually in prominent tonality or relative major. The first tonal domain contains the main thematic material of the movement. Thematic material clearly and fully introduces melodic ideas whose design and rhythm are prominent and easily recognizable. The first tonal domain may lead to a full cadence or lead without pause to a transitional phrase. The interface is usually a modulating phrase that leads to the second tonal area.
As the sonata form became more complete and mature, many other roles were assigned to the interface. The interface may modulate clearly and directly to the new tonality, or it may obscure the target tonality until the last moment, or it may not even modulate at all. However, the interface always lacks the strength of the first tonal domain. If the second tonal field is only a transition of the first tonal field (the second theme is not presented), it is called a monothematic exposition. Haydn is the composer who founded the writing of monothematic expositions. Many times before the appearance of the first theme or groups of themes, a section comes as an introduction or sometimes a shorter section is introduced as introductory material. The second theme usually ends the section with a full cadence in the visible tonality and is often repeated throughout the exposition section. Different themes are connected to each other by means of bridging or transitional passages.
Expansion part [3]
This part starts in visible tonality and in it the motifs or themes introduced in the exposition are expanded in new ways and with new combinations in different tonality. Usually, many modulations are done even to distant tonalities, and at the end of it, it also reaches the climax of excitement (golden point). Of course, from the title of expansion for this section, it should not be assumed that the expansion is done only in this part of the piece and not in another place, but the best examples of the sonata form are those where the expansion of musical ideas can be seen in their place, including the transition stage, which is often an expansion of the first subject group, and also different parts of the second subject group, which grow and develop many times in connection with each other. At the end of the development, the music begins to return to the original tonality, the development usually ends with the reinterface[4] and the music begins to return to the original tonality. They came and appear again, with the difference that this time both appear in the tonic tonality. The difference between recaptulation and ritornello [7] in baroque period concertos is that in ritornello the main themes appear clearly and without any change and have the same concepts, but in the classical sonata, the recaptulation part in each repetition has relatively different forms and dynamic changes. Such a dialectical conflict of musical factors is one of the most important differences between baroque and classical styles. Many music researchers consider the dialectical correspondence between the components of the sonata in such a way that they consider the first theme or group of themes to correspond to "thesis", the theme or group of second themes to "antithesis" and their combination and opposition to "synthesis". The transition stage in the re-presentation of the subjects is naturally variable and it is obvious that its modus operandi also changes to reach the second subject in the tonic tonality.
Generally, if the re-expression of the themes is exactly like the exposition part, they are called static (objective) reprise, and if there are changes compared to the first time, it is called dynamic reprise (with change). In some cases, the order of presentation of themes in the reprise is reversed, that is, this time the second theme (the second group of subjects) comes first and then the first theme (the first group of subjects), which is called a mirror reprise.
Coda part
Lexually, coda means tail, which was created in the beginning to strengthen and stabilize the tonic tonality.