The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra , Op. 34, is a piece of music with the subtitle " Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell " ( German " Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell " ), which Benjamin Britten wrote in 1945. Britten was originally commissioned to write a piece for the educational film The Instruments of the Orchestra , which was to be produced under the direction of Muir Mathiesons with the London Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Malcolm Sargent . “The work,” says the composer, “is tenderly dedicated to the children of John and Jean Maud : Humphrey, Pamela, Caroline and Virginia, for their edification and entertainment”.
The work is one of the composer's most famous pieces and is - along with Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals and Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf - one of the three most frequently used pieces in musical education.
occupation
The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is a work created for a large orchestra:
- Woodwinds : 1 piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets in Bb and A, and 2 bassoons
- Brass : 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in C, 3 trombones (2 tenor trombones and a bass trombone), and a tuba
- Percussion instruments : timpani , a bass drum , cymbals , a tambourine , a triangle , a snare drum , a block of wood , a xylophone , castanets , a gong , and a whip
- Strings and a harp : first and second violins , violas , cellos and double basses
structure
The work is based on the Rondo from the Abdelazer Suite by Henry Purcell and is structured with regard to the planned documentary as a way of showing the tone colors and possibilities of the different parts of an orchestra. Parts of it are borrowed from Georges Bizet's L'Arlésienne Suite No. 2 .
As an introduction, the theme is played once by the entire orchestra, then once by each group of instruments: first the woodwinds , then the brass , then the strings and finally the percussion .
Then each variation is dealt with in depth in a single instrument, in the same order of instrument groups as the theme before, and usually moves through each group from high to low. In the first variation, for example, the piccolo and flutes play a role; then each member of the woodwind receives a variation until the group closes with the bassoon.
After the whole orchestra played its variations in this way, everything flows into a fugue , starting with the piccolo, followed again by the woodwinds, strings, brass and percussion. After each instrument has been added, the brass section, introduced by a gong , takes up the Purcell theme again, which they quote “ con slancio ” ( Italian for “with swing”). Meanwhile, the other instruments continue the fugue, for which Britten uses its own theme and gradually connects it with that of the brass. The interplay of both topics builds up towards a fortissimo at the end.
The structure of the piece and the variations introducing the instruments is as follows:
- theme
- Allegro maestoso e largamente
- Tutti, woodwinds, brass instruments, string instruments, then drums
- Variation A
- Presto
- Piccolo and flute
- Variation B
- Lento
- Oboes
- Variation C
- Moderato
- Clarinets
- Variation D
- Allegro alla marcia
- Bassoons
- Variation E
- Brilliant: alla polacca
- Violins
- Variation F.
- Meno mosso
- Violas
- Variation G
- -
- Cellos
- Variation H
- Cominciando lento ma poco a poco accel. Al Allegro
- Double basses
- Variation I.
- Maestoso
- harp
- Variation J
- L'istesso tempo
- horns
- Variation K
- Vivace
- Trumpets
- Variation L
- Allegro pomposo
- Trombones and bass tuba
- Variation M.
- Moderato
- Percussion instruments (timpani; bass drum and cymbals; tambourine and triangle; snare drum and wooden block; xylophone; castanets and gong; whip; tutti)
- Gap
- Allegro molto
Companion narration
The narration for the documentary was written by Britten's friend Eric Crozier and is sometimes spoken by a separate speaker or the conductor during the performance of the piece. B. by Lorin Maazel in the recording for Deutsche Grammophon from 1963. Britten also arranged a version without a narration, which is preferred for recordings.
Web links
- Animated Guide to Carnegie Hall ( Memento June 9, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Videos:
- The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Part 1 on YouTube . London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas
- The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Part 2 on YouTube . London Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas
Individual evidence
- ↑ John Bridcut: Essential Britten: A Pocket Guide for the Britten Centenary. Faber & Faber, London 2012, ISBN 978-0-571-29074-1 , p. 1952 ( limited preview in Google book search).