Score Club - Tod und Verklärung, Richard Strauss
Welcome to Score Club! This time around we will be taking a different approach…
One of the most intimidating parts of learning a new piece of orchestral music can be its sheer size and length. Digesting anything over ten minutes is a difficult task for anyone, let alone trying to interpret a behemoth like Mahler’s 3rd Symphony (which can clock in around an hour and 45 minutes!). So for this score club, we are going to break down one of Richard Strauss’s masterpieces week by week, and talk about how to approach a large scale orchestral work. We will throw in some historical/informationalal tid-bits and anecdotes along the way, but mostly we will be talking about the music itself. Let’s get started!
Listening week one - 0:00-8:45(ish)
A typical performance of Tod und Verkalung (translated to Death and Transfiguration) clocks in at around 25 minutes. In that 25 minutes, Strauss takes us through a remarkably dramatic, epic journey.
It’s not always easy to find 25 minutes in a day to just listen, and while we will only focus on the first eight minutes or so this week, it would be hugely beneficial to find the time to listen to this piece from beginning to end at least once.
Once you have listened through, spend a lot of time specifically with the first eight and a half minutes or so. It’s about 8:35 in the top video, and 9:00 in the bottom. It’s a moment of great change in the music as it winds down and calms.
If you were with us for our last score club, you might remember that one of the first things we should do while learning a new piece is to simply listen, and take note of what stands out to you. Significant moments of change, surprise, beauty or calm are all important moments! Try this:
We already broke the piece down to the first eight minutes, but we can break this section down even further to help us digest this particular section it more easily. Start big! These first eight minutes can be broken down into two larger sections of great contrast. Start listening at around the five minute mark, and take note of when the contrasting section begins.
In general, how do these two sections make you feel? There will be variation within these sections, but keep it simple for now and think of a few adjectives that can describe, in general, the first five minutes, and the next four.
Now, compare the two sections. How do they work with, or against each other? Do they create some kind of story? What could that story be?
Here are some thoughts from Music Director Eric Mahl to get you thinking:
“To me, the music at the very beginning symbolizes a staggering heart beat, coming perhaps from of our main character who will take the arduous journey that is Tod und Verkalung. It’s almost as if we enter on the last moments of their life as they calmly reflect on their memories, some happy, and some sad. Suddenly, (beginning at around the 5 minute mark) like in a movie, we are taken into their past as we are violently thrown into one of their memories; one full of drama, pain and perseverance.”
Your interpretation will of course be different, but keep your mind open and be creative!
Richard Strauss
