orchestra
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
The concert I attended was a Philadelphia Chamber Music Society jazz interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations arranged by pianist Uri Caine at the Philadelphia Convention Center with piano, violin, gospel singers, stand up bass, trumpet, clarinet, saxophone, drums, and a disc jockey on a turn table. The whole concert was in the form of an Aria and included variations such as the mambo and the tango within the interpretation of Bach's Variations. When these and other forms of music were included in the Aria, the chord progressions were mush more lively and interesting, giving the music a more recognizable feel as well as educating people about more classical music from a jazz standpoint with improvisation of the overall harmony of the Aria. When it was time for each individual instrument to play on their own, improvising using the standard harmony of Bach's Aria, they began to play in fortissimo, and accenting every chord by using staccato to really embellish the sound of the music. The fortissimo used throughout the Aria made it seem as if the song was a standard rather than improvised to a melody, accenting each chord as if it was the most important chord in the song, seeming like the musicians were developing the melody rather than following it as a classical orchestra would.
The intervals between each instruments solo consisted of almost every musician playing together to complete each section of the Aria right before the tone changed to another one of the 30 different variations played within the entire Aria. When every musician played together, the obvious jazz counterpart of the music came through most and the piece felt more free and improvised. The constant jazz rhythm on the crash cymbal on the drums was keeping up the beat and holding the jazz feel together with a steady beat that also provided an underlying metronome for the music. Together all the instruments called and answered each other's chords and harmonies, and made the supposedly only orchestral Goldberg Variations come alive and seem perfect, but with an extra interesting jazz feel. The jazz tone added to the original Aria exaggerated each note and the importance of each chord to the song as a whole, as well as making the music interesting to listen too and one has to tap their foot to the music, which to classical wouldn't usually occur...