Behold the mighty ostinato!
Consider the way Monteverdi exploited it during the 17th century. Consider the English ground. Consider Purcell's Dido's Lament, and it's kissing cousin the Crucifixus from Bach's B minor Mass. Consider the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, Ravel's Bolero, and the Pachelbel Canon, the most popular ground of all.
In 2002 I exploited the ostinato with a piano sonata that I called "Sonata Ostinato." We also have a whole generation of minimalism that exists mainly through magic of ostinato. Who can resist a pattern?
Towards the end of a rehearsal yesterday that included Gustav Holst's "The Planets" and John Williams's "Star Wars Suite," along with one of two short new pieces that exploited ostinato, I coined a new term!
Ostinatitis: The state of having compromised concentration in rehearsal after playing a lot of extended ostinato passages.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment