Relation of Words and Music
As in an oratorio, the written text in a choral symphony can be as important as the music, and the chorus and soloists can participate equally with the instruments in the exposition and development of musical ideas. The text can also help determine whether the composer follows symphonic form strictly, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, Britten and Shostakovich, or whether they expand symphonic form, as in the case of Berlioz, Mahler and Havergal Brian. Sometimes the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures, as with Szymanowski, Schnittke and, again, Havergal Brian. The composer can also choose to treat the text fluidly, in a manner more like music than narrative. Such was the case with Vaughan Williams, Mahler and Philip Glass.
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Famous quotes containing the words relation, words and/or music:
“The instincts of the ant are very unimportant, considered as the ant’s; but the moment a ray of relation is seen to extend from it to man, and the little drudge is seen to be a monitor, a little body with a mighty heart, then all its habits, even that said to be recently observed, that it never sleeps, become sublime.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We are all aware that speech, like chemistry, has a structure. There is a limited set of elements—vowels and consonants—and these are combined to produce words which, in turn, compound into sentences.”
—Roger Brown (b. 1925)
“Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines.
His words are music in my ear,”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)