Listening Response

Listening Response The song that I am writing about is Symphony No. 39 in G minor, Movement 1 written by Franz Joseph Hayden. When I first listed to this song I was a little unsure how I felt about it. It was very different that what I am used to hearing but it was catchy and had a relaxing sound. I have now started using this particular piece to calm me down after a stressful day. I frequently listen to music to relieve stress and this song does just that. Now that I have learned more on the structure of music I can appreciate classical music. When I started listening to the song I tried to find a beat. I wanted something I could move to. I have established this movement to have a clear beat. When it starts out, the beat is very fast. It moves along quite quickly. The speed of the beat is referred to as the tempo. The entire movement keeps the same tempo throughout. It sometimes sounds like it changes but the reason it sounds this way is because of the other elements. For example when the piece is moving from Theme A through the transition to Theme B, the dynamic level changes, making the rapid tempo more apparent because the piece becomes louder. Dynamics measure the variation in loudness of a musical sound. After establishing the beat and tempo of the piece, I wanted to be able to classify the beat. To classify the beat we use meter. Meter is a regular pattern of accented and unaccented beats. This piece moves fast and has four beats before the melody repeats this is called quadruple-simple meter. Quadruple meter has four beats in each measure. Hayden’s work follows how classical music was written during that time period and is therefore broken up into themes. This particular movement has four sections. They are as follows: the Exposition section, Development section, Recapitulation section and then the Developmental and Recapulation are repeated again to end the movement. The Exposition section starts out with theme A. Theme A allowed me to establish the...