Music 11 – Youtube Video/Concert Report Assignment

Watch the first 20:05 of the video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCl2z3ToBZ4

Here is the title of the work you will see and the featured performers.

  • Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (Opus 35)
  • Composed by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
  • I. Allegro moderato (Moderately fast)
  • Performed by Angélica Olivo, violinist
  • Gustavo Dudamel, conductor
  • Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar Sala Simón Bolívar
  • Caracas, Venezuela. 07/02/2014

Tchaikovsky was a 19th-century Russian composer. His emotionally-charged musical compositions are particularly grand expressions of the Romantic style.

Note that the first 20 minutes of the video will show you only the first movement of this concerto. To see the complete concerto, you would need to watch the next two movements.
These are shown in the last 16:45 of the video. After you have watched the video at least once, please write a review of the performance. Your review should be a carefully written essay of 1 to 1-and-a-half pages. Do not make your essay any longer than that. You will be marked on spelling, grammar, and the correct usage of musical terminology.

Make careful, insightful observations about the music and about the performance. You may comment on the musical work, the soloist, the conductor, the orchestra, the general atmosphere, or any other aspect of the performance. Also, you may, if you wish, learn something about the composer and/or the musical work and include that in your review. You should certainly say something about what a concerto is, and how the traditions and ideas of the Romantic period are expressed in this particular concerto by Tchaikovsky.

In your review, you might also discuss the period in which the work was composed, the genre, and the demands of the genre. What can you say about the performers involved? What words that we’ve used in class seem appropriate for the discussion? What instruments do you see playing prominent roles? What is the name for the large group that is performing? What can you say about the conductor? How does the audience respond? How does the work begin?

Does the musical material repeat? What word would you use to describe the technique of the soloist? Does the violinist have an extended solo? What is the word for that solo, when does it occur, and how would you best describe it?

Do not feel that you have to answer all the questions posed above! But please remember this: If you were a film critic writing a review of a movie for a newspaper, you would need to
include, at the very least, the title of the movie, the names of the actors, the name of the director, an assessment of the success or failure of the movie, and something about how the movie might relate to other films. Please try to do a similar job, in musical terms of course, in this assignment.