Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Is Frozen II (2019) your favorite movie? It should be! While this film has my heart for many reasons, the score is truly what sets it apart from many films of similar caliber.
The score includes hits such as “Into the Unknown” and “Show Yourself.” In December of 2019, the soundtrack album reached number one on the US Billboard charts, making it the first soundtrack of an animated film to hit the position since Frozen (2013).
The soundtrack of Frozen II has many of the same elements that the first film had, but with even more depth and nuance. The score’s composer, Christophe Beck, said in an interview that the score matured alongside Anna and Elsa, with new sophisticated musical concepts and themes.
To supplement your listening/playing, I highly recommend watching Into the Unknown: The Making of Frozen II available on Disney+. It’s a 6-part docuseries that dives deep into not only the film’s score, but the cast, animation, and development process. I should warn you, though, it’s a tearjerker!
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
One of the best films I have watched is definitely La La Land. For the longest time, I have heard so much about this film and how it is so many people’s favorite movie. But I never understood the hype for it until very recently.
La La Land is a musical centered in Hollywood as two individuals fall in love. Emma Stone plays Mia, an aspiring actress, and Ryan Gosling, plays Sebastian, a struggling Jazz pianist. The characters meet and fall in love as they try to pursue their dreams. This is a beautiful movie about following one’s dream, falling in love, and the hard decisions that can intervene between the two lovers.
This movie is filled with beautiful Jazz music, many colorful and beautiful scenes, and moments that make you fall in love with the story. The soundtrack in particular is very compelling. My favorite tracks from the movie are “Mia and Sabastian’s Theme,” “Planetarium,” and “City of Stars.” The Music Library actually has a score dedicated to the music in the film. The score focuses on piano, vocal, and guitar chords arrangements for anyone to try.
If you have not yet watched or heard about the amazing film La La Land, I definitely recommend giving it a try!
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
The musical, written by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, centers on a group of Dominican American young adults living in Washington Heights, NYC.
The story centers around Usnavi, a young bodega owner with the dream of returning home to the Dominican Republic. It’s summertime, so his neighbor Nina comes back from Stanford University with the unsettling news that she’s feeling out of place and wants to drop out, in turn disappointing her family. To make things even worse, things aren’t going great with Vanessa, the object of Usnavi’s affection. When there’s a city-wide blackout, chaos ensues.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
If you’re anything like me, Mama Mia! is a classic pick for movie night. The catchy songs, written by Swedish 70s group ABBA, are upbeat and danceable. The movie features Meryl Streep, who plays the hardworking Donna. Her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), is getting married and wants to invite her biological father. However, it could be one of three different men that Donna was involved with. Sophie sends invitations to all of them, leaving her mother in a predicament as she faces her former lovers. With the addition of breathtaking Greek landscapes and hilarious friends, this film embodies the music that brought it to life. The sweet, slow ballad reminds me of the waves crashing on Greek beaches while the fiery electric guitar solos personify the energy that the men bring to Donna’s life once again. I often wonder how a series of ABBA songs could correlate to form an entire movie. The original recordings are so iconic on their own but Mama Mia! brings them all together for one hilarious story. Parsons Music Library offers both ABBA CDs and the score from Mama Mia!, so you can also listen and read along with these iconic tunes.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
The item spotlighted in today’s edition of Arachnophonia is titled, Vocal Selections from Next to Normal. This musical score of the 2008 smash hit musical Next to Normal featuring Aaron Tveit and Alice Ripley is a simply stunning piece that has been lucky enough to be purchased and brought into the Parsons Music Library Collection for years to come. Despite only lasting a few years on the big stage, this musical score has warmed the hearts of many even 12 years after its Broadway debut. Its popularity and relevance has garnered enough support as to open a revival at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C earlier this year. However, it was through a friend back home that I had found out about this musical. Sharing her Broadway playlist with me on Spotify, filled with over 1,000 Broadway hits (this number sounds big and yes. It is very big. The run time of the playlist is a few days long), I had come across the song “How Could I Ever Forget,” sung by the character Diana, as she reminisces the day that doctors informed her that her infant son had passed.
Although the lyrics, written by Brian Yorkey and composed by Tom Kitt, were full of raw and intense emotion that could turn you to tears in an instant, I fell in love with the song and the emotion put behind it. So, as any normal human being would do, I heard the entirety of the musical’s score. It moved me to tears, which I admit is hard to do for the most part. The songs were just full of raw emotion and the harmonies between all the characters made the songs super catchy. I played it on repeat for days.
Alice Ripley, Aaron Tveit, and J. Robert Spencer in Broadway production of Next to Normal – Joan Marcus
One day I just decided that maybe it would be cool if I find the score of some of the songs, play it, and possibly sing along to it. By no means am I a singer (I am so bad), but the ingenuity and the emotion felt behind the song compelled me so much, that I decided to take a stab at it. So, as a normal human being would do, I went to the Boatwright Memorial Library website and searched for my score. Sure enough, the coveted musical score that I so sought was there waiting for me, available under the illustrious call number: M1508.K5 N49 2009. I quickly checked out the score and began to play.
Even to this day, 12 years after its debut, there is something to the pieces that never get old. Although I did not have much time to play the songs since this spring semester has started, I am urging and scratching to find time just to hear myself play the amazing songs brought to us by Yorkey and Kitt. I urge that even if you are not interested in Broadway musicals, to check out the Vocal Selections from Next to Normalbook for a couple weeks, or at least have a listen. Tears will be shed, but it would be the best cry you’ve had in years.
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student worker Emma R. (class of 2021) and features a study score edition of Mozart’s Requiem. Thanks, Emma!
What does it mean to compose a piece of music? Is it writing the notes on the page? Is it dictating the general musical idea? Writing the lyrics? What about the problem of orchestrations? If the composition is in the musical idea, can we know what a composer intended the piece to sound like? These kinds of questions can apply to many pieces by composers who do not work completely alone – both contemporary and long-dead. However, when considering a piece such as Mozart’s Requiem, these questions clearly take on greater than typical importance. As is commonly known, Mozart’s Requiem was left unfinished at the time of the composer’s death – a tale highly dramatized throughout the centuries since. But dramatization aside, this leaves serious questions for modern historically aware performers and listeners – questions which are not present when considering most other works. Who really wrote what parts of the Requiem? What did Mozart imagine when he conceived of the work?
Due to the unfinished nature of the work, the autograph does not contain all the answers. Portions of the autograph – the original handwritten version of the piece – are in Mozart’s hand and other portions are not. Significant portions were not completed at all. Orchestrations and – some scholars argue – entire sections, such as a hypothesized intended fugue – are missing. This doesn’t even begin to consider the lack of answers to many performance questions which impact the sound of the piece – articulation markings, dynamics, tempos, and more.
1st page of Mozart’s autograph manuscript of the Requiem Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=853665
Currently, the version completed by Mozart’s student Süßmayr is considered somewhat the standard. However, this is still a decision that must be made prior to every performance of the work, as other versions – completed by Mozart scholars – do exist. I myself am not informed enough about Mozart’s style nor his compositional process to make normative statements about the potential distance between the composer’s likeliest intentions and the accepted completed version today, however scholars such as Friedrich Blume and Nathan Broder have. In their article, “Requiem but No Peace,” these scholars argue, for example, “that flutes, oboes, clarinets, and horns are wholly absent in the complete Requiem is entirely unMozartean and must weaken Süssmeyer’s (sic) credit…” (Blume and Broder 1961, 161). Furthermore, these authors argue that since Mozart tended to compose orchestrations in three rounds – the above mentioned winds in the last round – that the lack of these instruments is more likely due to the unfortunate death of the composer than due to his intentions to leave them out (160).
Can we really say that the Requiem as we hear it performed – perhaps Mozart’s most well-known work today is really written by Mozart? Is the Requiem we know actually what the Mozart Requiem would have sounded like had the composer lived long enough to see it completed?
This study score at the Music Library shows all parts of the accepted Süßmayr completion – including markings which denote portions from the manuscript judged to be in Mozart’s vs Süßmayr’s handwriting. (It’s a miniature score – so it isn’t large and bulky). Take a listen and read along. No matter who wrote it, it really is a marvelous work.
Detail of a portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart by Johann Nepomuk della Croce – Unknown, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=449108
Editor’s note:Arachnophonia is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
“I expect you all know the sound of trumpets. And I expect most of you know about a trumpet player’s personality as well…”
The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, composed by Benjamin Britten, is an educational piece of music that combines the second movement of the Abdelazer suite, “Rondeau,” with commentary by Eric Crozier describing the instruments within an orchestra. Originally commissioned for a British educational documentary titled Instruments of the Orchestra, this piece is unique for its use of a common theme throughout each instrumental section and the conductor’s description of each section aloud before they play the theme.
Not only does each section in the orchestra perform its own perception of the theme, every individual instrument is highlighted in multiple variations throughout the 17-minute piece. Variation C is led by the clarinets when the narrator states “clarinets are very agile. They make a beautifully smooth, mellow sound.” In accordance with the description, Variation C is played in a moderato tempo where the clarinets have many slurred sixteenth-note runs to emphasize their smooth sound. The piece continues to highlight each instrument individually and multiple sections in pairs until it culminates in a triumphant ending led by the piccolos and flutes. The brass begins to play in half time, 6/8, compared to the rest of the orchestra playing rapid eighth notes in a 3/4 pattern, creating a dynamic between fast and slow that ends the composition in a glorious fashion.
Portrait of British composer Benjamin Britten circa 1949
