At 3:36 PM -0400 10/13/08, timothy key price wrote:
In very simplistic terms, is it fair to say that Beethoven's first 4
notes of his 5th symphony are used as an ostinato? Or is it not
repeated regularly enough? Still not sure how the term is applied or
correctly used and my music dictionary is not much help.
Don't mean to beat this to death.
I wouldn't consider it an ostinato. For that, it would have to be
repeated immediately and many times, and Beethoven didn't do that.
He treated it as a motive and immediately started developing it as a
motive, spinning phrases out of it.
My Norton-Grove might be more helpful: "A term used to refer to the
repetition of a musical pattern many times in succession." The most
famous example is Ravel's "Bolero," which runs that rhythmic ostinato
into the ground!
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
