Beethoven and Cooley

So I am slightly annoyed (this may or may not be understatement)

I am annoyed (slightly) because.

1) I have to write a piece for carillon (the big bells in Harkness) for my composition class. While originally I thought Cool, I get to write for bells! That’s awesome! I must be frank. This assignment is kiiiiind of driving me insane. The bells just keep ringing and ringing; you never get to write in rests; and the dissonance just keeps piling up. To add insult to injury, the assignment itself requires a ton of weird harmonies and a disturbing amount of repetition. (I never want to read the sentence “You must demonstrate a high degree of motivic coherence!” again.) I am a failure of a composer because I can’t get this to sound even halfway good, and I am days behind.

2) The carilloneur in my class for whom we’re all writing is having her orchestra piece played tonight 8 p.m. by YSO alongside Beethoven. The concert’s title “Beethoven and Cooley” satirically juxtaposes the two composers. Of course, you’d go to a concert and hear both of them! Unfair.

3) I just listened to the piece, and pairing Ludwig Van Beethoven with Emily Cooley PC ’12 might not actually be so outrageous.

SO I’M MAD!

Anyway, of course you should go to this. YSO is amazing this year for any of you who were not at the Halloween show. The Beethoven pieces include Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, which features Mia Nishikawa JE’ 14 on piano and Michael Li PC ’12 as conductor and Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major.

Emily’s piece “Render and Reach” varies a theme making ample use of the different orchestral instruments and smooth yet colourful modulation.

The piece opens with music one might expect to hear at a wonderous ballet or fairy tale dance production as the music creatively varies off a theme, but the piece then goes minor and adds post-Wagner and film score elements, building slowly. Emily then adds small spurts of melodic material in different instruments in a quasi-minimalist fashion that starts to lose me a little, especially when it comes back later in the piece. The piece modulates back to major, blending chords and pleasantly overlapping melodies.

The next section of the six-minute piece is characterized by upbeat rhythmic sections that open with a tapping, percussive sound and quickly incorporate drum kit. The upbeat melodic sections that go with the drum rhythms are underlined with legato re-representations of the theme, which spiral up into a big crash of power only experienced and fully appreciated in orchestras.

Throughout the piece, Emily makes effective use of horns to blare the melody and add emotional impetus. During the minimalistic sections with more sporadic melody lines, the flutes are instrumental in adding continuity with steadily rising harmonies. High, repeated notes in the strings bring back a modified theme and the horns come in to finish for a finale, a grand instrumental flourish.

Fantastic. (damnit)

So yeah. Tickets are $2-$5 for students and $10-15 for non-Yalies. Go. I would, but I have to finish this (and another) piece.

Dooooooonggggg.....

Z