Episode 4: Interruption and Continuity in Musical Conversations
We generally think of interruptions in the context of human conversation. One voice, speaking words, interacting with another. Music is another form of conversation, with instruments (including voices) interacting and purposefully building upon one another, melodies to harmony to counterpoint and fugue. In this podcast, we talk with piano teacher and professional accompanist Doris Mattingly about her perspectives on interruption. We journey through the interruption of the COVID pandemic on teaching and how she has adjusted her listening in “virtual studio” lessons. We explore what interruption means during a lesson, and also listen to music – Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Beethoven, Bartók, Bach – to understand how musical interruptions may be the same and different as those in spoken conversation. Join us for an audio feast!
Links
To learn more about We Interrupt this Podcast and to suggest people we should talk to and topics you think we should explore, please see our webpage at: https://www.weinterrupthis.com or contact us on twitter at @HaakYak. Information about Doris and her piano studio is at https://www.mattinglystudio.com/.
We included bits from the following musical compositions:
A sample of Anna Moffo singing Puccini’s Vicci d’arte from Tosca. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alpnKgyLy7M
A gorgeous bit of writing by Dvorak for the cor anglais in the major sections and the flutes in the minor in the 2nd movement of his Symphony no 9. https://open.spotify.com/track/1rci74bHqfuT3yv5NW7KOl?si=n6RArvhKSEew-6CGoPzYHw&nd=1
Beethoven’s demanding 5th Symphony 1st movement illustrates interruptions. We used the recording on the gold record sent out on Voyager https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Hbjl90pD4
Bach Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (starts at 2:24), played by Claire Huangci in the 2021 festival "Klavier entlang der Rur", Video commissioned by con brio - Freunde der Kammermusik Hückelhoven e.V. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ5eIxZ4cIc
Credits
The intro and extro music is Bartok’s "Melody with Interruptions", Mikrokosmos, Volume 6, played by Dr. Alan Huckleberry, for The University of Iowa Piano Pedagogy Video Recording Project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt3CimYcisU
In addition to the classical pieces noted above, we also use "Sinfonia No. 3 in D Major - BWV 789" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.
The Podcast image of a Piano keyboard with white keys merging into a sheet of music is public domain, from Rawpixel. https://www.rawpixel.com/image/5913458/image-public-domain-free-music Public Domain
