Dear Parents,
I always look forward to music classes in January and February when we take a break from our regular curriculum and spend time exploring other aspects of music. This month we have been exploring composers. I had the opportunity a number of years ago to visit the opera house in Vienna, Austria and found in the gift shop a set of four composer finger puppets. Although I was uncertain at the time whether they would be useful in music class they were just too cute to resist and so I purchased them for the school. Their value has far exceeded my expectations! The children relate to these puppets very well and come to see these composers from long ago as real people with real emotions who have written music worth knowing about. What has surprised me most is that the children actually feel as though they have met these composers.
During the first week and a half of January we met Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I shared with the older classrooms the story, Famous Children, Mozart, which told the story of Mozart’s early life and training. For the younger classrooms I told them a little about his life music. We usually used the music as a movement activity to act out the story behind the piece. The works we listened to included a movement of the Children’s Symphony, Papageno’s aria when he receives the magic flute in the opera, The Magic Flute, Divertimento (with woodwinds) and A Little Night Music.
Last week we met Ludwig von Beethoven. I again had a storybook for the older children, Famous Children, Beethoven that gives the children some background on Beethoven’s life as a child. The Beethoven pieces we listened to included Allegro (for strings), and excerpts from the 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th symphonies. With Evergreen and Forest we discussed the idea of a motive in music and listened to how Beethoven weaved these small musical ideas throughout a whole piece. For example, we tried to count how many times we heard the “da, da, da, dah” in the 5th symphony. The Forest class requested that I download an excerpt from the 8th symphony as well.
Over the next couple of weeks we will be meeting the composers, Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. These last two composers wrote primarily opera, and we will be listening to a Verdi march and one Puccini aria. I will also introduce several other ancient and modern composers and women composers. Several children have commented that they have some of this music at home. I hope you will enjoy listening to these pieces with your children at home.
We have been having an awful lot of fun with this. I love their comments and observations. As always, I look forward to hearing from you.
Kathleen