Part 4 Listening to the world

During part 4 of ‘The sound of art’ the students will listen to and observe a wide variety of musical and visual art examples to encourage them to describe or articulate responses. The pieces and artworks selected will help the students to understand how everyday sounds can be transformed into music or art. This footage will assist in understanding the ways that music and art can depict everyday sounds through observing and listening to the world.

Specific focus is in this part is on ‘The Four Seasons’ by Antonio Vivaldi as well as Ludwig van Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No.6’. Together these compositions are explored with associated artworks that also tell a story.

Part 4 – listening to the world

Duration 2:24
Video transcript – Part 4 – listening to the world

Creative Arts K-6 outcomes

Part 3 addresses these outcomes from the Creative Arts K-6 Syllabus (NESA)

Stage 2

Making

VAS2.1 Represents the qualities of experiences and things that are interesting or beautiful* by choosing among aspects of subject matter.

VAS2.2 Uses the forms to suggest the qualities of subject matter.

Appreciating

VAS2.3 Acknowledges that artists make artworks for different reasons and that various interpretations are possible.

VAS2.4 Identifies connections between subject matter in artworks and what they refer to, and appreciates the use of particular techniques.

Listening

MUS2.4 Identifies the use of musical concepts and musical symbols in a range of repertoire.

* ‘Beautiful’ within this outcome does not simply mean ‘pretty’ but rather something that excites and arouses awe, wonder, fascination and delight.

Stage 3

Making

VAS3.1 Investigates subject matter in an attempt to represent likenesses of things in the world.

VAS3.2 Makes artworks for different audiences assembling materials in a variety of ways.

Appreciating

VAS3.3 Acknowledges that audiences respond in different ways to artworks and that there are different opinions about the value of artworks.

VAS3.4 Communicates about the ways in which subject matter is represented in artworks.

Listening

MUS3.4 Identifies the use of musical concepts and symbols in a range of musical styles.

Teaching and learning intentions

Students will:

Listen to ‘The Four Seasons’ focusing on ‘Spring’ in its entirety to discuss the three springtime sounds Vivaldi musically imitates.
Listen to the other musical examples such as Beethoven’s ‘Symphony No.6’ and discuss the musical imitations.
Look at suggested paintings and discuss how each one ‘sounds’.
Describe responses to art and music.
Create landscape paintings to reflect musical examples.

Teachers will:

Watch the teaching guide video to assist in their understanding of listening to the world.
Explore the relationship between music that tells a story and the narrative of artworks.

Assessment suggestions include:

Discusses and identifies ways in which music reflects a story through the use of musical concepts including instrumental timbres, dynamics, duration, structure and pitch.
Uses a variety of artmaking techniques and forms such as painting with different mediums to illustrate a landscape and capture a musical mood or environment.
Demonstrates through discussion and/or artmaking, the ways in which music and art communicate with an audience and create different meanings for different audience members.

Music and art activities

Music that ‘paints’ pictures Composers listen to the world around them and sometimes incorporate the sounds they hear into the music that they write. In 1723, Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote a piece called ‘The Four Seasons’. This piece is made up of four concertos for violin and orchestra. A concerto is a musical composition where a solo instrument, in this case the violin, plays with the orchestral backing. The concertos that make up ‘The Four Seasons’ are titled ‘Spring’, ‘Summer’, ‘Autumn’ and ‘Winter’. Each concerto musically portrays sounds and feelings that may be heard and felt during that season.

Start by listening to ‘Spring’ (YouTube) from the ‘Four Seasons’ by Vivaldi or using Spotify. In this movement (or section) there are three specific aspects of spring that the composer is attempting ‘picture’. Play the following excerpts and ask the students to what they think Vivaldi was trying to imitate:

Listen on Spotify

Aspects of spring

00:32-01:05 birds
01:12-01:27 a running stream
01:42-02:07 a thunderstorm

Vivaldi – Spring

Duration: 9:59

An interesting exercise is to listen to a version created by contemporary composer Max Richter which interprets Vivaldi’s work ‘Recomposed’ to compare and contrast to Vivaldi’s work.

Spring 1 - Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons

Duration: 2:44

Bohemian-Austrian composer Heinrich Biber made the violin sound like animals in his ‘Sonata Representativa’, composed in 1669. Listen and compare the violin imitations with the real animal sounds.

Sections and sound sample

00:00 Introduction (no sample)
01:11 Nightingale
02:14 Cuckoo
02:54 Frogs
04:16 Chicken, Rooster
04:54 Quail
05:54 Cat

Biber Sonata Representativa in A Major

Duration: 8:07

Prokoviev – Cinderella

Explore Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Cinderella, Op. 87’ by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. Remind the students of the story of Cinderella. Focus on the moment in the ballet when the clock is ticking down to midnight. What happens at midnight? What sound does the music imitate?

Prokofiev - Cinderella Suite - Midnight

Duration: 2:05

Listen on Spotify

Rimsky-Korsakov – Flight of the Bumblebee

Explore ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ which is a piece for orchestra by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. It sounds just like a bee flying and increasing in speed (or tempo).

Itzhak Perlman plays Flight of the Bumblebee

Duration: 1:20

Listen on Spotify

Anderson – Typewriter Symphony

Leroy Anderson’s Typewriter Symphony sounds just like a typewriter and actually uses one within the music.

Typewriter - Brandenburger Symphoniker

Duration: 3:56

Listen on Spotify

Ledger – Indian Pacific

James Ledger’s ‘Indian Pacific’ sounds like the journey of this famous Australian iconic train across the country.

Indian Pacific

Duration: 5:40

Painters sometimes describe art that ‘sounds’. Sometimes the paintings are so vivid we can almost hear the sounds in our imagination. The following paintings all clearly exhibit sounds. Discuss with the students the possible sounds and their characteristics. Ask the students what they ‘hear’ in these paintings? Would they describe the sound as loud or soft, gentle or strong?

Beethoven – Symphony No. 6

'Symphony No. 6’ by Ludwig van Beethoven is nicknamed the ‘Pastorale Symphony: Recollections of Country Life’. It is very evocative of the countryside and also specifically imitates several sounds. Beethoven loved nature and hiking.

Describe this briefly and listen to a sample prior to discussion the environment it evokes. For example, a running brook at the beginning of the second movement, birds in the third movement at 11:30 and a thunderstorm in the fourth movement. Each movement is a different scene:

BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 (Pastoral) in F Op 68 LEONARD BERNSTEIN

Duration: 45:42

Artmaking activities

Materials needed include: paper, pens, pencils, crayons, markers or paint, plan to draw or paint a corresponding landscape. This would be ideal to explore watercolours as well.
Choose a movement, read the title of the movement to set the scene, and play the music as the students draw. If it is a short movement, repeat it as necessary. Alternatively you may choose to play the whole symphony (40 minutes) and have the students draw 5 different scenes, one to go with each movement. The music should be playing in the background, allowing the students to draw freely.
Read the title of the movement to set the scene. The picture should reflect the title or mood of the music.
Draw the scene in the countryside that the music describes.
Encourage the students to think about the picture aurally. For instance, if there’s a bee, try to draw it buzzing, or a tree – draw it swaying in the wind. Encourage the students to make the picture correspond to the music – if the students are listening to the thunderstorm movement for example, make sure that they are not drawing a blue sky, sunny day; if they are listening to the second movement, their picture should have a stream running through it, and so on.
Allow the students time to add things to the drawing that they imagine in the scene.

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