Music Appreciation and Composers

I love the Charlotte Mason method of studying composers. You study one per term, three per year. It allows one to fully explore the composer in question: to get used to his style, his music. My children, however, are quick to judge and easily bored. Listening to the same composer for 14 weeks would be torture to them, I expect.

So, instead, we will study one every three weeks over the next year. (That's also the same schedule for our artists' study).

According to the Well-Trained Mind, we should have already worked through The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten one double page spread per week with music selection. Check out this site for a taste: Classics for Kids. Our library doesn't have a copy of the book plus CD. Which may explain why we haven't done this yet.

Then, the children should read through The Story of the Incredible Orchestra: An Introduction to Musical Instruments and he Symphony Orchestra. Put dates on time-line.

Finally, the children ought to read through Understanding Music. After completing each section, they should write a brief one or two sentence summary of the information and, again, put dates on a time line.

THEN the student is prepared to "study" composers.

...whenever the student encounters a great composer in her history reading, she should jot down the name. During music appreciation, she should record the birth and death dates on the time line, read a brief biography [and create a "biographical page" for the history notebook], and spend the rest of her music appreciation period listening to the composer's works. p. 34, WTM, 2004

So, here they are, arranged chronologically, to correlate ever so roughly with Story of the World, Vol. 3, Early Modern Times.

These selections are from the wonderful CM site, Ambelside Online. (In fact, the whole thing is from AO, I just copied and pasted it in chronological order).


Henry Purcell (1659 - 1695, Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Selections based on the CD "Essential Purcell" from the Hyperion label. Available from amazon.com Barnes and Noble


Johann Sebastain Bach (1730) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Magnificat in D (4 weeks)
Chaconne (2 weeks) look for this played by Jascha Heifetz on YouTube
any Church cantata (2 weeks)
Brandenburg Concerto no. 6 (2 weeks)
Art of the Fugue (2 weeks) look for Contrapunctus 9 played by Nageeb Gardizi, and then on organ, on YouTube


Antonio Vivaldi (1730) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Gloria (choral work);
The Four Seasons;
Trio Sonata in C major, RV.82;
plus 3 concerti - Maybe one for violin, one for guitar and
one for a woodwind instrument such as oboe or bassoon.

George Frideric Handel (1750) (Baroque)
Listening selections for this term:
Messiah (an oratorio) (4 weeks)
Water music
Any of the organ concerti (such as Organ Concerto in B-flat Major, op. 7,no. 6)
Rinaldo (opera)
Harmonious Blacksmith (from suite in E major)


Franz Josef Haydn (1780) (Classical)
Listening selections for this term:
String Quartet Op 76 no 3 "Emperor" OR String Quartet Op 76 no 4 "Sunrise" (2 weeks)
London Symphony no 104 (4 weeks)
The Creation (4 weeks)
a horn concerto (2 weeks)


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1785) (Classical/Roccoco) (This term may change in the future - next rotation, 2012)
Listening selections for this term:
Piano Concerto 20 (2 weeks)
Symphony 40 (4 weeks)
Quintet in A maj for clarinet (2 weeks)
Piano Sonata in A maj K.331 (2 weeks)
Concerto for bassoon and orchestra in B-flat major, K. 191 (the only bassoon concerto he wrote)

2011-2012 TERM 1 (This term's artist is Jean Honore Fragonard, Rococo style) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (early classical)
Listening selections for this term:
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
Requiem [A Vocal work]
Symphony no. 41 in C major (Jupiter)
Sinfonia Concertante
Piano Concerto no. 21 in C major (K.467)

Ludwig von Beethoven (1810) (Classical/Romantic) this term subject to change
Listening selections for this term:
1. Symphony 5 OR 6
2. Piano Sonata 14 (Moonlight, Opus 27) OR 8 (Pathetique, Opus 13)
3. Razumovsky String Quartets Opus 59, no 1-3 OR Septet in E-flat Opus 20
4. Piano Concerto 5 (Emperor, Opus 73)
5. Symphony 7 OR 9 (Opus 125)
6. Fidelio
Options are offered for those who did Beethoven with us in 1999 and would like some new music this term.)

Franz Schubert (1823) (Late Classical/Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Trout quintet
Symphony no. 8 ("Unfinished")
Symphony no. 9 ("The Great") (2 weeks)
Impromptus op. 90 (D. 899)
Die schone Mullerin (a song cycle)


Frederic Chopin (1840) (Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Op 09 no 2 Nocturne in E flat maj
Op 10 no 3 Etude in E-maj
Op 10 no 12 Revolutionary Etude in C minor
Op 21 Piano Concerto number 2 in f minor
Op 28 Preludes no's 15, 20 and either 16 or 17
Op 53 Polonaise in A flat, Heroic


Felix Mendelssohn (1840) (Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Songs without words
Violin Concerto in E minor
Symphony no. 4 in A major (Italian) (4 weeks)
Octet in E-flat major
Fingal's Cave ("Hebrides") Overture


Robert Schumann (1848) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Carnaval (for piano)
Scenes from Childhood for piano
Symphony no 1 in B flat Op 38 "Spring"
Symphony no 2 in C Op 61
an arabeske or humoreske
Liederkreis or other song cycle
Lorraine N. collected some resources - biographies, free and pay downloads of the term's music and posted it to the AO email list.


Camille Saint-Saens and Hector Berlioz (1850) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Saint-Saens - Symphony no 3 in C min
Saint-Saens - Danse Macabre
Saint-Saens - Carnaval of Animals (Le Carnaval des Animaux in French)
Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique
Berlioz - Dance of the Sylphs
Berlioz - Rakoczy March from the Damnation of Faust


Franz Liszt (1855) (Early Romantic)
Listening selections for this term:
Piano Concerto no 1
Hungarian Rhapsodies (esp no 2)
Les Preludes
Liebestraum for piano
Piano Sonata in B min
Mephisto Waltz


Antonin Dvorak (1888) (AN-toe-NEEN d-VOR-zhak) 1841-1904, Late Romantic
Listening selections for this term:
Symphony 9 From the New World
Slavonic Dances
Carnaval Overture (may also be spelled Karneval)
Humoresques for piano
Quartet in F maj ("American")
Trio in E min ("Dumky")
Recordings of these pieces may be available at public libraries. If your local branch doesn't have them, ask for them through interlibrary loan. You should also be able to find many used copies available at local used bookstores or Internet sites such as www.half.com or www.ebay.com.

Life is Difficult

Most do not see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly...about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.

M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled.

It's timely to be reminded of this. The kids and I need to buckle down and get back to school and my mind is railing against it. Yet, strangely enough, I want my kids to learn this.

Many choose homeschooling because they want their children to have fun, they want their kids to have a "happy" childhood. In opposition to the imposition of school, they want their children's learning to be self-directed. And that's fine. If I knew how to do that without raising brats, I would.

It makes a certain amount of pedagogical sense, too: as an adult, one doesn't tend to learn much of anything about anything unless one wants to learn. To produce a "life-long learner" then, one wants to be instill the motivation to learn: the curiosity and the drive. (Assuming one can impart these things. That's a pretty big "if," I think.)

However, the danger with this approach to learning, for me, in my inexperienced hands is producing kids who will expect that life should be easy; that their pursuits shoud conform to their interests and that anything else is an unfair imposition.

And, of ourse, that particular attitude is extremely disabling. I know. I have it myself.

So, if the objective is to teach that life is difficult (and one should not expect otherwise) what is one to do to produce children who can meet the challenge?

The old-fashioned Virtues make sense in this context: self-dicipline, work, courage, perseverance, and responsibility. Two attitudes are crucial: fortitude and cheerfulness.

The Charlotte Mason approach to education stresses the building of character; the training of habits in the early years. It's a good approach and I haven't done it.

So, where do I start?

I have to model it, myself, of course. That's a subject I'll just mention and leave for the moment because then this would be all about me and I want to figure out what would be best for them.

Chores?

I need to think some more.

Levinson Leaves Me Dubious.

After reading Schaeffer Macaulay, I was wholly prepared to love this book, too. Instead, I find every skeptical antennae I have on ALERT.

I'm sure it's not the first time someone has had this reaction. Since I have not read all of Miss Mason's works, I can't tell, in all honesty, whether my reaction is to Miss Mason or her representative. So, if I say Levinson when I should say Mason or vice versa, please grant me the indulgence given to a beginning student.

My first thought is: it can't be as simple as just doing narrations. You cannot provide an education merely by asking children to repeat back to you, whether verbally or in writing, what they have heard or read for themselves. Narrations, rather, are a place to start.

They are an excellent means for organizing and retaining the story and information of what one has been exposed to. And it isn't quite the be all and end all. There's the Book of Centuries, for example, which is a tool used by the child to make connections between events and happenings in history. In Nature study, it's mentioned so casually by Levinson it's easy to miss: but one is to label the drawings one makes. One should know the difference between a sepal and a petal. (Perhaps one should, I don't!) If narrations were the be all and end all, a child would never compare and contrast two presentations of the same idea, at least not in so far as I understand narration (and perhaps I don't understand it!).

Secondly, how does a Charlotte Mason education escape being merely the cultivation and expression of taste? Think about it. The books shall be "good ones." No twaddle. The art shall be "The Masters." Ditto music. Taste can certainly be trained. It's a class notion, though, as well as an educational one. If you act like you are well educated, look like you are well educated and sound like you are well educated--then who's to say you are not? And who defines "well-educated?"

In times in which Miss Mason lived, it was most definitely the upper class--those who attended Oxford or Cambridge. I have the impression (but an impression only) that the subjects which were studied in the private schools of England at the turn of the century represented high standards and had the potential to furnish the mind with a good education. Most likely, the public schools of the day for the common folk were very poor. But the way Levinson portrays Charlotte Mason, it seems to me that one could only achieve the appearence of the accomplishments of the higher education and not, truly, its reality. But, of course, I'm can't be sure of that. (And whether the education of the upper class achieved its aims is a question too.)

Thirdly and lastly, these reflections were caused by thinking mostly about the way Miss Mason recommended teaching a second language. Of course, you have an expert (an actual speaker of the language) come and speak to them. Of course, you "focus more on the grammer of latin" than you would the other languages....
This is where the whole thing breaks down for me. If an expert in French (or German or Latin) is allowed, then why not an expert in Biology, in Math, in Literature?

Learning grammar and spelling of one's own language in the tortorous way Miss Mason advises, frankly, just doesn't appeal. Nor do I honestly think it would work, unless the child is a natural speller to begin with. Covering the concepts in a textbook or program of some kind first and then reenforcing it in one's readings and writing seems a much more sensible approach.

There are two things, though, I think Miss Mason was spot on about. 1) The food for the mind is ideas. As platonic a notion as this is, it is nonetheless correct.
2) A child, a household, must always have the examples of the best presented. This is just a practical manifestation of Paul's exhoration in Philippians 4:8-9.

All that said, I am quite interested in what Miss Mason has to say about habit and training the will. Someone said to me once that although Miss Mason's method of educating was questionable, she was absolutely correct about children. Levinson gives a great guide to Miss Mason's writings on the subject.

My opinions, by the way, are always open to revision and reflection and perhaps I ought not to be quite so hasty to express them! Your thoughts?