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Secular Vocal Music Haydn: My mother bids me bind my hair (p.359) Context We are in the world of the English drawing room in the late 18th century when well-bred young ladies occupied themselves and entertained their guests with music. The repertoire consisted of piano pieces and songs, well crafted and sometimes quite intricate, but melodious, easy on the ear and not too difficult for the competent amateur singer or player. The piano had replaced the harpsichord as the fashionable keyboard instrument in the last 20 or 30 years of the century. Haydn made an unexpected appearance in this society when he was invited to London in the early 1790s. Nearly 60 years old, he was by then famous throughout Europe and at the height of his powers as a composer of symphonies and string quartets. Nevertheless, he found time to set several texts by a doctor’s wife, Mrs Anne Hunter, specifically for the domestic music market. The words A simple poem in the ‘pastoral’ style in which the well off could imagine the idyllic life of ordinary people who lived in the countryside – quite remote from the long hours of work and grinding poverty that were the reality of rural life for many at the time. The strophic poem describes a girl sitting around moping because her boyfriend Lubin has gone somewhere – we don’t know where, and don’t really care that much. Compared to the intensity of the lyrics for the songs by Dowland and Purcell, this is shallow stuff, aimed at an undemanding audience. Haydn has responded with a few touches of word painting, such as the piano flourish in bar 26 which reflects the word ‘play’. He does not seem to have been too bothered that the musical imagery for verse one might not be appropriate for the words of the second, however: The happy opening melody works well for sitting around binding one’s hair, but it does not really connect with the sadness of thinking about days gone by. The music Whereas the songs by Dowland and Purcell are amongst the greatest they wrote, and amongst the greatest laments composed in the 17 century, Haydn’s song is simple and unaffected It is written in what is called the galant style – melodious, gently ornamented, with straightforward harmony and a fairly plain piano part – a sort of Classical style lite. So, it is not an important or imposing piece of music, and it is not one of Haydn’s masterpieces BUT: Haydn was a great and highly skilful composer, and even his simpler pieces are finely wrought. Notice, for example, how Haydn varies the density of the piano part in the introduction, starting with full chords, thinning the texture to two lines in bar 5 and bringing back the triads at the cadence in bars 7-8. The melodic lines are made up of arpeggio and scale patterns but each phrase is nicely balanced and varied so that the melody flows easily and naturally without becoming predictable. The harmony is simple and diatonic, for the most part, but there are touches of chromaticism such as bars 23-4 which stop it becoming too bland (compare the vocal line in these bars with the ground bass in the Purcell) The piano part is simple enough, but there are a few mild technical challenges, such as the scale in thirds in bars 35-6. Identify examples of the following stylistic elements:Periodic phrasing Perfect and imperfect cadences Chromatic passing notes Appogiaturas Modulation to the dominant Dominant pedal