Norwegian March from Lyric Suite Op.54 (1904)
Edvard Grieg
Orchestration Woodwind 2 Flutes 2 Oboes 2 Clarinets in A 2 Bassoons
Brass 4 Horns in F 2 Trumpets in F 3 Trombones Tuba
Percussion Timpani
Strings Violin I Violin II Viola Cello Double Bass Harp
Resources Use your school’s copy of the CD to complete the suggested activities.
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Background Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) Edvard Grieg grew up in Bergen, Norway. His father was a successful merchant and his mother a talented pianist, singer and teacher. As a child, Grieg loved to explore music at the piano, improvising to find new melodies. When he was ten he played some of his compositions for the famous violin virtuoso, Ole Bull, also a distant relative. The maestro was suitably impressed and on his advice Grieg was sent to the music conservatory in Leipzig where he studied the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Wagner. While there he contracted a type of tuberculous which affected him for the rest of his life. Despite this, he graduated in 1862 with excellent marks. In 1863 Grieg settled in the culturally rich city of Copenhagen where he immersed himself in music. He met and married his cousin, Nina Hagerup, a beautiful young singer and an inspiration to Grieg as a composer of songs. After marrying in 1867, Grieg moved to Oslo to participate in the building of a Norwegian music environment. Norwegian culture was largely dominated by Danish influence and Grieg’s compositions show his ever increasing awareness of Norway’s folk-culture. He often used folk materials, either in direct quote, or through their characteristic shapes and rhythms. Grieg’s fame and relative wealth can be directly attributed to the successes of his Piano Concerto, the Peer Gynt Suites composed to accompany Ibsen’s play of the same name, his Lied and his beautiful short piano pieces.
Norwegian March from Lyric Suite Op.54 In 1867 Grieg composed his first set of miniature pieces for piano, the Lyric Pieces. It was a set of eight short movements, beautifully constructed and of individual character. During his lifetime he produced ten such sets (books). Norwegian Peasant March - Gangar is the second piece in Book 5, Opus 54, composed in 1891. The other pieces are entitled Shepherd Boy, March of the Trolls, Notturno, Scherzo and Bell Ringing. The Lyric Suite for orchestra is a transcription of these pieces. The second, third and fourth pieces were orchestrated by Hungarian-born conductor Anton Seidl. Grieg found the orchestration too heavy in places and thoroughly revised it before allowing the Suite to be published in 1904. The Norwegian Gangar is a type of bydgedans (country dance) in duple time (24 or 68), characteristically danced by a couple. Bydgedans are improvisatory dances where the dancers are free to choose from a repertory of figures and stylistic mannerisms appropriate to a particular dialect.
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Outcomes
At the conclusion of the activities students should be able to:
•
respond to changes and contrasts in dynamics, tone colour and pitch
•
recognise and name the tone colours of flutes, clarinets, violins, horns, trumpets and cellos
•
observe, follow and create graphic representations of sound
•
keep a pulse and play rhythms in 68 time
•
arrange, with assistance, a whole class composition based on ostinatos from Norwegian March.
•
recognise and order the structure of Norwegian March through aural discrimination
•
arrange and perform rhythmic ostinatos in 68
•
improvise episodes to create a rondo in 68 time using rhythmic and melodic ideas based on Norwegian March.
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Listening/Performing
Introductory Activity 1.
Neat Feet Chant (a)
Students sit on chairs arranged in a circle.
(b)
Solo: teacher leads chant while stepping the beat on the spot. Chorus: students imitate teacher’s foot movement.
(c)
Teacher varies footwork for each new solo, eg twist from toes, twist from heels, march, tiptoe, slide, stamp and so on.
(d)
As students become familiar with the rhyme, encourage individuals to take the solo part.
Extension (e)
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Play the game with eyes closed during the solo section while students guess which footwork actions the teacher is using. Students attempt to imitate these actions in the chorus.
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2.
March Mayhem (a)
Students sit on the floor in a circle and listen to the CD recording of Norwegian March while ‘marching’ with their hands on the floor.
(b)
Encourage students to ‘march’ in response to the changing dynamics and tone colours.
Extension (c)
Play the Norwegian March again. Students imagine that each time the music changes, their feet need a new kind of shoe. Again, ‘march’ with hands to the music reflecting the ‘shoe changes’.
(d)
Discuss different ideas as the work is played once more.
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Listening
1.
(a)
Make an overhead transparency of Norwegian Peasant Marching Song on the following page. Use the words as a reading activity to aid students’ listening. (As the melody in Norwegian March is mostly continuous, the words are designed to take students from beginning to end. CD cues for each section have been given to assist with timing).
(b)
Discuss the use of bold and small/large text.
(c)
Say the words softly whilst listening to the music to reveal the connections between each.
(d)
Listen and say with dynamics.
(e)
Listen, say and march with the recording.
Extension 2.
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(a)
Students perform Norwegian Peasant Marching Song assembled in lines like a marching band. Divide students into tone colour groups, e.g. flutes, clarinets, violins and yodels. Students march to the beat and say the stanza that corresponds to their tone colour. All students join in for ‘Please don’t shout or you’ll cause a landslide’ as well as the last three stanzas from ‘In the valley now with our boots on...’
(b)
Students perform again, incorporating dynamic changes reflected in the font.
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Groups
Norwegian Peasant Marching Song
Clarinets
We are marching on down the hill side Please step carefully, carefully, don’t slide, With our clarinets we are marching on down the hill side.
Violins
We are marching on down the hillside Please step carefully, carefully, don’t slide, With our violins we are marching on down the hillside.
All
Please don’t shout or you’ll cause a land slide I am whispering can you hear me? Please don’t shout or you’ll cause a land slide I am whispering can you hear me?
Yodellers
Yodellay yodellay Yodellay yodellay Yodellay yodellay Yodellay yodellay.........
Flutes
On our silver flutes play a high sound On our silver flutes play a high sound On our tippy toes we will creep down On our tippy toes we will creep down We are marching on, we are marching on We are marching on down the hillside.
Flutes & Clarinets
All the woodwinds play down the hill side Please step carefully, carefully, don’t slide, We are marching on, we are marching on, We are marching on down the hill side.
All
In the valley now with our boots on We can stomp along ‘cause we won’t slide In the valley now, in the valley now In the valley now with our boots on.
All
We can sing and shout with our boots on We can sing and shout with our boots on We can dance about with our boots on We can dance about with our boots on So lets STOMP STOMP STOMP stomp stomp stomp
All
All
We are tired now so let’s sit down We are tired now so let’s sit down .......
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3.
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(a)
Make a copy or copies of the Mountain March Mural on the following page. The mural is a way of guiding listening and will help students understand what is happening in the music. (Some features of the music have been left out of the picture).
(b)
Listen to the Norwegian March and follow the path across the mountains to the ‘resting tree’. Name the instruments as you go.
(c)
Students might enjoy making their own March Mural.
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Mountain March Mural
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Organising Sound
1.
2.
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(a)
Teach/revise the following nursery rhymes (all in 68 time).
(b)
Students march in time to keep the beat.
(c)
Students recreate the rhythm of each rhyme using body percussion.
(d)
Transfer the rhythm of the rhymes to non-melodic percussion instruments.
1, 2 buckle my shoe 3, 4 knock at the door 5, 6 pick up sticks 7, 8 lay them straight 9, 10 the big fat hen
Hickory dickory dock The mouse ran up the clock The clock struck one The mouse ran down Hickory dickory dock
Pussycat, pussycat where have you been? I’ve been to London to visit the queen. Pussycat, pussycat what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair!
Rubadubdub three men in a tub And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker They all jumped out of a rotten potata
Little Jack Horner sat in a corner Eating his Christmas pie He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum And said, ‘What a good boy am I!’
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty Dumpty had a great fall All the king’s horses and all the king’s men Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
(a)
Teach the following ostinato patterns by imitation.
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3.
(b)
Transfer the ‘Doom Doom’ ostinato to melodic percussion instruments.
(c)
Play the melodic ostinato while singing, saying or playing any of the nursery rhymes.
Create a class composition using the melodic ostinato, non-melodic ostinatos and nursery rhymes.
Extension 4.
(a)
Discuss the continuous nature of the melody in the Norwegian March and how it passes from instrument to instrument.
(b)
Try to incorporate this into the class composition.
(c)
Use up to eight groups of players, with four groups performing the ostinatos and four groups performing different rhymes one after the other.
Online Resource
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Listening
1.
(a)
Copy, cut out each square, and distribute the ‘Listening Detective’ flashcards below to students in small groups.
(b)
Discuss and define terms as necessary.
(c)
Listen to Norwegian March while students identify instruments, dynamics, pitch and techniques on the flashcards as they occur. Students arrange flashcards in the order they sound on the recording.
LISTENING DETECTIVE
2.
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(a)
Clarinets melody
Horns ‘question’ (twice)
Strings melody
Horns and Bassoons melody
Flutes and Oboes imitation
High Strings descending on beat
Pizzicato Strings ascending
Trumpets and Trombones melody
Clarinet answers Horns
Cellos and Double Bass melody
Oboes answer Horns
Quiet coda
Heavy String techniques
Solo Flute melody
Crescendo
Climax
Decrescendo
Descending pitch
Listen to the CD recording again. Students point to each flashcard as they hear it.
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Performing/Composing
1.
2.
Teach the following vocal ostinatos by imitation.
(a)
In small groups, layer the ostinatos, bringing each one in at two bar intervals.
(b)
Experiment to find the order of entry that works best. Practise until secure.
(c)
Transfer the ostinatos to body percussion.
The following nursery rhymes will fit this accompaniment: • • • • • •
Humpty Dumpty Little Miss Muffet Little Jack Horner Hickory Dickory Dock Pussy cat, pussy cat Rub a dub dub
(a)
Divide the class into five small groups. Each group selects a nursery rhyme and transfers the rhythm to non-melodic percussion instruments.
(b)
Perform the nursery rhymes with the ostinato accompaniment, i.e. one group performs the rhythm of their rhyme while the other four groups perform the accompaniment.
(c)
Allocate a different ostinato to groups for each rhyme so that all groups have the opportunity to perform every part.
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3.
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(a)
Set up melodic percussion in D major (D E F# G A B C# D) and teach the parts of the Classroom Arrangement below. This will form Part A of the rondo.
(b)
Students improvise solo episodes between each performance of Part A. You may wish to limit the notes used in the improvisations to D E F# G A.
(c)
Limit the length of the solos to four or eight bars.
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Performing/Composing
1.
Perform the Arrangement below on available classroom instruments.
2.
To create a rondo, use the Arrangement as Part A and encourage individual students to improvise eight bar episodes over the descending chord pattern.
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