The Greatest Composer Ever

Mozart was born in 1756. He was the son of the composer and violinist Leopold Mozart .He was an extraordinary child who had been learned to play the harpsichord and violin and compose at the age of four.

In 1762 his father took him on a tour of the Europe and he was warmly received at its principal courts. People everywhere were enchanted by the child and his extraordinary gifts. In Rome he was challenged for to prove himself; he heard a complicated piece of music twice but was then able to write it down perfectly!

Mozart continued to tour and to perform but could not to find a permanent position. Eventually he found one with the Archbishop of Salzburg between 1779 and 1781, but this was an unhappy period because of he argued with his patron. Afterwards, he went to Vienna like as a freelance composer where he wrote much of his most famous work including the operas Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. Despite of being known at the Imperial court, this did not help Mozart financially and a lot of his work was poorly received.

Much is made of the hatred and a jealousy felt by Salieri, another one court composer. In fact a few people have even accused him of poisoning Mozart. The truth is much more mundane. Mozart had been weakened by a deadly combination of poverty, travel and overwork. He was never able to relax himself because of always having to work so that when he went down with typhus he could not fight the disease and was died. The greatest composer the world has known he was buried in an unmarked grave.

Much of Mozart's musical genius rests on his ability to achieve a fusion of German and Italian styles. He wrote 49 symphonies, four famous operas and many concertos and was composed about seven hundred pieces in all.

Task 5.6. Read the biography of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and decide when you think he was most happiest and successful.

SECTION 6. AFRO-AMERICAN TRADITION

Task 6.1. Read the text and do the exercise.

Cakewalk

The cakewalk appears to have originated in an actual custom of plantation life in ante-bellum days. Featured in the black minstrel shows, it passed over into the variety acts that marked the transition to vaudeville.

The cakewalk was originally a plantation dance, just a happy movement the slaves did to the banjo music because they couldn’t stand still. It was generally on Sundays, when there was little work that the slaves both young and old would dress up in hand-me-down finery to do a high kicking prancing walk-around. They did a take off on the high manners of white folks in the “big house”, but their masters, who gathered to watch the fun, missed the point.

It’s supposed to be that the custom of a prize started with the master giving a cake to the couple that did the proudest movement.

The combination of cakewalk rhythm and banjo technique is a direct forerunner of ragtime.

During the 1890-s the cakewalk became the national craze. Cakewalk contests sprang up everywhere, from the biggest cities to the remote hamlets. That high kicking step and the tricky rhythm had captivated the country. A large part of the world was also fascinated by this American novelty.

Negroes called their clog dancing “ragging” and the dance a “rag”.

Choose from the options (a, b, c) the one that best fits the sentences.

1. The cakewalk originated …

1. after World War I

2. at the end of the 20^th century

3. after the civil war in the USA

2. The slaves used to dress up…

1. in beautiful new clothes

2. in second hand clothes, rather old

c) not new but beautiful or showy clothes

3. Which statement is true:

a) They laughed at high manners of the white folks in “big house”.

b) They imitated the high manners of the white folks in “big house”.

c) They enacted scenes of everyday life of their masters.

Task 6.2. Read the text and do the tasks below.

JAZZ

What is jazz? An anecdote, doubtless apocryphal, describes a bewil­dered matron asking that question of Louis Armstrong, to which Armstrong is said to have replied that if she had to ask what it was, she did not have it. Jazz does elude definition. However, the key, to "it" that some people do not have, is probably an ability to sense the "beat, the driving force, sometimes powerful, sometimes subtle, that must be felt by musicians and audience alike if the one is to create and the other to appreciate jazz.

So crucial is the maintenance of the rhythms that it constitutes very nearly a full-time job for four (piano, string bass, guitar and drums) of the seven instruments (add trumpet, clarinet, and trombone) that make up the standard traditional jazz combination. Nevertheless, the insistent rhythm does not alone make jazz the exciting thing it is.

The continual tension between two sets of rhythms, the underlying beat and the superimposed variations of the improvising instrumentalists, gives jazz much of its unique quality.

Once a tune falls into the hands of a jazz musician, it stands to lose much of its identity. Performer becomes composer, elaborating cer­tain phrases and eliminating others, interpolating his own musical ideas, and ultimately bringing forth an unmistakably individual re-creation of the original composition.

Melodically, however, the jazzman’s liberty is somewhat restrained. The harmonic structure is, in fact, the cement of the jazz group, the discipline that keeps the wandering impulses of its members within reasonable bounds. Without such discipline, collective improvisation would be out of the question.

In the jazzman’s rhythmic and melodic improvisations are the basic ingredients of the music he produces, the spice of the mixture is its spontaneity. No jazz performance exactly duplicates any other. The jazz­man remains free to follow whatever paths are pointed out to his own inspiration.

The essence of jazz and the reasons for its magnetism remain elu­sive. Perhaps the answer lies in the flexibility of the performance and its capacity for producing the unexpected.

Perhaps it is the combined appeal of the primitive and the sophis­ticated, the intense rhythms of the West African jungle coupled with melodic invention that is the envy of classical composers. Or perhaps the explanation is as simple as that offered by a famous musicologist; "Jazz music," he said, "is to be played sweetly, softly, with plenty of rhythm. When you have your rhythm with your swing, it becomes beautiful."