Music & Art
Today you are going to create a piece of artwork based on what you hear from a classical piece of music. You can draw a picture, use paint, or be creative and design your artwork however you wish!
We are going to concentrate on ‘A Night On The Bare Mountain’ by Modest Mussorgsky. Before we compose our artwork, let’s find out some more information about who Mussorgsky is..
Modest Mussorgsky was a Russian composer. His most famous works include A Night On The Bare Mountain, his opera ‘Boris Godunov’ and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition.
A Night On The Bare Mountain describes a short story in which St John sees a witches’ Sabbath on the Bald Mountain near Kiev in the old Russian Empire. It’s a wild and terrifying party with lots of dancing but when the church bell chimes 6am and the sun comes up the witches vanish.
Modest Mussorgsky wrote a number of different versions of this pieces of music. When he was finally satisfied with it, his music teacher told him it wasn’t good enough so he put it aside for years. Eventually his friend and fellow composer Rimsky-Korsakov re-arranged the music for orchestra and this is the piece we know today.
Dan Starkey introduces Mussorgsky’s A Night On The Bare Mountain
With cackling witches and animation, this clip brings the piece to life! Click the link to learn more about Mussorgsky’s finest piece of work: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1gKvMXSQVvqyfcv1Xjjnkr5/a-night-on-the-bare-mountain-by-modest-mussorgsky
Full Orchestral Performance
Watch a full orchestral performance of Mussorgsky’s A Night On The Bare Mountain. Then answer the questions below: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1gKvMXSQVvqyfcv1Xjjnkr5/a-night-on-the-bare-mountain-by-modest-mussorgsky
- Listen out for the trombones and tuba near the beginning of the music, playing long rumbling notes. How do these big, heavy brass instruments make you feel? Do instruments need to play really loudly to make you feel scared? Here, you get the feeling that something bad is about to happen, why does it make you feel like that?
2. Identify ways in which the music can make you feel excited and surprised. Mussorgsky
is using lots of instruments all at once, and switching between them very quickly. Composers often use this technique of switching rapidly between instruments to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, and to create suspense. If it was one instrument playing all of this, it wouldn’t be so exciting, would it? See how many different instruments you can recognise, and discuss which instruments create the most exciting sound.
3. Explain how, when a composer is writing music for a story, it is vital to create lots of different moods. For example, listen to the section of the music after the chiming of the six bells. Here, the mood completely changes; you hear the violins and French horn playing a soothing melody and the tempo is much slower. How is this different from the earlier scary music?
Task
Art Masterclass: Ricky Martin aka Art Ninja gets creative with Mussorgsky
Using sponges and paints, Ricky Martin shows how classical music can inspire artistic creations.
Click this link to watch how he performs his artwork: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0282x1z
Now have a go at creating your own masterpiece to Mussorgsky’s music! You can draw a picture, use paint, or be creative and design your artwork however you wish! Remember, email your final piece over to your class email.
Class 6JP 