Hungarian Folk Music compared to American Film Score of Hans Zimmer

1235 Words

By: Kevin Ibanez

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Musical Link
a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed.
-Both excerpts have a shift of accent that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed. -Both Time (Hans Zimmer) and Hungarian Rhapsody (Franz Liszt), have very sudden shifts and changes in the melody at unexpected instances.

- A shift of accent in

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Syncopation In Hungarian Folk Music

Here the sudden change from an A in one lower octave to an A in a higher octave, can be seen as a syncopated rhythm.

Excerpt from Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. Franz Liszt.

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Hungarian Folk Music

- Hungarian Folk Music comes from Hungary, when Hungarian composers were influenced by their nations traditional music. - Bartok observed Hungarian peasant music very closely. He found a lot of structures and five tone formations that really differentiates Hungarian Folk Music from music of any other nation.
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American Film Score of Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is a composer and music has composed music for over 100 films. Some of his most famous film scores are for The Lion King , Gladiator , Dark Knight , and Inception.

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American Film Score of Hans Zimmer (Cont.)

Inception, one of his most celebrated film scores, won the 2011 Satellite Award for music and was nominated for two Oscars.

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Hungarian Rhapsody - Liszt

Hungarian Rhapsody was written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. The Rhapsody was part of a set of 19 piano pieces, that were all based on Hungarian Theme Songs.
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Meter - Liszt
The meter is simple quadruple because there are four quarter notes per measure and can be separated into two notes.

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Melody - Liszt
The melody of this Rhapsody is shared between the piano melodic line and the chords, along with the incredible velocity of difficult passages. ( This would only be the case for the original piano score.)
In the orchestrated version, the beginning will have horns and woodwinds that carry out the melody while the strings provide the bass line and chord progressions. Towards the end, every single part of the symphonic orchestra will have the melodic rhythm for about fifteen seconds until it is given to another part.

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Harmony - Liszt
Between all of the strings, a very nice harmony is shown in Photo A. The first violins are sustaining a high C, while the rest of the strings are playing arpeggios to produce beautiful harmony. -Throughout the song, there was a polyphonic texture.
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Photo A

Medium - Liszt
There can be two different mediums for Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. The first is what this piece was intended for, which is piano. Known as a virtuosic piece, one of the hardest piano concertos to date. The second, is for Symphonic Orchestra. It was transcribed for Symphony by Muller. Now it is played around the world.

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Form- Liszt
This rhapsody is in ternary form because it carries a three section form of A-B-A. Even though the piece doesnt end in the same key signature as it began, it repeats the same section multiple times during the end. The final motif in ascending C-sharp minor scale that goes from one section to the other of the orchestra.

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Style - Liszt
Since Liszt was a Hungarian composer, his style did really reflect the folklore of his time. A lot of the passages in this piece are very representing of birds and animals along with a whole explosion of raucous. Controlled chaos when the final motif is taken and thrown across the whole orchestra and Liszt really plays with it. Hungarian style is very relaxed and laid back. 000583-

Context - Liszt
Very gypsy oriented with a gypsy scale, which is rhythmically spontaneous and direct. With a sort of seductive expression. Liszt really liked to have fun while performing, and since he was a piano prodigy, he found it hard to have fun while playing piano pieces not on his level. Pioneering of the very advanced, virtuosic piano pieces.

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Time (From Inception)

-Time is from the 2010 movie Inception. -Composed by Hans Zimmer. -Includes full Symphonic Orchestra plus some electronic for the wicked sound effects.
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Meter - Zimmer

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Melody - Zimmer

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Harmony - Zimmer

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Medium - Zimmer

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Form Zimmer

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Style - Zimmer

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Context - Zimmer

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Discography
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srrAm9Eiqcw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H99FM6S8rU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-2jM5RNSs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goeOUTRy2es
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Additional Knowledge
Both Time and Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 are famous for both starring in either movies or TV shows.

Hungarian Rhapsody was a featured skit on Bugs Bunny where Bugs played the piano for an audience in a very unique and funny way. -There have also been other renditions of this, like in the cartoon Tom and Jerry, where Tom was also playing the song as a pianist.
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Additional Knowledge (cont.)

Hans Zimmers Time on the other hand, was composed mainly for the movie Inception.

It is a very high grossing movie and directed by notable Director Christopher Nolan who has directed movies such as Batman: Dark Knight and Memento.

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Works Cited
Darby, William, and Jack Du Bois. American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990. New York: McFarland & Company, 1999. Print. Gerak, Andrea. Violin or Fiddle in Hungarian Folk Music. Hungarian Folk Music. blogspot, 12 June 2006. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://www.hungarianfolkmusic.blogspot.com>. Hans Zimmer. Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 6 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/ iki/ ans_Zimmer>. w H Walker. Hungarian Rhapsodies. Wikipedia.org The Online Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 21 Feb. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/ iki/ ungarian_Rhapsody>. w H Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 7 Mar. 2012. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/ iki/ ranz_Liszt>. w F Zimmer, Hans. Hans Zimmer. Hans Zimmer. Remote Control productions, 2011. Web. 8 Mar. 2012. <http://www.hanszimmer.com/>.

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