Symphony No. 45 “The Farewell Symphony”: 4th Movement

This video recording is an entertaining version showing the musicians leaving the stage during the last movement, as they did in the first performance of this work in 1772.

Trumpet Concerto: 3rd Movement

This video recording features a young female trumpet virtuoso from Norway. It would be inspirational to any young brass players in the class. The video also exhibits the process involved in making a musical recording.

The Creation: The First Day (excerpts)

Resource List
Classics for Kids has a 6 minute radio show about the life of Haydn with musical excerpts. It has a particularly good description of how many of Haydn’s works ended up with nicknames.

This link takes you to a site with photos of the kind of clothes worn during the 18th century.

Art Link

You Tube

Note: The theme from this movement became the tune for the German national anthem. Listening to a recording of the anthem first may assist with recognition of the theme in the listening activity.

Listening Activity: “The Emperor” String Quartet

This piece is a “Theme and Variations”, as it begins with a tune and that tune is repeated fout times with different instrumentation. Divide the class into 3 groups representing the violins, the viola and the cello. As the class listens to the music, they stand up if their group is the instrument playing the melody. The violins and viola will be difficult to distinguish the first time.

For reference, a list of the instruments playing the main theme in each variation is included below:

Theme: violin 1
Variation 1: Violin 2
Variation 2: Cello
Variation 3: Viola
Variation 4: Violin 1

Encourage the students to pretend that they are Prince Esterhazy, and that they are looking for a new Kapellmeister. Ask them to write a job advertisement outlining the duties of the position and the type of person you are looking for. Encourage them to write down details of the Esterhaza palace where the applicant will live and work.

Another activity is to have the students research the 18th Century ‘Symphony’. There are a lot of interesting facts to learn like the number of movements, the standard instruments used at the time and the size of the orchestras. Ask them to research other composers who wrote symphonies.

Here are a couple of videos to enjoy:

This video recording features a young female trumpet virtuoso from Norway. It would be inspirational to any young brass players in the class. The video also exhibits the process involved in making a musical recording.

The Creation: The First Day (excerpts)

Symphony No. 45 “The Farewell Symphony”: 4th Movement

This video recording is an entertaining version showing the musicians leaving the stage during the last movement, as they did in the first performance of this work in 1772.

Trumpet Concerto: 3rd Movement

Write a short children’s story about the life of Beethoven. Include the most important parts of Beethoven’s life that younger children may be interested in. Alternatively, you could write a story about one event in Beethoven’s life or a story based on one of his pieces of music. Include some illustrations or pictures from the internet.

Despite the hearing loss towards the end of his life, Beethoven was still able to compose some of his most beautiful music. Beethoven would play the piano while biting a metal rod with his teeth that was attached to the soundboard so that he could feel the vibrations during this period.

Hold a class discussion on deafness and share insights on it, after looking at some of the activities below.

Play some musical instruments that you can touch and feel the vibrations (what happens when you play a higher or lower note?). Have you ever felt the ground vibrate when you have been at a rock concert from the sound of the lower instruments?

Listen to The Moonlight Sonata, which was written as Beethoven’s hearing began to deteriorate and the String Quartet No. 13 which was written when he was completely deaf. This piece was included on Voyager’s “Golden Record” it was considered so brilliant.

Talk about a concert, the people Haydn met, Haydn’s opinion of the current fashion trends and anything else of interest. D

Don’t forget that Haydn was known for his great wit! This segment could be done in groups and recorded, or completed in the form of a class discussion.

The Fun Music Company has a whole series of lesson plans available about composers, from the Baroque through to the 20th Century.
Learning about the Classical Composer Joseph Haydn? – Here are a few ideas for you

Why do you think harp makers placed the shorter strings closer to the player and not the other way around?

Have a look at this idea you can use to demonstrate the workings of the harps pedals.

Background information: The double-action pedal harp has seven pedals. What happens is each pedal changes all the strings of one note name. Each pedal has three positions: top (flattens pitches by a semitone), middle (no change), and bottom (raises pitches by a semitone).There are three positions for each pedal: In the top position it lowers the pitch by a semitone, in the middle there is no change, and in the bottom it raises the pitch be a semitone. With all the pedals in the middle position, the harp plays a C major scale.

Procedure: On the whiteboard, draw seven pedals laid out from left to right (simple ovals or rectangles will do), and label them with the note names from C to B. You can then have the students follow along the whiteboard while you play the C major scale on a keyboard instrument. Play the scale again with one of the notes chromatically altered, and ask students which pedal should be moved and in what direction. You can then have one student run out the pedal in question and draw it again in the position you played. You could repeat this as many times as you wanted for a fun game. For a greater challenge, alter two or more notes.

If you have access to an electric guitar and an acoustic guitar, you can easily demonstrate the need for a resonator, both on the guitar on the harp. The electric guitar uses electric amplification instead of a resonator, but if the instrument is unplugged, it produces only a very faint sound. By contrast, an acoustic guitar is readily audible because the guitar body acts as a resonator. The harp also would be far to quiet to hear without a resonator, so you can point it out to the students and demonstrate its function.

These days Handel’s keyboard music is most often performed on a piano. However, pianos were not around in Handel’s day and the music was originally written for an instrument called a harpsichord. Do some research on the differences between the two, considering when each instrument was invented, how the sound is produced in each instrument (hitting versus plucking strings), and the different capabilities.

After reviewing the differences between the piano and the harpsichord, listen to recordings of each of these instruments and then discuss the actual differences in sound. You may like to consider the following topics:

What does each of the instruments sound like?
What factors in the instruments make them sound a particular way?
Which instruments sound do you prefer?
Do you think Handel would have liked the piano?
Recently musicians have been seeking to perform baroque music on instruments from the era. Why do you think they would do that?

One of Handel’s best known works is the oratorio The Messiah. Pretend that you are watching the very first performance ever of this piece. Imagine that after the performance you are stopped by a reporter for the local television news. What would you say? Choose someone to be the interviewer, with a brief introduction and video record the responses of the “audience” members.

Use Beethoven’s life as the topic for a short children’s story. You can describe all the parts of Beethoven’s life that children may be interested in. Alternatively, you could write a story about one event in Beethoven’s life or a story based on one of his pieces of music. Include some illustrations or pictures from the internet.

Beethoven composed most of his most beautiful music during the last portion of his life when he was almost completely deaf. Beethoven would play the piano while biting a metal rod with his teeth that was attached to the soundboard so that he could feel the vibrations during this period.

Use some of the suggestions below to explore the issue of deafness and music and then hold a class discussion to share your insights.

Practical activities:

Touch and feel the vibrations of various musical instruments while you play them (how do different pitches feel different?) Have you ever been to a rock concert and felt the ground vibrating with sound of the bass guitar or drum kit?

Listen to The Moonlight Sonata, which was written as Beethoven’s hearing began to deteriorate and the String Quartet No. 13 which was written when he was completely deaf. This piece was included on Voyager’s “Golden Record” it was considered so brilliant.

Experiment singing a song in your mind rather than out loud. Can you “hear” it?

In Salzburg, Austria, Mozart’s childhood house has been turned into a museum. Design the front cover of a brochure advertising the Museum by briefly describing who Mozart was, what may be see in the Museum and why Mozart is still so popular today.

Looking for something more challenging for your class?: Write a wikipedia entry for one of Mozart’s famous pieces. Don’t forget to include the date of composition, the genre (concerto, opera etc), what instrument/s it is composed for and any interesting information you can find on why it was composed or where it was performed. This page is the sort of thing.

Create a pretend profile for JS Bach on your favourite social networking site such as Facebook. Include “Basic Information” (Network, Birthday, Relationship Status, Religious Views), More “personal information” like work and education backround, And think about who Bach may have been connected with as “Friends” and finally you’ll want to add some “groups” that Bach may have belonged in. Finish it off with a photo found on the internet. If you don’t want to use Facebook you could always design a passport or other similar document for Bach.

Have a class discussion about what you would say if you could invite J.S. Bach to your house for a cup of tea. Make a list of three questions you would like to ask him about his life or the time in history that he lived. You could even choose a student to be J.S. Bach and answer questions from the rest of the class. For an extra special addition to this activity, have the class bring in some gingerbread or other traditional German snack to share.

Have the class do some research to find a art work on the internet that was painted in J.S. Bach’s era. You could discuss as a class the ways that the painting shows the Baroque styling of Bach’s music.