Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes.
Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to certain words. If a song has a sad feel, the madrigal might be in a minor key; if the song has a happy feel, it might be in a major key. In the English Madrigals file, it says that word painting led to music making a spectacle of itself and gave rise to the ornamented style we now call Baroque. Even today, word painting is being used. In the Garth Brooks song, “Friends in Low Places”, Brooks sings the word “low” on a low note; in Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, when he sings “It goes like this the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift,...” the melody is literally a fourth, fifth, a minor chord, then a major chord. Even centuries after the Renaissance, word painting still plays a significant role in music.
I commented on Jamie’s and Clabo’s posts.
Hey Lily! I loved your post. I think you did a great job of describing Vesta and its great example of word painting! I had completely forgotten Friends in Low Places but now that you've brought it up it'll be stuck in my head...at least I've learned something about it! It uses word painting!
ReplyDeleteEven though I love music, and play several instruments, I got very confused as you were going through the different aspects of the Vesta. I loved it, but I was slightly confused. It was nice to see all the different aspects concentrated into two paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteI like that you defined word painting as when the melody matches the lyrics. I find this interesting because this means that music can be both auditory and visual and that is what I think of when I hear the phrase word painting. Great post and very informative!
ReplyDeleteI never really considered the fact that we still word paint to this day. Like you said, sad songs are typically in a minor key. I never would have really made that connection if I had not read your post. I wonder what other word painting techniques are still prevalent in today's music?
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