Continuing the session on pop music conducted a few days ago, on the 3rd of June 2020, a Piano Performance Hall of classical music was held online over the Zoom platform conducted by our school’s music teacher cum Head of Curricular Department, Ms. Hee Siaw Fuey. She started the session by introducing the history of classical music.
Classical music is produced in the Western traditions during the period from 1750 to 1820, which is also known as the Classical era. Examples of well-known classical music composers are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Haydn. During that period, the music produced has a lighter texture than Baroque music and is mostly homophonic, which means a clear melody is played over a subordinate accompaniment.
Ms. Hee shared about her experience working at a hotel as a pianist. Due to her background in classical music, she barely knew any modern music. Thus, all the songs she played were classical music which does not correspond with the lively environment at that time. She received complaints from the customers but she could not understand why people did not appreciate the beauty of classical music. She also shared a funny story during her college days where she and her classmates had to analyse and do a presentation on pop music. Jay Chou was a famous singer at that time and her friends were really keen on doing the presentation about him. She tagged along with her friends but ended up pronouncing the singer’s name wrongly during the presentation, which lead to her friends in making fun and befriending her until today.
Before the session ended, Too Kai Le from Jr1C presented a skilful piano performance to the song “Für Elise by Ludwig van Beethoven”. Ms. Hee further explained that this song was supposedly written by the composer to one of his female students that he fell in love with. However, she interpreted the song differently which led to the student leaving him without notice. This was actually one of the theories made by people today, the identity of “Elise” is unknown and researchers suggested Therese Malfatti, Elisabeth Röckel, or Elise Barensfeld.
