How can music tell stories?
How can music tell stories?
Of knights, thunderstorms and dangerous voyages - how can music tell stories?
Prof Dr Melanie Unseld
Institute of Music
Moderation: NDR 1 Niedersachsen
Gong: Friederike (10 years old)
Camera: Moritz (12 years old)
When we listen to music, images and stories often arise in our minds: sometimes music sounds like a summer morning with the sun rising and birds chirping, sometimes we hear a knight taking bold steps into the forest to slay a dragon, sometimes we hear the stormy sea with high waves, thunder and lightning... But how do composers do this? How does the story get into the music?
We explore these questions together and "visit" the composers in their "workshop". For example, Richard Wagner, who accompanies his Siegfried musically during the dragon fight, or Modest Mussorgsky, who makes an ox cart disappear.
Using various examples from opera, orchestral and film music, the lecture will explain which stories are told in music and how, and - open your ears! - how music can also tell a story "wrongly".
Photos of the lecture