Teacher`s Pack by Paul Rissmann

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Meet the Orchestra 2015
Teacher’s Pack by Paul Rissmann
Welcome to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Meet the Orchestra concert pack
for 2015. This pack will accompany an interactive schools concert designed to bring
your class to the heart of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, to meet the
instruments of the orchestra and uncover some of the secrets in its music.
We would also like to invite you to take part in the world-premiere performance of a
brand new new participation piece for audience and orchestra called H2Oz.
The concert program features:
Michael Giacchino
The Incredibles ‘Full Mayhem’
Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 – 1st mvt (excerpt)
Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition (excerpts)
Promenade
Gnomus
Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells
Catacombs
Baba Yaga – The Hut on Chicken Legs
The Great Gate of Kiev
Paul Rissmann
H2Oz - Audience Participation Piece
NB: Please see the separate teaching resource kit for more information on H2Oz.
This is music your class will perform with MSO during the concert.
John Williams
Star Wars Main Title
This pack has been developed to enhance your class’ concert experience. It contains
several creative projects for you to explore in class. All are inspired by the main piece
in our concert Pictures at an Exhibition and relate directly to Mussorgsky’s music.
I have created a PowerPoint to be used alongside this pack. It contains images,
melodies and charts that will hopefully make delivering each project as easy as
possible. Please feel free to modify any of these activities as you see fit, to best suit
your class and the resources available in school.
Listening to a full size symphony orchestra live for the first time is a very special
event for children. Combined with fun, creative preparation in school, I’m sure that
your class will love the experience of being composers, performers and discerning
listeners.
Paul Rissmann, April 2015
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Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition is a masterpiece. The ten characterful solo piano pieces
from 1874 by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky were inspired by an exhibition
of works by Victor Hartmann – a Russian nationalist painter and architect.
Mussorgsky linked his composition with a recurring Promenade Theme to represent
the listener moving through a virtual musical gallery.
Years later, the French composer Maurice Ravel created an orchestral version of this
piano music. Ravel was a master of orchestration and he re-scored Pictures at an
Exhibition with full orchestral colour.
Ravel’s symphonic version of the piece presents a vivid series of orchestral sound
paintings, ideal for young listeners. The music will take your class on a series of short
adventures, to explore the catacombs below Paris, to a ballet of unhatched chickens
dancing in their shells and to marvel at the splendour of the Great Gate of Kiev.
Pictures at an Exhibition is also the perfect stimulus for creative music-making in
school. I have created four contrasting musical activities inspired by the score. They
all contain musical material, structures and ideas borrowed directly from Mussorgsky,
but all of which can be easily performed on classroom instruments.
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Musical Activity No.1 – The Promenade Theme
Mussorgsky uses the melody below to represent his journey through the art gallery.
This Promenade Theme effortlessly links each of his sound paintings together. For
such important music, it is actually very simple since it is built using a Pentatonic
Scale (a scale with just five pitches): C D F G A
1.
Learn to play or sing the melody above.
2.
Invite the children to create a simple text to go with the tune.
Something like this:
Let’s all go for a walk, see the pictures on the wall.
Paintings hang all around, dream of music, hear their sound.
3.
Use Mussorgsky’s Promenade Theme to make several verses of a song.
An Irregular Step Forward!
Rhythmically this theme is quite unusual. Notice in the score above, some bars are in
5/4 and some are in 6/4. That means there are 5 beats in the 1st and 3rd beats and 6
beats in the rest.
What not try adding an un-pitched percussion accompaniment to this theme –
perhaps by just marking a simple pulse on a drum – or maybe with something more
sophisticated.
Challenge the class navigate their way through this unusual meter. My top tip is
never to stop counting. Always think through this sequence of beats in your head
12345,123456,12345,123456. Good luck.
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Musical Activity No. 2
The Ballet of the Chicks in their Shells
EGGstraordinary Cosutmes!
Victor Hartmann’s humorous sketch shows chickens wearing
shells like fashionable new outfits. It was created for the
ballet Trilby and shows costume designs for a scene where
children play-dance.
Mussorgsky’s brilliant, chattering music suggests small
chicks running around aimlessly underpinned by a blanket
of extremely short, pecking sounds.
In the central, more graceful section of this music,
Mussorgsky writes a gentle dance tune for one of the chicks
before returning to the slightly manic music of the first
section.
A Creative Project
Begin by looking at Hartmann’s sketch (you’ll find it in the associated PowerPoint).
Invite the children to discuss what would happen in a scene from a ballet (or a play) if
the dancers (or actors) wore these costumes.

What story does the picture suggest?
Now challenge the class to compose some music to depict the chicks running around
in their shells.


How can music sound chicken-like?
What are the best instruments to use?
Take inspiration from Mussorgsky
Look at the chart overleaf (you can also find a slide of this table in the PowerPoint
designed to complement this pack).
Here is how read it:

Each box represents one beat.

If a box contains one character, then it has a single sound lasting one full beat
(a crotchet).

If a box contains two characters, then it has two quicker sounds – played in
the time of one beat (two quavers).

The final box indicates a single sound sustained for 4 beats.
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BEATS
1
2
3
4
*
*
*
**
XX XX XX XX
*
*
*
**
XX XX XX XX
O
O
O
O
==============
5
6
7
8
*
XX
*
XX
O
*
XX
*
XX
O
*
XX
*
XX
O
*
XX
*
XX
O
1.
Try clapping through the grid with the class.
2.
Now, challenge the children to find a different sound to represent each
character in the grid. They could clap the *, click the X, stamp the O. Perform
the chart once more with these new sounds.
3.
Divide the class into three groups and ask each group to choose a set of unpitched percussion instruments. If possible, each group should select similar
instruments ie. Group 1 chooses scrapers, Group 2 choose tambourines and
so on.
4.
Now, play through the grid using the selected instruments.
Group 1 – play everything marked with a *
Group 2 – play everything marked with an X
Group 3 – play everything marked with an O
Everyone should play the final bar for four beats.
5.
Now, ask each group to assign very specific dynamics (volumes) to their
music. For instance, Group 1 may wish to crescendo (get louder) through
their line, Group 2 may play very quietly. There is only one restriction – the
final bar (played by everyone) should be loud.
6.
Try and find as many different ways to play through the grid as possible – with
as interesting dynamics as possible. And also, Mussorgsky’s music is very
fast. How quickly can you play?
7.
Aim to create a complete piece, where you perform the chart several times in
succession, but with as much variation and colour as possible.
A Step Further
Using this idea of a rhythm grid, draw a blank chart on the board and invite the
children to fill the boxes with symbols (like above). However, they don’t have to be a
simple as Mussorgsky – they could create something much more complex. You could
even leave some of the boxes empty. Now play through the newly created chart.
Listen
Finally, listen to Mussorgsky’s music for the Ballet of Chicks in their Shells.
Can you hear the rhythm of this exercise in the recording? Try playing along with it.
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Musical Activity No.3 – Catacombs
Paris Underground
After graduation, Victor Hartmann spent three years living in Paris. Whilst there, he
made drawings and sketches that would later inspire three of Mussorgsky’s sound
pictures (Tuileries, Limoges and Catacombs).
The picture above is a self-portrait of Hartmann exploring the catacombs below Paris.
Mussorgsky transformed this image into slow, atmospheric and slightly scary music.
His score contains the following inscription:
"Hartmann's creative spirit leads me to the place of skulls, and calls to them
- the skulls begin to glow faintly from within."
A Very Free Creative Project
1.
Look at Hartmann’s picture and invent a story to fit with it (it is also in the
PowerPoint pack). What could be happening in the catacombs?
2.
Now, discuss what kind of music would complement the story.
3.
Choose appropriate instruments and begin to transform your ideas into sound.
Two ideas from Mussorgsky
Dynamics
The movement Catacombs features an incredible range of volume. Sometimes the
orchestra is deadly quiet, other times they are deafeningly loud. This music is full of
contrast – and most importantly, it never remains the same for long. What begins
loud ends up soft, and quiet chords become ferocious in their intensity.
Encourage the class to explore massive variations of sound in their music.
How loudly can they play? What is the quietest sound they can make?
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Theme
Catacombs is actually a very clever variation on Mussorgsky’s Promenade Theme.
So why not feature the Promenade Theme in your music – explore with keeping it
heavily disguised.
Experiment by:
 playing the notes of the Promenade backwards - one after the other – start
with the last note and end with the first. How does it sound?

making a chord by sounding all the notes of the Promenade at the same time.
How loud can it be? How soft?

selecting just few pitches (or a fragment) of the Promenade and make a
repeating pattern out of the notes.
Add Some Text
Once the children are happy with their music, why not add some narration on top – to
really bring their sound picture alive.
As a class, try writing three or four short sentences to describe what is happening in
their music. Then insert these sentences somewhere within their musical structure –
spoken over or in between their music.
The narrator’s role could be fulfilled by a single person, or even the entire class –
speaking in unison.
Now, are you brave enough to perform the music in a darkened room?
Listen
Finally, listen to Mussorgsky’s music for the Catacombs.
How effective is his music in representing the mysterious picture?
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Musical Activity No. 4
The Hut on Chicken Legs (Baba Yaga)
A Russian Legend
Baba Yaga is a hideous and frightening old witch, whose adventures are told in
Russian folklore. Exhausted parents in Russia apparently use the threat of a visit
from Baba Yaga to ensure their children remain well behaved and eat up all their
greens!
Baba Yaga lives in a curious looking hut, which is perched on top of spindly chicken
legs. She likes nothing more than cooking a delicious meal – of children! So every
night, her house races through the forest propelled by its long chicken legs,
searching for prey. When she finally spies some poor, unsuspecting child, the house
crouches down and she reaches out, grabs it and cooks it (well I guess it beats
queuing in Coles!).
Atmospheric Music
Mussorgsky transformed Baba Yaga’s story into wonderfully vivid music. When
cloaked in Ravel’s brilliant orchestration, the result is startlingly power. Upon listening
to this music, it may come as a surprise to know that in the original Hartmann
exhibition, Baba Yaga was represented by nothing more than a cuckoo clock!
Since Mussorgsky appears to have been inspired more by the folk tale than the
artefact, we too will try to recreate the dark and menacing world of Baba Yaga.
A Terrifying Creative Project!
The project overleaf relates to the rhythm, melody and harmony of Mussorgsky’s
score. It will encourage the children to create a terrifying sound painting of an evil
witch.
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We are going to create to contrasting sections of music.
SECTION A - Baba Yaga Arrives
Mussorgsky begins with a bold opening statement to announce the arrival of Baba
Yaga.

Here is the rhythmic template of his music. Try clapping it.
1
2
X
X
X
3
4
X X
X
X X
X X X X X X
X
X
X X X X
X
X
X X X X
X X X X X X X X
X
X
X
X
 Now, play through the chart using some un-pitched percussion. Choose the
best possible instruments for this task. Aim to play the rhythm exactly
together. This will make the music sound even more menacing.
NB: If playing through the entire chart is too challenging for the class, it may be best
to divide the grid above amongst several groups of children – perhaps taking two
lines each.

Mussorgsky announces Baba Yaga’s arrival with a bold melody – a fanfare.
Learn to play or sing the short theme below:

Try playing the phrase above several times in succession.
NB: It makes a really nice four-line song. Play the melody four times over and find
four lines of text to fit with it.
 Add a simple accompaniment to the theme – either rhythmical or textural.
 Now, find the best possible way to link the rhythmic opening with this melody.
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Everything you have composed so far makes up Section A of your music.
Section B – Baba Yaga Stalks Her Prey
This section contrasts brilliantly with the violent start. This music is much calmer,
cautious and worryingly quiet as Baba Yaga hunts for prey in the forest.
 Make some atmospheric sounds to describe a dark forest.
 Add a gentle shimmer using just two pitches – D and B. Move as quickly as
possible between these notes – but play them very quietly. This music doesn’t
have to be rhythmical, it can be quite free.
 Make a simple (but creepy) melody that begins like so:
F F
F
B
B
 Continue the melody in any way you wish, but only use the notes of the
following scale:
BDFGA
 Add any further elements you wish to the music.
This music is called Section B.
Ternary Form
Mussorgsky organises his music using a simple three-part structure – A B A – which
is called Ternary Form.
1.
Ask the class to play their music in the following order - Section A – B - A.
2.
Now, listen to a recording of Mussorgsky’s music for Baba Yaga.
Can the students hear any similarities with the orchestral performance?
What are they?
Have fun.
© Paul Rissmann
April 2015
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