EXTRA LISTENING TRACK - "Venise" - Teresa Carreño

Instrumentation: Piano

Texture: I would say the texture of the song is sparse, since there is only a melody (treble line) and accompaniment (bass line chords). However, the texture of the piano itself is very rich.

Range: While the range never goes very low and tends to sit in the middle range, it does take some leaps to higher notes, which the performer does with care and delicacy to make them seem fragile, not grating.

Tempo: The music has a fairly slow tempo, which remains pretty much constant throughout the entirety of the piece.

Meter: The rhythmic beat is triple beat: it has a very clear waltz quality to it – however, the pianist often delays the placing of the beat.

Volume: The volume is mostly soft: the volume diminishes for dramatic effect when the pianist is playing the higher keys, in order to maintain a delicate sound.

Other: I didn’t originally plan to write a listening journal on this song: however, as I was working on the last piece (Amy Beach’s “Scherzo”), this began to play as the next track on the CD. I was surprised to find how much I enjoy it: I typically don’t like songs that consist only of piano, but this one seemed exceedingly elegant and beautiful in a simple way to me. I find it interesting to contrast the sound of Beach’s piece with Carreño’s piece, due to the reading on Beach’s childhood, which told of the two’s extremely different upbringings (Carreño as a young prodigy and virtuoso, Beach as a woman restrained from touring), and Carreño’s apparent role-model influence on Beach. Their differing experiences no doubt influenced the sound of their compositions: yet I find it interesting that Carreño, the one with more freedom, has composed the more typical traditional “feminine” piece, while Beach has composed a much more ambitious and “manly” sounding (according to the Bowers/Tick chapter) piece.