To me it at first just sounded like a piece with a very awkward dynamic. The sweet smooth gentle rhythm of the flutes kept things in a somewhat normal fashion of a waltz. Still very different in the count which made this a difficult listen for me. After all the listening I did to this piece I still couldn’t really get an emotional connection with this movement personally. I could only provide what I could from my analysis of the basic sound I heard. The piece still has somewhat of a sad undertone portrayed by the building of the violins in the minute and through the four minute marks.
It still gives me a romantic feeling throughout with a happy key of the flutes midway through. The movement barely lasted over eight minutes so I got the impression that maybe Tchaikovsky didn’t want his audience dancing happily for very long. As this being a way shorter movement then the majority of the pieces we have listened to so far. I gave it more opportunities for the music to try and move me listening to it a few more times. I had a very hard time locking in on what I thought it meant to me or why Tchaikovsky wanted it to sound like this.
It was way different from any waltz or dance tune I have heard of. I finally noticed in the very end the final notes of this mostly happy section were brought down into a far sadder place by the wind instruments. All was mostly happy until the very end where the last three notes were sad drones. The entire thing almost sounds like happy and sad at the exact same time if that makes any sense. After a few more listens my only conclusion from hearing this is that maybe the composer needed a short and sweet happy section in his symphony to tide the listener’s ears over.
The Essay on Speed Of Sound
In this lab we want to see how long it takes sound to travel down and back in a tube, determine the speed of that sound, and compare the average of that value to the speed of sound in air. The temperature in the room is 21.8 degrees C, which means that the speed of sound should be 344.5. The value that we obtained for the closed tube was averaged at .00609, which accounts for a speed of 328.4 m/s ...
He did it to compensate for what sadness and heartbreak lied ahead in his last two movements. He let you know this by adding in subtle elements of sadness with the randomly placed minor keys throughout the segment (again mentioning the ending measure).
Even though it sounded elegant and beautiful he let it be known that it was still going be sad and stay that way. The title “Pathetique” gives it away that maybe this was his intent the entire time.
