Analyse and compare the different musical components between Handel ‘Zadok the Priest’ (opening 3 minutes) and Saint Louis Blues WC Handy. (2000 words)
Musical components chosen:
• Harmony
• Social Discourse/function
G.F. Handel was born in Germany however spent many of his years in England. He composed Zadok the priest (a coronation anthem) (a piece composed for SSAATBB + Orchestra) for the coronations in September and October during 1727; ‘Zadok the priest’ has been performed at every coronation since then.
After analysing ‘Zadok the Priest’ it is clear that Handel has used functional harmony throughout. The home key of the piece is in D major; the following C natural in the 4th and 5th bar suggests that Handel has moved to the sub dominant of G major before travelling to the dominant, A major in the 7th and 8th bar; the key of A major is inferred by the G sharp in the final crotchet of the bar. The first 7 bars a harmonic pedal is applied to the first beat and sustained throughout the entire bar; this device is repeated 7 times and repeats again between bars 14 to 17. Commonly in the baroque period one would not experiment too greatly with the use of chordal progression, Handel hasn’t really escaped the primary chords apart from the relative minor and the mediant minor later in the piece. As Handel composed this for…show more content… Handel’s ‘Zadok the priest’ has conformed to the ideals of society and has a means to the end, Handel was commissioned to write a piece for the coronation and thus wrote an appropriate, non experimental piece unlike for example Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth which did not successfully adhere to the ‘social realist’ ideal. “Let rhetoric be the power to observe the persuasiveness of which any particular matter admits” [Aristotle, The Art of