The Music Workshop Company Blog

Each month the Music Workshop Company publishes two blogs. One blog, written by the MWC team addresses a key issue in Music Education or gives information about a particular genre or period of music. The other blog is written by a guest writer, highlighting good practice or key events in Music Education. We hope you enjoy reading the blogs.

To contribute as a guest writer please email Maria@music-workshop.co.uk

Posts tagged “Model Music Curriculum”

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JS Bach St John Passion

Posted on 14th March 2024 at 10:24

J. S. Bach’s St John Passion was first performed on Good Friday, 7th April 1724. This year we celebrate the 300th anniversary of this remarkable work.

Bach is one of the most famous composers of the Baroque era and his work has been celebrated by many notable composers including Mendelssohn.

The Chorale from the first part of St John Passion is recommended in the New Model Music Curriculum.

Taking inspiration from Bach's use of written text, our activity explores some things to consider when writing songs based on poems.

Image: Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, second version of his 1746 canvas. Bach is holding a copy of the six-part canon BWV 1076.

Saint-Saëns Danse Macabre

Posted on 14th October 2023 at 14:30

This month, in preparation for Halloween – our blog explores the spooky Danse Macabre by Saint-Saëns.

The composition is familiar to listeners all over the world, thanks to its use on film and TV soundtracks, where it has frequently been employed to instil a sense of the uncanny.

With its inventive instrumentation, cleverly arranged to evoke a scene of the dancing dead, the work is suggested as a piece suitable for Year 3 and above in the Music Model Curriculum.

We suggest activities linked to the piece.

Holst Mars from The Planets

Posted on 17th September 2023 at 16:40

The Planets is probably Gustav Holst’s most famous work. It captures the essence of each Planet brilliantly; the musical themes are well known and have influenced later works. The piece has been described as an “orchestral suite” but it includes a wordless female chorus alongside the large orchestra. Holst is sometimes described as an underappreciated composer, but The Planets is a piece that’s still very popular – with Jupiter reaching number 7 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame in 2023. It’s a piece that is recommended in England’s Model Music Curriculum.

Image: By Herbert Lambert (1881–1936) - National Portrait Gallery - Portrait NPG Ax7745; Gustav Theodore Holst, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7667183

Coleridge-Taylor Symphonic Variations on an African Air

Posted on 15th August 2023 at 12:49

A photograph of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor seated looking at the camera.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor is a composer whose popularity has grown and receded many times since he achieved fame with his trilogy of cantatas The Song of Hiawatha, which premiered in 1898. The Model Music Curriculum suggests listening to his Symphonic Variations on an African Air and possibly learning to sing the main melody, but this could also be a good introduction to starting to read a musical score.

British musicologist Herbert Antcliffe commented: "To those who really wish to know Coleridge-Taylor... no single work of his will reveal him more fully." Here, we explore the work and the man behind the music.

Celebrating 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik': Mozart’s enduring classic

Posted on 15th July 2023 at 15:23

This month, we introduce Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with a focus on his popular serenade, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Mozart’s talents gained him a reputation as a world-class musician during his lifetime, and he is still today regarded as one of the foremost composers not just of the Classical era, but of all time.

Although he only lived to be 35, Mozart was a prolific composer, producing hundreds of works across multiple genres, many of which remain in the repertoire today. But of course, one of his best-known works, which was completed towards the end of his life, on 10 August 1787, is Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The piece is not only a staple of the classical repertoire, but it has been used for decades in popular culture – from film to advertising – making it one of the most instantly recognised classical works today.