Sunday, January 19, 2014

Castle House Rag

This certainly is an energetic piece of music.  The fast tempo and the constant use of 16th notes give it almost a frenetic quality.  It also has more harmonic complexity than most of the previous examples on our listening list - the descending bass line through the first section and the ascending chord sequence in the second section.  There also is more variety of instrumentation than we have seen so far - the introduction of the bells in the middle section comes as a bit of a surprise.

The structure is somewhat difficult to follow since it changes so rapidly and frequently.  The listening guide outlines it as AABBACCDEEF.  Quite a bit of contrast - but it certainly keeps your interest as it moves rapidly through the various segments.  I imagine it must have made quite an impression on those who first heard it.

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