Tone Poems
During the first half of this term, Classes 2 and 3 have studied an orchestral piece by the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky – ‘Night on a Bare Mountain’. It is a tone poem which is a piece of music that depicts a story, in this case a meeting of witches on the top of a mountain during the the eve of 23rd June.
The children had an understanding of how the music described the arrival of the witches, the partying and dancing of the witches and then how the witches had to leave as a church bell chimed as dawn started to break.
Class 2 wrote a scene from one of the Robin Hood legends on which they have based some of their work in literacy. Robin Hood and his Merry Men ambushed two rich men and took their gold.
They used keyboards, tuned and un-tuned percussion and were able to musically describe the horses galloping, an arrow flying through the air and hitting a tree, gold jingling in bags and a sword fight. Class 2 worked as a group, with Mercutio conducting. The children worked very co-operatively and achieved an excellent result which they performed to Mrs Rankin.