A funeral march is a strict musical genre that requires a musician (or a musical ensemble) to strictly adhere to a number of mandatory, both formal and artistic, requirements.
Instructions
Step 1
The funeral march, in its original genre semantics, is the music accompanying the national funeral procession in honor of the fallen heroes. This is a slow march (twice as slow as the traditional "parade" march "), calculated for the pace of the funeral procession, when the coffin with the deceased is carried in their arms.
Step 2
Here it is necessary to make a note "on procedural points." In general, the entire funeral ceremony is traditionally accompanied by music, only different in different moments. There is music "goodbye to the deceased", there is music "for the procession", there is music "for lowering the coffin." The funeral march is music for funeral processions only. Here, besides the most famous march of F. Chopin, there are marches of G. Berlioz, R. Wagner, L. Beethoven, G. Mahler, F. Mendelssohn, P. Tchaikovsky and others - the choice is quite diverse.
Step 3
According to the funeral procession, the musician or musicians should be dressed and generally behave appropriately. The performance should be solemn, it is unacceptable to “tear passions to shreds” (unless the customer specifically requests this). The funeral march is restrained and austere in nature.
Step 4
The funeral march is usually three-part in its structure. The outer parts are in the figurative structure of the solemn funeral procession, the middle part is usually lighter, lyrical, more “personally” colored. The contrast between the framing parts and the middle creates the specific drama of this genre.
Step 5
And one moment. Due to the requirements of the genre, the funeral march is performed by the ensemble. There are two general requirements for instrumentation or rearrangement of the funeral march for different compositions. The first (quite obvious): instruments are selected on which performers can play during the movement.
Step 6
Second: the orchestration should take into account the performance in the open air, that is, for all the solemnity, it should be uniformly dense in sound.
