This piece gives out a very spooky and anxious mood. I believe the reason why I felt anxious was primarily due to the low range and fast tempo rhythms. While the accompanying flute and violin’s rapid, sudden, and unpredictable pitches give out that spookiness to the overall musical forms. The imagery that popped up in my head immediately after listening to this piece was actually a scene from a famous Chinese cartoon based on one of the four masterpieces of novels, The Journey to the West. In one of the episodes of that cartoon, the main character, monkey Sun was trying to steal a magic peach from a divine shrine. So in order to achieve that, he created a decoy of himself outside of the gate while he ingeniously sneaked into the heavily guarded peach garden to enact his deeds. This particular part of the piece has a stark resemblance to that sneaky scene. The music element that I found particularly surprising was the use of multiple musical instruments to create that spookiness. From listening to it, I’ve noticed that there were multiple woodwinds and strings playing this contrast, but in particular, violins, flutes, and bassoons. This to me sounds like a deviation from the musical norm of that period of time. Usually, there is just one instrument, and most commonly, the soloist that plays the countermelody to create this scenery. Although this piece is a ballet, it is actually vastly different from the ballet that we commonly know. The ballet music that we most commonly associate with is usually played with a piano and often with a soft and legato style of melody. Also, the reason why ballet music that we often associate with is being played on a piano was that it was supposed to create a calm emotional state that is meant to be relaxing, not a nerve-wracking melody that incites discomforts to the audience. Also, according to my limited and superficial knowledge, ballet dance moves should follow a smooth transitioning of movements in between gestures. However, this particular ballet is nothing like that; the jumping is closely related to that of those erratic pitches from the violins, bassoons, and flutes.
Resources:
Clover's Tree Hollow 