Volume 10
Alda Jesus de Oliveira - O Foguete

Short Review

Composed in 1969, this piece is a mini-opera with texts based on one of the most important events of that time: the man’s arrival on the moon. The compositional elaboration mixes free parts – where creativity and improvisation become key elements – and others that are more structured, following the conceptional trends of musical education in the 60s and 70s (Meyer-Denkman’s, Lili Friedeman’s and Paynter’s in Europe as well as Widmer’s and Koellreutter’s in Brazil).

Along with the same author’s series entitled “The Zoo”, the piece received the “Departamento de Educação Superior e da Cultura” Prize in the “didactic category” at the 3rd Presentation of Young Composers from Bahia (1969).

Jusamara Souza and Cristina C. Gerling’s analysis observes the composition from its didactic viewpoint; that is, in the sense of identifying what characterizes it as a “pedagogic work”. In this direction the analysts approach “The Rocket” from the following heuristic categories: with which materials/means is the work’s content elaborated? How is it systematized? Does the canonization of specific contents exist? If so, how is it present? What is the relationship of the content with the real experiences of the addressees (target population)? Are they in harmony or not? And last but not least, how can professors deal with the material? In the attached analytical chart, the authors comment on how melody, rhythm, texture and timber are elaborated as a narrative.