what teachers need to know - core knowledge foundation...sofia alexeena (1657–1704) 1682–89...

History and Geography: World 209

At a Glance continued◗ Ivan III (the Great) and Ivan IV (the Terrible) expanded Russian terri-

tory and the authority of the czars.

◗ Peter the Great sought to modernize and westernize Russia in order toenable it to compete with European nations for trade, territory, andprestige.

◗ The desire to find a warm-water port was one factor that encouragedRussian expansion.

◗ Catherine the Great, while once interested in reforming certain abusesof Russian government, became as autocratic as her predecessors after apeasant revolt and the French Revolution.

◗ The lives of peasants worsened under Peter and Catherine.

What Teachers Need to KnowA. History and Culture

Byzantine Influence in RussiaThe rise of Russia is closely related to the history of the Byzantine Empire,

which students in Core Knowledge schools should have encountered in Grades 3and 4. For a thousand years after the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, theEastern or Byzantine Empire continued to build on ancient Greek and Roman tra-ditions and culture. For example, Byzantine architects used the Roman dome tobuild magnificent churches, such as Hagia Sophia in the Byzantine capital ofConstantinople (now called Istanbul). Byzantine artists also created beautifulmosaics and icons. Students in Core Knowledge schools should have studiedHagia Sophia and Byzantine mosaics as part of the art curriculum for Grade 3.However, they may not be acquainted with icons, which are special pictures ofJesus, Mary, and the saints. Icons are meant to help Christians during worshipand meditation.

Constantinople was a great religious center, home of the Eastern OrthodoxChurch, which had split with the Roman Catholic Church in 1054.Constantinople was also the center of a vast trading network that connectedEurope with the Middle East and Asia. Trade brought the Byzantine Empire greatriches as well as new cultural influences.

The influence of the Byzantine Empire in Russia dates at least to the 860s,when the Byzantine Emperor sent two monks to convert the Slavic people ofEastern Europe to Orthodox Christianity. At the time, the Slavs were pagans whoworshipped many gods. The two monks sent to convert them were two brothersnamed Cyril and Methodius. Cyril and Methodius invented a new alphabet,called the Cyrillic alphabet after Cyril. The Cyrillic alphabet was loosely based onthe Greek alphabet. Cyril and Methodius then taught the Slavs to read and writeusing the Cyrillic alphabet so that they could read the Bible.

Teaching Idea

You may want to teach section B,“Geography,” before “History andCulture.”

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VI. Russia: Early Growth and Expansion

210 Grade 5 Handbook

A little more than a century later, Christianity began to spread around Slavicand Russian territories, but many people remained pagans. Once such person wasPrince Vladimir, the ruler of the city-state of Kiev, which would become the firstRussian state. According to legend, the prince sent emissaries to investigate themajor monotheistic religions of his day: Eastern Orthodox Christianity, RomanCatholic Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. When his emissaries visitedConstantinople and saw Hagia Sophia, they were astonished and overwhelmed bythe beauty of the church, its dome, and its mosaics. Surely, they thought, this isthe house of the true God. Vladimir selected Orthodox Christianity as his ownreligion, and decided it would also be the religion of his people. It is also possi-ble that he may have been influenced to convert to Christianity by the economicand political advantages of an alliance with Byzantium, as well as in order to getapproval to marry the Byzantine emperor’s sister. He ordered the old pagan idolsthrown into the Dnieper River and conducted mass baptisms in the same river.

Adoption of Eastern Orthodox Christianity had a number of benefits for theRussians. It strengthened the commercial ties between Russia and the ByzantineEmpire and also provided the basis for the development of a national identityamong the various Russian city-states by giving them something in common.Over time, princes of the various city-states adopted the written language of theempire, as well as its architecture, music, and art. Like the Byzantine emperor, theRussian czars (also spelled tsars) would claim jurisdiction over the church inRussia, thus strengthening their own power. Similar to the monarchs of westernEurope, the Russian czars also came to believe in the theory of the divine right ofkings—that they ruled as the representative of God on Earth, and as such, theirauthority was absolute.

Moscow as the Third RomeOver time Kiev became less important and Moscow, to the north, became

more important. Moscow became the headquarters of the Russian church. Whenthe Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks in 1453, the rulers of Moscow announcedthat Moscow was “The Third Rome.” Rome had been the capital city ofChristianity and so the “spiritual center of the world,” but then the popes and theRoman Catholic church had fallen into heresy and false belief. After 1054, whenthe Orthodox Church split with the Roman Catholic Church, Constantinople hadbecome the new “spiritual center of the world,” the “Second Rome.” WhenConstantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, the Russians thought Moscow waspoised to take its place and become the latest spiritual center of the world, the“Third Rome.”

The Czars

Ivan IIIBeginning in 1236, Mongols, nomadic warriors from Central Asia, had invad-

ed and conquered large parts of Russia. Students in Core Knowledge schoolsshould have learned about the Mongols in the Grade 4 section on China. Thesame people who swept south to conquer China swept north to conquer largeparts of Russia. In return for acknowledging the Mongols as their rulers and pay-ing tribute to them, the princes of the various states were allowed to keep theirlands and titles. The Mongols remained in power until 1480 when Ivan IIIdeclared Russia free of Mongol rule.

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Teaching Idea

Using Instructional Master 25, Czarsof Russia (1613–1917), have studentskeep a chart of the czars, their dates,and their accomplishments.

Ivan III, also known as Ivan the Great, had come to power as the GrandPrince of Moscow in 1462. During his reign of 43 years, he extended Moscow’scontrol over a large area, annexing land from other city-states and from the Poles,Lithuanians, and Mongols.

The government was centralized and Ivan asserted his influence over thechurch. He surrounded himself with the splendor and ceremony befitting anemperor and adopted as the symbol of the czar the Byzantine symbol of the dou-ble eagle. Ivan’s reign laid the foundation for the later Russian state.

Ivan IVIvan IV, also known as Ivan the Terrible, reigned from 1533 to 1584. He

greatly expanded Russia’s borders, extending Russian rule throughout theVolga River Basin to the Caspian Sea and pushing across the Ural Mountainsinto Siberia. His attempt to win a foothold on the Baltic Sea was less success-ful. The Swedes and Poles defeated the Russian forces.

Ivan earned his nickname because of his cruelty. He was initially called“Ivan the Terrible” because he terrified his enemies, but later he also beganto terrify his own people. Indeed, he became one of history’s most famousexamples of the paranoid tyrant. Convinced that enemies and intrigue sur-rounded him, Ivan IV was suspicious of everyone. He established theOprichniki, a group of special guards, to search out traitors among his sub-jects. They acted like secret police and wore black uniforms. These police-men could throw people in jail or torture them on the slightest suspicion of disloyalty. Ivan the Terrible also had a terrible temper. One day in a fit of anger,he hit his eldest son so hard that he killed him.

Ivan also established the Zemski Sobor, or land assembly, to act as an adviso-ry body to the czar. It was the first national assembly of Russians ever convened.However, Ivan IV was even more autocratic than Ivan III had been. In an effort torid himself of any threat from the boyars, who were hereditary aristocrats, he hadmany of them accused of treason. He then seized their lands and divided the landsamong a new class of landholders that he created. In return for land, these menowed the czar military service when he asked for assistance. The service was tobe performed by peasants supplied by the new nobility. In effect, Ivan created afeudal system in Russia.

Peter the GreatPeter the Great ruled Russia from 1689 to 1725. Like his predecessors, Peter

was an autocratic ruler. Unlike them, he was fascinated by western Europe, itsculture, its sciences, and its growing industries.

Only 17 when he became czar, Peter had an immense curiosity about people,ideas, and things. His appetite for information matched his size. He was 6 feet 9inches tall and weighed close to 300 pounds. As a young man, he spent time inthe German Quarter of Moscow, where not only Germans but also Scottish,English, and Dutch artisans lived. Although previous czars had been generallysuspicious of foreigners, some had been allowed to settle in special zones of thecity, but their contact with Russians was limited to people the czars trusted.

Teaching Idea

If you have taught Section V of WorldHistory and Geography, ask studentswhat other important event occurredin 1689. Students should respond thatthe English Parliament passed theEnglish Bill of Rights in 1689.Compare the political structure ofRussia at the time with that ofEngland; help students see that, whileEngland was beginning to place lim-its on the power of the king, Russiawas still an autocratic state in whichthe czar had virtually unlimited powers.


Use Instructional Master 25a–25b.

Czars of Russia (1613–1917)

Master 25a Grade 5: History & Geography

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Study the family tree and use it to answer the questions on Master 25b.

Name Date

Purpose: To gain a greater understanding of the hereditary monarchy in czarist Russia

Mikhail Feodorovich(1596–1645)

1613–45

Evdokia LukianovnaStreshneva

Natalia Kirillovna NaryshkinaAlexei Mikhailovich(1629–76)

1645–76

Maria Miloslavskaya

Sofia Alexeena(1657–1704)

1682–89

Feodor Alexeevich(1661–82)

1676–82

Ivan V(1666–96)

1682–96

Praskovia Saltykova

Evdokia Fedorovna LopuhinaPeter the Great(1672–1725)

1682–1725

Ekaterina Skawronska

Crown Princess

Sofia Charlotta

Czarevich AlexeiPetrovich

Unknown Anna Ivanovna(1693–1740)

1730–40

Elizaveta Petrovna(1709–61)

1741–61

Anna Petrovna

AnnaLeopoldovna

Prince AntonUlrich

Peter II(1715–30)

1727–30

Catherine the Great(1729–96)

1762–96

Peter III(1728–62)

1761–62

Karl Friedrich

Paul I(1754–1801)

1796–1801

Maria Fyodorovna Ivan VI(1740–64)

1740–41

AlexandraFyodorovna

Nicholas I(1796–1855)

1825–55

Alexander I(1777–1825)

1801–25

Alexander II(1818–1881)

1855–1881

Maria Aleksandrovna

Alexander III(1845–94)

1881–94

Maria Fyodorovna

Nicholas II(1868–1918)

1894–1917




Teaching Idea

Have pairs of students create postersadvertising either of Peter’s decrees:that men must be beardless or thatRussians—except for peasants—mustwear western European-style clothes.Posters should contain the gist of thedecree and some slogan to promotecompliance. The message could rely onwhat will happen if a person fails toobey or could tout some benefit such asa beardless man will be cooler in sum-mer. Illustrations could be optional.

You may want to provide studentswith books that show what westernEuropeans were wearing in the early1700s.

Teaching Idea

Peter the Great’s trip to western Europeincluded many fascinating adventures.Students may enjoy learning moreabout Peter’s experiences, includinghis travels in England and Holland, hiswork as a carpenter, his studies in den-tistry, his purchases while abroad, andhis attempts to travel incognito.

Wanting to see for himself, Peter took two trips to western Europe during1697 and 1698, and during 1716 and 1717. Among the places he visited wereshipyards, universities, art galleries, and the British Parliament. He was an eagerstudent and learned about shipbuilding, medicine, military science, manufactur-ing, and the educational systems of the countries he visited. He returned to Russiawith a group of European experts that he had hired to help him transform Russia.44

Modernizing and Westernizing RussiaWhen Peter returned from his first European tour, he set about changing how

Russians looked and what they did for a living. Peter decreed that Russian menwere henceforth to be beardless, because that was the fashion in western Europe.Men found wearing beards were at risk of having them shaved off on the spot. Aman could get around the decree by paying a tax for a beard license. Peter alsodecreed that the long coats of Russian men were to be shortened and that every-one above the rank of peasant was to adopt western clothing.

Peter established a navy and modernized the army. No longer would the czarhave to depend on peasant soldiers supplied by the nobility. He established astanding army by introducing conscription (forced service) and equipped it withnew weaponry from the west. He also established military-technical schools andrequired that the sons of the nobility be sent to train as officers. Peter used gov-ernment subsidies to encourage the development of manufacturing, shipbuilding,mining industries, and international trading companies.

In part to make the government more efficient, and in part to further lessenthe influence of the nobility, Peter introduced reforms into the government. Heestablished a committee system to run government operations. Each committeehad eleven members who were to oversee a particular area, such as agricultureand foreign affairs, similar to our government departments. To strengthen hisposition, the czar personally appointed many officials, including the members ofthe new advisory body of nobles, called the Senate, and the governors ofprovinces.

Peter built on the idea of the service nobility, initiated by earlier czars.According to this concept, service to the state was a requirement for admission tothe nobility. Peter established the Table of Ranks, which listed 14 civil and mili-tary ranks, covering all positions in the government and military. As oneadvanced up the ranks and reached a certain level, one automatically became anoble. As more men entered the nobility, the old landed aristocracy—theboyars—became a smaller percentage of the nobility. Through this maneuver,Peter continued to lessen the influence of the boyars.

Search for a Warm-Water PortOne of Peter’s great ambitions, as it had been for previous czars, was to secure

a warm-water port for trade. Most Russian ports were located in the far north andfroze up for part of the year. By increasing the amount of Russia’s internationaltrade, Peter believed he would also increase its wealth and power. His first effortswere aimed at wresting territory on the Mediterranean from the Ottoman Turks,as Ivan IV had tried to do, but Peter was unsuccessful in finding allies and aban-doned the idea.

Peter the Great visiting Europe


Peter then set his sights on land along the Baltic Sea. He declared war onSweden in 1700 and ultimately won his warm-water port. He built St. Petersburgon the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic, and moved the capital there fromMoscow. His new city was as grand as any capital in western Europe. It is calledPeter’s “Window on the West,” not only because it was a port that allowed Peter totrade with the west year-round, but also because the city was built in the Europeanstyle, with canals and stately palaces like the ones Peter had seen on his trips towestern Europe. Peter encouraged western Europeans to come to Petersburg andrequired many Russians nobles to build houses in his new capital.

Ever since Peter the Great, Russians have often found themselves dividedbetween two groups. One group, the so-called “westernizers,” has argued, in thetradition of Peter the Great, that Russia needs to be more like the countries ofwestern Europe. On the other side are the “Slavophiles,” who think Russia is bet-ter than western Europe and should stick to its traditional Slavic ways. For themost part, the westernizers have gravitated to St. Petersburg, with its Europeanstyle, while Slavophiles have preferred Moscow, built in the old Russian style.

Catherine the GreatCatherine the Great was actually not Russian, but German. She was chosen to

marry Peter, Duke of Holstein, a grandson of Peter the Great. As Czar Peter III, theDuke initiated a series of policies that angered powerful nobles. He entered into analliance with Prussia, a long-time rival, expanded religious freedom, and closeddown the secret police. Catherine and the czar were not well suited for each otherand theirs was an unhappy marriage. Catherine—who had become thoroughlyRussian after almost twenty years in Russia—joined in a plot against Peter. The con-spirators removed him from the throne and made Catherine sole ruler.

Catherine greatly expanded Russian territory, adding more of the Balticregion and Ukraine. She also warred against the Ottoman Turks and seized por-tions of their empire. When European powers partitioned Poland in 1772, 1793,and 1795, she gained the largest part for Russia. It was during her reign thatRussian exploration and colonization of Alaska began.

Like Peter the Great, Catherine was interested in the west. When she beganher reign, she intended to make a number of reforms to ease the life of serfs (peas-ants), promote education, and limit land acquisitions by nobles. However, thepeasant revolt led by Pugachev [POO-ga-chov] between 1773 and 1775 and theFrench Revolution soon caused Catherine to become as autocratic as earlier czars.The peasant uprising was a bloody and brutal revolt that resulted in the death ofthousands of wealthy Russian landowners, priests of the Russian OrthodoxChurch, and merchants. Not wishing to antagonize the nobility, Catherineincreased the privileges of the nobility and decreased the freedom of peasants.

Reforms of Peter and Catherine and the PeasantsThe reforms of Peter and Catherine had little effect on the peasants—except

to bind them to the land as serfs. By the time of Peter, many peasants already hadno personal freedom of movement. A peasant family could not decide to movefrom one landed estate to another because the second landowner offered betterworking terms.

Teaching Idea

Compare the lives of peasants inRussia, slaves in the colonies, andserfs in the Middle Ages. What madeserfdom in Russia different?


Catherine the Great




Teaching Idea

Create an overhead of InstructionalMaster 26, Russia, and use it to orientstudents to the physical features andcities discussed in this section. Havestudents use the distance scale to com-pute distances (for example, the lengthand width of Siberia, or the distancefrom Moscow to St. Petersburg).

During Peter’s reign, peasants became chattel, the property of the landhold-ers on whose estate they worked. They could, therefore, be bought and sold. Afterthe peasant uprising during Catherine’s reign, she allowed the nobles to continuethe process of turning peasants into serfs. The word serf is from the Latin wordfor slave; however, the status of the serf was somewhere in between that of a slaveand a free person. Serfs were the property of nobles, yet they had certain rights.They were required to give certain payments to and perform specific services fortheir owner. On the other hand, a serf was usually given a house, a plot of landon which to grow crops, and some animals. Serfs were required to give some ofwhat they grew to their noblemen masters. In addition, serfs were required towork the noble’s land.

Serfdom—the agricultural system based on the ownership of serfs—hadexisted in Russia for centuries. In western Europe, the actual bonding of the peas-ant to the soil had largely ended by the 1400s and 1500s. By contrast, in Russia,serfdom was gaining strength. In the 1700s, during the reign of Peter andCatherine, while the Industrial Revolution was getting underway in Great Britain,the restrictive powers of serfdom reached their height. Serfdom was not abolishedin Russia until 1861—four years before the United States abolished slavery.

B. GeographyBackground

Russia stretches across two continents, Europe and Asia. Much of the earlyhistory of Russia occurred in the European section as people there traded withthe Vikings, Byzantines, and later western Europeans.

Cities

Moscow Moscow is located in west central Russia—European Russia—on the Moscow

River and is the capital of modern Russia. Ivan IV made it the capital of Russia in the1400s, and it also became the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church. Peter the Greattransferred the capital from Moscow to the new city of St. Petersburg in 1712. Thecapital was returned to Moscow in 1918 during the Russian Revolution.

Today, Moscow is the largest city in Russia (with a metropolitan area popula-tion of over 13 million), an important inland port, and the seat of Russia’s gov-ernment. The Kremlin, meaning walled center of a city, is the heart of Moscow.Here the czars built their palaces, Communist leaders reviewed thousands of sol-diers marching through Red Square, and today, the national government uses aformer palace for the legislature. The Kremlin is also the site of St. Basil’sCathedral, once the center of the Russian Orthodox Church and now a nationalmuseum. St. Basil’s is built in the traditional Russian style, with several oniondomes reaching up to the sky. From the Kremlin, wide boulevards extend throughthe city in all directions. A person from Moscow is called a Muscovite.

St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg is Russia’s second-largest city (population 5 million) and is

located in northwestern European Russia on the Gulf of Finland. Peter the Greatbuilt it in the western European style, with canals and glittering palaces, after

Use Instructional Master 26.

Study the map. Use it to answer the questions below.

Russia

Master 26 Grade 5: History & Geography

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Name Date

Purpose: To read and interpret a map of Russia

1. What is the distance between Moscow and St. Petersburg?

2. What is the distance between Moscow and Vladivostok?

about 4,000 miles

about 400 miles

Trans-SiberianRailroadUU

RA

L M

OU

NT

AI N

S

KYRGYZSTANKYRGYZSTAN

RUSSIARUSSIALAT.LAT.

LITH.LITH.

BELARUSBELARUS

UKRAINEUKRAINE

ARM.ARM.AZER.AZER.

GA.GA.

NORTHNORTHKOREAKOREA

EUROPEEUROPEMoscowMoscow

OdessaOdessa

St. PetersburgSt. Petersburg

YekaterinburgYekaterinburgDon

IrkutskIrkutskKhabarovskKhabarovsk

UR

AL

MO

UN

TA

I NS

S i b er

ia

A R C T I C O C E A N

BLACK SEA

CASPI

AN

SE

A

Don

Riv

er

Volga River

BALTIC SEA

MoscowOdessa

St. Petersburg

Yekaterinburg

Novosibirsk

IrkutskKhabarovsk

Vladivostok

RUSSIA

KAZAKHSTAN

KYRGYZSTAN

IRAN

AFGHANISTAN

NORWAY

EST.

RUSSIALAT.

LITH.

BELARUS

UKRAINE

ARM.AZER.

GA.

MONGOLIA

CHINA NORTHKOREA

SOUTHKOREA JAPAN

U.S.A.

ASIA

EUROPE

UZB

EKIS

TAN

TURKM

ENISTAN

SWEDEN

FINLAND

0

0 300 600 kilometers

600 miles300W E

N

S

Teaching Idea

Moscow and St. Petersburg are verydifferent cities. To give students a feel-ing for the differences, share picturesof key buildings and streets in eachcity (e.g., the Kremlin and St. Basil’s inMoscow, and the Hermitage and otherpalaces in St. Petersburg).


four-note motif. Listen as Beethoven uses that simple idea in all sorts of differentways: stringing several versions of it in a row or stacking it up on top of itself,extending or abbreviating it, bringing it into the foreground or pushing it into thebackground, using one statement of it to punctuate another, etc. Every section ofthe movement seems to develop as a natural outgrowth of that little four-notephrase.

As in most symphonies of Beethoven’s time, the second movement is slow.Many slow movements of that era are songlike in melody and construction, andthis one is no exception. Two gentle, singable tunes alternate through the move-ment: the first has a lilting quality and finishes with the winds making a beauti-ful “sigh”; the second has a more steady and noble tone. These themes are variedeach time they appear with more and more elaborate decoration by the strings.

The third movement is called Scherzo, which means “joke.” (In some ver-sions it might be called “Allegro.”) It was traditional for third movements of sym-phonies to be rather fast and light, and they almost always took the form of eithera minuet (a light dance in a meter of 3–

4) or scherzo (an energetic, rhythmicallydriven piece, also often in 3–

4). This particular scherzo, however, is uncharacteris-tically dark and heavy. In many ways, its main theme is more of a march than ascherzo. However, the middle section, with its scurrying strings, captures some-thing of the traditional spirit of a scherzo. Notice that the marchlike music isbased on a rhythm that is essentially the same as the four-note phrase from thefirst movement. This rhythm appears in all four movements and helps tie thepiece together as a whole. The prominent way it is used in this third movementmakes sure that the audience can hear the relationship.

Instead of the traditional break between movements, Beethoven writes thethird movement so that it leads directly into the fourth movement without anypause. This is another way in which he indicates that he is thinking of the sym-phony as one large unified piece, and not as four disconnected movements. Thefourth movement is triumphant in spirit. By connecting the movements in thisway, Beethoven creates the effect that the triumph of the final movement is a res-olution to the dark, ominous quality of the preceding movements. To make thiseffect even stronger, Beethoven puts a little reminder of the third movement intothe fourth, just before the ending. This emphasizes the way that the triumphantfinale “answers” the earlier movement.

The symphony is often discussed as being representative of man’s strugglewith (and ultimate triumph over) Fate. This is accomplished through repetitionof the insistent motif from the first movement. Interpretations of this sort wereextremely popular in the 19th century.

Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an ExhibitionUntil the second half of the 19th century, Russia had no real classical music

tradition of its own, and Russian composers generally wrote in styles modeledafter the great German composers. In the 1860s, five major Russian composersformed a group (nicknamed the “Mighty Handful,” after the five fingers of thehand) that was dedicated to creating a truly Russian style of classical music thatwould not be as derivative of the music of western Europe. The most original andnoteworthy of these five was Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). While other

Teaching Idea

The coda to the final movement ofBeethoven’s Symphony no. 5 promi-nently features the piccolo; this isone of the earliest pieces to makeuse of the piccolo. What does it bringto the texture? How does Beethovenuse the instruments of the orchestrato enhance the effect of his sympho-ny? While listening to the piece, dis-cuss its orchestration as a class. Payattention to the contrast betweenphrases played by solo instruments,phrases played by whole sections ofthe orchestra, and phrases played bythe entire orchestra.

Teaching Idea

Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 is morethan half an hour long and is one ofthe most structurally elaborate worksthat students will have studied to thispoint. Allow sufficient time for theclass to become familiar with thepiece. This will require many repeat-ed listenings and perhaps even moreactive involvement with the themes ofthe different movements. You maywish to have the class break into 4groups, and assign each to study 1 ofthe 4 movements and present theirfindings to the class. Make copies ofthe score available to these groupsand encourage them to identify themajor themes and structures of eachmovement.

Music 403

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II. Listening and Understanding


Teaching Idea

Pictures of Mussorgsky show that he wasa large man, weighing nearly 300 pounds.The theme in Pictures at an Exhibition,stated over and over again, suggests avery large man walking along. Withoutspecifically mentioning this to students,have them walk to the music. Then askhow a person who walks to such a “pon-derous” movement might look (or whathis or her size might be).

Teaching Idea

Once students understand the premiseof the piece and have had the titles ofthe individual movements explained to them, have them draw what theyimagine the pictures to look like. Someeditions of the score include picturessimilar to those that inspired the music.(The original pictures have been lost.)Some of these are also availableonline. You can show them to students,but only after they have created theirown versions. Ask students how thecomposer depicts these images withmusical sounds.

members of the “Mighty Handful” attempted to create the Russian sound by usingmelodies from Russian folk songs, Mussorgsky did not borrow any actualmelodies, but adapted his compositional style to have audible similarities of har-mony and rhythm to the style of Russian folk music. His compositions do indeedsound somehow “Russian,” even though they are completely original.

Mussorgsky did not receive much training as a composer, and as a result, hismusic is not always particularly polished. On the other hand, many people feelthat the raw and sometimes surprising sounds that he composed only enhancethe appeal of his works and contribute to the sense that they are somehow asnative to Russia as its folk music.

Mussorgsky’s greatest achievement is his opera Boris Godunov (1874) but farbetter known are two other works—Night on Bald Mountain (1867) (which manypeople know from the memorable sequence in the film Fantasia), and Pictures atan Exhibition. In 1874, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by the Russianartist Victor Hartmann was held in Moscow. Hartmann was a close friend ofMussorgsky’s and had been attempting to do for the visual arts what Mussorgskyand the “Mighty Handful” wanted to do for music—create a Russian style that didnot depend on foreign influences. Mussorgsky attended the exhibition and wasinspired to depict several of the artworks in musical form. The work he composednot only represents these works but also the person who is viewing them. Thishelps tie the unrelated images into a more cohesive whole structured around theidea of the exhibition.

Mussorgsky originally wrote Pictures at an Exhibition for piano, but in 1924,the French composer Maurice Ravel arranged the music for orchestra. It is in theorchestrated form that the work is most often heard.

As you play the piece for your students, stop and discuss the items below.• Promenade

The piece opens with a stately theme, which is meant to represent the com-poser (or any viewer at the exhibition) as he or she strolls from one picture to thenext. This theme will return occasionally throughout the piece, and is the oneidea that ties the whole set together.

1. “Gnomus” (The Gnome)The image is of a threatening and grotesque dwarf.

• Promenade

The viewer quietly walks onward to a reprise of the Promenade theme.2. “Il Vecchio Castello” (The Old Castle)

This picture depicts a night scene of an Italian castle, with a singer standing inthe foreground. The music, in imitation of Italian folk music, is mysterious andshifting, appropriate to a night setting. Eventually the song drifts away into thedistance. Listen for Ravel’s rare orchestral use of the saxophone.

• Promenade

Another brief reprise of the Promenade, this one is more forceful than before.3. “Tuileries” (Famous Garden in Paris)

The scene portrays children at play in the park having an argument. Thesounds of the children are depicted quite literally: the opening figure mim-ics the universal taunting melody of “nyah-nyah!” which is interspersedwith quick, light, bubbling figures that sound very much like children’s gig-gling laughter. Wind instruments (flutes, clarinets, piccolos) are used todepict the children.


4. “Bydlo”This movement portrays an image of a huge, heavy Polish ox-wagon, mak-ing its lumbering way down the road. Listen to the way Mussorgsky uses asteady, rocking figure in the bass to give a sense of the wagon’s weight.

• PromenadeThis version of the Promenade begins quite tentatively—perhaps somethinghas troubled the viewer. However, the next picture will probably lighten hisspirits; we hear a brief preview of it before the final notes of this movement.

5. “Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells”The original drawing that inspired this movement was of whimsical“unhatched egg” costumes for a ballet. The music imagines a comical danceof chickens and eggs, using chirping sounds that imitate the actual soundsof chicks. Clarinets are used to depict the chickens’ chirping sounds.

6. “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle”Sometimes called “The Rich Jew and the Poor Jew,” this movement is aresponse to two contrasting portraits—one of a rich businessman, and theother of a shivering beggar in the street. The imposing and severe theme ofthe rich man, and the chattering desperation of the beggar, are heard firstseparately and then combined.

7. “Limoges: The Marketplace”In this scene, women argue in a bustling French marketplace. The franticand constant movement of the music captures the sense of the endlessactivity of the marketplace. The piece seems to capture the cries of the dif-ferent sellers and combines them in a progressively more chaotic and sur-prising way, each interrupting the previous.

8. “Catacombae: Sepulchrum Romanum” In this drawing, the artist himself is seen in the Roman catacombs in Paris, anunderground system of tunnels and burial chambers with skulls stacked on theground nearby. Ominous chords capture the gloom and power of the scene.

• “Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua” (Speaking to the Dead in a DeadLanguage)Mussorgsky explained this movement as representing his reaction to thedrawing of the catacombs. In the drawing, the artist can be seen examiningancient skulls. Mussorgsky envisioned this as a sort of conversationbetween the living and the dead, and he is prompted to his own thoughtson death. The Promenade theme returns, but altered, as though seenthrough the murk of the catacombs. The whole piece is colored by shiftingchords reflecting thoughts of mortality.

9. “The Hut on Fowls’ Legs” This movement is also known as “Baba Yaga.” Baba Yaga was a witch fromRussian folklore who lived in a hut that could walk on the legs of a bird.Her hut not only had a bird’s legs but also could fly, aided by the blood ofvictims who were crushed when the house landed. Students should be ableto identify what is going on in this piece, based on a description of the hutand what it represents. The pounding, rhythmic opening notes suggest agiant bird, bouncing on its legs. A quieter chase theme follows, in whichthe hut obviously gains speed and leaps into the air. The quiet, steadytheme on the violins represents the house circling, looking for a victim.There is an almost cartoonlike quality to the rhythm. It is followed by alower and lower tone, as the house circles, until a single chord shows thatthe hut has thudded to the ground, presumably on top of a victim. Soonenough, the pounding rhythm returns, and the hut begins to bound intothe air, building to a frenzy that leads immediately into . . .

Music 405

Use Instructional Master 62.

Match the words and their clues to complete the puzzle.

A Classical Crossword

Master 62 Grade 5: Music

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Name Date

Purpose: To review concepts and vocabulary relating to classical music

LUTE EXHIBITION DOWLAND RENAISSANCE RUSSIA

NOTE SCHERZO DREAM BEETHOVEN CODA

Across2. German composer Ludwig van ___5. period of great advances in the arts6. Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer

Night’s ___8. Mussorgsky’s native land9. final part of a musical composition

10. in Symphony no. 5’s first movement:four- ___ motif

Down1. English Renaissance composer John

___3. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an ___4. nickname of Symphony no. 5’s third

movement (meaning “joke”)7. most popular solo instrument during

6 Across

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And Incidentally . . . Explain in your own words what “incidental music” is. Think ofa film or play you’ve seen that used incidental music, and then describe its effect.

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II. Listening and Understanding


Teaching Idea

If recordings of Dowland’s songs areavailable, listen to the words and dis-cuss with the class the ways in whichthe music attempts to capture theiremotions. Since the words are reallyElizabethan poems, some of which canbe hard to understand, you may want todiscuss the lyrics before playing asong. If you can’t find a recording inyour community, check for recordingsonline.

Cross-curricular

Teaching Idea

The sounds of Renaissance music mayseem new and different to students.The most important thing for them is tobecome accustomed to the musicalworld of that era. Play recordings ofRenaissance music while studyingRenaissance art and history. This willhelp set the scene; this will also helpstudents to build associations and asense of the cultural context for thoseless familiar musical sounds. Ask stu-dents if they see connections amongthe music, the paintings, and the archi-tecture of the Renaissance.

10. “The Great Gate of Kiev”This movement, the final piece in the set, is a response to an architecturaldrawing of an enormous gate, imagined in a traditional Russian style. Thegreat, noble theme that Mussorgsky uses to depict the gate also expresses apatriotic sentiment. This same sentiment can be felt in the quiet hymnlikepassages that interrupt the main theme. Toward the end of the piece, the setas a whole is wrapped up by the introduction of the Promenade. A grandfinal statement of the “Gate” theme, suggesting a grand and royal proces-sion through the gate, follows.

B. Musical Connections

The RenaissanceNote that Renaissance music is closely connected with the Renaissance top-

ics in the History section (pp. 164–168), as well as with certain topics in theVisual Arts and Language Arts sections. We suggest that you teach aboutRenaissance music in tandem with your study of other aspects of the Renaissance.Your students’ understanding of the works discussed below will be muchincreased if they are able to connect the composers and music described in thissection to the humanists, patrons, and city-states described in the History section.

As in the other arts, the Renaissance was a time of great advances in thesophistication and variety of music. Before the Renaissance and during theMiddle Ages, music was written under considerable limitations—some resultingfrom the limited theoretical understanding of music, and some resulting from thespecific religious and ceremonial purpose of most musical composition. As theRenaissance began in the mid-15th century, a rising interest in the rich artisticcultures of ancient Greece and Rome inspired composers to try to write moreexpressive works. Attention began to be devoted to music theory, and as a result,a much broader, more sophisticated musical language became available toRenaissance composers. This change, of course, took place very gradually over along period of time.

One of the greatest Renaissance composers was Josquin Desprez [zyos-CANduh-PRAY] (c. 1445–1521). His works are some of the finest of the entireRenaissance, despite the fact that he lived at the very beginning of this period. Hismusic is entirely for voice, which was the norm for his time; before the late 15thcentury, instrumental music was almost never notated or published. Desprez’smajor works are masses (large works based on the church liturgy for use in serv-ices) and motets (shorter vocal works, usually in four parts, based on Latin texts).His reputation rests in great part on the expressive qualities of his writing forvoice; he was a master of capturing the emotion of a text in his music and mak-ing sure the text could be understood. His music communicated with its audiencein a way no music had before. If you wish to play Desprez’s music for students,try the CD Josquin Desprez: Motets & Chansons.

John Dowland (1562–1626) was an English Renaissance composer, famed forhis lute songs. A lute is a stringed instrument played somewhat like a guitar, butwith a different and distinctive timbre. The lute was the most popular solo instru-ment of the Renaissance. For this reason, many composers, such as Dowland,wrote songs for a solo singer to be accompanied on the lute. Dowland’s songs arenoted for their subtle and expressive attention to the texts. Such songs also markthe first time that the melody of a work and its accompaniment were written out


what teachers need to know - core knowledge foundation...sofia alexeena (1657–1704) 1682–89...

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