As a teacher, Olivier Messiaen taught many of the figures who became giants in the post-war avant-garde – among them Boulez, Stockhausen and Xenakis. And as a composer, he sits on a line from Debussy...
David Kettle Secondary education
In this resource, I give advice on how to tackle the background to the topic, recommend some online resources, and provide a ‘way in’ to the music itself, including specific works that could be...
Jane Werry Secondary education
Students are studying Debussy's Estampes and the other set works in preparation for a summer Edexcel exam paper either at AS or A Level. A previous Music Teacher resource (January 2017) has already...
Simon Rushby Secondary education
It's an odd pairing at first glance: Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 (covered in its own Music Teacher resource, February 2016) with Kodály's Dances of Galánta. And yet these prescribed works for...
Jonathan James Secondary education
Having covered late-Romantic symphonic styles, Impressionism, Expressionism, atonality and serialism in Part 1 of this resource (Music Teacher, December 2016), we resume our exploration of this vast...
Jane Werry Secondary education
This month we will focus on the Romantic concerto. Specifically, students need to understand how the concerto developed through the 19th century, and how the role and instruments of the orchestra and...
Simon Rushby Secondary education
This is the first of two Music Teacher resources covering OCR's AoS6. Here, we'll look at Late-Romantic, largescale symphonic works; Impressionism; and Expressionism, atonality and serialism. We'll...
Jane Werry Secondary education
This resource focuses initially on the context for Stravinsky's breakthrough, situating it among other musical innovations at the turn of the century. Stravinsky's early career and writing style are...
Jonathan James Secondary education
The first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 is the longest and potentially most challenging of all the new Edexcel GCSE set works for teaching from 2016. This resource is about how to open it...
Jonathan James Secondary education
The Concerto Through Time is arguably the meatiest, content-wise, of all OCR's new areas of study. It covers the development of the orchestra and changing compositional approaches from the Baroque...
Jane Werry Secondary education
This resource is designed around how to ask those questions in a way that encourages exploration both during term–time and the holiday period. It should also open up the following, more specific areas...
James Jonathan Secondary education
This resource is the last in a three–part series to support the teaching of the three new OCR AS Prescribed Orchestral Scores in Unit G353: Introduction to Historical Study in Music, for examination...
Alan Charlton Secondary education