Draft 5
Reflecting upon my ideas for the piano accompaniment, I had chosen an idea (seen in Draft 4). However, after evaluating that particular idea I found it didn't support the melody as I'd planned and it didn't help create the story of the spruce tree. As a result, I came up with another idea which has worked, a simple rhythmic pattern (in bar 5) of a minim followed by a dotted crotchet, followed by a quaver. I found that this rhythm remained characteristic of Schubert without being over-used and achieved what I wanted. In addition, I created a thicker texture in bars 8 and 11 to emphasise the two most significant moments of word painting in this piece (as previously mentioned).
The final major aspect worth noting is the beginnings of the melody in verse two. Contrasting to verse 1, the melodic contour of verse two ascends, conveying the hope seen in the poem. Whereas the melodic contour in verse 1 is like a wave, both ascending and descending. |