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Project Notes
This project animates the lyrics of Mozart's 4 voice round canon 'Bona Nox' (KV 561, 1788).
In this song Mozart wishes 'good night' in Latin, Italian, French, English and German with rhyming fill-ins in nonsensical Austrian.
My children giggle their heads off each time I sing this song to them.
Note: this is the 'defused' harmless lyrics version, not the original, infamous (drastically vulgar) version of 1788.
It starts with one voice, gradually builds up to all four, cycles from piano though string quartett, harpsichord and wood winds, and then stops after switching back to piano and a ritardando.
Have fun!
- Jens
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Very enjoyable.
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very, very, very nice Jens.
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Mozart is my favorite composer, and I like classical music very much.
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Wow! This is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard, good job with the tempo and timing.
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Mozart wrote a lot of stuff that nowadays would be considered absolutely inappropriate, and certainly was considered so at his time, but hey, the man's a genius, quod licet jovi non licet bovi ;-)
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If I have kids in Germany, I'd sing this to them. It is an addicting lullaby, (I sing while I sleep, it is that interesting).
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Wait how was the original vulgar? Did it have curse words? Warten Sie, wie war die vulgäre Vorlage? Hatte es Fluchwörter?
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I doubt that, it's a lullaby, not a spriritual hymn, and the lyrics - even the 'tame' ones are probably inadequate for a church ... (e.g. 'pfui!' means 'yuck!')
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i used to hear that song every time i walked pass church on sundays
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vist my site plesse!!!!!!@#$#$@##@$%^&&*
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In Mozart's time neither Germany nor Austria were 'nations' yet, nor was there a standardized spelling / pronunciation of German. Mozart left a huge oevre not only in music but also of all kinds of letters (some of which with rather infantile humor). In these - as in the lyrics of this song - he often uses local words and phrases of Salzburg / Vienna, which is why I call it 'Austrian' (e.g. schlaf' fei g'sund - sleep well). I think, the Austrians would agree that Mozart was 'their' hero. By 'nonsense' I mean, that the lyrics don't tell a consistent story (e.g. "good night, heut' müss' ma' no weit" - we've still got to go far today), but are obviously just thrown together with the aim to rhyme. When Mozart was working for the church he had to use Latin for his masses, when he was visiting with nobility, he had to speak French (which was the preferred language of the European courts at that time), and when he was composing an opera, Italian was really obligatory (until the magic flute, that is). English wasn't universally considered 'cool' yet (although Mozart was a freemason and they supposedly had an affinity to English), but Mozart had been visiting London as a child and probably picked it up there. I remember reading that someone 'diagnosed' ADHS with Mozart when reading these lyrics, because he knew all these languages and apparently couldn't put them to proper use. I couldn't disagree more, because in my opinion composing a funny little lullaby by making five different languages rhyme and four rounds of voices modulate throughout a whole harmonical cadence (not just thwo chords) in changing rhythms is anything but trivial, but a resourceful little masterpiece.
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What do you mean by "nonsensical" Austrian? That is a dialect of German, Stimmt?
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Hi Oldschooler2, glad you like this project and that you enjoy studying German. Yes the backgrounds all show Mozart at various ages. I got these from WikiCommons to make sure they are all free from copyrights. Hallo Mitglied der alten Schule ;-) Es freut mich, dass dir dieses Projekt gefällt, und dass du gern Deutsch lernst. In der Tat, die Hintergrundbilder zeigen alle Mozart in verschiedenen Lebensabschnitten. Ich habe diese Bilder von WikiCommons heruntergeladen um sicherzugehen, dass sie nicht mit Urheberrechten behaftet sind.
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Antworten Sie diese Anmerkungen auf Deutch, bitte! (I think if I get more exposure to the language, I will be able to speak and understand it better).
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Es tut mir leid, Ich mag gerade Anmerkungen auf Deutsch, zu Deutschsprache Leute! (You should note my grammatical errors... I am not a native speaker of German, and you are, of course).
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Jens, Ich mag es lieber! Sind jene Abbildungen von Mozart? (Sorry if my German is off... I'm only a freshman in high school, and this is my 2nd or 3rd year of German.)
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cool
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this song is so addicting
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regarding the scratch on and pass it on project, I sure it doesn't matter how long it takes. But, i'm kind of interested in how big and how many people we can get involved.
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Hi Jens, Daffyduck came up with this project (if you read the project notes you'll understand it better) Anyways, I really like your work and want to pass the project onto you! (link to project) Please look at it, it's not advertisement.
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Jasper, I've thought about that. It would, however, require a separate fading thread for each costume change, which in turn would use up a lot of cpu power and probably bring the music out of beat....
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The only thing that could make this better is fading between the words.
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A great musical example. I'm puting this on my favorites.
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Amazin
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it nearly put me to sleep its like a lulaby
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wow. that's all i can say.....
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Sehr gut!
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i think this is really cool
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I added a little orchestration to the music and some effects to the lyrics to visualize the beginning of each round (and each new instrument). If you listen to it long enough it will eventually go through some sound variations, slow down and stop by itself. Now I consider this project finished.
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I'm going to listen to it again... so beautiful!
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First thre are one, then two, three, and four. :)
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Nice project!!! By the way I have this new magic project with your username and some of the other major Scratch usernames on it. So please check it out! :)
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I put in some more synchronization efforts, so even on slow computers the music shouldn't get out of beat any more. BTW there are actually four simultaneous voices, not just two, just watch and listen long enough....
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good job!!! some of the parts where theres 2 notes at one time sound a bit off though
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haha you used the word vulgar!!!!!!(im suprised i knew what that word meant... maybe ive seen it somewhere, maybe a movie)
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nice job of putting 2 keys at a time!
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