MidRomanticism

1
Mid-Romanticism Late Romanticism

• Listening Journal 8 Based on what you know of
  the Romantic period so far, who do you think
  wrote this piece? Why?

2
Characteristics

• Nationalism Countries assert their independence
  and nationalism after Napoleonic Wars.
• Folk tunes, dances, operas in native languages.
• Solo piano focus on the individual.
• Symphonic program music.
• Program symphony 3-5 movements with a program
  or story.
• Symphonic poem one movement
• Opera 3 national schools are established

3
Romantic Opera

• French Opera
• Grand Opera lofty subject matter and elaborate
  staging.
• Opera comique smaller and simpler in scale
  dialogue is often spoken.
• Lyric Opera melodious stories of tragic love.
• Georges Bizet, Carmen
• Verismo realism in plot characters, etc.

4
Romantic Opera (cont.)

• Italian Opera
• Comic opera Rossini, Barber of Seville
  Donizetti
• Tragic opera Bellini, Norma Verdi
• German Opera
• Richard Wagner
• Supernatural and heroic subject matter.
• Emphasized role of orchestra as a character.

5
Franz Liszt

• Hungarian composer who is known as a virtuoso
  showman.
• Known as a destroyer of pianos for his
  passionate playing.
• Father worked for Esterhazys.
• Played for Beethoven at age 11.
• Beethoven is said to have been so moved that he
  kissed Franz on the forehead.

6
Liszts Music

• One of the most avant-garde composers of the
  mid-Romantic.
• Unusual harmonies and unexpected chords that
  ignore previously established rules.
• Difficult piano music.
• Thematic transformation starts theme at outset
  and t hen lets it reappear in different forms.
• Orchestral music.
• 12 symphonic poems Hamlet
• 2 symphonies Faust Dante

7
Giuseppi Verdi

• Name is synonymous with Italian Opera (wrote 28).
  
• Organist and band leader as boy.
• Went to study at La Scala, Milan (center of
  Italian opera).
• Within two years of marriage his wife and two
  children died.
• Depressed and refused to compose until a libretto
  to the opera Nabucco was given to him.
• Premiered in 1842 and brought Verdi international
  fame.

8
Verdis Music

• Wrote 15 operas in 11 years, most are part of
  repertoire today.
• Aida, Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata
• Wrote two of his greatest masterpieces in his
  70s.
• Otello Falstaff
• Gift of melody has never been equaled.
• Rhythm stirs the soul and set the heart pounding.
• Sense of human drama.
• Orchestra connects the story and the characters.

9
Richard Wagner

• Born in Leipzig and educated by stepfather
  (artist and writer).
• Overwhelmed by music of Beethoven.
• Learned about opera from the inside by working as
  a chorus director and conductor.
• 1839 forced to leave Germany because of debt.
• Settled in Paris, but they refused to produce his
  operas, Rienzi The Flying Dutchman.
• Germany agrees to produce them and he returns.
• 1848 Joined failed coup against monarchy and
  forced to leave Germany again. (Spent 12 years
  in exile.)
• Fiercely anti-Semitic. Wrote an essay entitled
  Jewishness in Music in which he attacked
  Mendelssohn and called for removal of entire
  Jewish community from Germany.

10
Wagners Music

• Wrote opera exclusively.
• Wrote own librettos.
• Based on German folk legends.
• Tannhauser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde.
• Ring of Nibelungs (aka. The Ring Cycle).
• Similar in subject matter to The Lord of the
  Rings.
• Fantasy characters including dwarves, giants,
  valkyries, dragons, etc.
• The Rhinegold, The Valkyries, Siegfried, The
  Twilight of the Gods

11
The Nationalist Composers

• Russians
• Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition,
  Night on Bald Mountain
• Sergei Prokofiev
• Sergei Rachmaninoff
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsokov
• Bohemians
• Antonin Dvorak, The New World Symphony
• Scandinavians
• Edvard Grieg
• Jan Sibelius