Music History II

1
Music History II

• Lecture Notes 4

2
19th Century Overview

• Hegelian philosophy
• Conservative papacy
• The brothers Grimm
• American democracy
• Communist manifesto
• Neitzsche, Freud et al
• Weber, Toynbee et al
• Thompson, Ohm et al

• Science
• Smithsonian (1846)
• Helmholtz
• Darwin
• Nat.Academy/Science
• U. S. Geol. Survey
• Röntgen (X-rays)
• Alfred B. Nobel

3
Technology/Transportation

• Oil well/gas engine
• Edison power gen.
• Niagara Falls plant
• Eiffel Tower (1889)
• Power printing press
• Sewing machine
• Adding machine
• Safety razor
• Farming equipment

• First locomotive
• Morse telegraph
• Transcontinental rail
• Typewriter
• Telephone
• Light bulb
• Henry Ford
• Photography
• Magnetic recording

4
House of Bonaparte

• Emperor of France (1804-1815)
• Third coalition against France
• Divorced Josephine/married Marie Louise
• Empire covered most of Europe in 1812
• Wars of liberation (1813- )
• Abdicated Louis XVIII, King (1814-1824)
• Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)
• Defeated by Wellington at Waterloo

5
Technological Advances

• British railway system
• American transcontinental railroad (1869)
• Coal-powered steamship
• Invention of telegraph (1837)
• Transatlantic cable (1866)
• Telephone (1876)
• Phonograph (1877)

6
Three Scientists

• Edward Jenner vaccine for smallpox
• Louis Pasteur proved that microorganisms could
  cause disease
• Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays

7
Science/Tech Negatives

• Disorienting social change
• Population increase in Europe
• Migration from country to the city
• Factory workers in overcrowded housing
• Dangerous conditions in factories
• Low wages
• Lack of job security
• Thomas Creeveys headache

8
Composers/Events

• Did you find 18?
• Your list of historical events

9
Romanticism

• Values the individual
• Subjective over the universal (objective)
• Emotional and spiritual over the rational
• Revered nature
• Glorified creative genius
• Considers instrumental music the most abstract of
  all the arts

10
19th Century Nationalism

• The identity of a person derived from a common
  language and culture
• Marginalized ethnic groups more involved in
  politics and social affairs
• Independent statehood for Germany and Italy
• Artists incorporated nationalistic elements into
  their works

11
Politics

• Liberal goals constitutional government
  laissez-faire economic policies
• Liberals among the prominent and wealthy middle
  class
• Reform advocated due to social dislocation and
  poverty (efforts by Karl Marx and others)

12
Darwinism

• Social applied to society as a whole social
  inequality Spencers concept of survival of the
  fittest
• Scientific Kept in a biological context

13
Napoleon

• Crowned himself emperor in 1804
• Forced into exile after string of defeats from
  Moscow (1812) to Waterloo (1815)
• Where is Waterloo?

14
Congress of Vienna

• To restore geographical boundaries in Europe
  (1814)
• Countries represented Austria, Great Britain,
  Prussia, Russia, France

15
Revolutions of 1848-1849

• Parliamentary democracies for France, Germany,
  Italy by the end of the century
• Great Reform Act in Great Britain (1832) lowered
  qualifications for voters to own property
• National unification in Germany and Italy
• End of territorial power of the papacy in 1870

16
19th Century Literary Figures and Artists

• And your choices among the writers Byron?
  Shelley? Keats? Balzac? Goethe? Heine? Whitman?
  Dickinson? Poe? Melville? Twain?
• And the artists Morris? Goya? Delacroix? Rodin?
  Degas? Monet? Renoir? Van Gogh? Whistler?

17
New Imperialism

• Efforts at conquest beyond Europe by certain
  European nations
• Acquisitions by the United States
• Empires in 1871 German Austrian O
  ttoman Russian

18
European Migration

• Economic hardship
• Religious persecution
• Population growth
• Most to the U. S. and other Western countries
• Attracted by open spaces and jobs in the factories

19
Music more Popular

• Advances in music printing
• Manufacture of instruments
• Growth of public concerts
• Music journalism
• Music education
• Improved transportation
• General population growth

20
Musicians Too

• Composers after aristocratic patronage Public
  concerts Civic orchestras formed Private
  music making Increased interest in music
  lessons for children emphasis on singing and
  playing the piano (see the cartoon on page
  387)

21
Musical Organizations

• Performing groups organized by amateur musical
  societies
• Composers produced music accessible to amateurs
• Musical groups formed by factory owners for their
  employees

22
Music in the U. S.

• Dvo?áks discovery regarding musical patronage
• State support in his native country
• Not so in the United States
• No national conservatory in the U. S.
• Decentralized system of higher education
• Other disciplines more important to national
  development

23
The Tone Poet

• An artist who creates poetry with notes
• Idealism realm beyond reason and words a system
  of thought that sees objects in the physical
  world as reflections of ideas in the mind
• Romanticism from the romance a literary work
  free of conventional design
• Music a time art that moves beyond the physical
  to the spiritual/infinite realm

24
Instrumental Music Two Opinions

• Hoffmann the most romantic of all the arts the
  embodiment of certain emotions as opposed to the
  mere expressions thereof
• Schopenhauer like a clairvoyant or sleepwalker
  reveals the innermost nature of the world in a
  language his reasoning faculty does not understand

25
Classical v. Romantic

• Classical an artisan providing goods made to
  order
• Romantic a divinely inspired creator

26
Tiecks Take on the Symphony (Overture)

• Play it at the end

27
Genius v. Technique

• 18th century natural, inspired genius seen in
  relation to the teachable techniques
• 19th century a chasm that only a genius could
  bridge obsessed with the idea of originality
• Schumann saw Chopin as one who could make the
  dreams appear in reality at the keyboard

28
Classical Vs. Romantic

• 18th Century no problem with borrowing and
  making arrangements
• 19th Century Obsessed with the idea of
  originality
• Romantic artist blazing a unique path to truth
• Music of the past composers could be more aware
  of early accomplishments to be original and make
  comparisons with composers of the past and with
  their contemporaries

29
Paderewski

• The Virtuoso as Idol What elements of the
  caricature do you see?

30
Historicism

• Embracing older forms and styles but using them
  in new ways
• The first to conduct a performance of the Saint
  Matthew Passion by J. S. Bach after the
  composers death Felix Mendelssohn

31
Absolute v. Program

• Absolute instrumental music that exists for its
  own right
• Program instrumental music with a non-musical
  association
• Liszt program music from spiritual states of the
  mind that drives the composer toward the creative
  process absolute takes the listener into the
  ideal regions and leaves the listener on his own

32
Program vs. Absolute

• Hanslicks Argument
• Musical ideas are expressed in the musical
  material
• The music is an end in itself
• Forms are animated through sound
• Debate Outcome
• They were debating a distinction without a
  difference

33
Nationalism

• Chopin wrote mazurkas and polonaises (Polish
  dance forms) Schumann called these works by
  Chopin cannons buried in flowers
• Glinka A Life for the Tsar
• Borodin In the Steppes of Central Asia
• Mussorgsky Boris Godunov
• Others Verdi, Wagner Dvo?ák, Gottschalk

34
Art v. Popular

• Technically undemanding music accessible to the
  public
• The art music group music a means to spiritual
  enlightenment
• The popular music group music a source of
  entertainment
• Concert halls and opera houses dependent on
  ticket sales

35
19th C. Music

• Texture from simplicity of a song to complexity
  of a symphony
• Melody from simple to complex
• Harmony increasingly more chromatic
• Classical structures used but disguised
• Increasing importance of cyclical coherence

36
Styles Compared

• Classical more conservative
• Natural declamation
• Homophonic texture
• Periodic structure
• Lyrical melody
• Slower harmonic rhy.
• Vocal/instrumental distinction

• 19th c. originality above all
• Wider options
• Both textures
• Irregular phrases
• More chromatic
• Cyclical coherence
• Larger orchestras
• Vocal/instrumental difference greater

37
Orchestral Instruments

• Strings changes in construction (height of
  bridge, fingerboard length angle)
• Woodwinds clarinet becomes standard, trombone by
  1820s, improved flute
• Brass Valve technology (ca. 1815)
• Symphony for large orchestras 4 mvts.
  instruments added (piccolo, contrabassoon,
  trombone, more percussion)

38
The Symphony by 1800

• The most prestigious of all instrumental genres
• For large orchestras
• Four movements became standard

39
Standard Instrumentation

• By 1800
• 2 flutes
• 2 oboes
• 2 clarinets
• 2 bassoons
• 2 horns
• Timpani
• Strings

40
Four Opinions on the Symphony

• Koch Its goal is the expression of the
  sentiment of an entire multitude
• Fink a story with a psychological context, of
  some particular emotional state of a large body
  of people
• Wagner on Beethoven the entire world makes
  music through him
• Mahler be like the universe and express
  everything

41
Beethoven

• Nine symphonies
• Wanted to change the title of the 3rd after
  Napoleon had himself crowned emperor in 1804
• 5th Thematic transformation of a rhythmic
  motive cyclical coherence
• 6th Objects and ideas programmatic titles
• 7th Intensity of orchestral sonorities and
  rhythms
• 9th Use of vocal soloists and chorus

42
Symphony No. 3 in Summary

• I Sonata form 691 measures (struggle)
• II March in duple meter strong repetitive beat
  (death)
• III Scherzo a written return of the opening
  section (rebirth)
• IV Theme and variations thematic similarity
  with first movement (triumph)

43
Symphony No. 3, First Movement

• Two loud tonic chords at the beginning
• Theme 1 opens with a triadic motion
• Chromatic continuation
• Long transition
• Theme 2 contains distinct thematic ideas
  beginning in the dominant in m. 83
• Syncopated chords beginning in m. 123
• Development a fugato (m. 236ff.) appearance of
  a new theme retransition (m. 382) V9
  prolongation solo horn on opening theme (395)
• Recap (m. 398ff.) harmonic instability (tonic
  to supertonic) finally settles on tonic
  beginning in m. 430
• Coda (m. 557ff.) treated somewhat like a second
  development bringing back the theme from m.
  284/589

44
Berlioz

• Brilliant and original orchestration
• Writing on a grand scale
• Blending of music and narrative
• Symphonie fantastique
• 1. DreamsPassions
• 2. A Ball
• 3. Scene in the Countryside
• 4. March to the Scaffold
• 5. Dream of a Witches Sabbath

45
Orchestration

• The size of the orchestra is a remarkable feature
  of Symphonie fantastique
• Also the unusual number of instruments within the
  various family groups
• Heinrich Heines observation Berlioz playing
  timpani

46
Concert Overture

• Grew out of the 18th century tradition of
  performing opera overtures in the concert hall,
  independently of the operas for which they had
  been written
• Emerged in the early 19th century as a single
  movement work with a known plot
• With Leonore (original title Fidelio), Beethoven
  captured the essence of the drama

47
Berlioz and Mendelssohn

• Your Insights