Chapter 16: The Early Romantics

1
Chapter 16The Early Romantics

• Early Romantic Program Music

2
Key Terms

• Program music
• Concert overture
• Program symphony
• Idée fixe
• Dies irae
• Col legno

3
Early Romantic Program Music

• Program music instrumental music associated
  with poems, stories, etc.
• Grew up in opera overtures
• Important program genres concert overture,
  program symphony, symphonic poem

4
Franz Liszt(1811-1886)

• Hungarian composer
• Learned music from his father at the Esterházy
  estate (Haydns employer!)
• Played for Beethoven at age eleven
• Career as virtuoso pianist based in Paris
• Dazzled audiences with incredible technique
• And with dashing looks, personality, affairs
• Wrote reams of fiercely difficult piano music
• 2nd career as conductor in Weimar
• Wrote symphonic poems, championed Wagner

5
Felix Mendelssohn(1809-1847)

• From upper-class family of bankers
• Pursued career as successful composer
• And as pianist, organist, conductor, educator
• Founded Leipzig Conservatory of Music
• Led first performance of Bachs St. Matthew
  Passion in nearly a century
• His music keeps a firm foundation in Classical
  technique
• Wrote concert overtures, oratorios, piano works,
  symphonies, violin concerto, etc.

6
Fanny Mendelssohn(1805-1847)

• Felix was very close to older sister Fanny
• Fanny showed as much talent as Felix
• Married painter Wilhelm Hensel
• Fanny also a highly prolific composer
• Wrote music of all kinds, including oratorios,
  piano works, chamber music, etc.
• Weekly performances at Mendelssohn home
• Women composers not taken seriously
• Little of her music was published, and it was
  rarely performed except for family

7
The Concert OvertureFelix Mendelssohn

• An important step from opera overture to
  symphonic poem
• Concert overture resembles an opera overture, but
  without the opera!
• A single-movement orchestral work intended for
  concert performance
• Structure rooted in sonata form
• Often based on a play, long poem, or novel
• Mendelssohn wrote some popular ones
• A Midsummer Nights Dream the Hebrides Overture
  (Fingals Cave)

8
Hector Berlioz(1803-1869)

• Son of a country doctor in south France
• Went to Paris for medical school, but ended up at
  Paris Conservatory instead
• Unprecedented, ambitious grandiose program
  symphonies
• Extraordinary imagination for orchestral color
• Inspired by literature Shakespeare Virgil
• Supported himself as a writer on music
• Wrote music criticism, orchestration treatise
• Toured as a conductor of his own music

9
The Program SymphonyHector Berlioz

• A more radical approach to program music than the
  concert overture
• An entire symphony with a program
• Several movements each one tells part of the
  story
• Story often published in the program
• The Romantic eras most grandiose orchestral
  genre

10
Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony

• Program symphony in five movements
• Story was lurid autobiographical fantasy
• Music encouraged listeners to think it was
  written under influence of opium
• Inspired by his unrequited love for Shakespearean
  actress Harriet Smithson
• Bold music of unprecedented originality
• Imaginative colors drawn from huge orchestra
• An idée fixe recurs in every movement

11
Movement Format (1)

• Related to Classical symphony format
• Middle two movements reversed
• Movements IV V unprecedented
• I Fast tempo, sonata form, slow intro
• II Moderate tempo, triple meter dance
• Waltz instead of minuet or scherzo
• III The slow movement
• IV Moderate tempo a march
• V Fast tempo, free form follows the story

12
Idée Fixe (1)

• Fixed idea a term popular in medical literature
  of the day
• Here it is a theme that represents the composers
  beloved (Harriet Smithson)
• Starts as a passionate, Romantic melody

13
Idée Fixe (2)

• It recurs in all five movements
• Symbolizes each appearance of the beloved
• Transformed into a raucous parody at the witches
  sabbath in the 5th movement

14
The Program

• Program of the Symphony
• A young musician of unhealthy sensibility and
  passionate imagination poisons himself with opium
  in a fit of lovesick despair. Too weak to kill
  him, the dose of the drug plunges him into a
  heavy sleep attended by the strangest visions,
  during which his sensations, emotions, and
  memories are transformed in his diseased mind
  into musical thoughts and images. Even the woman
  he loves becomes a melody to him, an idée fixe,
  as it were, that he finds and hears everywhere.

15
The Program I

• 1st movement Reveries, Passions
• First he recalls the soul-sickness, the aimless
  passions, the baseless depressions and elations
  that he felt before first seeing his loved one
  then the volcanic love that she instantly
  inspired in him his jealous furies his return
  to tenderness his religious consolations.

16
The Program II

• 2nd movement A Ball
• He encounters his beloved at a ball, in the midst
  of a noisy, brilliant party.

17
The Program III

• 3rd movement Scene in the Country
• On a summer evening in the country, he hears two
  shepherds piping in dialogue. The pastoral duet,
  the location, the light rustling of trees stirred
  gently by the wind, some newly conceived grounds
  for hope all this gives him a feeling of
  unaccustomed calm. But she appears again what
  if she is deceiving him?

18
The Program IV

• 4th movement March to the Scaffold
• He dreams he has killed his beloved, that he is
  condemned to death and led to execution. A march
  accompanies the procession, now gloomy and wild,
  now brilliant and grand. Finally the idée fixe
  appears for a moment, to be cut off by the fall
  of the axe.

19
The Program V

• Finale Dream of a Witches Sabbath
• He finds himself at a Witches Sabbath
  Unearthly sounds, groans, shrieks of laughter,
  distant cries echoed by other cries. The
  beloveds melody is heard, but it has lost its
  character of nobility and timidity. It is she who
  comes to the Sabbath! At her arrival, a roar of
  joy. She joins in the devilish orgies. A funeral
  knell burlesque of the Dies irae.

20
Fourth MovementMarch to the Scaffold

• Exciting, riotous march to the guillotine
• Unusual form uses two main themes
• Doesnt use usual MarchTrioMarch format
• Theme 1 a gloomy, wild downward scale
• Theme 2 a grand, blaring military march
• Many unusual tone colors used
• Coda uses opening motive of idée fixe
• The condemned composers final thought
• Cut short by the fall of the axe!

21
Fifth Movement (1) Dream of a Witches Sabbath

• The most audacious movement yet
• Depicts a Witches Sabbath
• Orchestral sound effects reign supreme
• Idée fixe now treated as vulgar parody
• On piccolo clarinet with carnival ornaments
• His beloved is the guest of honor!

22
Fifth Movement (2) Dream of a Witches Sabbath

• Composers funeral occurs simultaneously
• Solemn Dies irae chant ridiculed by witches

23
Fifth Movement (3) Dream of a Witches Sabbath

• Raucous Witches Round Dance is a fugue
• Round Dance Dies irae combine at climax

24
Conclusions

• Typical early Romantic grandiose work
• Program symphony for large orchestra
• Blurs the lines between music, literature,
  theater, autobiography
• Cyclic work, unified by idée fixe
• Fascination with supernatural, macabre
• New orchestral colors, expressive effects
• The often unusual forms follow the story
• Only 39 years after Haydns Symphony 95!