The World of Music 7th edition

1
The World of Music7th edition

• Part 4
• Listening to Western Classical Music
• Chapter 12 Music of the Romantic Period
• (Nineteenth Century)

2
Attributes of the Romantic Period

• Revolution(s)
• (French Revolution 1789-1799)
• Latin American separations 1810)
• Capitalism
• Because of the end of the Aristocracies
• Emotion
• Especially in Art Music
• Imagination
• A Desire to be Different
• Nationalism
• Individual national sovereignty and the
  distinctions between countries and their art
  music

3
Changes in Musical Life

• Patronage System in Decline
• Accelerated due the rise of capitalism
• Composers must promote themselves and their music
• Creates need for
• Concert Managers (a.k.a. Impresarios)
• Music Publishers
• Music Critics
• Virtuosi (plural of Virtuoso) become Celebrities
• Most Music is too difficult for Amateurs
• Creates need for Teachers
• Virtuoso A person who excels in their chosen
  art and musical form. They can be performers,
  conductors, or composers.

4
Absolute and Program Music

• Absolute
• Classical in form
• Retains Classical formats but experimented with
  different sounds and combinations of instruments
• Music for its own Sake
• No Intended Imagery
• Characteristic of
• Sonata
• Symphony
• Concerto

• Program
• Composers went to greater lengths than in the
  Classical period to express these feelings, etc.
  without words.
• Depicts
• Moods
• Images
• Stories
• Characters
• Reflects Interest in Poetry and Unity in words
  and music
• Became the prevailing/favored style

5
Nationalistic Music

• Is definable by national, regional, or geographic
  characteristics
• Uses Folk music melodies
• Used in Folk/Cultural traditions
• Parodies of Historical events, tales, or legends
  of a Nation
• Patriotic themes and glorification of a nation
  and its people
• Emerged as a reaction to the dominance of German
  Romanticism in Europe typically Eastern
  European in location
• Major Composers include
• Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Russian)
• Antonin Dvorak (Czechoslovakia Currently the
  Czech Republic and Slovakia (1993))
• Bedrich Smetana (Czech as well)

6
Characteristics of Romantic Music

• Mostly Programmatic
• But composers also wrote Absolute music
• Lyrical, Singable Melodies
• Along with Folk melodies or melodies that sounded
  Folk-like
• Mainly Homophonic
• An increase in Chromaticism and Dissonance
• This increased musical tension and thus the
  perceived emotion in the music
• Emotional
• Strong contrasts
• Unexpected chords and chordal progressions
• Long buildups of emotions and their release of
  tensions

7
Characteristics of Romantic Music Continued

• Complex Rhythms
• Syncopated
• Polyrhythms
• Less regular
• More complex
• Varied Tempos (Tempi) and varied the tempo in the
  music
• Rubato, Accelerando, Ritardando
• Bigger and varied Orchestras
• Due to the Industrial Revolution
• Tuba
• Wagner Tuba / Euphonium
• Adolph Sax and the Saxophone
• Bass Clarinet
• Contra-bassoon
• Percussion beyond the Crash Cymbal, Tympani,
  Glockenspiel, Snare and Bass Drums of the
  Classical period

8
Forms of the Romantic Period

• Sonata Form common, but less strict and often
  expanded in length, and developmentation (sp?)
• Vague cadences to promote forward motion and
  continuation
• Symphonic Poem
• One movement (Typically with contrasting
  moods/sections)
• Programmatic
• Stage Forms
• Overture (used to precede a Ballet or Opera)
• Prelude (preceded another work, but was expended
  in the Romantic Period into a stand alone work)
• Suite (Individual sections plucked from an Opera
  or Ballet and combined and then combined into one
  work)
• Incidental Music (typically music from Opera or
  Ballet, but instead of the actual songs/features,
  these are the in between music and then combined
  into one work)
• Many Different Chamber Groups other than the
  String Quartet and Piano Trios
• Mainly the WW Quintet (Fl, Ob, Cl, Hn, and Bsn)
  and String sextet (typically 2 violins, 2 violas,
  and 2 Celli (Cello plural))

9
Opera in the Romantic Period

• Grand Opera
• Large Number of singers
• Elaborate Scenery and Stage craft
• Serious and Complex plots
• Visual Diversions including Ballet
• Comic Opera (Opera Comique) and Operettas
• Smaller
• Lighter
• Less Complex
• Often Satirical of common situations
• Spoken dialoque
• Vocal Parts
• Chorus Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass (Can be in
  multiple parts e.g. Soprano 1 and 2, Alto 1 2,
  etc)
• Soloists
• Women Coloratura, Lyric, or Dramatic Sopranos
  and Contraltos
• Men Dramatic, or Lyric Tenors, Baritones, and
  Basso Profundos (Castrati are no longer
  appropriate)
• Composers
• Verdi (Italian)
• Wagner (German)

10
Ballet

• Originally Part of Opera
• Features Dancing
• Solo
• Ensemble
• Famous Tchaikovsky Ballets
• Sleeping Beauty
• Swan Lake
• The Nutcracker

11
Keyboard Music

• New Miniature Forms
• Character Pieces
• Solo (Voice) Song with Piano
• Expressive
• Lyrical and Dramatic
• Technically Demanding

• Chopin Miniature Forms
• Impromptu
• Nocturne
• Mazurka
• Polonaise
• Prelude
• Waltz
• Étude

12
Songs

• Solo Voice with Piano
• All categories of Voice (Soprano, Alto, Tenor,
  Bass)
• Usually Short
• Big and Best Composer Franz Schubert
• Wrote over 600 Songs (Lied Leed singular or
  Lieder Leeder plural)
• Frequently used words of German Poets (ex.
  Goethe)
• Highly Expressive
• Often Strophic (Same Music, Different Verses)
• But can be symbolic of the mood portrayed and the
  music can change
• All languages, not just Italian or German

13
Female Composers of the day

• Clara Schumann
• Married Robert Schumann
• Pianist, Composer, Teacher
• Mostly Songs, and Piano music, but also Choral,
  chamber music and 1 Piano Concerto
• Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
• Felixs Sister
• Pianist, Composer
• Mostly Songs and Piano works

14
Johannes Brahms (1833 1897)

• German, moved to Austria
• Traditionalist in contrast to musical
  revolutionaries like Wagner and the German School
• Traits of his Music
• Passionate
• Introspective
• Rich/Dark
• Lyrical
• Complex Rhythms
• Intricate Polyphony
• Mostly Absolute

• Output
• 4 Symphonies
• 1 Violin Concerto
• 2 Piano Concertos
• Chamber Music
• Sonatas
• Piano
• Cello
• Violin
• Clarinet
• German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem )
• Titled for the language used instead of the
  intended audience at the time
• The work emphasizes comforting the living,
  beginning with the text "Blessed are they that
  mourn for they shall be comforted." A comparable
  sacred, humanist worldview persists through the
  work. A notable omission of Christian dogmas is
  often a critical remark

15
Frédéric Chopin (1810 1849)

• Polish born and educated
• Professional life in Paris (France)
• Pianist
• Preferred smaller audiences of the Aristocracy
  and monetarily gifted folks
• Unique Compositional Style
• Elaborate Decorative Melodies
• Colorful, Dissonant Harmonies
• Extreme Rubato

• Output
• Many Miniatures
• Impromptu
• Nocturne
• Mazurka
• Polonaise
• Prelude
• Waltz
• Étude
• 3 Piano Sonatas
• 2 Piano Concertos

16
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 1847)

• German
• Wealthy Family
• Silver Spoon Had his own Orchestra to perform
  his works as they are composed
• Widely Traveled
• Traditional, Classical Style - In form and
  structure
• Romantic in Emotional Expression in melodic
  material

• Well-Known Pieces
• Scotch Symphony
• Italian Symphony
• Elijah Oratorio
• Violin Concerto in E Minor
• Hebrides Overture
• Midsummer Nights Dream Incidental Music

17
Franz Schubert (1797 1828)

• Prolific Song Composer
• 143 works before his 19th birthday, wrote 179
  works the next year
• Struggled with poverty and illness
• Had no major, continuous patron or
  teaching/performing position/job
• Style
• Great variety
• Lyrical melodies
• Colorful harmonies
• Great sensitivity to poetic texts
• Another child prodigy that died early in life.
  What if

• Output
• 600 Lieder
• Wide range of feelings
• The Erlking
• Who is Sylvia
• 2 Song Cycles
• A song cycle is a set of songs with a unifying
  factor or theme
• 9 Symphonies
• Another example of the curse of 9
• 22 Piano Sonatas
• Piano Miniatures
• Chamber Pieces
• Trout piano quintet
• Choral Works
• Mass in G (Major)

18
Pyotr Iyich Tchaikovsky (1840 1893)aka Peter
Ilyich Tchaikowski

• Russian Nationalist
• Used his position at the St. Petersburg
  Conservatory to study the Western Style to apply
  to Russian Musical concepts and Melodic material
• Influences
• Russian Folk Songs
• Italian Opera
• French Ballet
• German Symphonies/Songs
• Style
• Tuneful
• Accessible
• Emotional

• Output
• 6 Symphonies
• Concertos
• Violin
• Piano
• Ballets (choreographed by others than
  Tchaikovsky)
• Swan Lake
• Sleeping Beauty
• The Nutcracker
• Suites from the above Ballets are popular Concert
  music today

19
Guiseppe Verdi (1813 1901)

• Italian
• Steady Job AND a wealthy Patron of his work
  (unusual for the time)
• Known for Opera
• Unhappy
• Tragic Endings
• Use Heroes and Villians to portray the plot and
  characters
• Full of conflict and tension
• Invited to open Carnegie Hall in 1891
• Style
• Conventional Harmonies
• Predictable Rhythms
• Superb Melodies
• Theatrical

• Representative Works other than Opera
• Choral
• Te Deum
• Requiem

20
Verdi continued

• Representative Operatic Works
• Rigoletto
• In the 1550s, Mantua, the Duke, a celebrated
  ladies man, seduces Gilda, the beautiful daughter
  of his sharp-tongued jester, Rigoletto. Vowing
  revenge, her furious father hires Sparafucile, a
  notorious assassin, to avenge his familys honor
  - a decision that ends in tragedy.
• La Traviata
• A story of doomed love in 1840s Paris. Violetta,
  who is the mistress of a wealthy baron, hosts a
  lavish party to celebrate her improved health
  after a bout with tuberculosis. There she meets
  Alfredo and becomes smitten with him as he, she,
  and the guests join in the famous "Drinking
  Song." Violetta leaves the baron, and she and
  Alfredo move into a secluded country villa
  together, where they live happily for a while.
  But unknown to Alfredo, his father convinces
  Violetta that continuing her relationship with
  Alfredo will prevent Alfredo's sister from making
  a good marriage. With great sadness, Violetta
  decides that she must not only break permanently
  with Alfredo, she must keep him at a distance by
  returning to the baron. Misunderstanding her
  motives, Alfredo goes into a jealous rage that
  leads to tragic consequences
• Aida
• Aida, an Ethiopian princess, is captured and
  brought into slavery in Egypt. A military
  commander, Radames, struggles to choose between
  his love for her and his loyalty to the Pharaoh.
  To complicate the story further, Radames is loved
  by the Pharaoh's daughter Amneris, although he
  does not return her feelings.
• La Forza del Destino
• An opera that can leave even diehard Verdi lovers
  shaking their heads. Its story can be as
  confounding as the music is compelling, with a
  plot in which a single, unfortunate happenstance
  drives characters to lifetimes of
  incomprehensible behavior. There's one character
  who travels the world, braving war and
  desolation, in an obsessive quest to murder his
  own sister.
• The above program synopsiss are not mine, but
  borrowed from many sources

21
Richard Wagner (1813 1883)

• German
• Self taught
• Revolutionary
• Had to flee Germany because of his participation
  and support of the uprising and subsequent events
• His Music Drama (Operas) had equal portions of
• Music
• Drama
• Poetry
• Stagecraft
• Bayreuth was created just for Wagners operas
• His work is uses Dissonances, Chromaticism, vague
  cadences, and unresolved tensions
• Powerful Brass writing (Ride of the Valkyries
  Elmer Fudds Kill da Wabbit)

• Style
• Symphonic
• Strong Brass
• Leitmotiv
• Colorful
• Wrote own Libretti
• Music Dramas
• The Ring of the Nibelung
• Took 20 years to complete and is designed to be
  performed over 4 consecutive evenings
• Das Rhinegold
• Die Walkure
• Kill da Wabbit!
• Siegfried
• Gotterdammerung
• Swimming Rhinemaidens
• Tristan and Isolde
• Recenty (2006) a non-operatic movie

22
Other Romantic Composers

• Hector Berlioz
• France
• Symphony Fantastique (Programatic)
• Antonin Dvor?ák
• Czechoslovakia
• Edvard Grieg
• Norway
• Franz Liszt
• Hungary
• Pianist
• Gustav Mahler
• Austria
• Symphony of 1000 (No. 8)
• 850 Choir 171 Inst.
• Another curse of the 9th (omitted)
• Giacomo Puccini
• Italy
• Opera
• Sergei Rachmaninoff

• Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov
• Russian
• Part of the Mighty Five Nationalistic writing
• Gioachino Rossini
• Italian
• Opera (Serious and Comic Barber of Seville
  (Bugs) and William Tell (Lone Ranger theme))
• Robert Schumann
• German
• Mostly piano
• Bedr?ich Smetana
• Czechoslovakia
• Folk / Nationalistic flavors
• Richard Strauss
• German
• Operas and Tone Poems (Also Sprach Zarathustra -
  2001-Space Odyssey)
• Not related to the Austrian Composer of Waltzes,
  Johann Strauss
• Was R. Strauss a Nazi?? (18641949)