Music theory #5

industrial Revoulution

widespread use of the steam engine, invention of the telegraph and telephone, and lightbulb

american civil war

american civil war

The Napoleonic War

american civil war

Louis Pasteur's

work in pasteurization and vaccines

Charles Darwin's

On the origin of species

Music Passion and individualism

-French Revolution; Bourgeois society

-"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"

-Sympathy for the oppressed

-works of art centered around peasants, workers, children, and faith in humankind and its destiny

Bohemian Artist

rejected dreamer

Industrial Revolution

resulted in a rise in affordable, quality instruments

Music and Passion and Individualism

-a rise in new music conservatories in Europe and the Americas

-Orchestras increased in size

-Music moved from palace and church to concert hall

-new levels of expression

-art of orchestration

-Vocabulary of expressive terms increased

Nationalism

national idioms were created as composers used their native folk songs and dances

Exoticism

a musical stylle which used rhythms, melodies, or instruments to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands

Romantic Style Trait

-memorable melodies lyricism

-make instruments "sing"

-expressive harmony; chromaticism, and dissonance

-expanded forms; composers wrote with more deliberation

-longer symphonies

Musician in Society

-rise of virtuoso soloist

-Musicians reliant on middle-class and aristocracy for support

-musicians and audience as equals

-Soloists and conductors idolized; Feliz Mendelssohn and Niccolo Paganini

Women in Music

-woman were able to have careers in music as performers, teachers, composers, singers, and instrumentalists

-the field was dominated by men, but a few became truly successful; Fanny Mendelssohn and Ciara Schumann

Women as patrons of Music

-Several woman were also able to play significant roles as patrons of music

-Auroro Dudevant (aka george Sand) - Chopin

-Nadezhda von Meck - Tchalkovsky

-Princess Garolyne Sayn-Wingenstein - Liszt

Strophic Form

the same melody repeated in each stanza, or strophe of poem or text

Through-composed form

no repetitions or whole sections; music follows story line

Lied

Lied: German art song (plural, lieder)

-german text

-for solo voice and piano accompaniment

-a fusion of poetry and music

-Song cycle

-conveys the feeling of love and the beauty of nature

-inspired by Romantic poets: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe & Heinrich Heine

Song cycle

a group of lieder unified by story line

Franz Schubert

-Viennese composer

-socially shy, gifted songwriter

-"schubertiads" - concerts for new works

-600-plus songs

-total output including symphonies, masses, operas approaches 900 works

-Death at 31, from syphilis

"Elfking" (Erlkonig)

-made by Franz Schubert

-poeme by Goethe

-4 characters: narrator, father, son, Elf King; one singer

-Through-composed

-Obsessive triplats in piano

Foster and Early "popular" song

-Music publucations in early america were imported from Europe and mostly devotional in nature

-Stephen Fosters

-Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Stephan Foster

Known for parlor ballads, show tunes, and platation songs

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Americas first great classica pianist and composer

Stephan Foster

-america first great song writer

-Born in Pennsylvannia, moved to Cincinnati

-Wrote "Oh Susana," "Camp Town Races," and "My Old Kentucky Home"

-Soings evoke themes of lost youth and happiness

-wrote music for minstrel shows and parlor songs

-became an alcoholic; died at the age of 37

"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair"

Made by Stephan Foster

-Foster's inspiration for "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" was his wife; written just after he separated from his wife

-tonw is bitter sweet

-Alternate title; "I Drean of Jeannie"

Chopin and Romantic Piano Music

-The rise in popularity of the piano shaped the musical culture

-Piano: home use, favorite instruments of virtuosos, technical improvements, concert grand piano

The Short Lyric Piano Piece

-"Songs without words"

-Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Robert, and Clara Schumann

-they explored the pianos technical resources, capacity for expression and relized its full potential

Frederic Chopin

-French/Polish composer and pianist

-Works centered on the piano

-Novelist George Sand (aka Aurore Dudevant); patron, multi-year affair

-Tuberculosis, dead at 39

-the artistic world mourned his loss

Mazuka in B-flat minor Op. 24, No. 4

Made by Frederic Chopin

-the marzuka originated in Chopin's home district, Mazovia, Poland

-Lively dance in triple meter with accents on second or third best of the measure

-Listen for chronmatic, disjunct, wide-ranging melodic lines

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

-Discouraged from pursuing a career in music

-was told, "the only calling for a young woman - that of housewife..."

-Performed at Sunday concerts at the Mendelssohn residence only

-Died of a stroke in 1847

September: "At the River" from the Year (Das Jahr)

Made by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

-a set of twelve-character pieces for piano

-at the river is accompanied by a drawing of a barefooted woman by the stream

-"Flow, flow, dear river, never will I be happy" - Goethe

Program music

music with literary of pictorial associations

Absolute or pure music

music patterns that have no literary of pictorial meaning

Concert overture

single-movement, not associated with an opera, but based on a literary idea

Incidental

music to be performed between acts of a play

Program symphony

multi-movement programmatic orchestral work

Hector Berlioz

-French composer and conductor

-Paris and "young France"

-studied at the Paris Conservatoire

-Influenced by Beethoven and Shakespeare

-Enamored with actress Harriet Smithson

-won the Prix de Rome

Symphonie Fantasique

Made by Hector Berlioz

-5 movements: the theme represents his beloved and undergoes transformation

I. Reverles Passions

II. A Ball

III. Scene in the Field

IV. March to the Scaffold

V. Dream of a Witches' Sabbath - dies irae

-idee fixe represents the beloved

-he killed his belove and is being brought to the scaffold to die

Grieg and Orchestral Nationalism

-Romantic composers often included the use of folk dances, reference to folklore or peasant life

-National heroes, historic events, scenic beuty of land

-Censorship: the power of nationalism and the power of symbolism

Edvard Grieg

-attended the Leipzig Conservatory

-influenced by Felix Mendelssohn, and Robert Schumann

-returned to Norway to promote Scandinavian music through an academy that he founded

-wrote symphonies, piano works, a concerto, and arrangements of Morwegian folk tunes

Peer Gynt "In the Hall of the Mountain King"

-Based on a Norwegian folk tale

-collaborated with playwright Henrik ibsen to write music for Ibsen's play, Peer Gynt

-Peer smashes mountain kings daughter, flees, and then comes back to get happily married to her

Brahms and the Nineteenth Century Symphony

-the symphont became the highest form of absolute music beginning in the classical era; it continued to develop in the romantic era

--increased orchestral size

--lyrical themes, colorful harmonies, expanded proportions

--overall structure remained but movement order varies

Johannes Brahms

-german composer

-close friends with Robert and clara Schumann

-Traditionalist; brought new life to older forms

-settled in Vienna

-died at age 64

Symphony No. 3 in F Major, third movement

Made by Johannes Brahms

-classical in form, romantic in tone

-cyclical structure

cyclical structure

themes or sections tend to return on part, or in variation in subseqent movements

Women in opera

-Not many female composers, but opera singers were the most prominent performers of the day

-Pauline Viardot

-Maria Malibran

-Jenny Lind "The Swedish Nightingale"

Gluseppe Verdi

-Italian composer, 28 operas

-patriotic, nationalistic works

-Composed successfully until age 80; died at 87

-national hero

-Verdi strove to communicate dramatic situations with profound emotion in his operas

"La Donna e Moblie," from Rigoletto

Made by Gluseppe Verdi

-Victor Hugo's, The King is Amused (Le roi s'amuse)

-Libretto by Francesco Plave

-Seduection and deceit, with a tragic end

-Popular moment from Act III: tenor aria, "La donna e moblie"

-character include: Duke, Maddelena, Gilda, and Rigoletto (jester)

Singspiel

A light or comic drama with spoken dialogue

Richard Wagner

-german composer

-created genre of music drama (thought of in Switerland)

-started in Dresden

-exile to Switerland for revolution failed

-King Ludwig II summoned him back to Germany

-Festival theater was his theater

Music drama (Gesamtkunstwerk)

a perception of opera as a total artwork - unifying all elements of music, poetry, drama, and visual spectacle

Leitmotifs "leading motives"

themes that recour throughout a work and represent a person, emotion, idea, or object in the drama, changes in the charatcers and their situations were relfected in the transformation of the themes that represented them

Chromatic dissonance

Richard Wagner used to convey an intense, emotional quality, often portraying states of the soul

Die Walküre from The Ring of the Nibelung

Made by Richard Wagner

-2nd of 4 music dramas

-based on poem Nibelungenlied

-about twins Siegmund and Sieglinde

-Valkyries bring warriors to Valhalla

-rhythm figures in 9/8

Tchaikovsky and the Ballet

Ballet has been present in the European culture since the Renaissance where it was central totheatrical entertainments associated with weddings and similar celebrations. Although balletoften appeared as a feature in opera, it rose in prominence as an independent art form in theeighteenth century.

Marius Petipa

a choreographer who created dances for more than 100 worksand invented the structure of the classic pas de deux, which is a "dance for two." Petipa broughtthe art of staging ballets to new heights

Serge Diaghilev Choreographer

his troupe Ballets Russes, based in Paris,surrounded himself with great dancers such as Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina and setsthat were worthy of their talents. He invited artists such as Picasso and Braque to paint the sets.Diaghilev also commissioned the three ballets that brought Igor Stravinsky to fame: TheFirebird, Petrushka and Rite of Spring

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

-Russian composer

-left law for music

-struggled wiht sexual identity resulting in a bad marriage to student Antonina Milyukova

-patron was Nadezhda von Meck, with condition the they never meet

-wrote 3 ballets that became the standard works of russian repertory: Swan Lake; Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, from The Nutcracker

Made by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

-based on tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann and expanded verison by Alexandre Dumas

-choreography by Marius Petipa

-staccato melody

-tempo employs accelerando

-A-B-A form

Symbolism

the literary movement that complements Impressionist painting and music. ThisSymbolist style is represented by poets who were equally interested in the sound of a word, aswell as its meaning. Leading Symbolist writers include Frenchmen Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1848) who created the famous poem "The Afternoon of aFaun."

Impressionism in music

characterized by technical innovation, mirroring that used in painting and literature. Techniques include usage of modal and exotic scales, frequent unresolved dissonance, parallel chords, colorful orchestration, and free rhythm. Impressionists turned away from large forms and preferred short lyric forms, such as preludes, nocturnes, and arabesques.

Continuation of Romantic tendencies:

1. Love of beautiful sound

2. Emphasis on program music, tone painting, nature worship

3. Highly lyrical

4. Attempt to unite music, painting, and poetry

5. Emphasis on mood and atmosphere

Claude Debussy

-French Composer

-important to impressionist music

-at 22 won the Prix de Rome

-Pelléas and Mélisande opera: symbolist drama & one of his great achievements

-most notable works: The Sea (Lamer) & Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun."

-piano work: Clair de lune, Evening in Granada, Reflections in the Water, and The Sunken Cathedral.

Prelude to "The Afternoon of a Faun"

Made by Claude Debussy

-based on Symbolist poem by Mallarme

-paints the pastoral story of a Faun

-three part form and chromatic melody

Symphonic poem (tone poem)

one-movement work for orchestra in which contrasting sections develop a poetic idea, suggest a scene, or create a mood. It differs from the concert overture in its flexility in structure and form

Elfking

Made by Schubert

-a lot of tapping on the piano

-only piano and singer

-"my father, my father"

Jeanine with the Light Brown Hair

Made by Foster

-in english

-sorrowful

-opera singing

-soft piano

-piano and singing only

Mazurka in B-flat Minor

Made by Chopin

-piano only

-playful sad mood

September: At the River from Das Jahr

Made by Hensel

-piano only

-dramatic sad

-up and down counter melody

Symphonie Fantastique IV

Made by Berlioz

-full band

-dramatic and marching

-escalating

In the Hall of the Mountain King, from Peer Gynt

Made by Grieg

-mischievous sound

-slow escalating

-sounds like a cartoon

Symphony No. 3

Made by Brahms

-full orchestra

-sad and sorrowful

-slow-ish

-morrowful

La Donna e Mobile, from Rigoletto

Made by Verdi

-playful

-opera singing

-long notes

Die Walkure (The Valkyrie)

Made by Wagner

-triumphant

-multiple singers

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, from the Nutcracker

Made by Tchaikovsky

-xylophone

-nutcracker

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun

Made by Debussy

-soft and soothing

-full band

-building up then quickly goes back down

Impressionist and Post-impressionist music

-distinguished by using modal and exotic scales

-unresolved dissonances

-rich orchestral tone colors