romantic period music

Lizst

• lived to 74

• Born in Hungary, a 19th century rock star in Paris

• invented the term “recital”

• invented the symphonic poem

• thematic transformation

• opposite of chopin, loved crowds

Paganini

• virtuoso violinist

Dvorak

• church composer

• encouraged american composers to stop trying to copy european composers (nationalism)

• director of the National Conservatory of Music in NYC

• Symphony #9: “From the New World”

Wagner

• “The single most important phenomenon in the artistic life of the later 19th Century."

• controversial figure

• good friends with Liszt (married his daughter - weird)

• not an instrumentalist himself

• music drama
  - The Ring of the Nibelungs (The Ring Cycle)
  - Das Rheingold
  - Die Walkure
  - Siegfried
  - Götterdämmerung

• Bayreuth
  - unending melody
  - Gesamtkunstwerk - "complete or total art work"
  - leitmotif - "leading motive"

Music Drama

Wagner’s works, emphasizing the close relationship in them between music and drama (called this instead of operas)

Bayreuth

The site of the opera house built to Wagner's specifications, where an annual festival of his music is still presented today

The Ring of the Nibelung

• written by Richard Wagner

• a set of four pieces based on Nordic mythology

• - Das Rheingold

• - Die Walkure

• - Siegfried

• - Götterdämmerung

• took from 1848 to 1874 to write (about 25 years)

Leitmotif

a short musical associated with a person, object, or thought in a drama

Unending melody

a continuous musical flow in Wagner’s musical dramas

Tchaikovsky

• more famous than the “Russian Five” combined

• mostly wrote European style music rather than Russian nationalistic music

• 7 symphonies

• 8 operas

• 3 ballets

-swan lake

-the nutcraker

-sleeping beauty

• chamber music, concertos, etc

• killed himself because boys pressured him to for being gay

Swan Lake

ballet written by Tchaikovsky

The Nutcraker

ballet written by Tchaikovsky

Sleeping Beauty

ballet written by Tchaikovsky

Which instrument the composers played

Shubert: organ

Berlioz: typani

Schumann: piano

Tchaikovsky: piano

Wagner: piano

Dvorak: pianooo

Liszt: piano

Paganini: violin

Chopin: piano

Verdi: piano

Brahms: piano

Puccini: piano

Art song

a composition written for solo voice and piano

Lied

a German art song (Lieder)

Through-Composed

vocal form in which there is new music for each stanza of the poem

Tone poem/ Symphonic poem

programmatic composition for orchestra in one movement, may have a traditional form (sonata or rhondo) or an original, irregular form

Strophic

vocal form in which the same music is repeated for each stanza of the poem

Concert overture 

short musical composition that opens the opera, sets the overall 

Program symphony

symphony related to a story, idea, or scene

Program Music

instrumental music associated with a story, poem, idea, or scene

Absolute music

instrumental music with no intended association with a story, poem, idea, scene; nonprogram music

Berlioz

• parents wanted him to be a doctor

• known for his inventive orchestra

• wrote mostly orchestral music

• Fantastic Symphony

• thematic transformation

Fantastic symphony

• written by Berlioz

• song about dreams and fantasies

• Idée fixe

Idée fixe

a single melody “fixed idea”, used to represent the beloved in fantastic symphony, appears in all 5 movements

Harriet Smithson

Schumann (Robert and Clara)

• robert and clara were an excellent composer-player duo

• robert wrote songs for clara to play bc he lost 2 fingers

• mental illness, multiple personalities, auditory hallucinations, spent last two years of his life in an asylum

• clara was a virtuoso pianist and composer

• famous pieces: carnaval

Mendelssohn

• died from stroke at 38

• classist trend (traditionalist)

• responsible for reviving bach’s music 80 years after his death

• 4 symphonies

• incidental music

• violin concerto in E minor

• elijan (oratorio)

Incidental music

Music designed to be inserted before, during and between the acts of a play

Chopin

• “poet of the piano”

• died at 39 of TB

• polish, lived in paris

• relationship with Aurora Dudeuant (wore pantsuits, smoked cigars, went by a male name, George Sand), wrote his best stuff with her

• polish dance pieces: polanaise, mazurkan (nationalism)

• etude (study peice)

• “nocturne” nightime peice

• nocturne in E flat majot Op. 9 No. 2

Polonaise and Mazurka

polish dance pieces by Chopin, reflected nationalism

Etude

a study piece composed by a tutor to focus on a certain technique, played and composed by Chopin

Nocturne

night time piece, composed by Chopin

• E flat major Op. No. 2

Verdi

• king of italian opera

• wrote almost all operas (28)

• raquiem

• rigoletto, la traviata, macbeth, aida, otello, falstaff, nabucco

• milan- open house La scala

• sat in parlament

• nationism/patriotism

• composed falstaff at 80 years old

Rigoletto

opera by Verdi

La donna e mobile

famous aria in Rigolletto by Verdi

Rubato

slight holding back or pressing forward of tempo to intensify the expression of the music

Brahms

• classicalist/traditionalist

• slightly conservative

• absolute music (hated progressive)

• helped clara schumann with kids after robert went to asylum

• revived beetoven’s music (brahms 1st= beetoven’s 10th)

• 4 symphonies, concertos, chamber music, concert overtures, choral works (“A German Requiem”)

Puccini

La Boheme, Turandot, Madama Butterfly, Tosca
"Che gelida manina" (from "La Boheme")
"Nessun dorma" (from Turandot

Brahms helped clara schumann with kids after robert went to asylum

Brahms & Schumanns

Nationalism

pride for ones country

Exoticism

pride for someone else’s country

Schubert

• 61 songs, only lived to 31

• 9 symphonies

• many operas

• continues “veinnase school”

• had great respect for beetoven, visited him when sick

• shubertians: in-home music, all shubert’s music

• “The Erlking”

The Erlking

piece by Schubert about a man who is trying to save his son from the angel of death

Dies irae

The liturgical melody quoted in the last movement of Berlioz's "Fantastic Symphony."

Schumann

Which composer suffered from mental illness

Beetoven

Which Classical composer’s legacy was intimidating to some Romantic composers?

Wagner

Who wrote the librettos to Wagner’s Ring Cycle?

Bach

Mendelssohn revived interest in which composer’s music

The angel of death

Who or what is the Erlking (the character)?

Most middle-class homes had a piano.

yep

Romantic Period dates

1820-1900

good to know

Chopin’s personality was shy and reserved, unlike his friend Liszt

imaginative orchestration

Berlioz was extremely imaginative in creating new tone colors in a technique called

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven...Schubert, Brahms, Mahler

Vienna...