Music History

When was the Romantic Period?

1825-1910

The French Revolution

• Transfer of power from aristocracy to middle class

• Position of middle class depended on industry and commerce of the Industrial Revolution

• Characteristic of concentrating on the individual allowed the period to be called “Romantic”

Classical Era

Inspiration in the art of ancient Greece

Romantic Era

Discovered the “Dark Ages”

What did the term “romantic” mean when it was first used?

The legendary and imaginary that contrasted with the actual world of the present

Romanticism

• Used to transcent the immediate time and to sieze eternity

• Cherishes freedom, movement, passion, adn the endless pursuit of the unattainable

• Because this goal can never be attained, romantic art is haunted by a feeling of longing after the impossible fulfillment

The Middle Class during the Romantic Period

• Gained power and confidence; wealth of many countries distributed through trade and marketing

• Industrial revolution caused large scale production, created more jobs, improved life style for many, made tickets to cultural events more affordable

The Change of Music During the Romantic Period

Composers supported by the wealthy began to have their work heard in public halls

• New audience didn’t have a good understanding of performing arts

• Composers and artists tried to create works that people could understand and enjoy

What were some themes that everyone could appreciate and enjoy?

Themes of nature or human emotions.

What was the result of the loss of patronage system and small cultured audiences?

A new type of artist emerged

• Composers were freed from restraints of court life but were lonely.

• Composing for personal expression was ‘risky’ as it may not be received by the new middle class audiences

• Brought forth the artist as the rejected ‘Dreamer’ who was starved in an attic

• Shocked the rest of the world with strange dress and behaviour

Nationalism

Spirit of nationalism expressed in music; Tchaikovsky in Russia, Dvorak in Czechoslovakie, Grieg in Norway, etc.

Folk songs and dances that were native to a country were considered to be the expression of a nationalist soul

Symphonic poems and opeas celebrated a national hero, an historical event, or the scenic beauty of the country

Examples of music based off of Polish folk dance

Chopin’s Mazurkas and Polonaises

Tchaikovsky’s Overture 1812 Depiction

Defeat of the French army at the gates of Moscow

Wagner’s The Ring of Nibelung Depiction

Glorify the heroes of German myth

Verdi’s Operas Depiction

Italy striving for unification

Exoticism

Composers weren’t limited to the idioms of their native music and exoticism was also strongly encouraged in the romantic era.

Eokes the picturesque atmosphere and colour of far-off lands.

• Northern composers longing for the warmth and colour of the South

• Glamour of the East

Examples of Exoticism

• Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol

• Bizet’s Carmen

• Massanet’s Thais (Greek)

• Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (Japan) and Turandot (Persian)

The Piano

Piano-forte invented during Baroque period but grew in popularity and became a favorite solo instrument in public concerts during the Romantic era

Previously confined largely to private salons of the wealthy, virtuosic pianos now began to appear before a larger public.

The piano became a familiar piece of furniture in middle and upper class homes

Frederic Chopin

1810-1849

Compositions almost exclusively for piano

Born in Poland and lived in Paris from 1831; was very loyal to Poland

Chopin - Polonaise in Ab Major

Polish Dance that blazes with the heroic spirit of his native land

Advanced technique

Large chords, difficult trills, glissando passages, very fast left hand octaves, etc.

Wide dynamic range, chromatic harmonies (harmonies that move in semitones), unusual rhythms, etc.

Robbed time - use of right hand to push or hold back with the phrase while the left hand keeps strict time

Tempo Rubato

Robbed time

Orchestral Music

Orchestras had as many as 100 musician (as opposed to 40-60 from previous era)

Composers/Conductors held a baton instead of first violinist conducting from their place.

Larger brass and woodwin sections; horns and trumpets were used more with the invention of valves in the early 19th century which allowed them to play more notes. Woodwinds had an extended range of pitch and dynamics

Orchestration

Sound, bleding, and combining of different instruments

First textbook on Orchestration

1844, Hector Berlioz, Treatise on Instrumentation and Orchestration

Program Music

Music drama without words during the performance; the audience is given a program that would provide a description of the situation for each movement of the symphone

Hector Berlioz

1803-1869

Born in France and began studies to become a doctor.

1830 fell in love with Harriet Smithson, but both families were opposed to marriage. Berlioz attempted suicide but was revived and the couple later married.

Same year he wrote the Symphony Fantastique, based on his own life and attempted suicide

Also an example of program music - new form created by Berlioz!

Opera Examples

Carmen - Bizet, Aida - Verdi

Carmen - Bizet

Bizet - 1838-1875

Landmark in French opera history.

Spanish setting and musical atmosphere - exoticism

Story of a passionate Gypsy and her band of smugglers wan’t respected by first audience in Paris of 1975.

Bizet was dissapointed by its reception and died of heart attaclk three months after its premiere at the age of 37.

Three years later it was received worldwide and today it’s one of the best loved work in opera

Aida - Verdi

1813-1901

Guiseppe Verdi dominated Italian opera scene and was uncompromising to nationalism; his name itself is a patriotic symbol

Vittorio Emnuele Re D’Italia (Long Live Victor Emmanual King of Italy); Viva VERDI!

The Contemporary Period

1910-Present

The beginngin of the 20th century had lots of social unrest and international tension that resulted in WWI

A new musical language began based on the idea that the major/minor tonal system had outlived its usefulness

Impressionism in Art

Painters discarded Romantic tradition and wanted to retain the freshness of a first impression.

Painted everyday things where outlines shimmer and an iridescent sheen bathes the painting; focused on light instead of people

Poets strived to suggest rather then describe

Impressionism in Music

Debussy was the first to compose in the Impressionist style

• Musical language inclulded Medieval modes and intervals like fourths, fifths, and octaves in parallel motion

• Valued dissonance without the need to resolve to consonance

• Accepted tone combinations that had been previously thought inadmissible

Utilized the whole tone scale (C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C)

• Eliminated drive and direction found in major/minor scales and gave the music a fluid quality

• Furthered the disintegration of the tonal system

Deux Arabesques - Debussy

Pentatonic right-hand movement

More free form rhythm and less driving beat

Harp like undercurrent - triplets against eights notes in the left hand

Use of rubato

Polytonality

Music that uses two tonal centers at the same time; allows for tension to arise between the clash of two keys

Atonal Music

Music with no tonal center/home key

Serial Music

Developed by Schoenberg.

Combinations of the twelve tones in the chromatic scale set in a fixed order known as a row. Because no tone is more important than any other, no tone may be repeated before the completion of the row.

Example of Serial Music

Schoenberg’s Violing Concerto Opus 36 1st Movement

Igor Stravinsky

1882-1971.

Born near Leningrad in Russia.

Best known 20th century composer as he moved through several phases and worked in different styles.

Switched to composing at the age of 20 from law and worked with the great composer Rimsky-Korsakov (Flight of the Bumblebee)

Stravinsky in the Neoclassic Period

1920-1950.

Composers sought to escape from Romanticism by returning to abstract Baroque and Classical forms. Re-establishes clear textures and pan-dialogue harmony (using all notes of a major scale freely)

Stravinsky in the Serial Period

1952-Current

Style of writing was invented by Schoenberg. Stravinsky adapted Schoenberg’s technique and created many works in serialism

Stravinsky Famous Works

Commissioned by French Ballet instructor Serge Diaghillev and wrote “The Firebird”, “Petrushka”, and “The Rite of Spring”

The Rite of String

First performed in Paris in 1913

Stravinsky created a new style called '“Primitivism”

Used special woodwind sounds

Used a large variety of percussion instrument

Used violin for special effects, using the wood of the bow (col legno)

Stravinsky was interested in greating grating percussive effects by using pounding rhythms that kept repeating

Used polytonality

The Rite of Spring Plot

Also called “Scenes of Pagan Russia”

Primitive story of the sacrifice of a youth in a pagan ritual in order to ensure the survival of the rest of the tribe with a good harvest.

‘The Adoration of the Earth’

• Describe the birth of spring. Bassoon repeats a narrow range of melody in fragments creating a primitive character

‘Dance of the Adolescents’

• Strings part starts with primitive percussive pounding with dyssonany polytonal harmonies

• Eight horns syncopate chords and ostinato figure repeated hypnotically

• Theme emerges from bassoons and is repeated by horns

  • Characteristic of Russian school os composers in repeating folk melodies

R. Murray Schafer

1933-Present

Soundscape artist and graphic score practitioner.

Work: Epitaph for Moonlight

Steve Reich

1936-Present

NYC-based minimalist composer; Clapping Music

John Cage

1912-1992

American avant-garde composer (4’33” of silence)

Slavery Impact on Jazz

1700s.

African tribes brought to American in chains and their powerful rhythms and percussion influenced American music.
Slave work songs were created in the African tradition of call-and-response; the song leader would call out a line and the workers would respond to the call.

• Slaveholders didn’t allow the slaves to speak to each other so they could only communicate and send secret messages through song and lyrics

Sang soulful songs called “spirituals” which express religious beliefs, feelings and desire for freedom

Spirituals and work songs are the foundation of the American art form known as jazz

Most famous examples of Spirituals

Swing Low Sweet Charriot - references the underground railway

Blues

Emerged in the early 1890s

A musical style which evolved from southern African-American secular rhythms

Syncopated 4/4 rhythm, flatted thirds and sevenths, and a 12-bar structure

Immigration during the Jazz Period

Occured in the mid to late 1800s; America was seen as the “land of opportunity” so many Europeans immigrated to American cities seeking fortune

French quadriles, Spanish flamenco, irish kigs, German waltzes etc. arrived to the US and influenced music

Scott Joplin

African American composer who combined European composition style with rhythmic and melodic music from the African community

Essentially created Ragtime

• To “Rag” a song meant to drag out certain notes and rearrance music to make it more live

Ragtime was centered in Missouri in the late 1890s

The Beginnings of Jazz

1900-1917 in New Orleans

America’s most cosmopolitan city, had marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, minstrel shows that filed the streets with diverse musical culture

1890s African-American musicians made new music mixing ragtime syncopations and the soulful feel of blues

Shortly after 1900s began they began calling it jazz

The Jazz Age

1917-1924

African Americans migrated from places like Chicago to places like New York and brought jazz and blues with them

Young Americans started to challenge their parents old-fashioned ways following WWI and listening and dancing to jazz and blues was a part of their rebellion.

Economic growth in 1920s saw people being able to spend money on entertainment; record players and radios were widely available in stores and Jazz went from being played in New Orleans honky-tonks to America’s radios

Flappers

Young women who cut their hair and wore shorter dresses

Louis Armstrong

1901-1971

Born in New Orleans

Taught the world to Swing

Nicknames: Satchmo, Satchelmouth, Pops

Was very likeable, funny, and unassuming and made everyone around him feel good.

Spread jazz around the world and served as an international ambassador of swing

Played the trumpet.

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington

1899-1974

Most prolific composer of the 20th century. Redefined the forms that he worked within.

Synthesized a lof of American music; turned minstrel songs, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley tunes, blues, and American appropriations of European music into a consistent style

Created technically complex but direct and simple expression songs.

Performed in the whites-only club “Cotton Club”

Radios carried his music into homes across the country and brought him national fame

Jazz during the Depression

1929-1934

Stock Market collapsed in 1929; factories fell silent, farms decayed, and ¼ of the nation’s workforce was jobless.

Jazz was called upon to lift the spirits of a frightened country; it was palyed on the radio every night and made the Great Depression more bearable

New York became America’s jazz capital with Louis Armstrong revolutionizing American popular song and showing showmanship that made him one of the nation’s top entertainers

Benny Goodman

Clarinet player

Jewish

Big-band swing

He was bandleader and just wanted the best musicians; his band was the first time black people and white people played together

The Swing Era

1935-1937

Jazz was now almost exclusively known as Swing

Billie Holiday

Swing Era

Toured with Count Basie

America wasn’t ready for a black women singing with white musicians

Strange Fruit

Anti-lynching ballad by Billie Holiday

Jazz during World War II

1940-1945

Jazz became a beacon of hope in Europe

Became the embodiment of democracy in America as bandleaders took their swing to troops overseas

Glenn Miller

Took swing overseas during WWII

In the Mood

Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker

During the WWII era

Underground and after-hours jazz

Trumpet - Dizzy Gillespie

Saxophone - Charlie Parker

Discovered a new way of playing; fast, intricate, exhilarating, and chaotic

Wrote “Ko Ko” and started bebop

Bebop

A form of jazz characterized by fast tempos and improvisation based on harmonic structure rather than melody

Jazz during the post war years

1945-1955

America had unimaginal prosperity but was anxious tmies because of the nuclear annihilation.

California musicians created a mellow sound called cool jazz

Cool Jazz

A type of jazz that is understated and subtle; lighter and more romantic

Dave Brubeck

Cool jazz

Take 5

Baby Boom Time Period

1956-1960

Baby boomers becoming of age; TV becoming more prominent

Old stars like Billie Holiday burn out and young talents rise

Miles Davis

Constantly formed new groups to showcase different facets of his sound.

“So What” - bass driven

John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman

Free jazz.

Both sax players

Coleman’s band didn’t have piano so was fairly free harmonically, though the concept was rooted firmly in the same classic rhythm and melody principles that defined jazz

Free Jazz

Jazz that doesn’t adhere to what had become the standard chord progressions that jazz had been based on up until that time

More Current Jazz

1960 - Present

Jazz was in trouble as it was divided into “schools” and rock and roll was making its rise

Jazz musicians were desperate for rock

Miles Davis combined jazz with rock by using electronic intruments to launch Fusion

Fusion

A musical genre that loosely encompasses the merging of jazz with other styles, including rock, funk, R&B, and world music

Jazz musicians mized the forms and techniques of jazz with the electronic instruments of rock and rhythmic structure from African-American popular music, both soul and rhythm and blues

Jazz Landmark in the 1970s

Both Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington died and their passing seemed to mark the end of jazz itself

Wynton Marsalis

American virtuoso trumpeter

Wrote Linus and Llucy (peanuts theme)

Kept jazz going in the younger generation

Big Phat Band

Jazz today!

Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band, an 18 piece jazz orchestra led by Gordon Goodwin, sax and player piano

Founded in 1999

Combines big band swing from 1930s/40s with contemporary music like funk and jazz fusion

Received several Grammy Awards and nominations