Music 1107 - Unit 4

Romanticism

A self-conscious break from Enlightenment ideals emphasizing passionate, individual expression.

Romantic Period

A period emphasizing individual expression, public concerts, aristocratic salons, and idolized solo performers.

The Lied

A German-texted Romantic art song for solo voice and piano accompaniment.

Song Cycle

A group of Lieder unified by a common theme.

Unity of Expression

The close integration of text and music, with music enhancing the meaning of poetry.

Franz Schubert

Vienna-born composer (1797–1828) known for melodic gifts and subtle interactions between music and text.

Schubertiads

Private gatherings of writers, artists, and musicians where Schubert's music was performed.

Erlkönig

Schubert's first published work, based on Goethe's dramatic ballad about the Elf-King.

Erlkönig Characters

The narrator, father, child, and Elf-King, all portrayed by one singer.

Elf-King

The supernatural king of the elves; anyone touched by him must die.

Robert Schumann

German composer and critic (1810–1856) known for impassioned melodies, novel harmonies, and driving rhythms.

Neue Zeitschrift für Musik

Schumann's influential European music journal, meaning “The New Journal of Music.”

Dichterliebe

Schumann's 1840 song cycle that evokes the fragility and sentimentality of new love.

Romantic Program Music

Instrumental music with literary or pictorial associations supplied through a title or explanatory notes.

Absolute Music

Instrumental music without literary or pictorial meanings that relies on musical structure for expression.

Hector Berlioz

French composer and conductor (1803–1869), a major French Romantic and master of innovative orchestration.

Symphonie fantastique

Berlioz's autobiographical program symphony featuring an idée fixe representing his infatuation with Harriet Smithson.

Idée fixe

A recurring melody representing a person, emotion, idea, or other subject.

March to the Scaffold

The fourth movement of Symphonie fantastique, depicting an opium-induced dream of an artist's execution.

Romantic Symphony

A symphony that expanded the orchestra and expressive musical language while retaining large-scale formal structures.

Johannes Brahms

German composer and conductor (1833–1897) who favored absolute music and traditional Classical forms.

Richard Wagner

German composer and conductor (1813–1883), the leading figure in German opera who unified music and drama.

Gesamtkunstwerk

“Total artwork”; Wagner's fusion of music, poetry, drama, and visual spectacle into music drama.

Wagner's Music Drama

A dramatic form using endless melody, natural German speech inflections, and no separate traditional numbers.

Leitmotif

A concise recurring theme associated with a specific person, emotion, idea, or object.

The Ring of the Nibelung

A cycle of four Wagner music dramas based on Norse sagas and the medieval German Nibelungenlied.

Die Walküre

The second work in Wagner's Ring cycle, featuring the Valkyries and Brünnhilde.

Valkyries

Daughters of Wotan who ride winged horses, circle battlefields, and carry fallen heroes to Valhalla.

Ride of the Valkyries

A famous Die Walküre passage featuring a lively leitmotif, swirling strings and woodwinds, and massive brass for