Art Music Theater F200

Romantic Era Music

The Free Composer

[audio:freecomposer.mp3]

• Beethoven led the way
• Music Publishing on the rise
• Music for the public, rather than music for the aristocracy

Technological Improvements in Instruments

[audio:instruments-romantic.mp3]
Creating a more expressive range for the Romantic sensibility

• Piano
  • Evolved into a social instrument
  • The upright piano
• Woodwinds develop
  • Better sound projection
  • Better fingering systems
  • The flute
  • The clarinet
  • The bassoon
  • The Saxophone is born
• Brass instruments
  • The invention of valves
  • Trumpet
  • French horn
• Percussion instruments
  • A greater variety of instruments
  • A greater variety of timbre

Program Music

[audio:programmusic.mp3]

• Telling a story
• Born out of word painting
• Imitation of sounds outside of music, like birds

The Long and Short of it

[audio:longandshort.mp3]

• Art Songs
• Piano Works
• Long Symphonic works

Grand Opera

[audio:operaromantic.mp3]

• Still had great appeal, and now a broader audience
• Took on Nationalistic tendencies

Nationalism

[audio:nationalism.mp3]

• A Romantic tendency
• Identifiable folk idiom expressed in “art’ music
• Program music based on geography, history and legends

Romantic Composers

Hector Berlioz 1803-69

• French
• Symphonie Fantastique shocked Parisian audiences
• Innovative orchestration
• Autobiographical theme
• Musical recreation of a witches’ Sabbath
• Movements:
  • Reveries, Passion
  • A Ball
  • Scenes in the Country
  • March to the Scaffold
  • Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath
• Used a motif through the entire symphony
• Idée fixe or “fixed idea’

Important work — Symphonie Fantastique
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCuFaq2L3U&feature=related[/youtube]

Franz Schubert 1797-1828
Austrian

• Wrote over 600 songs
• At times utilized Goethe’s poetry as lyrics
• Also wrote chamber works and symphonies
• Popular Work — Elkonig (translation)

Johannes Brahms 1833-97
German

• Wrote instrumental works
• Chamber works, concertos and symphonies
• Followed musical structures similar to Beethoven’s
• Popular work — Brahms Lullaby

Clara and Robert Schumann 1819-96 & 1810-56
German

• Married couple
• Collaborated together and wrote individually
• Friends with Brahms
• Wrote vocal and instrumental works, including piano works

Clara’s Popular work – Die Lorelei

Robert’s Popular work — Carnaval

Frederic Chopin 1810-49
Polish born, lived in France
Wrote exclusively for the piano (with one exception)
Incorporated dance music from his home land of Poland
Extremely expressive works
Popular work — Etude Op. 10, No. 3

Giuseppe Verdi 1813-1901

• Italian
• Drama, passion and power!
• Wrote 2 operas based on Shakespeare’s works
• Rigoletto, LaTraviatta, Falstaff and Othello… plus others.

Popular Work — Aria — La Donna e mobile from Rigoletto

Richard Wagner 1813-83
German

• Intense study of Beethoven
• Operas focused on the irrational forces and passion that drive human behavior
• Grand operas with amazing stage setting and costumes
• Utilized short motifs attached to characters – Leitmotif
• Was supported in the later part of his career by Ludwig II of Bavaria

Popular work — Ride of the Valkyries

Modest Mussorgsky 1839-81
Russian

• A government clerk that wrote only a few works, but they were important
• Created a Russian sound

Popular work — Night on Bald Mountain

Peter Tchaikovsky 1840-93
Russian

• Brought a very European sound
• Had a wealthy patron, who he never met in person, but wrote over 300 letters
• Symphonies, ballets and orchestra works
• Had a gift to creating a variety of tonal colors in his music
• His music was highly melodic

Popular Work – Nutcracker Ballet
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp7wWCIWQVE[/youtube]

Franz Liszt 1811-1866
Hungarian born — career in Paris

• An exceptional piano performer — A musical celebrity, women swooned
• Invented the symphonic poem
• Led the way to “impressionistic music

Popular work – Totentanz

Claude Debussy 1862-1918
French

• Hugely influential in creating the direction of music in the 20th Century
• Rejected the dramatic dynamics utilized by other Romantic composers
• Created a huge variety of tonal colors
• Influenced by music of Java and Southeast Asia
• An Impressionistic composer — if you will

Popular work — Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncz-D1Vf13M[/youtube]

[5.6 Continue on to learn more about Romantic Theater]