WVU Music 271 Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Music 271: 4/27/07 (Last Day!)
II: “Modern Jazz” or “Bebop”:
A: Principal players:
• Tenor Sax: Charlie Parker
• Trumpet: John Gillespie (Dizzy Gillespie)
• Piano: Thelonious Monk
• Drums: Max Roach
B: Harmonic and melodic inventions and their impact:
• Music driven by improvisation, with minimal constraints on the performers (regulated jam sessions)
• “Koko” - built upon the chords of a tune by British band leader Ray Nolan (Cherokee)
• Standard of Improvisation
• Stole a large portion of the Big Band audience
III: Derivative jazz styles:
A: Hard Bop (after 1955): remains the standard style of modern Jazz (Miles Davis, John Coltrane)
B: Third Stream (after 1959): Mix of Jazz and Art music
C: Free Jazz (after 1959): led by Ornette Coleman, all elements of jazz should be improvised on the spot (similar to chance music by John Cage). 37-min long free jazz performance by 8 performers
IV: Jazz-Rock Fusion (1969 - ):
• British Invasion, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan were big on the rock scene
• Fusion attempted to marry the two genres
• Miles Davis was one of the first to experiment with this (GB: p.86)
Music 271: 4/25/07
I: The Blues:
A: Form:
• Solo vocalist accompanied by a guitar, small jazz ensemble, Big Band, guitar based ensembles, etc.
• Sing the blues is to get rid of the blues
• Most of the early singers were men from the south
• 1920s: African-American women singers of the blues began their rise
• Twelve-Bar Blues: Strophic forms usually in 5-6 stanzas (most vocal, at least one instrumental in many instances)
• Three four-measure phrases: A - A’ - B
• A: 2mm (I) + 2 mm (I)
Singer → Instrument
Call Response
• A’: 2mm (IV) + 2mm (I)
• B: 2mm (V) + 2mm (I)
• Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith were among the first blues singers
B: Role of call and response:
C: The multiple opportunities for Signifyin’:
II: Compositions surveying Jazz to c1945:
• c1900-c1925: New Orleans Jazz
• Outdoors: Parades
• Celebratory Parades: (Political campaigns, Social clubs, Saints’ days, and other religious occasions)
• Funereal Parades: (Dirges and hymns prior to internment, Jazz numbers after internment)
• Dances: (Two-step (Ragtime’s Dance), Fox and other “Trots”)
• Indoors: Dances
•
A: The New Orleans Parade Band: “Lord, lord, lord”: the Olympia Brass Band:
B: New Orleans Jazz in Chicago: Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five: “West End Blues”: Jazz went up the IC railroad, not the Miss. river
C: The Duke Ellington Orchestra: “Old Man Blues”:
III: Crawford’s discussion of developments in Jazz after WWII:
• Ch. 30: p.390
• Louis Armstrong: Did more to alter Jazz history than any other player, focused on the improvisation, expanded the range of the trumpet above the treble staff
• Introduced Scat singing, but did not invent it: nonsense syllables in place of words
• Late 1920s - beginning of 1940s, Jazz evolves into the Big Band style
• Centers of Jazz became New York and Kansas City, Missouri
• KC: Count Bassie
• NY: Duke Ellington Orchestra - wrote pieces to feature individual players in his band, wrote over 1000 pieces
•
Music 271: 4/23/07
II: Jazz: Overview of Style and History: (GB: p.81-82)
• Blends European and West African traditions
• Traceable to beginning of the 20th century
• 2 periods:
• Jazz as a functional music (c1900 - c1945):
A: Chicago, Kansas City, New York
B: New Orleans style (NOLA) (c1900 - c1930)
C: Chicago style (NOLA style brought north) (c1920 - c1930)
D: Swing (Big Band Jazz) (c1927 - c1945)
• Jazz as an Art Music: (c1945 - Present)
• New York was the center of innovations
• Styles in Chronological order:
A: Modern Jazz (c1945 - c1955)
B: Hard Bop (c1955 - present)
C: Free Jazz (c1959 - present)
D: Fusion (Jazz Rock) (c1968 - present)
E: Post-Modern mixtures (c1970s - present)
• No single style of Jazz
• Initially favored Band instruments (reeds, brass)
• Importance of Improvisation (Signifyin’)
• Distinct instrumental voice
• Jazz swings
III: The practice of Signifyin’: (GB: p.82)
A: A definition: To use the language in a very personal and individualized way and to use the sound of your voice as a way of adding emphasis
B: Musical Signifyin’: How it works:
• Borrows, restates, and varies pre-existing material
• Transforms that material by commenting upon it in a way that reflects the personality of the performer whose goals may include demonstrating respect for the original, poking fun at it, parodying it
• This May be done at all sorts of levels from commenting upon a style, to commenting upon an individual performer, to commenting upon the nature of improvisation itself
C: A Demonstration of Signifyin’:
IV: Ragtime and the Blues: two principal antecedents of Jazz:
• Ragtime began as improvised music in the 19th century
• 1893: Worlds Fair in Chicago: White band began to play Ragtime
• 1st of four African-American styles that would shape American Vernacular music
• 3 basic categories: Ragtime songs, pieces that are based upon other works that are swung, Piano Rags (structure taken from a march) (AABBA, Trio, CCDD)
• Blues is older then ragtime, part of the oral tradition, continues to exert an influence on music even today
The Four Principles Styles of 20th-Century African-American Vernacular Music
1. Ragtime: c1893 - c1920
2. Jazz: c1917 - c1950
3. Rhythm & Blues: c1945 - present
→ Rock ‘n’ Roll: c1955 - present
4. Rap → Hip Hop: c1980 - present
Music 271: 4/20/07
II: American Neo-Classicism concluded: Copland’s Piano Variations and beyond:
• Copland, Elliot Carter were all Neo-Classic composers
• Rhythmic aspects of early jazz (ragtime) till the 1920s
• Tonal, clear textures: these all can be heard in Copland’s Piano Variations
• Schönberg is a Neo-classical composers who uses serial harmony
III: The Experimentalists (Ultra-modernists): Rejection of both post-Romanticism and Neo-Classicism:
A: Henry Cowell and The Banshee (1925):
• Neo-Classicism “Attempt to reduplicate a bygone style”
• Introduced a new agenda: quest for new sonorities and timbres
• The strumming of the piano strings become the new timbres
B: Edgard Varese and Ionisation (1933):
• Neo-Classicism is “Zealously academic”
• Percussion is another source of new timbres and sonorities
• Began the percussion ensemble tradition: was the first new piece that wasn’t transcribed from another source
C: John Cage:
• Inspired by Varese, composed works for percussion ensemble, solo percussion (brake drums)
• “Discovered sounds”
• The father of prepared piano works (after WWII)
• New direction of experimentalism: pre-recorded sounds (Magnetic tape)
• Magnetic tape could be edited
• William’s Mix (1952)
IV: George Crumb: A disciple of the Experimentalist as well as a multi-culturalist:
A: Crumb’s inspiration: 4 musical domains:
1. European Art Music:
2. American vernacular music:
3. The fusions of folk traditions in WV:
4. Elements of African, Indian, and Japanese music:
• Highly individual style
B: Ancient Voices of Children for soprano and mixed chamber ensemble (1970): poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca:
• Oboe, percussion, piano, musical saw, harp
Music 271: 4/18/07
I: Igor Stravinsky’s contributions to the formation of 20th-century art music:
A: Second Stage Nationalist (to the beginning of WWI)
1. The influence of Debussy on his ballet scores:
• Collaborated with other Russian artist for a series of ballets made for Paris
• Oiseau de feu (Firebird) - 1910
• Petrushka - 1911
• Le sacred u printemps (The Rite of Spring) - 1913
• “The Nightingale” opera displays many Debussy influences from Nuages
2. The Rite of Spring: and example of “Primitive Nationalism”:
• Influenced by Russian composers (including Rimsky-Korsakov, his mentor)
• Prompted a riot on its opening night
• Based on Stravinsky’s dream about pre-Christian Russian community (Neolithic times). Virgin sacrifice brings about springtime
• Represented a turning point for Stravinsky
• Marked the ending of Post-Romanticism
• 3 major political empires collapsed: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire (October Revolution)
• Stravinsky fled to Paris following the Russian Revolution
B: Neo-Classicism: a Post WWI reaction to Post-Romanticism:
• Defined as a return to absolute music coupled with a rejection of the attitude that music can be descriptive
• 1923 - Stravinsky’s Octet for Winds (his first Neo-Classical piece)
• Models were deliberately taken from 18th-century style
• Elimination or subordination of the strings from the music (Winds and Brass become the standard in Neo-Classicism)
• Open texture (Not a think texture, less parts then before)
II: American Neo-Classicism:
A: The influence of Nadia Boulanger:
• French pedagogue of composition
• Taught students how to find their own musical style
• Demanded that students have knowledge of Western Art Music
• Argued for Neo-Classicism in her teachings
B: Aaron Copland’s piano variations: 1930
•
Music 271: 4/16/07
I: Schönberg’s twelve-tone composition or Serialism (c1923-1951):
• Logical use of all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale
• Suite für klavier: Presents prime row right at the beginning and the top line
• Note = length of time
• Pitch = frequency
• Prelude, Menuett, and Trio
• His alternate row forms favor the tritone, one semitone below the P5
II: Bartók and Stravinsky: their separate points of origin in 19th century European art music:
• Bartók born in 1881: Went from Germanic nationalism for Hungarian nationalism
• Stravinsky born in 1882: Abandoned nationalism for neo-classicism (and dabbled in serialism)
• These two would change their direction as composers, unlike Schönberg
III: Bela Bartók’s multi-faceted career and its legacy:
A: Four major roles:
1. Virtuosic pianist: Educated to be a concert pianist and composer;
2. Ethnomusicologist: One of the first scholars to collect music of a tradition outside the realm of European art music (Hungary and Slavic Europe) (Bonds: p. 570)
3. Composer: 3rd stage Nationalist: “Allegro Barbaro” was one of the first compositions of this nature (1911), “Three Rondos on folk tunes” another example
• Large quantity of folk songs
• 3rd stage nationalist: Radical innovations of style and form inspired by the native culture (sometimes accompanied by a deprecation of the formerly venerated foreign culture)
4. Pedagogue: wrote the six volumes of Mikrokosmos, prepared performers to play Bartók’s own music
B: Three-fold legacy:
•
IV: Igor Stravinsky’s contributions to the formation of 20th century art music: Part I - Second-Stage nationalist (to the beginning of WWI):
• Came from a musical background
• Born in St. Petersburg
• First composition teacher was Rimsky-Korsakov: introduced Stravinsky to several volumes of Russian folk songs
• Rite of Spring Bassoon solo is a Lithuanian folk tune
• Went to Paris to study music
Music 271: 4/9/07
II: Claude Debussy (1862-1918): → Stravinsky → French Composers (Poulenc)
A: Education:
• Paris Conservatory
• Captivated by music of Wagner
B: Changing attitude concerning Richard Wagner
• Began to separate from Wagner’s music in the late 1870s and 1880s
• Franco-Prussian War raised desire for a French music
C: Evolving approach to musical composition: Tonality and form → moving to greater equality of importance of the five elements of the musical language:
• I - related key - I
• Used patterns of sound, texture, timbre rather than chords for a harmony
• Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Texture, Timbre: Musical element hierarchy 19th Century
• 20th Century: All musical elements become equal
Sorry for the delays this week! This week has been absolutely crazy, and getting this podcast out has taken a back burner to many other things. Please look in the feed for the other lectures from this week. (4/9 and 4/11)
Music 271: 4/13/07
I: Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951): A new approach to harmonic organization prompted by an essentially conservative philosophy:
• Believed he was the heir to a great musical tradition: Art music as cultivated in Vienna
• Harmonic order of Central Europe (Vienna) was being overwhelmed by chromaticism
II: Schöenberg’s career: Two stages and three concepts of harmony: (GB: p.73, Bonds Ch.21)
A: Diatonic chromaticism in the style of Wagner, Mahler, and Brahms (to 1907):
• “Transfigured Night” - 1890s
B: Atonality - no tonic and no alternative harmonic organization (1907-c1923):
• All 12 chromatic pitches have equal weight
• Expressionism - musical compositions as well as visual arts and theatre
• Expressionism: refers to art that takes an inner psychological reality and projects it outwards (Mental instability, emotional repression)
• Examples: “The Scream” painting (Blood red skies reflection of the Krakatoa explosion)
• “The Crosses”
C: Twelve-tone composition or Serialism (c1923-1951):
• Dodecaphony
• Designed to establish order over the chromatic scale
• No one pitch is more important that the others
• Composing in “rows”: Each row includes each pitch. No one pitch is repeated until all of the others have been played
• Suite für Klavier, Op. 25: Prime form: E-F-G-Db Gb-Eb-Ab-D B-C-A-Bb
• Three variants: Inverted transposed up six semi-tones (Tritone), Prime transposed up six semi-tones (Tritone), Inverted (Same initial pitch as Prime)
• Prime → Variant 1 Variant 2 → Variant 3 set up and antecedent-consequent relationship
• Maintains forms and genres from the 18th century
Music 271: 4/11/07
II: Claude Debussy (1862-1918): Evolving approach to musical composition: tonality and form:
• Short and simple motives, developed in a harmonically ambiguous environment
• 20th century approach to harmony and melody
III: Charles Ives (1874-1954):
A: Organization of Crawford’s discussion:
• Prologue - recap about the sacrilization of art music in America
• Biography of Ives - profound impact of his father on his life (father died when Ives was 19)
• Art Songs -
• Instrumental Music -
• Most celebrated American composer of art music
• Very complicated individual (emotionally and psychologically)
• Life insurance salesman - Estate planning is accredited to him
• Compositional activities only took up about 20 years of his life
• Rest of his life spent encouraging performance of his works and supporting other younger composers
• Leonard Bernstein helped draw public attention to the composers works
•
B: Distinctive characteristics of Ives:
• Ongoing and continuous memorial to this father (role of memory)
C: His father’s influence:
• George Edward Ives
• Youngest band master in the Civil War
• Experimentalist in music
• 1894 - death of G.E. Ives: very traumatic for Charles Ives
• Came to idealize his father
D: Song: “The Things Our Fathers Loved”:
• Most of the melody is taken from one 19th century piece or another
E: “The Housatonic at Stockbridge”: The Three Places in New England: two treatments:
Music 271: 4/2/07
II: The post-Romantic Period and the turn towards the 20th century: the generation of 1860:
• Hard to differentiate the Nationalistic composition and composer
• Beginnings of another break: divide between composers born before and after 1860:
• Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Eduard MacDowell, Claude Debussy, Horatio Parker, Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius, Amy Cheney Beach, Scott Joplin: all born in the decade of 1860
• Mahler, Debussy, and Joplin were all prophetic
• Strauss: Symphonic poems, Opera, Art songs
• Mahler - Schoenberg - Weber (evolution)
• Ragtime was first form of New Orleans Jazz
III: Gustav Mahler (1860-1911):
A: Biographical Sketch
1. Polka mit einem Trauermarsch als Einleitung (Polka with a funeral march as introduction): Composed at age 5: Composed after the subsequent deaths of 2 of Mahler’s brothers
• Born in Czech Republic (Bohemia)
• Dysfunctional family
• Direct and indirect references to death (Mahler 1 as an example)
• 1880’s found Mahler in Vienna Conservatory
• Mentors were 4 individuals: Beethoven (Romantic), Schopenhauer - philosopher, R. Wagner, Nietzsche - argued that 2 aspects of human existence: rational and emotional
• Melodies proceed from words, as do tonal centers and other elements in the music (Mahler 2: C minor-Eb Major: Death - Resurrection)
• Culmination of philosophical beliefs and musical practices that cover the entire 19th century Germanic domain
B: His place in music history:
C: Place of song in Mahler’s music:
• 9 symphonies - 4 include vocal soloists (2,3,4,8)
• Many art songs for voice and piano, which were orchestrated later
• Kindertotenlieder: Songs on the Deaths of Children (1901-1904): Full Orchestra setting but used like a chamber group
Music 271: 3/21/07
II: The concept of program music of the Romantic and Post-Romantic periods:
A: Differences between the SP (Symphonic Poem) and Character piece:
• Similar to Photograph vs. Film
• CP invite image without a story, SP creates a story
• Both assume an extra-musical role
• Berlioz, Liszt, Smetana, Strauss, Sibelius were all examples of programmatic composers
B: Criticism of the Concept of Program Music:
1. Robert Schumann (1835): wrote a critical essay about Symphonie Fantastique (1829, Germany: mid-1830s)
2. Eduard Hanslick (1854: published an essay “Vom musikalischen Schönen” in 1854
• Ideas which a composer expresses are mainly and primarily of a purely musical nature.
• Definite feelings and emotions are not capable of being embodied in music.
C: Putting this to the test: two orchestral compositions and the evidence of their composers’ expressive intentions:
Music 271: 3/19/07
II: Post-Romanticism in Europe, c1850-1914 (Start of WWI):
A: The break down of the previous consensus concerning musical style:
• Historical period = consensus concerning music (performance practices, purpose, etc.)
• GB p. 30
• 2 conflicting perceptions of place and purpose in music:
• Germanic Romanticism vs. Nationalism
B: The Emergence of European Nationalism
• Has continued to present day
• No one nation sets the standard anymore
• Reaction to political and cultural domination by Germany over Central Europe
• Italy and Central Europe were primary areas before WWI
• Reaction to the power structure in Europe (Bonds p. 385)
• Music that was based upon the composers vision of his/her society/history/culture/values/literature in the composer’s first language
• New compositions emerging based on subject material from the composers region
• Dance rhythms are one way in which Nationalism can be expressed
• GB p. 62, Bonds p. 494, 491
III: The concept of program music of the Romantic and Post-Romantic periods:
A: The principal orchestral genre of program music: the Symphonic or Tone Poem (Symphonische Dichtung, Ton Dichtung):
• Franz Liszt coined the term Symphonic Poem in Hungarian, not German
• Primary means of projecting Nationalism
• Exclusively Instrumental music
• Program Music: compositions intended by their composers to depict a story, narrative, series of events, sequence of thoughts, purely by means of instrumental music
Music 271: 3/16/07
II: The preservation of African values in the US: “Yonder Come Day”:
• Bessie Jones - Lived on St. Simon’s Island, GA
• Was the new Music Master in the new world (African drum masters)
• Documentary Ideas:
• Everyone was responsible for preserving the culture
• Game Songs
• Call & Response practice bought everyone into music making
• Functionality - Each job has a song to take up the boredom or pain
• Central role of religion in preserving culture
• When deprived of their drums, Ms. Bessie ancestors devised “Drum substitutes” (Clapping, “Hambone”, Tambourine)
Music 271: 3.14.07
II: The evolution of African-American Christianity in resistance to white oppression: The Spiritual:
• “Steal Away” - Night worship service was to be held OR Some slaves were going to an attempt an escape
• “Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho” - displayed the slaves longing for freedom
• “Go Down Moses” - Sung when it became apparent that the Confederacy would lose the war, and Union troops were setting slaves free (1862-63)
• 1864-1865 - Celebratory spirituals (Free At Last)
• “Yonder Come Day” - evening worship was drawing to a close
III: African Sacred Dance adapted to Christianity: The Ring Shout: (GB p. 67)
• Ring Shout - African sacred dance (CCW direction circle dance)
• Conducted at night in “praise houses”
• “Run, Old Jeremiah” - recorded 1934 in Jennings, Louisiana (sung by Joe Washington and Austin Coleman)
Music 271: 3/12/07
II: The Acculturative Process: African-American adaptations of European traditions and instruments:
A: The simultaneous preservation of African musical practices and values:
• “Turkey in the Straw” - Fiddle tune fondly remembered by former slaves
B: African-American musical activity during the ante-bellum period: why was the violin so appealing (Part II): (GB p. 63-64)
• Fiddle is capable of playing music from the West African traditions
• Possible for a fiddler to swing, play blue notes
• Africans had a bowed string instrument back in their homeland (Called: Gonje, Goge, Riti)
• Used to waken the chief, alert the village etc.
• Fiddle = 4-stringed gonje from the African viewpoint
C: Returning the favor: black influences upon white music in the southern Appalachians:
• Blacks taught the whites how to play the fiddle more rhythmically than previously
• Documentary notes:
• First encounter of a fiddle by a white Appalachian
• Meeting point for cultures
• Ballad of John Henry - “Steel driving man”
• Dancing - Played for square dances, waltzes et al.
1. American vernacular dancing: another arena of acculturation:
• Combines European dances with the African steps
• Movement begins at the hips and the two halves of the body (upper and lower) move against that
Music 271: 3.9.07
There is only a podcast today because I had to attend the bassoon candidate master class. I apologize.
Music 271: 2/28/07
II: Continued discussion of the cultivation and sacralization of European Art music in post-Civil War America:
A: The role of Upper-Middle Class Elites in cultivating E.A.M:
• John Sullivan Dwight - 1852-1881 established Dwight’s Journal of Music
• Dwight believed in the superiority of Central European Art Music
• Cultivated music - music that has been imported by another culture
• Modern Applications - 1911: NY Philharmonic received $1M only if they featured the donor’s favorite composers in their concerts
• Elites used Art Music as a way to separate themselves from the immigrants
• Patronized orchestras and opera companies
• “Art music is not for everyone” - Theodore Thomas
• Social status and elitism are the result of European Art Music
B: Statistical evidence of the privileged place of Germanic orchestral music:
• More than 50% of music played in the early 20th-century was Austro-Germanic in origin
C: The Concept of Nationalism: Temperley’s Theory of its evolution: (GB p. 62)
• Nationalism - assertion of pride in one’s region/nation in the face of a larger and culturally/politically dominant nation
• Aaron Copland was an example of an American nationalistic composer
• Temperley’s Theory:
1. Imitation by composer of one nation of the style of the high-status foreign culture with the aim of demonstrating their equal competence in that style. Americans primarily imitate Germanic composers. Example: Works by the 2nd New England School
2. Native subject matter and recognizably native tunes are introduced as superficial coloring for a style still fundamentally that of the foreign culture. Example: Gottschalk: The Banjo
3. Will be discussed later
D: The second New England School: (Crawford Ch. 18-19)
1. John Knowles Paine (1839-1906) - Born in Maine, educated by a German organist in Maine, went to music school in Berlin. Joined Harvard faculty and became the first professor of music there.
2. Horatio Parker (1863-1919) - Studied music in Munich. Took up Professor of Music at Yale.
3. George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931) - Also studied in Munich.
4. Amy Cheney Beach (1867-1944)
5. Edward MacDowell (1860-1908) - Studied in Paris, and later in Germany.
Music 271: 2/6/07
II: The establishment in the US of European Art Music at the top of a musical hierarchy: “The sacralization of European Art Music: (Crawford Ch. 15)
A: Four Major developments between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of WWI:
• Establishment of conservatories of music (Modeled after Central European schools)
1. Oberlin Conservatory (1865)
2. New England Conservatory, Cincinnati, Chicago Academy of Music (1867)
3. Peabody Conservatory (1868)
4. New York College of Music (1878)
5. National Conservatory of Music (1885)
6. Institute of Musical Art (1905) - merges into Julliard School of Music (1926)
• Concert halls and theatres
1. 1857: Academy of Music, Philadelphia
2. 1878: Cincinnati’s Music Hall
3. 1882: The Metropolitan Opera House
4. 1889: Chicago’s Auditorium
5. 1891: Carnegie Hall
6. 1900: Symphony Hall in Boston
• Formation of professional orchestras
1. 1881: Boston Symphony Orchestra
2. 1891: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
3. 1895: Cincinnati Symphony
4. 1900: Philadelphia Orchestra
5. 1918: Cleveland Symphony
6. 1923: New York Philharmonic
• Academic programs of music
B: The role of John Sullivan Dwight of Boston: Dwight’s Journal of Music:
Music 271: 2/23/07
II: Richard Wagner (1813-1883): his philosophy concerning operatic expression:
• Had visions of a new music drama
• Based upon the clarified elements of opera as he saw them
III: Wagner’s conception of the Gesamtkuunstwerk and the role of the orchestra: (GB p.59) (Bonds p. 474)
• Orchestral material must focus the attention on the characters of the opera and their dramatic situation
• Orchestra must also suggest to the audience the character’s emotions even when the character has not expressed them yet
A: The purposes of the Leitmotif (Plural: Leitmotiven) (Leit = to lead)
• Small musical but recognizable melodic/harmonic unit with a distinct rhythm
• Can be sung or played
B: Representative Leitmotiven in Tristan und Isolde
• The love potion leitmotif - first seen in mm. 1-40 of the prelude
• Act I, Scene 5: The motiv is defined by the text: Isolde: “Ich trink zu dir”
• Act II, Scene 1: Implications of the love potion’s effect on Isolde: the motiv as accompaniment
Gesamut = Complete or Total
Kunst = Art
Werk = Work
IV: The establishment in the United States of European Art Music at the top of a musical hierarchy: “The Sacralization of European Art Music”:
A: Crawford’s Discussions (Ch. 8 & 15) (Ch. 18-19)
• Lowell Mason (1792-1872)
• Andrew Law argued that European music was superior to the American psalmody (p. 98)
B: Four major developments between the end of the Civil War and the start of WWI
• The intense cultivation of European art music in America:
• Establishment of conservatories of music modeled on the European style
• Construction of theatres and concert halls
• Formation of permanent professional orchestras (1842) (1881-1932)
• Formation of academic programs in music (Music departments) (Bonds p. 389)
Music 271: 2/21/07
II: German Opera: (Bonds p. 469)
A: From Mozart to Weber
• Early German operas had Italian texts (Mozart and Haydn)
• Mozart composed 2 Germanic operas (Abduction from the Seraglio (1782) & The Magic flute (1791))
• Beethoven’s Fidelio (1814)
B: Karl Maria von Weber: Biographical Sketch
• Born in 1786 and died in 1826
• Composed 3 Operas (Euryanthe (1823) & Oberon (1826))
• Known for instrumental music as well
• Was primarily a conductor in Prague and Dresden
C: Der Freischütz: The First German Romantic Opera
• Completed in 1820, 1st performed in 1821
1. Romantic Elements (GB p. 58)
• Conflict between good and evil - Good prevails
• Role of Nature
• Supernatural elements
• Redemption of the hero by the heroine’s prayers and self-sacrifice
2. Sources of Unity
• How to transform the opera into something more
• For the first time, his overture was based around the themes of the 2 main characters
• Use of orchestration to portray symbols (Horns = hunting)
• CM = Good Cm = Evil
• Post WWII Hollywood scores used the German Romantic opera sound
III: Richard Wagner - Part I: (Bonds p. 482-82)
• Born 1813
• Wagner’s operatic influence was greatest
• He was a primarily an opera composers
• Wrote a treatise concerning opera and it flaws, as well as his list of reforms
• Post-Romantic period 1850-WWI (1914)
• “Instrumental music cannot paint pictures”
• Believed that he was superior to all of humanity
• Also believed that operas before him never attained a sense of unity
“The elements of Wagnerian Music Drama” (Bonds p. 469-481)
• The idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk
• Drama as “Deeds of Music Made Visible”
• The Leitmotiv
• The relationship of voice and orchestra
• The Structure of the Dramatic Text
• Endless Melody
Music 271: 2/19/07
II: Concerning European Opera:
A: Two separate discussions to be synthesized: Bonds and Crawford: (Bonds p. 459-481) (Crawford p.
• Opera was imported to America
• Jenny Lynn (sp?) “Swedish Nightingale” influenced the role of women in music in America
B: Three National approaches:
• Italians and Germans were most influential, France as much
C: Italian Opera in the 19th Century:
1. Four “generations” of composers
• Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)
• Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) & Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835)
• Guiseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
• Giocomo Puccini (1858-1924)
2. The Italian opera libretto (script of the opera) of the first half of the 19th-century: two levels of conflict
• Dramas in the Early half of the 19th Century displayed the conflict
• Love triangles between people
• Political conflict based on the desire of Italians for a unified nation
• Bellini’s Norma (1831) - Love between a Druid priestess and a Roman officer set during the Roman occupation of Gaul, mirrors the conflict in Italy under the rule of various larger empires
• Italy unified in 1871
3. The changing map of Europe: an indicator of political content of the Italian opera: (Bonds pp. 307, 385)
D: Two musical traits of Italian opera:
• Recitative and Aria served similar functions as in previous operas
• Notion that the Recitative should be accompanied by the full orchestra instead of just a harpsichord
• Harpsichord fell into obscurity
Music 271 2/16/07
II: The emerging role of women composers in the 19th Century: Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847):
All central European Romantic composers born within a decade of each other
• Composed over 400 compositions at best guess
• Primarily songs and piano works, as well as choral and other orchestral music
• Organized and presided over concerts in Berlin (began in 1831)
• Was principal pianist and conductor at these concerts (Sunday afternoons)
Mendelssohns were wealthiest Jewish family in Berlin
Mendelssohns owned a concert hall on their estate that sat 100 people
• Her husband (Wilhelm Hensel) encouraged her to publish her own music
III: Louis Moreau Gottschalk:
• Born 1829
• Wrote primarily keyboard character pieces
• Lived in New Orleans (spoke French and Spanish)
• Began to play piano at age 3, and sent to study music in Paris at 13 and was performing in public by 16
• Returned to New York in 1856
Early works showed the influence of Chopin, but later works showed influence of New Orleans culture
• Went to the Place Congo to absorb the African musical sound
• 1851 - Berlioz commented on Gottschalk’s music
• Compositions include Bomboula, and The Banjo
Music 271: 2/14/07
II: Piano literature of the Romantic Period:
A. The 18th Century Perspective: Kenner und Liebhaber: the professional and the amateur performer:
• The amateur was often a woman
• Virtually no difference between the abilities of the professional and the amateur
B. The social customs of amateur music-making in the 19th Century:
• Works were never written for amateurs that they couldn’t play
C. “House Music” (Ger. Hausmusik) vs. “Concert Music”:
• Women were expected to cook, sew, and play the piano for their home
• More music was heard and performed at home than in public
• Hausmusik included to chamber music, the art song, and the keyboard character piece
*The Keyboard Character piece (GB p. 52-53) (Bonds p. 439)
Usually 1 movement
Form is derived from the minuet, and is in ABA (and variations)
Music for the amateur to perform, as well as the professional
Beethoven: Bagatelles Op. 125 is an example (Bagatelle is French for small jewel)
Thousands of these were composed
Music 271: 2/12/07
II: Mark Bonds on the Art Song and Hausmusik: Ch. 16 (p.432)
2 new genres for expression of Romantic values, of which art song was one
Rise of domestic music making - art song and piano character piece were primary compositions
Amateur music makers were mostly women of the middle class in the 19th century
III: Robert Schumann (1810-1856), Piano Music and Art Song:
Money was in the piano parlor music
23 opera (publications) of keyboard music
Switched to song after winning the court case against his father in-law
1840-1841 - “Liederjhar” Year of song
More definite expression of ides found in poems was perhaps a reason for this switch
IV: Dichterliebe: Schumann’s Opus 48: p.435
Poet of the settings was Heinrich Heine
May 12, 1840 - began setting the 20 poems
Finished setting on May 21, 1840
Eventually dropped 4 of the settings
Falling 3rds in the 2nd setting is the nightingale
iii-V-I (f#-A-D) - 1st three settings' tonality