Final Exam Flashcards
Outgrowth of French Revolution
Transfer of power from hereditary landholding aristocracy to the middle class; increasingly democratic character; sympathy for the oppressed, interest in peasants, children; faith in humankind, human destiny; new society based on free enterprise; “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” inspired artists
Romantic writers and artists
Revolt against Classical formalism; new lyric poetry and prose; Bohemian lifestyle: rejected dreamer; misunderstood by society; disenchantment; eternal longing; regret for lost happiness of childhood; discontent, pessimistic
Romantic themes
Conflict between individual and society; glamorization of the past; “strangeness and wonder”; longing of far-off lands; supernatural; profound meditations on life and death
Nationalism
Diversity of nationalistic expressions; increase use of folk songs, dances; enriched melodic, harmonic, rhythmic language
Romantic style traits
Highly lyrical melodies in instrumental and vocal music; more chromatic harmony and dissonance; new orchestral forms like the symphonic poem, choral symphony, works for solo voice with orchestra; music is drawing closer to the other arts
musicians/composers
music reached general public; supported by middle class; considered geniuses and stars idolized by the public (e.g., Fran Liszt and Niccolo Paganini)
Venues
Public concert halls and aristocratic salons
Patronesses
George Sand, Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, Nadeshda von Meck
“popular” vs “classical”
“highbrow” and “lowbrow” musical repertories
Lied
Romantic art song; German-texted solo song with piano accompaniment; emergence linked to the popularity of the piano; amateurs and professions, home and concert hall; unity of expression with text music
Art song composers
Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Clara Wieck Schumann
Goethe and Hiene
Favored poets for lieder
Types of song structure
Strophic: same melody every stanza; through-composed: without repetitions of whole sections; modified strophic: features of strophic and through-composed
Franz Schubert
(1797-1828); Vienna-born composer; member of Vienna Boys’ Choir; rejected career as a schoolteacher to pursue music; impoverished; song-writing prodigy: melodic gift; confluence of Classical and Romantic styles; composed over 600 Lieder, song cycles, nine symphonies, piano and chamber music, choral music; private gatherings of writers, artists, and musicians
Elf-King
First published work; hugely popular; text was on a ballad by Goethe; dramatic poem based on Danish legend; four characters but one singer; piano provides extra character; through-composed
Robert Shumann
(1810-1856) German composer, critic; studied law, then piano with Friedrich Wieck; established Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik; married Clara Wieck in 1840; gradual mental collapse, entered asylum in 1854; true Romantic style with impassioned melodies, novel harmonic changes, driving rhythms, often attached literary meanings to his piano music; composed over 200 lieder, several song cycles, 4 symphonies, chamber music, piano music, one opera, choral music
Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love)
Song cycle composed in 1840 by Robert Schumann; 16 poems by Heinrich Heine; cycle follows psychological progression of new love to complete despair; use of strophic form
“High art”
Cultivated repertoires introduced by European immigrants in the US including operas, chamber music, symphonie
American popular identity
Lighter music in the vernacular for dancing, singing at home, public events, parades; belonging “to the people”; great financial profit
Stephen Foster
(1826-1864) born in Pennsylvania; composed for Christy Minstrels; first American to make living as a professional songwriter but with little profit; famous songs include: Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky Home; accidental death; alcoholic
Parlor songs
Sweet, sentimental, nostalgic tunes in English for a singer and piano with simple homophonic textures; intended for amateur performances
Minstrelsy
Theatrical variety shows; stereotyping of African American culture; featured white performers in blackface; widespread popularity in 1800s; plantation songs by Foster
Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
Lyrics and music by Foster; love song written for his wife; themes of lost youth and happiness; not popular during his lifetime; featured in a broadcast of “older” music in 1941; strophic parlor song
Character piece
Compact form; instrumental equivalent to song; inexhaustible ingenuity, expression, technical resources; fanciful titles (e.g. “Intermezzo”, “Impromptu”); dance-inspired (Polish mazurka, polonaise or Viennese waltz); descriptive titles (“Wild Hunt”, “Forest Murmurs”); virtuosic concert etudes
Composers of Character pieces
Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms
Frederic Chopin
(1810-1849) Polish composer and pianist who moved to Paris at the age of 21; originated modern piano style; credited with the development of rubato; affair with George Sand; died at the age of 39 from tuberculosis
Revolutionary Etude
Composed between 1829 and 1832; part of Opus 10; dedicated to Franz Liszt; regarded as the finest of the genre; highly difficult; reflects composer’s distress over Poland’s war with Russia; very active left hand; dotted-melody in right hand
Program music
Instrumental music with literary or pictorial associations; information supplied by composer or indicated in title or notes; suggests specific characters and events, mood, etc; brought music closer to poetry, painting
Hector Berlioz
(1803-1869) French composer and conductor; first great proponent of musical Romanticism in France; left medical school to study music; influenced by Beethoven and Shakespeare; infatuated with Harriet Smithson; won Prix de Rome in 1830; style marked by intense passion; master or orchestration; composed overtures, program symphonies, choral music, three operas, writings about music
Symphonie fantastique
Five movement program symphony; autobiographical program; unified by the idée fixe; quoted the Dies irae chant in the last movement
Idée fixe
Recurrent theme; represents the composer’s beloved; unifying thread; literary and musical significance; thematic transformation; varied appearances
Opera arrangements
Piano four-hands; voice guitar; wind band medleys
Jenny Lind
Swedish soprano; international career; operatic roles; concert artist; debuted in America in 1850
Giuseppina Strepponi
Italian operatic soprano; married Verdi; musical teammate
bel canto style
florid melodic lines, great agility, purity of tone; masterpieces by Gioachino Rossini
Giuseppe Verdi
(1813-1901) Italian opera composer; his operas most frequently performed around the world; composed during Italian liberation from Austrian Hapsburg rule; figurehead for Italian unification movement; music associated with patriot cause, national hero; served one term in Italian Senate; founded and funded Casa Verdi (home for aged musicians); style noted by its appealing melodies and intense dramatic situations; 28 operas, vocal music, Requiem Mass
Rigoletto
Inspired by a play by Victor Hugo; lechery, deceit, treachery; set in a Renaissance-era ducal court in northern Italy; main character is a hunchback jester; features famous aria “La donna é mobile” and the quartet “Un dí”
“La donna é mobile”
strophic aria with refrain in triple meter with “oom-pah-pah” accompaniment; sung by tenor; “Woman is Fickle”
“Un di”
quartet sung by tenor, soprano, baritone, contralto; different emotional states; different melodic styles; “One Day”
Singspiel
Predecessor of German Romantic opera; light comic drama with spoken dialogue; Die Zauberflöte by Mozart)
Melodrama
German musical theater; spoken dialogue with minimal singing; striking orchestral accompaniment for dramatic effect
Richard Wagner
(1813-1883) German composer and conductor; greatest figure in German opera; wrote own librettos unifying music and drama; fled to Switzerland in 1849; married Franz Liszt’s daughter, Cosima; composed 13 music dramas; orchestral music, piano music, vocal and choral music, writings about music
Festival Theater at Bayreuth
Built specifically for the performance of Wagner’s works; funded by Ludwig II of Bavaria; premeire venue for “The Ring”
Gesamtkunstwerk
“total artwork”; music, poetry, drama, visual spectacle fused to make music drama
Music Drama
subjects from medieval German epics; noted for its natural inflections of the German language; no separate arias, duets, ensembles, choruses, or ballets; nature, supernatural, glorified Berman land and people; orchestra was the focal point; endless melody; chromatic harmony, dissonance; restless, intense, emotional
Leitmotifs
Concise recurring themes; specific meanings: person, emotion, idea, object; continual transformation, trace the course of the drama; “leading motives”
The Ring of the Nibelung
Cycle of four music dramas: integration of theater and music; performed in four consecutive evenings; story adapted from Norse sagas and medieval German epic poem; betrayal of love, broken promises, magic spells, corruption, lust for power
Die Walküre
Second work in the Ring cycle; main characters include twin brother and sister, offspring of the god Wotan by a mortal
Die Walküre leitmotifs
“magic fire”; “magic sleep”; “slumber”; “ride”; “Siegfried”
Verismo
Realism movement; subjects from everyday life; treated in down-to-earth fashion; counterparts in Germay, France
Giacomo Puccini
(1858-1924) Italian composer; main voice of verismo movement; son of a church organist; accessible style: soaring melodies, rich orchestral timbres, leitmotifs; major works include La bohéme, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot; also wrote choral works, songs, orchestral, chamber, and solo piano works
Madame Butterfly
Combines verismo and exoticism; story of tragic-heroic female protagonist, Cio-Cio-San; traditional Japanese melodies; whole-tone and pentatonic scales; evokes Japanese gagaku orchestra; harp, flute, piccolo, bells; contains a reference to The Star-Spangled Banner
“Un bel di”
Butterfly’s aria in which she dreams of Pinkerton’s return
Impressionism
French movement in painting in which the freshness of first impressions are captured; hazy, luminous style; Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir
Impressionism in Music
greater subtlety, expressive ambiguity; modal and exotic scales (chromatic, whole-tone, pentatonic); dissonance as goal, freed from need to resolve; floating harmonies, ninth chords: hover between tonalities; rich orchestra color; free rhythm; subtle colors, veiled sounds: flutes and clarinets in lower registers, muted brass, use of harp ad celesta; small-scale programmatic forms
Claude Debussy
(1862 – 1918) most important French composer of the late nineteenth century; attended Paris Conservatory at age 11; shocked teachers; defied rules; bizarre harmonies; won Prix de Rome at age 22; attended 1889 Paris Exhibition and became interested in non-Western styles; style marked by subtle expression, light airy textures, short flexible forms; composed orchestra works, dramatic works, chamber music, piano music, songs, choral music, cantatas; helped establish the French art song (mélodie)
Prelude to “Afternoon of a Fawn”
Debussy’s best-known orchestral work; symphonic poem; based on symbolist poem by Mallarmé; symbolizes raw sensuality; later choreographed by Russian dancer, Vaslav Nijinsky
Camp meetings
lasted days and/or weeks; African Americans and European Americans gathered; hymns of praise to popular or folk tunes; use of ring shout
ring shout
extended call and response developed from African traditions
Spiritual tradition of the Second Great Awakening
camp meetings of slaves; semi-improvisational tradition; worship, subversive political endeavor; coded messages; community, solidarity; monophonic singing and heterophonic elaboration
Harry T. Burleigh
African American composer, singer, educator, worked with Dvorák in the 1890s; “art-song” arrangements of spirituals; voice and piano settings; first published in the 1910s
Harlem Renaissance
movement celebrating African American culture and arts
John Phillip Sousa
(1854 – 1932) most famous American bandmaster, “March King”, conducted U.S. Marine Band (1880 – 1892); toured North America and Europe with his own band; composed over 130 marches; created national music for America; hundreds of thousands of sheet music copies; mass-marketing of recordings
Scott Joplin
(1868-1917) “King of Ragtime”; born in Texas; composer and pianist; son of a former enslaved man; at age 14, worked in honky-tonks and piano bars; 1893 World Exposition in Chicago recognition; studied composition at George R. Smith College; Treemonisha
Maple Leaf Rag
1899 – one million copies sold; sectional form of 4 strains (A-A-B-B-A-C-C-D-D)
Ragtime
vital precursor of jazz; African American piano style; syncopation
Rags
pieces featuring balanced phrases and key structures; clear-cut sections, patterns reminiscent of Sousa marches; merged styles, elevated ragtime to serious art; gained worldwide recognition; some preserved by Joplin in piano rolls
Sitar
long-necked plucked string instrument with metal strings and gourd resonators
Raga
A series of pitches that also projects a particular mood and an association with a certain time of day and elaborated by expert performers in North Indian Classical music.
Tala
Complex rhythmic cycle meaning “clap” played on a small set of hand drums in North Indian Classical music.
Tabla
Small set of hand drums used to play the tala (rhythmic cycle) in North Indian Classical music.
Beijing Orchestra
Blend of music, mime, and dance, with stylized gestures and movements as well as colorful costumes and masks; many examples reflect the country’s political and military struggles.
Erhu
ethereal-sounding bowed-string instrument used in Chinese music
Yang quin
instrument that resembles the hammered dulcimer used in Chinese music
Pipa
A plucked instrument resembling a lute used in Chinese music
Arnold Schoenberg
(1874-1951); Viennese conductor, composer, and educator; three style periods (post-Romantic; Atonality/Expressionism; 12-Tone); taught Alban Berg and Anton Webern emigrated to U.S.; composed orchestral music, operas, choral music, chamber music, piano music
Expressionism
German movement initiated in painting that explored the darker depths of the human psyche; Edvard Munch; Franz Kafka in literature
Pierrot Lunaire
Song cycle; atonal/expressionist; poetry by Albert Giraud; 21 poems arranged in three groups of seven; each poem is a rondeau; female vocalist and chamber ensemble
Sprechstimme
speech-like melody
Klanfarbenmelodie
Tone-color melody; each note of melody played by different instrument
Instrumentation of Pierrot Lunaire
Female voice; flute/piccolo; clarinet/bass clarinet; violin/viola; cello; piano
Igor Stravinsky
(1882-1971); Russian composer, pianist, conductor; collaborated with Ballets Russes; fled to Switzerland, then France and then the U.S.; evolving style (post-Impressionism, primitivism, neo- Classicism, twelve-tone works; revitalized rhythm; excellent orchestrator; composed orchestral music, ballets, operas, other theater works, choral music, chamber music, piano music, songs
The Rite of Spring
“Scenes of Pagan Russia”; primitivism; composed for Ballets Russes; uproar at premiere; Dighilev, Nijinsky, and Roerich collaborations; later performed as independent concert piece; percussive use of dissonance; polytonality, polyrhythms; large orchestra; use of Russian folk tunes; few harmonic changes; use of ostinatos, pedal points, melodic repetition; unpredictable accents
Bassoon solo
Awkward, strained, high-register opening to The Rite of Spring
Second Viennese School
Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern
12-Tone Method
method of composing by Arnold Schoenberg in the early 1920s; breakdown of traditional tonal system; also called serialism
Tone Row
Particular arrangement of 12 chromatic pitches of equal weight; basis for themes, patterns, harmonies
Alternative forms of the tone row
Transposition, inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion
West African musical traditions
Call and response, distinctive vocal inflections, storytelling techniques; work songs, ring shouts, spirituals
Blues
Post-Civil War in the Mississippi Delta; derived from work songs of Southern Blacks; elements of folk songs; poor Eruo-Americans in Southern Appalachians
New Orleans Jazz
Fusion of ragtime and blues with other traditional styles of spirituals, work songs, ring shouts, Caribbean and Euro-American styles; improvisation created polyphonic texture
Music from Congo Square, pre-Civil War
Dance accompanied by drums, gourds, mouth harps, banjos; strong underlying pulse, syncopations, polyrhythms
African-derived techniques in melody
Rhythmic interjections; vocal glides; percussive vocal sounds; use of blue notes
Billie Holiday
(1915-1959) blues singer known as Lady Day; little formal education; no formal vocal training; at the age of 15 began singing in clubs in Brooklyn and Harlem; at age 18, recorded with white clarinetist Benny Goodman; broke the color barrier; during the 1940s health and voice suffered due to substance abuse
Duke Ellington
(1899-1974) jazz pianist, composer, arranger, band leader; brought jazz art to new heights; major artistic figure of the Harlem Renaissance toured America and Europe in the 1930s and 40s; 1939 marked beginning of collaboration with Billy Strayhorn
Swing/Big Band
Ensemble that performed for black white audiences; dance clubs, hotel ballrooms; reed section, brass section, and rhythm section
Take the A Train
Epitomizes swing style; rich orchestral palette; 32-bar song form (A-A-B-A), 3 choruses; piano introduction, syncopated chromatic motive; recorded in 1941 with Duke Ellington on piano
Cool Jazz
Laid-back style, dense harmonies, lower volume levels, moderate tempos, new lyricism; led by Miles Davis
West Coast Jazz
Small group of mixed timbres often without piano; contrapuntal improvisations; Dave Brubeck Quartet, Gerry Mulligan Quartet
William Grant Still
(1895-1978) African American composer and violinist; prominent musical voice of the Harlem Renaissance; worked in Memphis and New York as arranger for radio and musical theater; broke numerous racial barriers; his music was infused with elements of spirituals, blues, and jazz; deliberately moved away from avant-garde movement in art music; four symphonies, orchestral suites, film scores, stage works, operas, chamber music, vocal music, piano music, choral music
Troubled Island
1949 first African American composer performed in major opera house
African Dancer
Sculpture by Richmond Barthé; served as the inspiration for the first movement of Still’s Suite for violin and piano
Mother and Child
Sketch of chalk on paper by Sargent Johnson; served as the inspiration for the second movement of Still’s Suite for violin and piano
Gamin
Sculpture by Augusta Savage of a street-smart kid in Harlem; served as the inspiration for the third movement of Still’s Suite for violin and piano
Harlem stride piano
Insistent bass pattern with chords on offbeats: 2 and 4; evolved from ragtime
Chorus
Single statement of a melodic-harmonic pattern, like in a 12 bar blues or thirty-two-bar popular song, some of which are instrumental
Langston Hughes
(1902-1967) African-American poet whose verses imitated the rhythms and flow of jazz; The Weary Blues (1926) included “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” (dedicated to W.E.B. DuBois, founder of the NAACP
Musical Nationalism in the Americas
Immigrants, diverse cultural heritages; integration of vernacular traditions; modernists inspired by commercial and urban music; interest in rural or folk music
Charles Ives
(1874-1954) Connecticut-born composer, successful business executive; “grand old man” of American music; son of a Civil War bandleader; studied composition at Yale; entered insurance business; music not well received; rarely heard his works performed; “visionary, progressive”; embraced vernacular music; composed in spare time; privately printed and distributed selected works; won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947
Ives Modernist Style
Influenced by New England childhood music: hymns, patriotic songs, parlor ballads, marches, country fiddling; ideas from clashing marching bands; amateur bands playing out of tune, making incorrect entrances, playing wrong notes; love of dissonances; polytonality, polyharmony, polyrhythm
Country Band March quotations
London Bridge, Yankee Doodle, Arkansas Traveler, Battle Cry of Freedom, British Grenadiers; Foster’s Massa’s in de Cold, Cold Ground, My Old Kentucky Home; Sousa’s Semper Fidelis, Washington Post
Aaron Copland
(1900–1990) Brooklyn-born composer of Jewish immigrant parents; studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger; victim of McCarthyism in 1950s; his music was recognized as the “American” orchestral sound; his music is often performed as a symbol of national pride; works include symphonies, piano concerto, ballets, operas, film scores (Academy Award), piano music, chamber music, choral music, songs
Musical theater
Developed from variety show and European operetta; early to mid-1900s considered to be “golden age”; sentimental and contrived plots; serious dramatic elements added in the 1940s; more sophisticated elements in the 1970s and 1980s
Mambo
Musical number when Tony meets Maria; fast-paced Afro-Cuban dance; highly syncopated Latin beat; bongos, cowbells; jazzy riffs
Tonight
Ensemble number featuring a love duet between Tony and Maria on the fire escape (balcony scene); gangs sing in alternation; lyrical ballad over Latin rhythmic accompaniment
Process Music
New harmonic approach; simple, harmonically clear, one or two chords; consonant snippet repeats, gradually changing or elaborating; came to be known as Minimalist music
Phase Music
Early 1960s technology; music recorded on loop of magnetic tape; several copies of loop played simultaneously; tape speeds slowly change; loops combined in various ways
Steve Reich
(b.1936) New York-born composer; one of the most influential musicians of the 20th and early twenty-first centuries; pioneer of minimalist music; attended Juilliard School, Mills College; in 1970, studied drumming in West Africa; influenced by Ewe drumming (polyrhythms, interlocking patterns), Balinese gamelan, Judaism, Stravinsky, Bach
Movie Music
Reflects emotions of a scene; can be ironic/contradictory to scene; reflect a time period
Underscoring
Unseen source of music to film
Copland’s American Modernist Style
Designed for wide appeal; art should “serve the people”; well-crafted, classically proportioned; influences include jazz, Appalachian Anglo-American folk melodies, Mexican folk melodies, Stravinsky’s rhythm orchestration
Appalachian Spring
Copland’s best-known ballet; Martha Graham choreographed danced; setting is early 19th century rural Pennsylvania before a wedding; quotations of Shaker melody Simple Gifts; premiere in 1944; performed as orchestral suite in 1945
Simple Gifts Variations
Theme presented by solo clarinet; violas in augmentation with violins; trumpets and trombones; woodwinds, slower version; full orchestra, builds to dissonant fortissimo, dies out
Source Music
Music functions as part of the drama as in Rear Window
Musical tendencies in film scores
Wagnerian principle of leitmotifs; use of popular music trends; search for new sounds
Farewell
Two melodies represent two main characters: cello and erhu; theme and variations
Inura
Ballet in 8 movements; scored for mixed choir, strings, and percussion; written for DanceBrazil; “In Motion”
Syncretism
Blended style drawing from Afro-Brazilian traditions: Yoruba and Brazilian text; invocation to Exu (Afro-Brazilian deity)
Understanding
Fourth movement of ballet using traditional Brazilian drums, idiophones, musical bow; complex intersecting patterns; repetitions of short motives; call and response; SATB 12-voice chorus; pentatonic melodies built on short motives; vocal episodes return as refrains
