Information to know Flashcards
Who wrote the first really successful opera in Russia and what was it’s name?
Glinka, “A Life for the Tsar”
Who were the Russian 5?
Major composers that Glinka influenced:
Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov
Information on Balakirev (3 points)
- Most radical of the Russian 5
- Believed that in order to create a Rusian style, he had to reject western style
- In order to achieve this, he ignored harmonic rules that were taught in the West (such as “no parallel fifths or octaves,” “correctly resolving the LT, etc.”
Info on Musorgsky (4 points)
- Trying to write completely new music influenced his harmonies in interesting ways.
- Uses tritone relation chords in “Boris Godunov” that we studied
- Uses a thickening texture to create a bild rather than a chord progression
- Was interested in the harmony and melodies of Russian folk songs, though he rarely quoted them.
French Opera (5 Types during the start of the 19th Century)
- Rescue genre (most important type)
- Grand Opera
- Opera comique
- Opera bouffe or Comedic opera
- Operetta (shorter than opera bouffe, other than that they are the same)
Main composer of Rescue opera and the subject matter of this genre
Cherubini, they were about wrongful imprisonment.
Grand opera - Three major people involved in production process, major characteristic
Véron (business man)
Scribe (librettist)
Meyerbeer (composer)
- Involved many people on stage, rather than just a few main characters
Offenbach - What did he do, and what was one example that we studied?
Satirized serious operas
- Orpheus and the Underworld
Arthur Sullivan and Gilbert - What operas they wrote and the issues they had with receiving royalties in the US, and how they coped with those problems (3 pieces)
- D’oyly Carte hired them to write an opera; resulting work was “Trial by Jury” (1875)
- In 1878 they wrote “HMS Pinafore” and were being ripped off in the US without getting any royalties
- “The Pirates of Penzance” was premiered in NY to deal with that (since it was premiered in NY, they had to get royalties for it to be reproduced)
19th Century Chamber Music - Reputation (4 points)
- Had a mixed reputation
- Many major composers didn’t write any chamber music during the 19th century
- There was still a huge market for chamber music, however (played in homes, in concert halls…)
- Chamber music did not play a great role in innovation during this century
String Quartets in the 19th century - 2 reasons for decline in popularity
- Beethoven’s late string quartets were so good that composers were at a loss for what to do.
- Pianos were becoming more widespread in the common home, and so the public wanted works for piano performance.
Three-Key Exposition - What is it, and a fact about the recap
- Common beginning to Sonata Form in the 19th century
- Recap usually involves a second theme a fourth up or a fifth down from the parallel theme in the exposition.
Developing variation (1937) - Who coined the term, and what does it entail?
- Schoenberg
- A new motive is introduced as a technique of changing it up (descending semitone instead of a regular ascending semitone)
Schoenberg’s opinion of Brahms as opposed to his contemporaries
Schoenberg thought Brahms was a progressive composer, others thought he was a conservative one.
19th Century Orchestral Music - Tone Poem (what is it, what form does it take, what influences the form?)
- One movement orchestral work with a program
- Can be in any form, usually not in “standard” sonata form though
- Program influences the form
