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
Impressionism - What was it? Who was the most famous painter associated with it? What is the focus?
- French Movement
- Monet was the most famous painter of this style
- Focuses on outside scenes
“Sunrise,” “Waterlillies” - Who were they by? Describe the borders and colors. What are they showing the onlooker?
- Monet
- Lack of clear borders; colors bleed into each other
- Scenes of modern life
Impressionistic parallel in literature - What is it? Who is the famous poet of this style? What do poets do to the meanings? How do they choose their words?
- Symbolism
- Stephane Mallarmé
- Deliberately obscure meanings
- Choose words based on their sound, not their meanings.
Paris World’s Fair, 1889 - How did it pertain to major impressionist artists?
They all met together there to celebrate the arts.
Relation from the music of this time to key centers.
Much of this music doesn’t clearly define a tonic key.
Expressionism - Limitations on art forms involved? Independent or not? What’s it about?
- Involved all different art forms
- Different creative artists worked together
- All about the human psyche, often interested in negative human emotions (anxiety, etc.)
(Expressionist Painting) “Nightmare” by Kokoshka - Importance of paint color, human features, common technique used.
- Paint color is a method of demonstrating emotions
- Distorts human features; shows tension throughout the man’s body and face
- Uses the common technique of outlining people and other subjects
(Expressionist Painting) “Composition VII” (1913) by Kandinsky (3 points, two about the work and one about the history of the work)
- Representational (does not represent a specific person or thing)
- Subjective analysis
- Just before painting this, he heard an atonal piece by Schoenberg for the first time and wrote a letter that expressed the similarity of their art forms and messages. This led to a string of letters back and forth.
“Photo of mime Charles Deburau,” by Nadar - Example of what?
Pierrot Lunair Example
“Pierrot assassin de sa femme, in L’Illustration” by who?
Henri Lanos
Expressionist writer that we studied and what he wrote
Altenberg
- Wrote telegram poems (called that because they were so short)
Techniques used by composers in the Expressionist era (3 points)
- Used motives
- Got rid of major and minor scales in relation to theory
- Began creating new harmonies out of seconds, sevenths, etc.
Serialism - who created it, what does it utilize?
- Schoenberg with the help of other composers
- Uses the twelve-tone row (all twelve chromatic tones used in a specific order)
What can be done to each tone row?
Inverted, retrograded, and retrograde inverted
- Inverted: when you go up in the original, you go down by the same interval
- Retrograde: backwards
- Retrograde inverted: combination
Total serialism (definition)
Row of pitches, articulations, dynamics, attacks: Every element of music is set into a row.
“Techniques of my Musical Language”
Book written by Messiaen
Nonretrogradeable (define)
When a row is the same forwards and backwards
Neo Classic era (4 points)
- What composers wanted
- Relation to Expressionism
- Relation to older forms and styles
- Relation to popular music
- Composers of this era wanted to return to Classical clarity
- Rebelled against Expressionism compositions
- Borrowed older forms and styles
- Some thought it was important to be influenced by popular music
French objective to individualize themselves
Wanted to simplify their music and create a music entirely their own.
Les Six (2 points)
- Six composers were socializing together in the 20th century
- Influenced by Satie
Neo Classic artist (1, and who he was influenced by)
Léger - was heavily influenced by Picasso
Neo Tonal (define)
Pieces with a tonal center, where the tonal center is established in unconventional ways
Minimalism
- In what art form did it start?
- Who did it work against?
- Started in paintings
- Worked against artists like Jackson Pollock: artist, employed the drip technique (tossed paint on a large canvas)
