Listening Quiz #4 Flashcards
1
Q
Describe Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 17, i. Allegro moderato
A
- By Clara Wieck Schumann
- Tempo: allegro moderato
- Sonata-form movement in G minor (tonic key)
- Genre: piano trio
2
Q
Describe Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 7, i. Allegro maestoso
A
- By Clara Wieck Schumann
- Tempo: allegro maestoso
- Genre: piano concerto
3
Q
Describe Frauenliebe und –leben, i. „Seit ich ihn gesehen“
A
- By Robert Schumann
- Title means A Woman’s Love and Life
- Act 1
- 1830
- Genre: a cycle of eight Lieder (‘cycle of art songs’)
- Ensemble: soprano and piano
- Form: strophic (both stanzas of the poem are set to the same repeating music)
4
Q
Describe Frauenliebe und –leben, viii. „Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan“
A
- By Robert Schumann
- Title means A Woman’s Love and Life
- Act 8
- 1830
- Genre: a cycle of eight Lieder (‘cycle of art songs’)
- Ensemble: soprano and piano
- Form: through-composed (none of the music repeats)
- Vocal style: recitative (at least in the style of one)
5
Q
Describe Mazurka no. 13 in A Minor, op. 17, no. 4
A
- By Frédéric Chopin
- Form: ternary (A-B-A’) -> typical in Chopin’s character pieces
- Tempo: rubato
6
Q
Who composed Nocturne (Notturno) in G Minor, H.337?
A
Fanny Hensel
7
Q
Describe A Midsummer Night’s Dream, op. 21
A
- By Felix Mendelssohn
- AKA Ein Sommernachtstraum
- 1826
- Genre: overture
- Sonata form -> exposition features at least 5 distinct themes
- Category: program music
8
Q
Describe Die Walküre, Act III scene 3
A
- By Richard Wagner
- Opera
- Part of The Ring Cycle
9
Q
Describe Madama butterfly, Act 2, “Un bel di, vedremo”
A
- By Giacomo Puccini
- 1904
- Tragic opera (called by Puccini a Tragedia giapponese)
- Rare example of exoticism among Puccini’s operas
- At least 7 authentic Japanese melodies appear in the opera
- Use of pentatonic (five-pitch) scales, various percussion instruments (cymbals and other metallic percussion instruments), and Puccini’s orchestration -> evoked a “Far Eastern ambience” (to Western ears)
- Madama Butterfly is one of the world’s most often performed and beloved operas, especially in the US
10
Q
What are the dates of the Romantic Period?
A
1800 - ~1900
11
Q
What’s nationalism?
A
Desire among composers and other artists to recreate, represent, and/or celebrate their ethnic or national identity in their art
12
Q
What’s exoticism?
A
- Desire among composers and other artists to recreate, represent, and/or celebrate a foreign ethnic or national identity (or scene) within their artistic creations
- Exotic works provide reductive and voyeuristic fictions based more on expectations of the audience than on real knowledge of the foreign people depicted
- Despite post-colonial criticisms, exoticism has long been and remains compelling and popular in all genres of instrumental music and opera (and film)
- Ex: Verdi’s opera Aïda or Madama Butterfly
13
Q
What’s program music?
A
- Instrumental music associated with a story, poem, idea, scene, or something extra-musical, usually with a descriptive title revealing the source of inspiration
- The non- or extra-musical association is rarely identified by explanatory notes given to the audience as part of the concert program
- Romantic orchestral genres like the concert overture and the symphonic poem are always programmatic and always have descriptive titles
- Ex: Overture 1812 or Romeo & Juliet Fantasy-Overture or Midsummer night’s dream
- Not a genre -> it’s a broad category encompassing nearly all instrumental chamber and orchestral genres
- Often nationalistic and/or exotic
- Textual concepts are nearly always associated with programmatic works
- Musical works with texts (songs, opera, etc.) are not considered program music by this definition
14
Q
What are some examples of program music?
A
- Overture 1812
- Romeo & Juliet Fantasy-Overture
- Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture
- Hector Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique: épisode de la vie d’un artiste (1830) -> 5-movement program symphony
- Franz Liszt, A Faust Symphony in Three Character Pictures (1857) -> 3-movement program symphony
- Modest Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) -> suite of 10 character pieces (for piano)
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade (1888) -> 4-movement symphonic suite
15
Q
What’s absolute music?
A
- Instrumental music that isn’t intended to portray a more or less specific message or imagery, usually with a generic title (title that provides the genre) not suggestive of an extra-musical association
- Instrumental music that is not programmatic
- Basic musical category in Romantic thought, defined in the negative
- Became an important aesthetic concept and source of debate with the rising importance and popularity of program music in the 19th Century
- Not a genre but a very broad category that potentially encompasses any purely instrumental genre with a generic (i.e., genre-related) title -> most typical of instrumental works in the Classical Period
16
Q
Give examples of absolute music in a variety of genres
A
- Maddalena Laura Sirmen, String Quartet No. 4 in B-flat, op. 3 no. 1 (1771)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 17 in G Major, K. 453 (1786)
- Franz Schubert, Octet in F Major, D. 803 (1824)
- Clara Schumann, Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 17 (1846)
- Louise Farrenc, Nonet in E-flat, op. 38 (1849)
- Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 3 in F Major, op. 90 (1883)
17
Q
What’s chromatic harmony?
A
- AKA chromaticism
- Use of chords and pitches that don’t function normally within the diatonic tonal system of major and minor keys
- Use of chromatic harmony creates a heightened emotional or evocative effect and loosens listeners’ aural sense of key and tonic
- Chopin’s works exemplify the romantic approach to chromatic harmony as an expressive device
- Wagner’s music pushed chromatic harmony to its uttermost limits
18
Q
Describe Franz Schubert
A
- 1797-1828
- Born and lived in Vienna, Austria
- Influenced by Beethoven -> wrote symphonies and other works in a similar style
- Composed more than 600 lieder -> perhaps the most famous composer of this genre
- Played in and composed music for salons in Vienna
- Some of Schubert’s wealthier supporters sometimes threw Schubertiads -> salons dedicated primarily to the performance and promotion of Schubert’s music
19
Q
What’s a song cycle?
A
- AKA Lied cycle
- Genre
- Collection of Lieder (art songs) that are published together as a set and share other unifying characteristics
- Not every collection of art songs is a cycle
20
Q
What are the shared musical characteristics of a song cycle?
A
- Related pattern of keys between songs
- Reappearance of musical motives (melodies) in more than one song in the cycle
21
Q
What are the shared extra-musical characteristics of a song cycle?
A
- Poems by the same poet that may have been published together as cycle of poems
- Poems that are related by subject matter or that tell a unified story
- Poems that represent a unified perspective, a musical and/or poetic persona that is perceived to be projected by the artwork itself
- Ex: Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und –leben
22
Q
What’s the cyclic principle? When is a multi-movement work a ‘cycle’?
A
When Lieder (art songs) that are published together as a set also share other unifying characteristics (musical and extra-musical characteristics)
23
Q
What are the 3 forms in art songs?
A
- Strophic form
- Modified strophic form
- Through-composed form
24
Q
What’s the strophic form?
A
- Each poetic verse (aka strophe or stanza) is set to the same, repeating music
- Examples can be found in Christian hymns (nearly always in strophic form)
- Ex: Robert Schumann’s “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” or Frauenliebe und –leben, no. 1, “Seit ich ihn gesehen”
25
Q
What’s the modified strophic form?
A
- Some of the poem’s verses are set to the same music, but there are other parts of the music that differ -> often near the end of the song.
- Ex: Clara Schumann’s “Der Mond kommt still gegangen”
26
Q
What’s the through-composed form?
A
- Music of the song is composed all throughout the piece -> contains no repeated sections
- No 2 stanzas are set exactly alike
- Ex: Franz Schubert’s art song Der Erlkönig -> this form perhaps best reflects the poem’s narrative nature
- Ex: Schumann, Frauenliebe und –leben, no. 8, “Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan”
27
Q
What’s a piano postlude?
A
Substantial portion of piano music occurring at the end of an art song after the vocalist has presented all of the text
28
Q
What’s a rubato/tempo rubato?
A
- To vary the ‘time’ of music by slowing down or speeding up in an expressive manner
- Often used before strong cadences or before other dissonance is resolved -> temporarily clinging to the most dissonant points of music which heightens the listener’s anticipation
- Chopin often indicated rubato in his published music
- Typical that performers add rubato even when it’s not marked
- Element of correct performance practice in this music to emphasize cadences, new phrases, etc. with tempo variations
29
Q
What’s a character piece?
A
- Genre for solo piano in the 19th century
- One-movement miniatures for solo piano, usually brief (2 to 7 mins), with descriptive titles suggestive of mood, scene, type of song or dance, etc.
- Model for many piano character pieces were the bel canto arias in the Italian operas of Rossini and others
- Usually homophonic: conjunct lyrical melody and a clear accompaniment
- Have a wide variety of fanciful titles, often suggesting an improvisatory style (ex: prelude, intermezzo, and impromptu)
- Other titles suggest urban or nationalistic dance types, such as waltz, mazurka, and polonaise
- Character pieces, like art songs, were a prominent genre in fashionable salons
- Chopin composed a lot of these
30
Q
What are the different types of character pieces?
A
- étude (‘study’ -> Chopin designed these as technical studies for his piano students and as artworks worthy of concert performance. Always technically difficult pieces, exciting to hear and play)
- mazurka (genre of stylized Bohemian dance, urban or nationalistic dance types)
- nocturne (“night piece” -> genre that suggests a mood or scene)
- polonaise (genre of stylized Bohemian dance, urban or nationalistic dance types)
- prelude (suggests an improvisatory style)
31
Q
Why was Felix Mendelssohn’s 1829 performance of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion influential?
A
- Felix instituted a series of ‘historical concerts’ (each devoted to a grouping of composers from the more distant past)
- In 1829 Mendelssohn had arranged and conducted a Berlin performance of J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (oratorio first performed in 1727 that had never been heard outside of Leipzig)
- Mendelssohn’s revival of this work importantly contributed to bringing Bach’s music to public and scholarly attention
- This event illustrates the retrospective and historic focus of concert programs starting ~1830
32
Q
Describe Giuseppe Verdi
A
- 1813-1901
- The dominant opera composer in Italy for 50 yrs after Donizetti
-Italian national hero during his lifetime - Preferred librettos based on successful plays or novels (ex: works by Shakespeare, Schiller, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas)
- Many of his libretti are on historical topics, but others (ex: La Traviata) are contemporary
- His operas remain extremely popular, especially the 3 masterpieces from his middle period: Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), Il traviata (1853)
- Verdi’s popular opera Aïda shows the influence of grand opera
33
Q
Describe Giacomo Puccini
A
- 1858-1924
- Italian composer most known for his operas
- Several of his operas have entered the standard repertory of opera companies around the world, including: La bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904)
- Largely regarded as the most important, influential, and beloved Italian composer after Giuseppe Verdi
- The librettos of Puccini’s operas were often based on popular, contemporary novels and plays
- Some of Puccini’s operas, like La bohème, demonstrate the late 19th-century fascination with realism -> feature realistic and contemporary characters of all social classes experiencing the joys and tragedies of Puccini’s modern world
- The dramatic action in late 19th-century opera is not clearly segmented into recitative-aria [applause], recitative-aria [applause], as was often seen in the 18th century
- 19th-century opera composers were concerned with the continuity of dramatic action and affect -> very few breaks in the music or action, and the recitatives and arias usually flow one into the other seamlessly
34
Q
What were the various national genres of Italian/French opera in the 19th century?
A
Genres of serious opera:
- Opera seria (Italian)
- Grand opera (French origin)
Genres of comic opera:
- Opera buffa (Italian)
- Opéra comique (French) -> uses spoken dialogue
35
Q
What’s a prima donna?
A
- Italian
- Singer of the principal female role in an opera or the leading female singer in an opera company
- Male equivalent: primo uomo
36
Q
What’s the nature and subject matter of librettos in late 19th-century opera (Italian & German)?
A
- Italian: Verdi and Puccini’s opera librettos were often based on popular and contemporary novels and plays
- Many of Verdi’s libretti are on historical topics, but others are contemporary
- German: Wagner’s librettos were drawn from medieval German epics and Norse/Scandinavian mythology (focused on the supernatural, glorified the German land and its people, and intended to function as allegories that resonated deep within the psyche of the German folk)
37
Q
Describe Richard Wagner
A
- 1813-1883
- Most important and influential figure in the history of German opera
- Source of nationalistic fervor in his homeland
- Strongly influenced several generations of European and American composers of opera.
- Advocated ‘progressive innovations’ in art music (modeled from Beethoven’s revolutionary directions)
- Wagner and his followers were called the New German School (slogan: “the music of the future”)
- Progressive composers wrote articles and published essays defending the new programmatic music as the next evolutionary step in musical development, particularly in orchestral genres (ex: program symphony and symphonic poem)
- Wrote and published important books in which he outlined his theories for a new genre of opera -> music drama
38
Q
What’s the Bayreuth Festival Theater?
A
Ludwig II of Bavaria (Wagner’s patron) funded the construction of the Festival Theater in Bayreuth, Germany, the innovative plan of which was designed for performances of Wagner’s music dramas
39
Q
Describe The Ring Cycle (The Ring of the Nibelung) music drama
A
- Wagner’s most famous and important achievement is the grand cycle of 4 music dramas, The Ring of the Nibelung (aka The Ring Cycle)
- 4 titles are: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götter-dämmerung
- Wagner wrote the massive libretto of these 4 dramas between 1848 and 1852
- Took more than 2 decades to compose the music for the 4 massive works
- Characters and action in The Ring Cycle are drawn from Norse mythology
- Libretto is also political -> ideological content concerns the destructive force of the lust for wealth and power
40
Q
What’s a concerto (solo concerto)?
A
- Concert genre
- Genre of large-ensemble music in multiple movements for a featured instrumental soloist with an orchestra
41
Q
What’s the concert overture?
A
- Romantic orchestral genre
- Always programmatic
- One-movement work for orchestra with a descriptive title, usually based on a sonata form design -> similar to a symphony first movement (without the other 3)
- By 1800, concert overture became a stand-alone orchestral genre distinct from association with opera or the symphony
- However, romantic concert overtures often reference dramatic works, and symphony first movements were occasionally used to open concerts
- Concert overtures are almost always sonata-form movements -> contain an exposition with themes in both the tonic and secondary keys, followed by a development section, and a recapitulation that follows the sonata-form principle (both main themes return in the tonic key)
42
Q
What’s a double concerto?
A
Concerto for 2 soloists plus orchestra
43
Q
What’s the French Grand Opera?
A
- Serious opera
- Appealed to middle-class Parisian audiences through sheer extravagance
- Spectacle was at least as important as the music, so the following were often featured: machinery, large choruses, extravagant sets and costumes, ballets and other dances, crowd scenes with many costumes, exotic animals
- Librettos of grand opera were often based on historic topics, larger-than-life characters, and events of large scope (war, political intrigue, etc.)
- Usually in 4 or 5 acts
- Verdi’s opera Aïda shows the influence of grand opera -> scene from Aïda contains no singing, but displays animals, exotic costumes, and dancing
44
Q
What’s a Lied?
A
- AKA art song
- Plural: lieder
- Genre of monody (song) composed for solo voice with piano accompaniment
- Musical setting of a high-quality poem, often a poem that’s already well known to the audience -> these poems were rarely written by the composer of the music
- Popularity of the art song was largely due to the ubiquity of the piano in the homes of wealthier families
- Domestic music making was common and common/generally expected that the daughters of affluent families could play the piano and/or sing
- The piano in an art song is more than just accompaniment -> it’s crucial to the expression and musical interpretation of the poem
- Art song = composer’s reading of a poem
45
Q
What’s the music drama?
A
- New genre of opera
- Created by Richard Wagner
46
Q
What’s an opera buffa?
A
- Genre of comic opera
- Comic Italian opera
- Generally in 2 acts, using recitatives and arias
- Plots usually involve contemporary situations and characters, including character servants, and other common folk
- This genre had wider appeal for middle-class audiences than did opera seria
47
Q
What’s an opéra comique?
A
- Genre of comic opera
- Comic French opera
- Only type of opera that uses spoken dialogue
48
Q
What’s an opera seria?
A
- AKA grand opera
- Genre of Italian opera
- Serious Italian opera in 3 acts, using recitatives and arias
- Plots were usually drawn from classical history or legend
- Arias often contain long melismas and are virtuosic
- Oldest and most serious genre of opera
- Strongly associated with aristocratic tastes
49
Q
What’s a piano trio?
A
- Genre of music characterized by a solo piano player accompanied by 2 instruments
- Ex: Clara Wieck Schumann, Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 17
50
Q
What’s a sonata?
A
- The solo sonata is a genre of chamber music in either one of 2 formats:
1. a multi-movement genre for one piano, harp, guitar, organ, etc. alone
2. a multi-movement genre for an instrumental soloist with piano accompaniment - Similar to the solo sonata from the Baroque period, only post-1750 there is no basso continuo -> the piano takes over the role of accompaniment
- Trio sonata dies out with the baroque period, so after 1750 “sonata” always refers to one of the 2 forms of solo sonata
- Classical models (late 18th-century form) of the sonata have 3 movements
51
Q
What’s a string quartet?
A
- The Classical model of the string quartet is a 4-movement musical genre for 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, & cello
- One of the most popular types of chamber music in the late 18th century (and beyond)
- Could range broadly in difficulty and many of Haydn’s string quartets were intended for amateur performance
- String quartets were a genre common in social music-making
- The 4-movement structure of the string quartet came to be very similar to that of the symphony
52
Q
What’s a symphony?
A
- Multi-movement instrumental genre for orchestra alone
- This genre’s predecessors are the opera overture (often called sinfonia in Italian operas) and the dance suite, both of which were baroque instrumental works for a large, mixed ensemble of instruments centered around bowed strings (an orchestra), with no featured soloist(s)
- The classical model (the late 18th-century form) of the symphony has 4 movements
