Symphony Composers Flashcards
Schubert Symphony 9 ‘Great’ (Brian Newbould)
• Written 1825 (revised until 1827)
• Scale matches Beethoven 3/7/9
• Last great Classical symphony
—– Lacks quasi-programmatic provenance of 3 and extramusical allusions (vocal text) of 9
• Integration of long slow introduction (itself in quasi-sonata form) into form of first movement (career-long interest)
o Climax of strenuous coda
o Sole thematic concern of susbstantial sections of exposition/development/recap
Schumann 2 (Linda Roesner)
Symphony No. 2 in C Major Op. 61 (1845-46): Schumann began to compose away from the piano and to conceive the work in his head. The integration of the thematic material of a work became more and more important and powerful. He discards the 4-mvmts-in-1 format in favor of multimovement designs, so there is a real adagio movement in this one and No. 3. The thematic structure of the entire work unfolds out of the opening measures of the introduction, also very unified tonal plan, all of the movements are in C major. C major is always the tonic but it is only in the fourth movement and at the ends of the three previous movements that the status of C is really reaffirmed. Gives the impression that the tonic was attained in these movements only by great strength of will. C stands for Clara, dedicated to her, symphony has the same tonal scheme as Fantasie Op. 17 from 10 years earlier, which is a very personal and symbolic work. The tonal goal of Op. 61 symbolises the victory of the spirit over darkness and despair, may be intended as a tribute to Clara for her love and support during the difficult time in their marriage. Schumann manipulates the symphonic tradition to suit not only his poetic/symbolic purpose but also his aesthetic position.
Schumann 3 (Linda Roesner)
Symphony No. 3 ‘Rhenish’ in Eb Major Op. 97 (1850): composed after he moved to the Rhine city of Dusseldorf, originally it had a program rich in pictorial imagery, which Schumann suppressed before publication. The intricate thematic relationships and tonal interconnections that characterise the earlier symphonies become ever more subtle when coupled with the full breadth and contrapuntal complexities of his late style. No longer uses a motto, many related themes weave the symphony together. 1st mov. is introductionless,. In the exposition of the 1st mov there is no distinction between P and S space, and rather, they are treated as one unified discourse. The finale (5th mov) of this symphony is very end-oriented, emphasis on the unfolding of thematic material, the impressive 4th movement furthers this goal-orientation. (response to Eroica)
• Symphony 3
o Thematic unity
o First theme introduces perfect fourth, the major sixth, and the dotted rhythmic figure: variously present in almost every theme of the symphony
o Coda: themes crystallize, merging 5th mov, 4th mov and 1st mov
—– Sums up myriad interrelationships but also Schumann’s aesthetic ideal
o Most ‘objective’: programme removed, Rhine references far less salient than biographical concerns of earlier symphonies
Berlioz (Holoman)
Berlioz & the Symphony
- Berlioz was unique among French contemporaries for composing symphonies
Trendy French genres: opera, religious music and military music (in order of decreasing importance)
Composed in these genres in 1820s, before being influenced by 1828 Beethoven symphony performances by new Société des Concerts du Conservatoire - ‘Berlioz was less concerned with the purity of the symphonic genre as he inherited it than with the symphony as a form for experiment and progress toward his own ideals as a composer of dramatic music’
Symphony freer genre than Parisian opera, restricted by convention and interpersonal relationships
Berlioz’s symphonic programmaticism
- Pictorialism: e.g. guillotine chop/beloved’s arrival in Symphonie Fantastique)
- Specific textual depiction/interpretation: e.g. Love Scene/other scenes in Romeo et Juliette
- Used conventional (Beethovenian) formal designs
- Berlioz believed unquestioningly in music’s ability to convey a depth of feeling richer and truer than was possible with any other art form’
- —- [Schopenhauer influence] - Later distanced himself from both Liszt’s “program music” and Hanslick’s absolute music
- —- Wrote of the limits of musical imitation and dramatic intent - Programmaticism as promoting accessibility
- —- Holoman alleges mid-20th-century modernism/abstractionism (which feared pictorialism) drove ‘paying listeners from the concert hall’
Symphonie fantastique (1830)
- [Uses literary terms as inspiration]
Fantastique = longstanding French literary genre which overlaps with science-fiction, horror and fantasy
Idee fixe concept originated in early-19thC French literature - First symphonies of Berlioz, Brahms and Mahler all overturned symphonic norms [symphonic development]
- Precedents:
Beethoven, Rossini, Weber
Gossec, Mehul - Originality
Innovative orchestration
(1) Novel timbres:
o Echo dialogue between cor anglais/off-stage oboe
o 9-part div strings
o Col legno strings with wind trills and bass pizz. thunder-music timpani and detailed stick instructions
o 2-player bass drum roll
o Unprecedented combination
(2) Association of register with gender facilitated programmatic depiction:
o Masculine cello vs feminine soprano idee fixe (mov 3, b87)
o Wind: grotesque masculine laughter vs feminine laughter (mov 5 opening)
o Later used to identify Harold, Romeo, Juliet etc.
(3) Context:
o Orchestral writing facilitated by virtuosity of Parisian players
o Societe des Concerts initially favoured progress – inaugural concert featured demonstration of piston-valved horn
Narrative programme and idée fixe
• Programme written April 1830, with subsequent minor revisions
• Summary of programme
o 1, “Reveries and Passions”: artist longs for his beloved
o 2, “A Ball”: recognises her at a ball in a crowded salon
o 3, “Scene in the Country”: dreams of the beloved in pastoral surroundings
o 4, “March to the Scaffold”
o 5, “Dream of the Witches’ Sabbath”: thoughts become hallucinations
• Idee fixe: theme of first movement then alluded to via transformed citation in all following movements
o Striking thematic transformation, esp. finale’s “Mockery of the Beloved”
Model for Liszt’s thematic treatment in Faust symphony
‘few symphonic composers after Berlioz and Liszt were entirely free of its spell’
• Autobiographical allusions in programme and idee fixe (114)
o Berlioz wracked by “spiritual sickness [les vague des passions]”, with hallucinations, nosebleeds and quincy [recurring throatache]
o Fell in unrequited love with Irish actress Harriet Smithson (1827); writing Fantastique he had fallen for someone else
o Musical material derives from earlier works (idee fixe had appeared in 1828 Prix de Rome cantata)
Musical analysis of Symphonie fantastique (1830)
Form
• Formal analysis undertaken in Schumann’s Neue Zeitschrift essay
• 3 movements resemble sonatas, but their proportions are ‘thoroughly unconventional’
o Long introductions in first and last movements
First movement’s intro twice as long as exposition and development combined
o First movement’s development abandons second theme
o Beethovenian motivic development is secondary to inter-movement thematic reference and pacing of global structure
• ‘Berlioz is at his most natural in prevailingly strophic procedures, where his fertility of invention can be expressed by means of varied resettings and ongoing transformation of given material’
o Mov 3: ‘strophic design interacting with programmatic episodes evokes the mix of pastoral tranquillity and internal upheaval’
Tonal scheme (C-A-F-g-C) linked to monumental structure
Harmony focuses on b6-inflected cadences and characteristic 6/b6 tension
o Berlioz-Liszt relationship: Liszt came backstage following premiere, leaving with solo piano transcription project
Harold en Italie (1834)
o Symphony’s character reflects compositional context of rare domestic bliss in post-marriage honeymoon period with Harriet Smithson
Inner warmth
o Resulting from Paganini viola concerto commission
o Programme
Title alludes to the protagonist of Byron’s Childe-Harold poem
• Harold = paradigmatic desolate Romantic hero; portrayed by viola solo
Movement titles refer to Harold in varying
Autobiographical element:
o Employs traditional Beethovenian 4-movement structure
o Most innovative elements:
Use of performance space
• Viola soloist’s positioning (near audience, away from orchestra)
o Exemplifies Romantic paradigm of deserted individual
o Unusual visual/acoustic effect – step beyond Fantastique’s off-stage oboe
• Spatial mapping in Canto religioso (Pilgrim’s March middle section): long note values exchanged between winds and strings (back vs front), while viola’s semiquaver arpeggios interplay with contrabass’s crotchets/quavers (left vs right)
o Pilgrim’s March recalled in finale with 3 off-stage violins
Rhythmic vitality
• Three-way reunion des themes (Abruzzi serenade, mov 3)
• Finale ending (b518 on)
o Violist has quasi- idee-fixe motive used in all movements
o Finale
Ideas systematically recalled by viola and dismissed by orchestra, lost in Bacchic revelry
• Beet 9 finale reference
Subsequent narrative: ‘off-stage reminiscence, drunken semicollapse’ then regained momentum in drive toward final bars
• ‘In these surroundings elegance of form would have amounted to a contradiction of purpose’
• Romeo et Juliette (1839)
Romeo et Juliette (1839)
o 7-movement structure based on selected scenes from Shakespeare’s play
o Begins in B min, ends in B maj
o Vocal force gradually revealed:
Soloists/recitative chorus, then off-stage chorus, then full Capulet chorus, then all 3 united
Orchestra begins to retreat in 5th movement
o ‘thematic cyclism fashioned at several structural levels’
Foreshadowing
• Orchestra foreshadows choral recitative themes
• Foreshadowing by tambourine/timpani in the reunion of themes
Reminiscing
• Passers-by recall principal theme of fete as they speak of its delights
• Romeo-Juliet embrace in Tomb Scene cites earlier love theme
• Juliet’s awakening uses neighbour-note motive in love scene
“Reunion of themes” section, like in Fantastique and Harold
Introductory fugal skirmish immediately augmented in voice line, and its later recapitulation depicting quarrelling families strongly suggests closure
o Ian Kemp shows most imaginative moments developed from line-by-line reactions to Shakespeare’s play – programmaticism spurring innovation
Balcony scene: Romeo and Juliette’s speech musically imitated by violas/cellos and woodwinds respectively
• Movement is repeatedly elongated to portray lovers delaying their moment of separation
Tomb scene is line-by-line narrative
o ‘Berlioz seems to have shed whatever obligation he may have felt to Viennese periodicity [Classical phrase structure]’
Liszt (Hamilton)
• Liszt’s symphonic works are enigmatic
• Context for symphonic poem
o 1848: arrived in Weimar as piano virtuoso intending to establish himself as opera composer
o 1850s: turned focus to “symphonic problem”
Truism: Liszt invented symphonic poem because ‘new wine [musical language] demands new bottles [form]’ (Liszt)
• The reality was more complex
Greatly respected Berlioz, but believed German orchestral music was in a rut, with formulaic sonata-forms (following Marx/Czerny’s codification)
• Programmaticism allowed subject matter to shape form, preventing alleged descent into formula
Believed Beethoven’s works raised question: ‘how far is traditional or recognised form a necessary determinant for the organism of thought?’
• Divided Beethoven’s work into 2 (not 3) periods:
o First: ‘traditional and recognized form contains and governs’ Beethoven’s thought
o Second: ‘thought stretches, breaks, recreates and fashions the form and style according to its needs and inspirations’
Liszt’s followed Beethoven’s second model through alliance with literature/visual arts
Liszt’s programmaticism:
• Believed in echoing programme’s overall mood rather than being bound by precise narrative
o Nevertheless, Hamlet often depicts source text line-by-line
• Unequivocally believed the standalone quality and coherence of the music was ultimately key
o ‘In the end it comes principally to this – what the ideas are, and how they are carried out and worked up – and that always leads us back to feeling and invention’
• However, was able to adapt his style to dramatic subject, e.g. contrasting portrayals of two women in symphonies: Francesca da Rimini (Dante 1st mov) and Gretchen (Faust)
Term “symphonic poem” first appeared (1854), with works previously termed concert overtures
Sonata form sometimes used in first group of symphonic poems (Tasso, Les Preludes, Orpheus, Prometheus, Festklänge) and first movement of Faust
• Taruskin (2010) argues sections of Les Preludes ‘[correspond] to the movements of a regular symphony if not in the most conventional order’, and overall narrative matches per aspera ad astra
Second group of symphonic poems and Dante show more radical approach to form
Cases of programmes applied retroactively
• Music to Les Preludes composed 1845-9 as overture to Liszt’s 1845 choral piece Les quatre elements, then adapted into symphonic poem with current name 1853-4
Published with vague programmatic preface and deceptive claim to be ‘d’apres Lamartine’
• Programmatic hook for audience’s comprehension
• Does it expose programmaticism’s falseness/shallowness?
• Mazeppa: amalgam of music from independent sources, yet all said to portray Mazeppa’s nightmarish ride [tied to the back of a horse] (from Byron narrative poem)
o Outpouring of orchestral composition 1850s and early 60s
8th symphonic poem (1849-50) used material from unfinished 1830 Revolutionary Symphony’s first mov
N.B. only reliable chronology of symphonic poems is order of publication due to extensive revision
o 1862: Liszt declared he had ‘solved the symphonic problem’
• Liszt’s innovative symphonic style
o Liszt’s symphonic works were ‘regarded as pieces of revolutionary novelty, standard-bearers of the avant-garde’
Wagner on Liszt’s music: ‘so new, so incomparable to anything else’
o Liszt’s style is amalgam of cosmopolitan influences
Welds Italianate melodies, Germanic thematic development, Hungarian gypsy music and French grand opera) into distinctive compositional style
• Stylistic eclecticism mirrors Meyerbeer, whose operas Liszt admired
Overtly and covertly alludes to pre-existing themes
• Symbolically conveys programme
o Innovative formal approach (148)
Form guided by poetic idea, leading to formal innovation/deformation
Liszt’s formal ingenuity most visible when seen as deformation of conventional sonata form
• Tasso opening evokes frustrations of Tasso’s life via formal frustration
o Slow introduction followed by allegro energico leading to extended dominant pedal, constructing expectations of main allegro theme in C-min
o Expectations thwarted by return of slow introduction (ABA)
o Thwarted again by main theme’s eventual appearance as long lyrical melody in slow tempo
• Festklänge is sonata-form variant
Hamlet: close parallels with play: underpinned by large-scale arch form, thematic transformation and varied repeats
o Harmonic approach: complex, chromatic, subtle, wandering (155)
Orpheus opening: restrained, subtle use of harmony
• Repeated iterations of ambiguous unaccompanied horn G reinterpreted each time
• Anticipated resolution to C finally reached but weakly, and immediately deflected
• Hamilton: ‘expected resolutions [are] gently deflected by a supple chromaticism that never leads to excess’
Faust symphony (1854/1857) (152)
Faust symphony
• Gretchen’s mov repeatedly returns to tonic, characterising Gretchen as delicate and making return of Faust material even more dramatico
Exemplifies Micznik’s notion of programmatic music interpreting rather than merely reflecting its programme
o 3 movements depict 3 characters, rather than strict narration
Faust (aristocrat): loose sonata form; notable areas of tonal ambiguity
• Different motives highlight Faust’s internal conflict
Gretchen (Faust’s love): slow mov in ternary form, clings to tonic
• Theme as duet between oboe and viola (Berlioz?)
• B-section tonally destabilised by infiltration of Faust’s Appassionata/Affetuoso themes, which reappear in operatic manner (Berliozian technique)
• Gendered theme:
o Non-developing, lacking accented beginnings/endings
o Articulates Ab (tonic) triad, conjunct motion, homophony
• Kramer: Gretchen portrayed through male view
Mephistopheles (agent of devil, spirit of negation): obscured recapitulation of mov 1
• Parasitic presence is revealed in musical mutation of Faust’s themes rather than meriting its own
• Opening imitates Witches Sabbath: Berlioz?
• Gretchen’s theme reappears at end before being overridden by crescendo into Faust’s Grandioso theme in v1, and all-male Chorus Mysticus singing of female redemption in v2
o Berliozian dramatic/operatic use of thematic return and metamorphosis
o Revised version (1857) adds all-male Chorus Mysticus: Beethoven 9 influence?
Liszt, programmaticism and popularity
o Hamilton: ‘As the most successful concert artist of the nineteenth century, Liszt was always concerned with the effectiveness of his music before an inexperienced audience’
o Critics lambasted Liszt’s varied repetition of sections, yet Liszt argued repetition aided intelligibility
Liszt: repetition integral to music’s ‘clarity, order and effect’ and is ‘indispensable to the [audience’s] understanding of the idea’
o Walter Frisch (14) cites Hanslick: programmatic music is ‘the translation into music of some programme unintelligible to those who do not possess the key’
Liszt conclusion
• Conclusion (160):
o Liszt seen as “episodic” composer due to vivid musical contrasts
o However, Hamilton argues his music is truly ‘symphonic’ due to the large-scale preparation/execution of effects
o Finale of Faust symphony (‘Mephistopheles’)
Reflects a monumental formal plan, functioning simultaneously as recapitulation and resolution of earlier drama
‘represents the zenith of Liszt’s art of thematic transformation’, retaining the first movement’s structure yet reworking its already thoroughly-developed material
• Liszt was ‘among the greatest of variation composers’, despite rarely writing actual “theme and variations” works
Brahms (mostly Brodbeck in Holoman)
• Schumann deemed Brahms a worthy successor of Beethoven (‘Neue Bahnen’ 1854): became an obsession to Brahms
o Opening of Brahms’ piano concerto in D Minor (Op. 15, 1858) reimagines opening of Beethoven 9
Originally conceived as symphony (1854) but revised as piano concerto
• Wrote lots of serenades
o Brahms: ‘If one wants to write symphonies after Beethoven, then they will have to look very different!’
Brahms Symphony No. 1 (1855-1876) in C minor:
o Atmosphere bound up in publication of Brahms’s manifesto
o Long gestation: first drafted early 1860s, only first mov (with added slow introduction) and alphorn theme remain in final
o Brahms to Hermann Levi, early 1870s: ‘I will never compose a symphony! You have no idea how it feels to one of us when he continually hears behind him such a giant [Beethoven]’
o 1st mov: dramatic
Tonality and fateful rhythmic motive derive from Beethoven 5
‘Schumann’ and ‘Clara’ themes in Schumann 4 heard prominently
• Clara supported Brahms to keep writing symphony in 1860
• Neither Clara nor Brahms attended Schumann’s 50th celebrations organized by Brendel
• Brendel accused them of laying claim to Schumann’s legacy: Brahms’s allusion asserts this right
Linked to Beethoven 5: C-minor key, victorious C-maj finale
o Breakthrough in 1874, when Brahms begun serious work on finale:
Allusions
• Head motive: saltus duriusculus bassline from Bach’s funeral cantata (BWV 106)
• Beethoven Ode to Joy (b3
Climax of movement: Bachian motive and its 4-note descending accompaniment transformed into previous alphorn theme
• Return of music representing timeless/transcendental realm of nature
• Displaces the motive derived from Beethoven’s 9th
o [Shrugging off legacy and idea of vocality in favour of timeless]
• ‘Symbolises Brahms’s inability, in the end, to embrace the joyful, optimistic worldview that Beethoven’s theme so clearly represented’
o Overall shape: powerfully/distinctively realised Beethoven 5/9 plot archetype with progression from dramatic minor-mode opening to joyous major-mode finale
o Reception
Highly mixed due to seriousness/length/complexity close friends moved to respect rather than love
Reviews of premiere are emblematic:
• Judged by yardstick of Beethoven 9 due to Schumann’s Neue Bahnen article
o Either charged with epigonism or esotericism (not extroverted/popular enough in tone)
Brahms Symphony No. 2 in D Major (1877):
• Symphony No. 2 in D Major (1877): ‘cheerful’ companion to Brahms 1, written right after
o Beginning has romantic nature symbolism of quiet horns and dolce woodwinds, triple meter and leisurely tempo, gentle murmuring in the lower strings – could be the start of a Johann Strauss waltz, pictorial pastoral beginning. Lots of Schubertian tonal shifts: third-related key movements in the secondary space – e.g. D Major to F# minor, hexatonic cycle. Just like Schubert C Maj Quintet, this 1st mov is deceptively serene – entrance of the ‘rumbling kettledrum’ (timpani) and ‘gloomy, lugubrious tones of the trombone and tuba’. Opening contains influences of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ piano sonata and Beeth3 main theme. 2nd mov (adagio non troppo, B Maj): themes remain fragmentary, avoiding closure and mutating instea into new ideas, every cadence is sidestepped, harmonic areas are implied but never established, metrical framework evades the authority of the bar line’ (Frisch). Scherzo: in Ländler tempo, delicate scherzo with more Schubertian influences, an inversion of the four-note motif from the 1st mov. above a pizz line, evoking Mendelssohn’s characteristic ‘elfin style’. Finale begins sotto voce in unison strings, then becomes very richly scored.
o Brinkmann (1990): views Brahms 2 as melancholic
Based on Brahms-Lachner letter defending use of timpani/trombones/tuba in opening: ‘casts the necessary shadow on the serene symphony’
• Declares himself ‘severely melancholic’ person
Idyllicizing expresses melancholy: mourning for lost possession
Brahms belongs to ‘late’ period which is excluded from pure representation of Arcadian state
‘Skeptically broken quality’
o Musgrave critique of Brinkmann: a priori agenda; forced parallels with Beethoven
