the early romantics (ch19)

Question 1

romantic vs classical

Answer 1

The first generation of romantic composers found new ways to engage the established music genres of the 18th century.

Unlike the simple, natural classic music, romantic music was identified with a search for the original, interesting, expressive, and extreme,

Question 2

Social and political factors

Answer 2

• The celebration of individualism
• Democratic revolutions
• The Industrial Revolution allowed for the manufacturing of instruments.
• Sought to give more rights to individuals,
• American revolution, the French revolution, revolutions of 1848, abolishing of slavery,
• Industrial revolution, more people were making more money creating a new class in society,
• Population of music and art lovers grew exponentially,

Question 3

german song LIED

Answer 3

• Lieder composers – grouped their songs into collections with unifying characteristics such as the text of a single poet or a common theme.

(this is called a song cycle)

this format allows telling a story throughout songs

• Providing a balance between small and large forms, lyric and narrative content, unity and variety

Question 4

musical traits

Answer 4

• bringing unique narratives to life by using unique expression of motions, using more dissonance, expanding instrumentation,
• No more recycling music, with the emphasis on individual expression led to the rise of Beethoven,

Question 5

Franz Schubert - 1797-1828

Answer 5

• German composer
• Characteristics of the romantic lied,
• Many songs are performed for friends and gatherings,
• Many are simple and convey uncomplicated feelings - Others are sweet and melancholy – some are intense and dramatic,
• Known for beautiful melodies that flow equally,

Question 6

Schubert’s songs

Answer 6

• Possessed good melodies,
• Strong sense of Harmonic colour
• Complex modulations where the tonality is kept suspense,
• Harmonic boldness,
• Use of poetry - if it has a single image, he uses a strophic form
• Strove to make music equal to the words, not frame,

Question 7

Nawm 132 – Gretchen am spinnrade.

Answer 7

• The whir of the spinning wheel by a constant rising and falling 16th note in the right hand,
• Perpetual motion of the treadle in the left-hand
• The piano introduces the song’s mood and central image in a short prelude before the voice enters,
• We know from the music what she is doing, for example stopping the wheel,

Question 8

Solo music for the piano schubert

Answer 8

• Becoming a salon or living-room instrument,
• Demand for amateurs and professionals,
• Freelancer Franz Schubert – 11 sonatas and the wanderer fantasise 1822,

Question 9

chamber music schubert

Answer 9

• Chamber works such as quartets by Franz Shubert
• These pieces are more dramatic of concert music than entertaining diversions for amateur players.
• Mater piece – string quintets in c major (nawm 144)
  o Added second cello with deep range,

Question 10

orchestral music schubert

Answer 10

• Unfinished Symphony no 8 1822 – called the first truly romantic symphony by its songlike melodies.
• First attempt at a large-scale symphony,

Question 11

Robert Schumann 1810 – 1856

Answer 11

• Concentrated in all major genres, but one at a time.
• Piano, chamber, symphonies and dramatic music during his last decade.
• Married to Clara, she was among the foremost pianists.
• Intense interest in literature, and after his finger got cut off, he turned to that.
• 1840 – most of his piano compositions were written.

Question 12

piano music schumann

Answer 12

• Master of the miniature form,
• The bulk of piano compositions are short character pieces,
• Titles are evocative, meant to stimulate imagination and suggest possible meanings for the effects,

Question 13

Nawm 136 – carnaval (a-c)

Answer 13

• Conjures up a masquerade ball in carnival season through 20 short pieces with dance rhythms,
• A – slow, dreamy fantasy with a slow un-dancelike melody,
• B – is a fast, impassioned waltz full of angular melodies, pulsating dissonances, and offbeat sforzandos.
• C – presents a new contrast, still a waltz, like Florestan, but now all lilt and charm,
• Each movement lacks a clear harmonic conclusion and remains open to extension,

Question 14

Schumann songs

Answer 14

• Schumann was the first important successor to Schubert,
• Schumann’s style is restless and intense whereas Schubert’s maintains a classical serenity.
• Wrote more than 120 songs in 1840, his year of songs.
• Concentrated on love songs, passions and frustration of love,

Question 15

Nawm 133 a-d Dichterliebe op 48

Answer 15

• Chose 16 poems from Heinrich Heines and arranged them to suggest the various stages of a relationship.
  o Song cycle genre, so basically poetry – this genre finally had a name in the 19th century.
• A – confesses a newborn love, tension between voice and piano express his tentative feelings,
• Making the piano accompaniment as important as the voice,
  o The voices / the lyrics of the poetry are bright and loud
• Not settling into a key ending the song in Dom 7th,

Question 16

Clara Schumann 1819 - 1896

Answer 16

• Long career as a pianist, composer and teacher,
• Women composers were discouraged from tackling large-scale works like symphonies, but she did compose a concerto,
• Showcased her own and her husband’s works,
• She wrote chamber music also, small works because women were looked down upon.

Question 17

Nawm 145 piano trio in g minor op17 1846

Answer 17

• Combines traits from baroque, classic and romantic,
• Rich polyphonic treatment, development through motivic fragmentation and imitation, fugue and rousing codas,
• The second movement is a minuet tempo and is labelled scherzo to highlight it’s subtle rhythmic,
• Third movement 145 is outwardly simple in form, a modified ABA with a melancholy first section,
• The opening melody appears three times, in different instruments

Question 18

Felix Mendelssohn 1809-1847

Answer 18

• Works sound more classical, this is because they exhibit a mastery of the sonata and concerto forms of Mozart and Beethoven,
• Counterpoint of Bach and Handel
• Combined elements of romanticism and classism,
• Concentrate on his works for orchestra such as violin concerto and oratorio,
• He was well-traveled,

Question 19

Orchestral works of Mendelssohn

Answer 19

• Classical models with departures that show the strong influence of romanticism,
• The two most important symphonies – the Italian no 4 and Scottish no 3
• Keeping with the literary and descriptive aspects of romanticism, they preserve impressions he gained of sounds and landscapes on trips to Italy and the British Isles,

Question 20

Concertos of Mendelssohn

Answer 20

• Emphasized the musical content, striking a balance between audience appeal and sophistication that connoisseurs praised in the concertos of Mozart,
• Violin concerto – three movements are linked by thematic content and connecting passages,
• Skips the exposition that was usual in classical concerto and instead has the soloist state the main theme at the outset,
• He reworked the concerto form into sonata a variant of the sonata form with a featured soloist, a reformulation that is typical of Mendelssohn,

Question 21

Oratorios of Mendelssohn

Answer 21

• St Paul 1836 and Elijah 1846 that became standards of choral repertory,
• Both were composed for chorale festivals, large armatures of choruses from a cross geographical region gathered to perform,

Question 22

Nawm 143 c-d St. Paul, op 36 no 13

Answer 22

• The most popular piece during his lifetime,
• C – proclaims in majestic homophony the rising of the lord and the coming of the light, contrasted with a long central fugue portraying darkness covering the earth,
  o Grand opening, women and men singing to the music,
• D – presents a chorale in four-part harmony, punctuated by brass fanfares,
  o Slower than c, more singing
• The combination of new elements with familiar ones helped to make this work phenomenon a success,

Question 23

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel 1805-1847

Answer 23

• Felix’s sister
• Did not pursue a public career as a musical career was considered inappropriate for a woman of her social class,
• Married painter William Hensel, led a salon where she held gatherings and played piano and her compositions,
• Wrote more than 400 works,250 songs and 125 piano pieces,

Question 24

Nawm 137 Das Jahr, no 12 December

Answer 24

• Helsen’s masterpiece,
• A series of character pieces for piano in the 12th month,
• The last of these pieces is December, it exploits the piano’s wide range and colourful potential while presenting technically challenging passages,
• Trills in parallel thirds, rapid scales,
• The quiet middle section references the Christmas season by quoting a popular German carol,

Question 25

Fryderyk Chopin 1810-1849

Answer 25

• Concentrate on works for solo piano, 200 pieces,
• Enjoyed by connoisseurs and amateurs,
• The dances stand out for their sheer beauty and sensuality,
• Polonaises meaning polish, are dances in ¾ meter often marked by rhythmic figure of an 8th and two 16ths on the first beat,
• French father, polish mother

Question 26

Nawm 138 Mazurka in b-flat major, op 7

Answer 26

• The mazurka was originally a Polish folk dance that became popular in the ballrooms of high society,
• Polish dance

Question 27

Nawm 139 Nocturne in d-flat major, op 27

Answer 27

• Nocturnes – descriptive pieces that evoke the alternately quiet and fretful dreaminess of night,
• Most soulful and introspective works,
• Rubato – an effect most strongly associated with Chopin’s mazurkas, a certain apparent freedom of delivery is appropriate (tough controlled),

Question 28

Hector Berlioz 1803-1869

Answer 28

• his imagination tended to run in parallel literary and musical channels,

Question 29

Nawm146 Symphonie fantastique

Answer 29

• Reconceived as a narrative or sequence of events, often spelled out in an accompanying text called a program,
• Composed three years after Beethoven’s death,
• Psychological fantasy, a product of the imagination, a musical drama without words
• Movements are unified with the recurrence of the idee fixe or obsessive image of the hero beloved,
• The transformation of the idee fixe helps to tell the story as they assume a wide range of contrasting attributes.
• This movement, which is the last out of 5, depicts a dream of a witches sabbath, presenting a grotesque caricature of the idee fixe, implying the beloved depravity,
  *recurrence of this fixed idea brings unity to all the five movements
• Original not only in bending the symphonic genre to serve narrative purposes,

Question 30

Two Americans, Foster and Gottschalk,

Answer 30

• During the 19th century, Europeans migrated to the us, brought with them various national musical traditions.
• Lieder thrived alongside parlor songs, some imported from the British Isles and some by Americans,
• Parlor songs are usually strophic or in stanza refrain form,
• With piano introductions and codas based on phrases from the tune,

Question 31

Stephen Foster 1826-1864

Answer 31

• Growing up in Pittsburgh, he heard German, Italian and Irish music,
• Taught himself to play several instruments but had no formal training in composition,

Question 32

Nawm 134 Jeanie with the light brown hair

Answer 32

• Best-known parlor songs,
• Stepwise melody, simple accompaniment and clear four-bar phrases illustrate features that made his music so appealing and memorable,

Question 33

American painting

Answer 33

• Impressionist leanings portrayed the parlor song in his work, entitled Pathetic Song.
• In this piece, we see a lot of details, contrasting light and shows, very natural and realistic pieces.

Question 34

Program and absolute music

Answer 34

Program - there is a story for the audience to follow along with and understand the music/story,
* Absolute -