TEST #4 REVIEW (FINAL)

NOTE: Bring scantron #16485, the purple one, to the test.

Print this web review and bring it to class on 05/01/03 with any questions. If you want a larger/smaller font size when you print it out, go to (in Internet Explorer): View menu/Text Size and select the size that you want.

CHAPTER 6: THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
(1800-1900)

Read and know the following from Chapter 9, in particular the following terms and concepts, history and composers:

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (pp. 225-232)

I may ask some general questions about the following topics discussed here:

• Industrial revolution
• Political, intellectual and social changes
• Nationalism
• Darwinism
• New Artistic Spirit

THE NEW ROMANTIC SOUND (pp. 232-239)

The following Elements of Romantic Music described briefly below effectively capture the Romantic musical aesthetic described above:

• New sounds/timbres (pp.233-234): Tuba, saxophone, larger and louder pianos, increased size of orchestra for both increased possibilities in timbre as well as dynamics.

• Dynamics (p. 234): Range increases, changes in dynamics more frequent and less predictable to add drama

• Tempo and expression (pp. 234-236): Use of Rubato (i.e. flexible pulse that speeds up and slows down) adds greatly to expression

• Melody (p. 236): Longer than Classic, "surging" or "yearning" quality, sometimes draw on folk melodies. Primary concern: expression & feeling.

• Harmony (pp. 236-237): More complex chords used for expression. Movement of chords becomes more active and less stable than Classic for more sophisticated expression.

• Form (p. 238): Blurring of formal outlines was deliberate for expression

TERMS AND CONCEPTS (pp. 238 - 239)

• Program Music (p. 238): has extra musical component that governs the music (for example, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique is specifically about an opium trip gone wrong!)

• Absolute Music (p. 238): has no extra musical component that governs the music

• Massive and Miniature (pp. 238-239): Works for music by this time ranged from the Wagner's monumental Ring cyle opera (takes 4 evenings to perform) to miniature pieces for solo piano that lasted less than a minute.

• Favorite Romantic Genres (p. 239): Symphony, opera, concertos, song and the Mass were all popular. New ensembles for chamber music developed (woodwind quintet, piano quintet).

• Favorite Romantic Instruments (p. 239): Piano (newly developed instrument lends itself to great drama as well as great intimacy) and violin (potential for lyricism). Composers liked the rich sounds of French horn, cello and the english horn (large oboe).

Read about the change in patronage, which gave composers more artistic freedom than ever before (p. 260).

GIANT COMPOSERS OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
THAT I DISCUSSED IN CLASS

EARLY ROMANTIC

• Schubert (pp. 241-244): Vienese, wrote 600+ lieder (German Art Song), 9 symphonies.

  LISTENING: Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel (pp. 63-65, Chapter 3) for an example of German lied by Schubert.

• Berlioz (pp. 247-253): French, expanded the size and timbre concept of the orchestra. Wrote much program music.

  LISTENING: Click HERE to listen to an excerpt of Symphony Fantastique. Notice the interesting use of percussion in this piece, the large contrast in dynamics, the dramatic change of mood when the brass enter. This piece is programmatic, i.e. it is based on a story of one who experiences an opium high that turns nightmarish.

• Mendelssohn (pp. 254-255): Jewish German, continued Classic tradition in his works while adopting some of the less extreme ideas of Romanticism.

• Chopin: (pp. 261) contributed primarily virtuostic works for solo piano. Known for use of rubato (speeding up and slowing down of tempo) in his works.

  LISTENING: click HERE to listen to one of Chopin's Etudes. Notice the use of rubato in this example.

MIDDLE ROMANTIC

• Liszt: (pp. 275-278) Hungarian, extroverted style of playing piano, difficult piano music, also wrote symphonies

  LISTENING: Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F minor (pp. 277-278). A virtusostic Romantic piano work, which has all the qualities of Romantic music as descricbed above.

• Wagner: (pp. 288-296) German, most famous for the Ring, which was four large operas written as a cycle (takes 15 hours to perform, took 25 years to write). Known for writing large brass sounds from the orchestra. Known also for using leitmotivs in his opera, i.e. melodies that are associated with specific characters in opera.

• Tchaikovsky: (pp.300-304) Russian, wrote many symphonies and ballets (most famously The Nutcracker, and Romeo and Juliet, and the 1812 Overture).

LATE ROMANTIC

I won't ask you about this section.

SUMMARY: Read pp. 323-324.

CHAPTER 11: 20TH CENTURY

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND (pp. 325-327)

Read and know the following from Chapter 10, especially following terms, concepts, history and composers:

• Read about the impact of WW1, the Depression, and then WW2 had on a general sense of optimism.

• From 1939-present, music tends toward intellectualism and radical experimentation (Read pp. 326-327)

• Read about the post-modernism movement from the mid-1960s and how music continues to change while juxtaposing ideas from the past.

GENERAL MUSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
OF 20TH CENTURY MUSIC (PP. 328-331)

THE REPLACEMENT OF TONALITY (pp. 328-329)

MELODY (p. 329)

• 20th Century: often erratic with wide leaps, irregular rhythms, unexpected notes and direction
• Composers invent new scales never used before

HARMONY

• Often an increased used of dissonance, for example, tone clusters (p. 328) (a large number of adjacent pitches played at the same time) and atonality (p. 328) (see Schoenberg below). New chords were invented and explored that were not related to traditional harmony.

RHYTHM (pp. 329-330)

• Sometines music had no obvious pulse while other music was rhythmically driving. Very complex rhythms were explored.

LENGTH (p.330)

• Becomes entirely non-standard. Range of length of works: 3 seconds up to 3 hours

TONE COLOR (i.e., TIMBRE) (p.330-331)

• Tone color becomes a central focus for so much 20th century music.
• Instrumentalists asked to use expanded techniques.
• Expansion of percussion in 20th century is large (see list of new instruments that become common p. 330)
• Introduction of electronic instruments early synthesizers in the 1930s.

IMPORTANT MOVEMENTS AND COMPOSERS IN
20TH CENTURY

IMPRESSIONISM (Late 1800s-early 1900s, Early Modernist)
(French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel)
Read page 331-335

• Movement started in Paris in late 1800s
• Parallels in painting by Monet, Renoir (see cathedral on page 331). Paintings are very colorful and explore the play of light and color. Outlines and details are vague, giving an impression of the object painted.
• Parallels in poetry, called Symbolism

  LISTENING: Click HERE to listen to La Mer by Debussy. This orchestra piece gives the dreamy impression of the Sea in terms of its sound.

PRIMITIVISM (1910-1913, also Early Modernist)
(Composer Igor Stravinsky)
Read pp. 336-339

• Parallel in art = Pablo Picasso, see Demoiselles D'Avignon on p. 337, which shocked even Picasso's peers.
• Stravinsky composed 3 revolutionary ballets from 1910-1913, Firebird, Petrushka, The Rite of Spring. The Rite caused a riot at its fist performance
• Read descriptions of Stravinsky's music on page 337, 341, 345. Highlights of his music are rhythmic drive and complexity, bitonality, ostinatos (repeated phrases)

  LISTENING: Click HERE to hear The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky (Read about it on p. 339). This very rhythmic exerpt sounds "primitive". I went over this example in both the last 2 classes.

EXPRESSIONISM (middle Period of 20th Century)
(Composers Schoenberg, Berg and Webern)
Read p. 345

• Musical Style: Atonality All 12 pitches get played with equal amounts time. The result is a music that has no gravitational pull toward any one pitch, thus avoiding tonality. Invented by Schoenberg. Read p. 348.
• Parallel in writings of Sigmund Freud
• Parallel also in art: Expressionism focused on the inner state of being, the subconscious and the evocation of extreme feelings (p. 345)
• No need to read pp. 346-365.

  LISTENING: Schoenberg's Madonna from Pierrot Lunaire (p. 350-351)

OTHER COMPOSERS (pp. 365-372)

• Don't concern yourself with Bartok, Shostakovich, Britten.

AMERICAN CLASSICAL SCENE

• Aaron Copland, one of the American greats. His music sounds American as he quotes folk songs, hymns, and country tunes in his music. Widely spaced chords make his music sound broad (matches panoramic scenes well in movies). Often uses odd meters in his music.

  LISTENING: Fanfare for the Common Man (p.377) by Copland. This was the theme for the Olympics at Lake Placid in the 1980 (very American in spirit). Timbres are brass and percussion which use big open harmonies

• George Gershwin and also Leonard Bernstein are other great American composers who often incorporated jazz sounds into their symphonic works.

POST MODERN

• Mix of composers that experiment even more deeply with musical concepts and philosophies.
• Also many composers return to melody, and tonality, and rhythmic groove.

SUMMARY: Read pp. 408-409.