Transcript 19th Century Opera

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19
Century Opera
• The first third of the 19th century saw the highpoint of
the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini
all creating works that are still performed today.
• Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives
from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same
name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate,
requiring supreme agility and pitch control.
• Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful
style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi,
beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco. Verdi's
operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian
nationalism in the post-Napoleonic era, and he quickly
became an icon of the patriotic movement (although
his own politics were perhaps not quite so radical).
• In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular
operas: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. But he
continued to develop his style, composing perhaps the
greatest French Grand Opera, Don Carlos, and ending his
career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and
Falstaff, which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in
sophistication since the early 19th century.
• Listening "La donna è mobile", from Giuseppe Verdi's
Rigoletto
• After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of
verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by
Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero
Leoncavallo's Pagliacci that came virtually to dominate the
world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo
Puccini's La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly.
German Opera
• Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial
composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber
and Meyerbeer, he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a
Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music,
poetry and painting.
• In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger
von Nürnberg, Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal, he abolished
the distinction between aria and recitative in favour of a seamless
flow of "endless melody".
• He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating
scores with a complex web of leitmotivs, recurring themes often
associated with the characters and concepts of the drama; and he
was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as
tonality, in his quest for greater expressivity.
• Wagner also brought a new philosophical
dimension to opera in his works, which were
usually based on stories from Germanic or
Arthurian legend.
• Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at
Bayreuth, exclusively dedicated to performing
his own works in the style he wanted.
Romantic Concerto
• In the romantic era, the concerto largely
narrowed to three genres: the violin concerto,
the cello concerto and the piano concerto.
Virtually no major composer wrote concertos for
wind instruments.
• In the 19th century the concerto was a vehicle for
virtuosic display flourished as never before.
• Embrace the Romantic spirit with their melodic as
well as their dramatic qualities.
• Recitative elements are often incorporated,
showing the influence of Italian opera on purely
instrumental forms.
Violin Concerti
• A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin
(occasionally, two or more violins) and
instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra.
• Such works have been written since the
Baroque period, when the solo concerto form
was first developed, up through the present
day.
• Listening: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
• The great violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini was a legendary figure who, as a
composer, exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very
limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic ideas but is unique in its own form.
• The Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps contributed several works to this
form.
• Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with
a Spanish flavor.
• Max Bruch wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that
has remained a firm favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement
relates so closely to the two remaining movements that it functions like an
operatic prelude.
• Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in
being lyrical as well as superbly virtuosic.
• In the same year Brahms wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph
Joachim. This work makes new demands on the player, so much so that
when it was first written it was referred to as a "concerto against the
violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of
symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical,
and the finale is based on a lively Hungarian theme.
Cello Concerti
• Since the Romantic era, the cello has received as much
attention as the piano and violin as a concerto instrument,
and many great Romantic and even more 20th century
composers left examples.
• Antonín Dvořák’s cello concerto ranks among the supreme
examples from the Romantic era
• The instrument was also popular with composers of the
Franco-Belgian tradition: Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps
wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo and Jongen one.
• Tchaikovsky’s contribution to the genre is a series of
Variations on a Rococo Theme. He also left very
fragmentary sketches of a projected Cello Concerto which
was only completed in 2006.
• Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the
early 20th century, belongs to the late
romantic period stylistically.
• Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed
the most of any cello concertos are by Elgar,
Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Haydn. Shostakovich,
Tchaikovsky and Schumann
Piano Concerti
• Beethoven’s five piano concertos increase the technical demands
made on the soloist. The last two are particularly remarkable,
integrating the concerto into a large symphonic structure with
movements that frequently run into one another.
• His Piano Concerto no. 4 starts, against tradition, with a statement
by the piano, after which the orchestra magically enters in a foreign
key, to present what would normally have been the opening tutti.
The work has an essentially lyrical character. The slow movement is
a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra.
• Concerto no. 5 has the basic rhythm of a Viennese military march.
There is no lyrical second subject, but in its place a continuous
development of the opening material.
• He also wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and
orchestra.
• The piano concertos of Mendelssohn, Field, and Hummel
provide a link from the Classical concerto to the Romantic
concerto.
• Chopin wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is
very much relegated to an accompanying role.
• Liszt's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini
for the violin. His concertos No. 1 and No. 2 left a deep
impression on the style of piano concerto writing,
• Grieg’s concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after
which it continues in a lyrical vein.
• Brahms's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was
the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of
material originally intended for a symphony. His Second
Piano Concerto in B♭ major (1881) has four movements and
is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto. Like
his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.
• Tchaikovsky, whose first piano concerto‘s rich
chordal opening is also a famous example.
• Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote 4 piano concertos
between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd and 3rd,
being the most popular of the 4, went on to
become among the most famous in piano
repertoire and shining examples of Russian
musicianship.
Small-scale works
• Besides the usual three-movement works with the title "concerto",
many 19th-century composers wrote shorter pieces for solo
instrument and orchestra, often bearing descriptive titles. From
around 1800 such pieces were often called Konzertstück or
Phantasie by German composers.
• Liszt wrote the Totentanz for piano and orchestra, a paraphrase of
the Dies Irae.
• Max Bruch wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra,
• César Franck wrote Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques, and
Gabriel Fauré wrote a Ballade for piano and orchestra.
• Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra
have an important place in the instrument's repertoire.
• Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is widely
considered to be structured similarly to a piano concerto.