Transcript Music Appreciation, Class #9

Music Appreciation, Class #9
Beethoven (Part 2)
&
Review for Test #2
Where we left off…
 1812-1817
 Health
 Public performances/appearances
 Stylistic crisis?
 Caspar, Karl and Johanna
1. Health crisis
 Liver disease
 Hearing loss 1818
 Public performances
 1814: last public appearance as a pianist
 1815: last public appearance as a conductor
Exhausted musical possibilities?
2. Family crisis
 Kaspar van Beethoven
 Died November, 1815
 Johanna van Beethoven (widow)
 Karl van Beethoven (son)
Trial
 1815-1820
 Court for commoners vs. Court for nobility
 “Van” vs. “Von”
 Evidence?
 Karl’s birth (4 months)
 Ludwig’s victory
 Karl’s reaction (1826)
Why?
3. Romantic Crisis
 “Immortal Beloved” letters
 Recipient?
 Three possibilities
 Dated 1812-14
 Among his papers?
3. “Immortal Beloved”
…so near! so far! Is not our love truly a heavenly structure, and also as firm
as the vault of heaven? …
…Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men…
…I can live only wholly with you or not at all -Yes, I am resolved to wander
so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am
really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the
land of spirits …
Final musical period
 Reflection
 1816-1827
 Spiritual
 Bach
 Contrapuntal
 “The Age of Enlightenment” is replaced by “Romanticism”
 Emotion over thought
 Why?
9th Symphony
 Composed between 1817-1824
 1st major Beethoven premiere in almost 12 years
 Three standard movements
 New: 4th movement: “Choral”
“An Die Freude” (“Ode to Joy”)
 Friedrich Schiller, 1785
 Passé ideas and ideals
 Brotherhood
 Equality
 Justice
 Liberty
Beethoven’s purpose
 Conflict/instability vs. Resolution
 Confrontation of evil
 Unable to resolve the recapulation!
 Military
 Triumph over petty decisiveness
 Intellectual vs. spiritual vs. emotional struggle
Themes/Beethoven’s beliefs
 Humanity
 Children of God
 Spiritual vs. religious
 Universality
 Love (romantic and platonic)
 Redemptive
 Inspirational
Translation
O friends, no more these sounds! Let us sing more cheerful songs,
More full of joy!
Joy’s magic power re-unites all that custom has divided, all men become
brothers, under the sway of thy gentle wings.
And the cherub stands before God!
Gladly, like the heavenly bodiesWhich He sent on their courses Through the
splendor of the firmament;Thus, brothers, you should run your race, like a
hero going to victory!
You millions, I embrace you.This kiss is for all the world! Brothers, above the
starry canopy There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?World, do you know your creator? Seek
Him in the heavens; He must live above the stars
Only Two Rehearsals
 Requirements
Two orchestras
Two choruses
= four conductors
Four soloists
Complaints
 Cross-town rivals
 Musical difficulties
New technical demands
 Rewrites and edits
Beethoven’s week
 Rental (Inflation)
 Theater
 Orchestra
 Chorus
 Soloists
 Copyists
 Ticket sales
 Health
May 7, 1824
 Social/musical event
 Beethoven’s long absence
 Rumors
 Conductor?
 1st Violinist
 Applause
“Immortal Beloved” 1994
 Historical fiction
 Premiere of the 9th
Fall of the Berlin Wall
 December 25, 1989
 Leonard Bernstein
 International orchestra, chorus, soloists
 "Joy" (Freude) changed to "Freedom" (Freiheit) in the text sung
 Worldwide live telecast
 Video?
Beethoven’s Death
 Final days
 Cures
 Monday, March 26, 1827
 Legend
Funeral
 March 29, 1827
 20,000 Viennese mourners
 Pallbearer
 Franz Peter Schubert

“Blessed be the first one among us to follow Beethoven to the
grave.”
Ferdinand Hiller
Ferdinand Hiller (16)
 Prominent Jewish family
 Cultured
 Musical
 Social
 Friendships
 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn (Bartholdy)
“Beethoven’s Hair” Russell Martin
 Three stories in one
Beethoven’s biography
History/journey of the locket
Nazis in Vienna and Denmark
DNA testing and results
The Locket with Hiller’s inscription
Close-up Of The Locket
Extraordinary Beethoven web sites
 San Jose State University
 http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/beethoven/
 “Beethoven’s Hair”
 http://www.beethovenshair.ca/
 Help!
Test #2 Review
November 6, 2008
CD Tracks
 Cumulative
 New tracks
Sample review questions
 What were the most important changes made to the piano during the Classical
era?
 What enormous political/social event was celebrated with a performance of
the Beethoven 9th in December 25, 1989?
 At the end of his career, Haydn wrote his first and only oratorio. It is a highly
descriptive telling of Holy Scripture from Genesis and the Psalms. What is the
name of this piece?
 Compare Haydn’s years with the Esterházy family vs. Mozart and his
employers.
 What was the tradition known as DROIT DE SEIGNEUR?
 What are the “Sketch Books”?
 What are “Conversation Books”?
 What city was the musical and cultural center of the Classic
period?
 The exposition of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony contains how
many notes?
 How does the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni end?
 Beethoven violently changed the dedication of the “Emperor” concerto to
the “Eroica” concerto in December 1804. Why?
 Thousands of Viennese attended Beethoven’s funeral. Among his
pallbearers was what great composer and Beethoven devotee?
 Why is the Classical Period also known as the “Age of Reason” or the
“Age of Enlightenment”?
 Mozart was unusually proud of which two specific scenes in The
Marriage Of Figaro. Why?
 What is Don Giovanni’s fate? Is he dragged to Hell, or does he alone
make the decisions which determine that fate? In what way is that
revolutionary?
 Who was Lorenzo Da Ponte? Why was he hired to work in Vienna?
 Da Ponte promised Emperor Franz Joseph a major change in
Beaumarchasis’ radical play The Marriage Of Figaro in order to obtain
permission to work with Mozart on the project. What was Da Ponte’s
promise, and did he keep it?
 What is THE HEILIGENSTADT LETTER?
 Who was Antonio Salieri? Facts vs. fiction, please!
 How and when did the myths about him and his relationship to Mozart
begin?
 What Tony and Academy Award winning play and movie tells that story?
 What is “Chamber Music”? What composer is credited with the greatest
accomplishments in Chamber Music? How many musicians are
required for Chamber Music?
 Did Beethoven write and re-write his music or did he compose
seemingly without effort?
 The writers, poets and playwrights of the Classic period worked with
what cultural and aesthetic goals in mind?
 Did Mozart’s talent require training? What proof was recorded of his
talents?
 “Music, of all the arts, has the greatest influence over the passions....The
Marriage of Figaro contains all of the elements of the French Revolution”
 When did Beethoven’s hearing begin to fail? Why? Why have the facts
recently changed?
 The excavation of what two major cities marks the birth of the Classical
Period?
 Why is Haydn considered to be the “Father Of The Symphony”?
 “Papa Haydn”?
 How many movements are standard in a Classical concerto?
 Which tempo scheme is standard for a Classical concerto?
 Between 1812 and 1817 Beethoven composed almost no music. Three crisis
interrupted his musical concentration. What were those three events?
 Mozart once wrote to his father that he was really only interested in writing
one genre and that all his other compositions were just to generate income.
What is that one genre?
 What is the “surprise” in the “Surprise Symphony” by Haydn? Why did he feel
the need to surprise his audiences? How did he accomplish the surprise?
Essay Questions
 Explain how Susanna (The Marriage Of Figaro) and Leporello (Don Giovanni) are radical
characters and thereby symbolic of the entire Classical period. Your answer must include a
discussion of the musical and social/political implications each character presents.
 What did Ferdinand Hiller do on May 27, 1827? What was the fate of the locket? How has
the history of Beethoven’s final years changed as a result? Where is the largest collection of
Beethoven artifacts housed today?
 Describe Beethoven’s week of May 1-7, 1824 in detail, including the premiere of the 9th.
 Identify and label each section of the Sonata form in detail.
 Draw a diagram of the finale of Act II of Marriage Of Figaro showing the continuum of new
characters and new plot twists. Characters names are: Antonio, Bartolo, Basilio/Curzio,
The Count, The Countess, Figaro, Marcellina, Susanna. Then explain TWO ways in which
the finale of Act II of Marriage Of Figaro was a revolutionary act.
New York Philharmonic
 Three tickets left!