Transcript 16cProgramMusic - WFS-IB-MUSIC-MAJOR

Chapter 16: The
Early Romantics
Early Romantic
Program Music
Key Terms
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program music
concert overture
program symphony
idée fixe
Dies irae
col legno
Program Music
• instrumental music associated with
poems, stories, etc.
– intimately tied with nonmusical ideas
• different genres
– concert overture
– program symphony
– symphonic poem
• many important composers wrote in these
genres
Franz Liszt (1811–1886)
• Hungarian composer
– learned music at Esterházy estate
– played for Beethoven at age 11
• virtuoso pianist based in Paris
– dazzled audiences with technique
– dashing looks, personality, and affairs
– wrote fiercely difficult piano music
• second career as conductor in Weimar
– wrote symphonic poems; championed Wagner
Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)
• from upper-class family of bankers
• successful composer, pianist, organist,
conductor, and educator
– founded Leipzig Conservatory
– revived Bach’s St. Matthew Passion
• firm foundation in Classical technique
• wrote concert overtures, oratorios, piano
works, symphonies, etc.
Fanny Mendelssohn
(1805–1847)
• Felix’s equally talented sister
• a highly prolific composer
– oratorios, piano works, chamber music, etc.
– weekly performances at Mendelssohn home
• married painter Wilhelm Hensel
• women composers were not taken
seriously
– little of her music was published
– rarely performed outside the home
The Concert Overture
• a single-movement orchestral work for
concert performance
– structure rooted in sonata form
– often based on play, long poem, or novel
– resembles opera overture without an opera
• an important step from opera overture to
symphonic poem
• Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s
Dream and the Hebrides Overture
Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)
• son of a country doctor in France
– left medical school for Paris Conservatory
• made living as writer on music
• wrote unprecented, ambitious program
symphonies
– extraordinary, imaginative orchestration
– inspired by literature (Shakespeare, Virgil)
• toured as conductor of his own music
The Program Symphony
• the Romantic era’s most
“grandiose” orchestral genre
• more radical approach than the
concert overture
• an entire symphony with a program
– each movement tells part of the story
– “story” often published in the
program
Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony
• program symphony in 5 movements
• lurid autobiographical fantasy
– inspired by his unrequited love for
Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson
• displays unprecedented originality
– imaginative colors drawn from huge orchestra
– use of idée fixe in every movement
Idée Fixe
• “fixed idea,” a term popular in medical
literature of the day
• theme represents the composer’s
beloved (Smithson)
– recurs in all 5 movements
– symbolizes each appearance of the beloved
Movement Format of
Fantastic Symphony
• related to Classical symphony format
– middle two movements reversed
– movements IV and V unprecedented
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I – fast tempo, sonata form, slow intro
II – moderate tempo, triple meter; waltz
III – the slow movement
IV – moderate tempo; a march
V – fast tempo, free form follows story
Fantastic Symphony
The Program of the Symphony
• A young musician of unhealthy sensibility and
passionate imagination poisons himself with opium in
a fit of lovesick despair. Too weak to kill him, the
dose of the drug plunges him into a heavy sleep
attended by the strangest visions, during which his
sensations, emotions, and memories are transformed
in his diseased mind into musical thoughts and
images. Even the woman he loves becomes a
melody to him, an idée fixe as it were, that he finds
and hears everywhere.
The Program: I
Movement 1: Reveries, Passions
• First he recalls the soul-sickness, the
aimless passions, the baseless
depressions and elations that he felt
before first seeing his loved one; then
the volcanic love that she instantly
inspired in him’ his jealous furies; his
return to tenderness; his religious
consolations.
The Program: II
Movement 2: A Ball
• He encounters his beloved at a
ball, in the midst of a noisy, brilliant
party.
The Program: III
Movement 3: Scene in the Country
• On a summer evening in the country, he
hears two shepherds piping in dialogue.
The pastoral duet, the location, the light
rustling of trees stirred gently by the
wind, some newly conceived grounds
for hope—all this gives him a feeling of
unaccustomed calm. But she appears
again. . . . what if she is deceiving him?
The Program: IV
Movement 4: March to the Scaffold
• He dreams he has killed his beloved,
that he is condemned to death and led
to execution. A march accompanies the
procession, now gloomy and wild, now
brilliant and grand. Finally the idée fixe
appears for a moment, to be cut off by
the fall of the axe.
The Program: V
Movement 5: Dream of a Witches’
Sabbath
• He finds himself at a Witches’ Sabbath. .
. . Unearthly sounds, groans, shrieks of
laughter, distant cries echoed by other
cries. The beloved’s melody is heard,
but it has lost its character of nobility and
timidity. It is she who comes to the
Sabbath! At her arrival, a roar of joy. She
joins in the devilish orgies. A funeral
knell; burlesque of the Dies irae.
Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V
• the most audacious movement yet
– orchestral sound effects reign
• idée fixe now treated as vulgar parody
– on piccolo clarinet with carnival ornaments
– his beloved is the witches’ guest of honor
Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V
• composer’s funeral at same time
– solemn Dies irae chant ridiculed by witches
Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V
• raucous Witches’ Round Dance is a
fugue
• Round Dance and Dies irae combine at
climax
– witches parodying the church melody
Romantic Features of
Fantastic Symphony
• “grandiose” in scope and scale
• program symphony for large orchestra
• blurs the lines between music, literature,
theater, and autobiography
• cyclic work, unified by idée fixe
• fascination with supernatural, macabre
• new orchestral colors, expressive effects,
unusual forms
• only 39 years after Haydn’s Symphony No. 95!