Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ð1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

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  - Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music
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Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music
Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music
  1. Romanticism

    1. The term Romantic for nineteenth-century music is imprecise because most music composed between 1770 and 1900 shares many traits.

    2. Instrumental music as the ideal Romantic art.
      1. Untexted music could express purer emotion than texted (i.e., vocal) music (see Vignette in CHWM).

    3. Many composers wrote essays on aesthetics.

    4. Program music
      1. The result of composers' interest in literature and in instrumental music's expressive power.
      2. Defined as instrumental music associated with poetic, descriptive, or narrative subject matter.
      3. The ideal was instrumental music that transcended its "program."
      4. Sometimes the program was an afterthought.

    5. Orchestral Music
      1. Public concerts become more popular, with the middle class playing a more prominent role.
      2. Audiences, critics, and composers placed symphonic music above other genres of the time.

  2. Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

    1. Biographical background
      1. Schubert came from a humble Viennese family.
      2. His home was filled with music-making but Schubert was expected to follow his father's profession as schoolmaster.
      3. He taught school for three years (1814–1817) then devoted himself to composition.
      4. He died at the age of thirty-one.
      5. His output includes nine symphonies, twenty-two piano sonatas, about thirty-five chamber compositions, two hundred choral works, and more than six hundred lieder.

    2. The Unfinished Symphony (in two movements)
      1. Many considered it to be the first truly Romantic symphony.
      2. Lyrical, with enchanting orchestral colors and adventurous harmony.
      3. Composed in 1822 but not performed until the 1860s.

    3. "Great" Symphony (1828)
      1. Admired by other composers (see Vignette in CHWM).
      2. Lengthy, but interesting orchestral effects sustain the listener's interest.

  3. Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)

    1. Berlioz's symphonies are influenced by his interest in literature.

    2. The Symphonie fantastique, ("Episode in the life of an Artist") (NAWM 105)
      1. Composed in 1830
      2. Idée fixe, a main theme that occurs in each movement represents a woman whose love he hopes to win (CHWM, ex. 16.2).
      3. An autobiographical program introduces the movements by describing the situation that evokes the mood of each.
      4. The idée fixe is a long melody that can be extended and ornamented to suit the mood of each movement.
      5. Inventive orchestration (see window in CHWM).

    3. His second symphony, Harold en Italie, 1834, sets four scenes based on Lord Byron's poem, Childe Harold.
      1. A solo viola plays the recurring idée fixe, which combines with other themes throughout the work.
      2. Nicolò Paganini had commissioned the work but he refused to perform it.
      3. The finale sums up the themes of the preceding movements.

    4. Roméo et Juliette (1839 and 1847) is a dramatic symphony in seven movements using solo vocalists and chorus.

  4. Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

    1. Mendelssohn's two most important symphonies carry geographical subtitles.
      1. The Italian Symphony (No. 4, 1833) evokes impressions of Italy, with melodies inspired by Italian opera.
      2. The Scottish Symphony (No. 3, 1842) evokes Scotland with Scottish bagpipe idioms (CHWM, ex. 16.6).

    2. Overtures
      1. Some portray landscapes, including Die Hebriden (The Hebrides)
      2. Overture for Midsummer Night's Dream set the standard for orchestral overtures.

    3. Incidental music for plays includes Ruy Blas by Victor Hugo and Midsummer Night's Dream.

  5. Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

    1. Schumann's personality was the epitome of Romanticism, making the Classical symphony less appealing to him.

    2. He composed mostly piano music and lieder until 1840.

    3. Symphony No. 1, the Spring Symphony has descriptive titles for each movement.

    4. Symphony No. 4, composed in 1841 and revised in 1851
      1. Follows Schubert and Mendelssohn's examples
      2. Its four movements are played without a break.

  6. Franz Liszt (1811–1886)

    1. The foremost composer of program music after Berlioz

    2. Composed twelve "symphonic poems" (1848–1858)
      1. Continuous form with sections in contrasting character and tempo
      2. Imaginative structure similar to a poem
      3. Content is suggested by a subject but the subject does not govern the details.
      4. Hunnenschlacht (The Battle of the Huns) is titled after a mural painting, Hamlet is named for Shakespeare's hero, and Prometheus is tied to a myth and poem.
      5. Orpheus and Hamlet originated as introductions to theatrical performances; others grew out of concert overtures.

    3. Les Préludes (1854)
      1. Symphonic poem based on a poem of the same title by Alfonse-Marie de Lamartine
      2. A three-note motive changes (transforms) to take on several different moods (thematic transformation).

    4. Liszt's symphonies are also programmatic, for example, Faust Symphony (1854).
      1. Dedicated to Berlioz
      2. Takes a theme through all three movements, changing it for each mood
      3. The first theme uses one of Liszt's favorite chords, the augmented triad.

    5. Liszt influenced others to compose symphonic poems, and his bold approach to harmony and motivic transformation influenced later composers.

  7. Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)

    1. First Symphony
      1. Brahms worked on it for twenty years.
      2. The sequence of movements is conventional, with the addition of slow introductions for the first and last movements.
      3. The key scheme uses third relationships (C minor, E major, A-flat major, C minor and major).

    2. Third Symphony
      1. The opening measures are typical of Brahms's characteristic wide melodic spans and crossrelation between the minor and major of the tonic.
      2. The last movement continues the clash between major and minor.

    3. Fourth Symphony
      1. Chains of thirds use all the notes of the harmonic minor scale before repeating any (CHWM, ex. 16.10).
      2. The final movement is a passacaglia/chaconne, reflecting Brahms' interest in Baroque music.

  8. Antonin Dvorák (1841–1904)

    1. He composed nine symphonies
      1. No. 7 is considered the best.
      2. Nos. 6 and 8 use folklike melodies and rhythms.
      3. No. 9 is the famous New World, composed in 1893 in the United States.
        1. Used some themes based on Native American melodies
        2. Other themes were based on Negro spirituals sung to him by Harry T. Burleigh.

    2. His cello concerto is a standard in the repertoire.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company | Credits