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
 

Outlines:
  - Music for Solo Piano
  - Chamber Music
  - The Lied
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century
Music for Solo Piano
  1. The Piano in the Nineteenth Century

    1. It was the most popular instrument for salon or living room.

    2. Both amateurs and professionals played in domestic settings, creating a demand for repertoire.

  2. Schubert

    1. His Moments musicaux (D. 789) and eight Impromptus (D. 899, 935) became models for later composers of intimate piano pieces.

    2. Large-scale works included eleven sonatas and a fantasia on a theme from his song Der Wanderer (Wanderer Fantasie, D. 760), which is a technically demanding work in four movements.

    3. Sonatas
      1. Harmonic innovations include substitute dominants and expositions with three key areas instead of the usual two.
      2. Melodies are expansive and recur in different environments that give them new meanings.
      3. His last three sonatas (all composed in 1828) show Beethoven's influence in some movements but retain Schubert's characteristic lyricism.

  3. Felix Mendelssohn

    1. He was a virtuoso pianist but his style is conservative.

    2. He composed preludes and fugues after discovering the music of J. S. Bach (which he helped revive through a performance of the St. Matthew Passion).

    3. Some of his scherzo-like movements have an elfin lightness, including his Andante and Rondo Capriccioso, Op. 14.

    4. Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words) NAWM 106a and 106b
      1. Forty-eight pieces published in eight books
      2. Exploit the pianoforte's responsiveness to different types of touch
      3. Melodic notes embedded in the accompanimental pattern require performers to bring notes out with different touch.

  4. Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

    1. Biographical background
      1. Injured his right hand and could no longer perform as a concert pianist
      2. Wrote essays for and edited the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal of Music)
      3. His essays and reviews furthered the careers of other composers.
      4. To 1840 all his compositions were for piano.

    2. Character pieces (e.g., NAWM 107)
      1. Collected into colorfully titled cycles, such as Papillons (Butterflies), Carnaval, Phantasiestücke (Fantasy Pieces) (e.g. NAWM 107)
      2. Although the titles of the pieces and the cycles suggest poetic descriptions, Schumann claimed to have composed the works before giving them titles.
      3. His own volatile personality is reflected in the many moods of his pieces.
      4. Florestan, Eusebius, and Raro were character names for different aspects of Schumann's personality.

  5. Fryderyk Chopin (1810–1849)

    1. Biographical background
      1. Chopin wrote almost exclusively for piano.
      2. He was born in Poland and lived in Paris after 1831.
      3. He never stopped loving Poland.

    2. Style
      1. Introspective, with an improvisatory character within clearly defined forms.
      2. Imaginative use of pedals and tempo rubato (holding back slightly in the right hand while the left hand continues the accompaniment in time)

    3. Nocturnes
      1. Irish pianist and composer John Field (1782–1837) developed the form.
      2. Descriptive pieces that evoke quiet and/or dreaminess of night.
      3. Example: Nocturne in E flat (NAWM 109)

    4. Preludes
      1. Inspired by his study of Bach, especially the Well-Tempered Keyboard
      2. Chopin's preludes use all the major and minor keys through the circle of fifths.
      3. His rich chromatic harmonies influenced later composers.

    5. Other works
      1. Chopin was the first to use the word Ballade to title an instrumental work.
        1. His ballades were influenced by poems.
        2. Frequent mood changes characterize the ballade.
      2. His scherzos are serious, vigorous, passionate, and quirky.
      3. Great Fantasia in F minor (Op. 49) and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, Op. 61, both similar to Schubert's
      4. Études in two sets of twelve, and three without opus number, are landmarks in the piano idiom.
        1. Intended to develop one aspect of technique in each étude
        2. Combine significant artistic content with the étude form, creating concert pieces that would inspire later composers to do the same

  6. Franz Liszt

    1. Biographical background
      1. Born in Hungary
      2. Studied piano with Carl Czerny in Vienna, and by age eleven was a concert virtuoso.
      3. Lived in Paris,Weimar, and Rome.

    2. Style
      1. His style is eclectic, formed by his cosmopolitan career, and he incorporated Hungarian elements in many works.
      2. He was inspired by the virtuosity of the violinist Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840) to extend the technical possibilities of the piano, and he transcribed some of Paganini's violin works for the piano.

    3. Works for Piano
      1. Piano arrangements of orchestral and operatic works by Schubert, Berlioz, Beethoven, Bach, and Wagner
      2. Études d'exécution transcendante (Transcendental Études)
        1. Originally simple etudes in 1826
        2. Revised and made more difficult in 1839
        3. Simplified and given individual titles in 1852
      3. Works for piano and orchestra include two concertos and the Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies.
      4. Sonata in B minor (1853)
        1. Thematic transformation, in which a theme is transformed over the course of several appearances, is a major feature.
        2. Augmented triads used extensively in his late works, including the B-minor sonata and Nuages gris (Gray Clouds, 1881), for piano

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company | Credits