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:
  - The German Tradition
  - National Trends
  - New Currents in France
  - Italian Opera
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I
Italian Opera
  1. Verismo ("realism" or "naturalism," literally, "truthism")

    1. Operas with librettos portraying everyday people in familiar situations.

    2. Primitive emotions propel people into violent situations.

    3. Some popular verismo operas are Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry, 1890) and Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci (The Clowns, 1892).

  2. Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924)

    1. Composed some verismo operas

    2. Tosca (1900) has a realistic libretto.

    3. Musical ideas grow out of the action; Puccini uses modern techniques in a fluid succession to portray the action.

    4. Some of his operas portray an exotic locale, for example, Madama Butterfly is set in Japan and Turandot (1926) is set in China.

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