It's Romantic!
1833-1897
German
Traditional Romantic - not programmatic, increased chamber music, symphonies, church music. Edited couperin and Mozart.
Romantic expression, classical tradition, conservative harmony, Dark sonorities, alto register, counterpoint, themes and variations
24 chamber music, 200+ Art songs, orchestral music, 4 concertos, choral and keyboard
Pianist, conductor
Art songs, leids
4 symphonies, string quartets and quintets w/ clarinet, sextets, piano trios and quartets for various ensembles, some sonatas
Violin concerto ranks with Beethoven
Finished 1st after 20 years of work
Academic Festival Overture - for orchestra
Has typically a wide melodic span
Wrote come church music - Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra - Old Testament text - 4th mvmt, "How lovely in your dwelling places" best known
Johannes Brahms
1891-1953
Russian
One of most popular composers in 20th century
Many Genres
Dissonant, virtuosic
Ballets commissioned him to write for them
7 operas, 7 symphonies, 8 ballets, 5 piano concertos, 2 violin concertos, a cello concerto, Symphony-Concerto for cello and orchestra, 9 piano sonatas.
Romeo and Juliet, Peter and the Wolf
Sergei Prokofiev
Pattern of pitches, usually in triple meter and minor mode, serving as a foundation for the harmony and suitable for supportive, instrumental or vocal harmony
Recurring bass theme
Passacaglia
What years were considered the Antiquity?
____-500
Italian Pope, reigned 590-604
"The Great"
Standardized liturgical chants—some items of liturgy and their music being assigned to certain services throughout the year—until 16th century
Divine Inspiration: dove singing in his ear
Notated chants to save for future generations
Pope Gregory I
1844-1908
Russian
Wrote a book on harmony. Best technique of the Russian 5. Russian nationalist. Orchestrator
Clear and bright tone painting. Lyrical
Symphonies, Orchestral works, operas, overture, chamber music, choral concertos
Sailor, teacher, theorist
One of the Mighty Handful - Russian Five Composers
Early - had career in Navy, then taught composition at St. Petersburg conservatory and as conductor; studied some under Balakirev, studied counterpoint on his own; arranged and edited folksongs
Composed symphonies, chamber music, choruses and songs, symphonic poems and operas - used bright colors and lively fantasy
Works include: Capriccio espagnol, Shaherazade, Russian Easter Overture, Sadko, The Golden Cockrel, published treatise about his technique on orchestration and composition
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
1786-1826
German
Picturesque Romanticism, Influenced Romanticism
Folk flavor
Symphonies, concertos, sonatas, operas, songs, overtures, chamber music, orchestral, piano, voice and piano
Kapellmeister, Director of Prague Opera
Initiated the German Opera in Romantic Period with Der Freishutz (The Marksman) in Berlin, used fairy tale-like plots, used folk-like melodies - Nationalism
Used melodrama in operas (spoken drama with background music)
Carl Maria von Weber
Form used in Classical and Romantic period. First movements usually consisting of an exposition, development, and recapitulation of a limited number of themes and key areas
Sonata Form (sonata allegro form)
Name the period that occured from 1150-1300
Ars antiqua
991/992 AD-after 1033
Italian
Regarded as inventor of modern musical notation (staff & syllabic learning of notes ut, re, mi, fa , sol)
Text, Micrologus, was the second most widely-distributed text of the period.
Benedictine monk
Guido d'Arezzo
1845-1924
French
One of the high points of French artistic civilisation. Experimented and enriched harmonic procedures. Retired.
Harmonically original, restrained, lyric, sensuous, delicate
Sonatas, operas, chamber music, requiem, songs, nocturnes, orchestral, piano
Church organist, military, teacher, choirmaster, assistant organist
Founder of National Society for French Music, 1st president of Independent Music Society
Studied composition under Saint-Saens
Held various positions as an organist
Professor of composition at Paris Conservatoire and director
Mostly composed lyric pieces, solo piano, chamber music
Not remarkable for color, not skilled at orchestration
Some pieces are ambiguous in tonality and melodically neutral (neither Major nor minor)
Works: Penelope, Promothec, Pelleas et Melisandi, La Bonne Chanson
Ravel was his pupil; Nadia Boulanger also pupil
Gabriel Faure
1792-1868
Italian, later settled in Paris
Opera buffa. Wrote out vocal ornaments. Less improvisation by singers. Increased role of orchestra.
Spirited, evocative sense of rhythm. Memorable melodies. Simple harmonies. Crescendo, contrast. Colorful, important orchestra. Recitative. Orchestra instead of continuo.
37+ operas. Misc. 20 cantatas. 5 string quartets. Later in life after he retired from opera, wrote only sacred music, songs and albums of piano pieces.
Theater director, violist, cellist, horn, piano, singer. Very famous in his day.
Works:
Il barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)
Guillaume Tell (William Tell)
Gioachino Rossini
From ternary form: A B D.C. A
Two-section aria form; first section is repeated after the second section's close, which carries the instruction: da capo
Da capo aria
What period occurred from 1450 to 1600?
Renaissance
1160/1170-1205/1225: Medieval (Ars Antiqua)
Notre Dame School
French
Polyphony. Organa: 3-4 voices. Wrote clausulae. Conducti. Developed modal rhythm. Contributed to establishment of mensural notation, expanded on the work of Leonin.
Further developed national rhythmic notation system: rhythmic modes (no relation to church modes)
3-4 voice parts: duplum, triplum, quadruplum. Additive. Combined modal rhythm in upper voices with slower moving tenor.
Wrote organum, motets, polyphonic conductus.
Part of movement to abbreviate and update Magnus Liber.
Church employee
"Best creator of descants."
Perotin/Perotinus
What composer lived from 1864-1949
German
Operas, symphonic poems, lieder, orchestrator
Leitmotifs, tonality stretched, increased soloists, decreased orchestra
15 operas, 9 symphonic poems, 299 lieder, miscellaneous
Composer and conductor trained under Hans von Bulow
Held positions in the opera houses of Munich, Weimer, Berlin and Vienna
Mostly program music
Tod und Verklarung (Death and Transfiguration), Also Sprach Zarathusta, Till Eulenspiegets lustige streiche, Don Quixote, Salome, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier
Richard Strauss
1797-1828
Austrian
Prolific. Increased quality. Established lied as a major genre.
Lyricism. Harmonic color. Increased harmonic vocabulary. Unexpected. Made classical more lyrical and introspective.
600+ art songs, 9 symphonies, 7 overtures, chamber music ~34, 22 piano sonatas, several short piano pieces, 6 masses. Misc. vocal. ~5 operas, incidental theater music. ~1,000 pieces total!!
Violin, organ, singer, viola, piano, composer, taught elementary school, published.
Fought off illness and poverty throughout life.
Works:
Unfinished Symphony, considered first truly Romantic symphony
"Great" Symphony in C Major--of a "heavenly length"
Franz Schubert
Chamber sonata typically scored for 2 treble instruments (usually violins) and bass
Essentially a suite of stylized dances, though opening movement not always a dance
Sonata de camera
Name the time period of the Medieval (Middle Ages)
500-1450
1300-1377 (Ars Nova)
France
One of the first composers to experiment with syncopation. First to set mass in polyphony.
Secular and religious: most fully formed of time. Counterpoint: 3-4 voices. Increasingly complex rhythms. Dissonance. Duple meter. Rhythmic variety.
Messe de Nostre Dame.
Secular ballades, rondeaux, virelais (types of chansons) motets, miscellaneous.
Priest, King's secretary, poet.
Guillaume de Machaut
1860-1903
German
Composer of solo songs with piano accompaniment (leider)
250 ledier produced in short periods of intense creativity, later he suffered a mental breakdown; published in 6 principal collections, each devoted to single poet or group of poets
Regarded text as important as music, accompaniment never overwhelms the voice - balance of the two (ex. Kennot de das land? Do you know the land?). Also: Spanishes Liederbach
Hugo Wolf
1803-1869
French
Leader of Romantic movement
Leader of programmatic symphonies. Large scale. Prolific.
Unconventional. Orchestral. Continuous, irregularly phrased melodies, unusual treatment of dissonance, pushed timbre and space. Enriched orchestra: harmony, color, expression and form.
Recurrent theme in different movements...move toward development of cyclic symphonic forms in 19th century.
Orchestral music, 3 operas, art songs, song cycles, sacred music
Founder of modern orchestration and conducting.
Librarian, critic
Works:
Symphonie Fantastique, first and most famous. Uses idee fixe.
Romeo et Juliette- for orchestra, soloists, and chorus.
La Damnation de Faust, Les Troyens
Hector Berlioz
At first, an improvised prelude; later a sedate fugal piece on one or more subjects
Started on lute, when transferred to keyboard, imitative sections were sometimes added
A textless imitative motet
Most written for ensemble playing
17th Century - a brief, serious, contrapuntal composition for organ or keyboard that continuously develops one theme through imitation
Ricercar
This musical period occurred from 1300-1450
Ars nova
1335-1397 ("Trecento," or Italian Ars Nova)
Italian
Wrote ¼ of works from this period. Poet-authored texts. All secular.
2 and 3 voice polyphony.Lyrical, ornamented upper parts. Upward leap of 3rd in melody: "Landino cadence." Melismas. Imitation. Vertical texture.
Ballatas (90 in 2 voices, 42 in 3 voices), 12 madrigals, 1 caccia, 1 French virelai)
Built, played, tuned organs. (portativo, organetto)
Francesco Landini/Landino