Poets and People
This American composer drew from a variety of text sources including Emma Lazarus's The New Colossus when crafting her work To the Hands, which also features her own original poetry.
Who is Caroline Shaw?
Because of the Romantic preoccupation with death and venerating heroes, this genre of choral-orchestral work became extremely popular in the 19th century.
What is the Requiem/Requiem Mass?
Stravinsky's ballet Rite of Spring is just one of the examples of this brand of modernism which composers used rhythm rather than harmony as the driving musical force, seeking to capture a sense of the primal or ancient in music.
What is primitivism?
This French composer was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome at the Paris Conservatoire at age 19; she died only five years later.
Who is Lili Boulanger?
This Medieval collection of writings was assembled by itinerant monks. It contains Latin, Middle German, and other languages -- and many bawdy/ribald poems!
What is Carmina Burana
As a soldier in World War I, this British writer crafted poetry that would inspire Benjamin Britten to write the War Requiem.
Who is Wilfred Owen?
This oratorio by Mendelssohn was innovative in its inclusion of the chorus in accompanied recitative, demonstrated aptly in the "Baal" scene.
What is Elijah?
This British composer was known for being at the forefront of the world music scene; influenced by Stravinsky and other modernists, he eschewed folk traditions in favor of the high art music of the modern era.
Who is Benjamin Britten?
This pioneering university choral group was one of the earliest touring choirs in the United States; they brought African-American spirituals all the way to England, where they sang for Queen Victoria.
Who are the Fisk Jubilee Singers?
These two "schools" in the Romantic era represented different ideas behind the purpose of music: does it carry intrinsic meaning, or is it open to interpretation?
What are absolute vs program music
This French surrealist poet wrote anti-war poems such as "Liberté" and "Bois meurtri" set by Francis Poulenc.
Who is Paul Éluard?
This movement in the Catholic church advocated for a return to the principles of sacred music best epitomized in the "golden counterpoint" and modality of Palestrina; Rheinberger and Bruckner were among its advocates.
What is the Cecilian Movement?
Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern were the primary pioneers of the serialism, an offshoot of this branch of modernism.
What is atonality?
This Jewish-American composer is best known for his famous musicals including West Side Story.
Who is Leonard Bernstein?
In the Romantic era, this instrument commonly included in Baroque and Classical continuo groups began to receive its own, specific line of written music.
What is the double bass
This group of French composers active in Paris in the 1920s was formed by Erik Satie and included the young Francis Poulenc.
This Romantic composer was one of the earliest champions of the music of J.S. Bach, staging performances of the St. Matthew Passion both in England and in Germany.
Who is Mendelssohn
What is Neoclassicism?
This Romantic composer was known as one of the great virtuoso pianists of her day. While she composed a fair number of works, she famously said, "I once believed that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose – there has never yet been one able to do it. Should I expect to be the one?"
Who was Clara Schumann?
This English cathedral was destroyed in World War II; Britten's War Requiem was commissioned for the rebuilt cathedral's consecration in 1962.
What is Coventry Cathedral
This Italian writer and poet was a leader in the Risorgimento movement and was memorialized by Verdi in his Requiem.
Who is Alessandro Manzoni?
Along with increased virtuosity, the broadening of tessituras/ranges, additional rhythmic complexity, and the overall expansion of the orchestra – especially brass and percussion – music of the Romantic era ushered in the need for this musical leader.
What is a conductor
Impressionist composer Claude Debussy wrote mostly instrumental music. Stylistically, Debussy's music was often characterized by a focus on timbre, the use of unique harmonic progressions, the incorporation of whole-tone/modal/pentatonic scales, and parallel "planing" motion. This was his only choral work.
What is Trois Chansons?
This composer was known for his synthesis of African-American spirituals and melodies with traditional Western forms and processes, epitomized in his oratorio The Ordering of Moses.
Who is R. Nathaniel Dett?
Which modernist composer is quoted as saying the following:
“For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.”
Who was Igor Stravinsky?