ROSSINI, SCHUBERT, BERLIOZ, MENDELSSOHN & REVIEW FOR TEST #2 Music Appreciation, Class #9.

ROSSINI, SCHUBERT, BERLIOZ, MENDELSSOHN

&REVIEW FOR TEST #2

Music Appreciation, Class #9

Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868)

Signor Crescendo*

Enormous orchestral scoringBel Canto vocal lines

Florid, ornamental

Success!Fame!Money!Early retirement!

Career

39 operas The Barber of Seville Cinderella

Ceclia Bartoli “Non piu mesta” William Tell

Overture

Sacred MusicSalon music

CD #1, Track 17

Stabat Mater (1827) “The Sorrowful Mother Stood”

Quis est homo qui non fleret “Is there one who would not weep, whelmed in

miseries so deep, Christ's dear Mother to behold?”

Listen for… Close harmonies, crescendo

Romantic

Upper case definition Reaction against “reason” Aesthetics

Heightened emotion Nature Children Struggle with nature Death

Aesthetic Goals and Ideals

fantasy grotesque whimsy imaginative playful reaching for eternity longing for the unrequited artist and art

“The Artist”

Image Poverty Health Suffering Eccentric Exotic

Liebestod

Romantic ideal Love/death

Sturm und Drang Storm and stress/urge/longing

Culture

Purpose “Beauty for Beauty’s Sake”

Robert Lewis Stevenson

Must beauty be “beautiful?”

Emotion Emotionalism?

Audience

No more patronage

Middle-class Educated Musical

New terms

Artist*GeniusInspirationDilettanteProfessionalAmateur

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828)

Influences

Beethoven Salieri Mozart

Catalogue

Over 1,000 completed pieces Nine symphonies Chamber music 600 Lieder

Lieder*

Piano Story-teller Subconscious

Song “cycle”*Text

Prose Poetry

Heine, Schiller, Goethe

Der Erlkönig*

Accompaniment?

Piano Horse

Dissonance Melody

Singer

NarratorSonFatherErl King

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe* (1749-1832!)

Jessye Norman

Comic Relief?

Marco Rima VERY politically incorrect!

Wiener Kaffeehaus and jail

Meeting place Artists Writers Poets Musicians

Political radicals

Schubertiade*

Schubert Abend* Informal

Fun Fame Food

CD #2, Track 1

Marian Anderson“Ave Maria”

Listen for… Long, extended melodic line Simple, harmonically-complex accompaniment Latin text?

Original source: “The Lady Of The Lake”

Hector Berlioz 1803-69)

“Symphonie fantastique*” 1830

“An Episode in the Life of an Artist “

…a young vibrant musician, afflicted by a wave of passions, sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her. By a strange anomaly, the beloved image never presents itself to the artist’s mind without being associated with idée fixe.

CD #2, Track 2 “The Ball”

The artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in life, in the tumult of a festive party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beautiful sights of nature, yet everywhere, whether in town or in the countryside, the beloved image keeps haunting him and throws his spirit into confusion.

Idée fixe

Listen for…

Mysterious opening with harps and stringsFestive waltz musicTwo interruptions by the idée fixe*

2:10 5:25

Felix Mendelssohn (Bartholdy)* 1809-47

Style

ElegantSensitive“Miniature”s

Songs Without Words: “Spring”

Incidental Music* A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Wedding march

Image of “The Artist?”*

WealthyMusical prodigy*HandsomeIntelligent

Languages Artist

Jewish

Mendelssohn and Bach

CPE Bach’s widow

St. Matthew’s Passion 1750-1829

Devotee Contrapuntal influence

Fanny Mendelssohn (Hensel)* 1805-1847)

Composer?!

Same educationMore talent and creativity?Pseudonym

Handwriting Correspondence Style

Charles Gounod said...

“Madame Hensel was an unforgettable musician, an excellent pianist, an intellectually superior woman.

She was small, almost slight, but the fire that burned in her eyes

revealed extraordinary energy. As a composer, she was exceptionally

gifted ...”

WEEK 10: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2008

Test #2 Review

CD Tracks

Cumulative

New tracks

All of CD#1 CD #2, Tracks 1-3

Test 2: Sample Questions

What were the most important changes made to the piano during the Classical era?

What enormous political/social event was celebrated with a performance of the Beethoven 9th in December 25, 1989?

At the end of his career, Haydn wrote his first and only oratorio. It is a highly descriptive telling of Holy Scripture from Genesis and the Psalms. What is the name of this piece?

Compare Haydn’s years with the Esterházy family vs. Mozart and his employers.

What was the tradition known as DROIT DE SEIGNEUR?

Test 2: Sample Questions

What are the “Sketch Books”? What are “Conversation Books”?

What city was the musical and cultural center of the Classic period?

The exposition of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony contains how many notes?

How does the overture to Mozart's Don Giovanni end?

Beethoven violently changed the dedication of the “Emperor” concerto to the “Eroica” concerto in December 1804. Why?

Thousands of Viennese attended Beethoven’s funeral. Among his pallbearers was what future great composer and Beethoven devotee?

Why is the Classical Period also known as the “Age of Reason” or the “Age of Enlightenment”?

Mozart was unusually proud of the end of Act I in The Marriage Of Figaro. Why?

What is Don Giovanni’s fate? Is he dragged to Hell, or does he alone make the decisions which determine that fate? In what way is that revolutionary?

Who was Lorenzo Da Ponte? Why was he hired to work in Vienna? Da Ponte promised Emperor Franz Joseph a major change in

Beaumarchasis’ radical play The Marriage Of Figaro in order to obtain permission to work with Mozart on the project. What was Da Ponte’s promise, and did he keep it?

What is THE HEILIGENSTADT LETTER?

How did the father of Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn prepare his children for their adult life?

Who was Antonio Salieri? Facts vs. fiction, please! How and when did the myths about him and his relationship to Mozart

begin? What Tony and Academy Award winning play and movie tells that story?

What is “Chamber Music”? What composer is credited with the greatest accomplishments in Chamber Music? How many musicians are required for Chamber Music?

Did Beethoven write and re-write his music or did he compose seemingly without effort? Compare to Schubert and Mozart.

The writers, poets and playwrights of the Classic period worked with what cultural and aesthetic goals in mind?

Did Mozart’s talent require training? What proof was recorded of his talents?

“Music, of all the arts, has the greatest influence over the passions....The Marriage of Figaro contains all of the elements of the French Revolution…” What political figure made this statement?

When did Beethoven’s hearing begin to fail? Why? Why have the facts recently changed?

Test 2: Sample Questions

How did the public react to Rossini’s operas?Define “Crescendo” and explain its relevance to

Rossini.What are the aesthetic goals of the Romantic

period?What were the new ways in which Schubert used

the piano for lieder?How many characters are presented in “The

Erlking”?What is Marian Anderson’s place in American

history?

The excavation of what two major cities marks the birth of the Classical Period?

Why is Haydn considered to be the “Father Of The Symphony”? “Papa Haydn”?

How many movements are standard in a Classical concerto? Which tempo scheme is standard for a Classical concerto?

Between 1812 and 1817 Beethoven composed almost no music. Three crisis interrupted his musical concentration. What were those three events?

Mozart once wrote to his father that he was really only interested in writing one genre and that all his other compositions were just to generate income. What is that one genre?

What is the “surprise” in the “Surprise Symphony” by Haydn? Why did he feel the need to surprise his audiences? How did he accomplish the surprise?

Test 2: Sample Questions

Explain how Susanna (The Marriage Of Figaro) and Leporello (Don Giovanni) are radical characters and thereby symbolic of the entire Classical period. Your answer must include a discussion of the musical and social/political implications each character presents.

What did Ferdinand Hiller do on May 27, 1827? What was the fate of the locket? How has the history of Beethoven’s final years changed as a result? Where is the largest collection of Beethoven artifacts housed today?

How did Berlioz use the idée fix in his Symphonie Fantastique?

Describe Beethoven’s week of May 1-7, 1824 in detail, including the premiere of the 9th.

Identify and label each section of the Sonata form in detail.