Post on 10-Sep-2014
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Was called the poet of the piano, and was the only great composer who wrote exclusively for the piano
Was raised in Warsaw Poland When he was very young his original style of
playing astonished the Polish aristocracy After graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory,
he toured Austria and Germany playing his own compositions
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 (1830-1831)
Listening Guide Page 303
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 (1830-1831)
Listening Guide Page 303
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12 (Revolutionary; 1831)
Was probably inspired by the Russian takeover of Warsaw in 1831.
Listening guide on page 304
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12 (Revolutionary; 1831)
Was probably inspired by the Russian takeover of Warsaw in 1831.
Listening guide on page 304
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Polonaise in A Flat Major, Op. 53 (1842)
A polonaise is a piece in triple meter. It originated as a stately processional for Polish nobility.
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Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)
Polonaise in A Flat Major, Op. 53 (1842)
A polonaise is a piece in triple meter. It originated as a stately processional for Polish nobility.
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Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
An incredible showman and irresistible to women, he overwhelmed the European musical public with superhuman feats at the piano
He turned his performances into rockin’ road shows He would dramatically remove a trademark pair of
long white gloves before beginning to play He also insisted on having a back-up piano on stage
just in case he broke strings on the piano he was playing
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Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
He would also show off his memorization skills by tossing the music over his head before beginning to play
After playing a particularly long and emotional piece, he would emotionally collapse. The ladies went wild. So many of them asked for a lock of his hair, he had to buy a dog to make sure he always had a supply of hair.
To showcase his talents, he composed an enormous number of solo piano pieces. Some of them are the most difficult ever written.
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Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor (1851)
Listening Outline Pg. 309
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Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Transcendental Etude No. 10 in F Minor (1851)
Listening Outline Pg. 309
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
By age 9 he was a brilliant pianist, by 13 he had written symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and vocal works
At age 20 he conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for the first time since Bach’s death
It rekindled interest in Bach’s music and earned Mendelssohn an international reputation
At age 26 he became conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and transformed it into one of the finest performing groups in Europe
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
He directed the posthumous premiere of Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony, which his friend Robert Schumann had discovered as well as the first performances of two Schumann symphonies
At age 33 he founded the Leipzig Conservatory.
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 64 (1844)
Listening Guide on page 313
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 64 (1844)
Listening Guide on page 313
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Program Music Romantic Composers were very attracted to instrumental
music associated with a story, poem, idea, or scene Programmatic orchestral works such as Berlioz’s
Symphony Fantistique, Tchikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet, and Smetana’s Moldau depict emotions, characters, and events in particular stories or the sounds and motions of nature
Such nonmusical ideas are usually specified in the title or by the composer’s explanatory comments in the concertgoer’s program
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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Symphony Fantastique 1830 Fourth Movement: March to the Scaffold
Listening Guide page 324
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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Symphony Fantastique 1830 Fourth Movement: March to the Scaffold
Listening Guide page 324
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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Symphony Fantastique 1830 Fifth Movement: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath Listening Guide Page 326
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Nationalism in 19th Century Music
Countries had always had their own folk music, but up until this time that type of music was separate from the “serious” classical compositions
During this time, music became a symbol of national pride, and these influences spilled over national borders to the rest of the world
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Nationalistic Music
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) Modest Mussorgsky; Arranged for
Orchestra by Maurice Ravel (1922)– The Great Gate of Kiev
Listening outline page 332
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Nationalistic Music
Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) Modest Mussorgsky; Arranged for
Orchestra by Maurice Ravel (1922)– The Great Gate of Kiev
Listening outline page 332
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
His greatest gift was melody, and he would write entire melodies into his pieces not just snippets
The theme from Romeo and Juliet is often heard when two characters fall in love, and everyone knows The Nutcracker, which is the most popular ballet in the world
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Tchaikovsky’s music is pretty cheerful given the torment he had to deal with in his life
But his best music is far from cheerful. His Symphony No. 6, known as the Pathetique, is the most personal and deeply felt piece of music ever to pour from the pen of this tortured artist
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy
Listening Outline pg 336
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy
Listening Outline pg 336
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
This is a piece of his that I love. It was performed at the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York. One week later Tchaikovsky took his life. It is believed that this piece symbolizes the pain and grief that he felt all of his life and also depicts him giving up the will to live.
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Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Symphony No. 6 Pathetique– Fourth Movement
– This recording is not on the Kamien CDs. – I added it because I think it’s awesome.
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Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (From the New World; 1893)
He wrote this symphony during his first year in the United States. It is one of his best known compositions– It glorifies the American and Czech folk spirit
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Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (From the New World; 1893)
He wrote this symphony during his first year in the United States. It is one of his best known compositions– It glorifies the American and Czech folk spirit
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Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)
First Movement: Adagio (slow introduction); Allegro molto
Listening Guide page 343
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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Today Brahms music is considered lush in harmony and charming in style, but in his time was considered academic, plodding, harsh, and dissonant by the public.
The reason the authors believe people thought his music sucked was because he wasn’t very good with melodies
He wrote short ideas of melodies called motives and worked them out in ingenious ways
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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 (1885) At its premiere in Vienna in 1886 the bewildered
audience actually hissed Eventually his work grew on the Viennese and
less than a month before his death at a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic tremendous applause broke out after ever movement of the symphony
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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Fourth Movement; allegro energico e passionato
Listening Outline Pg. 353
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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Fourth Movement; allegro energico e passionato
Listening Outline Pg. 353
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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem; 1868)
Listening Outline Pg. 357
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Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
The most popular of all opera composers He read a libretto about the ancient Jews exiled from
their homeland and to him it symbolized the Italians who were enslaved by the Austrians
He composed Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon), which was an enormous success
One of the songs from the opera became a national liberation hymn sung by all Italian patriots
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Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
In his late 30’s he composed Rigoletto (1851), Il Trovatore (1853), and La Traviata (1853)
Although the public loved his work, critics were often scandalized by their subject matter
Rigoletto seemed to condone rape and suicide, La Traviata glorified free love and made a heroine out of a kept woman
But the critics did not stop him and he continued to write to please himself
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Verdi’s Music
It is not boring He believed that long was synonymous with boring He composed not for the musical elite, but for the
masses He wrote about subjects that were interesting. They
had to have a variety of mood, irony, contempt, rage and above all passion
Almost all of his works are serious and end unhappily
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Verdi’s Music Rigoletto (1851) An opera hero who was a hunchback court jester. His
only redeeming quality was his love for his daughter Gilda Rigoletto’s master, the Duke of Mantua has won Gilda’s
love while posing as a poor student When the Duke seduces the innocent girl, Rigoletto plots
his death Gilda loves the Duke and even after learning about his
dissolute character, and she ultimately sacrifices her own life to save him
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Verdi’s Music
Act III La donna e mobile and Quartet Listening Guide on pg. 362
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Verdi’s Music
Act III La donna e mobile and Quartet Listening Guide on pg. 362
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Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Created some of the best-loved operas He succeeded Verdi as the most important Italian
opera composer He came from a long line of church organists and
composers During music school he lived a hand to mouth
existence usually eating on credit at a restaurant called Aida
His most famous operas are: La Boheme (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madame Butterfly (1904)
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Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
La Boheme (1896) Act I: Scene between Rodolfo and Mimi Listening Guide pg. 369
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Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
La Boheme (1896) Act I: Scene between Rodolfo and Mimi Listening Guide pg. 369
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wagner’s Music– He called his works musical dramas rather than
operas– Within each act there is a continuous musical
flow, which he described as “unending melody”– There are no traditional arias, recitatives, or
duets– He smoothly connects each section to each other
without a break
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
He shifted the musical center of gravity of opera from the voice to the orchestra
Many long orchestral interludes graphically depict scenic effects such as floods, sunrises, and flames
He loved to exploit the rich power of the brass section
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
He designed new instruments known as Wagnerian tubas
Only the most powerful of singers could compete with his orchestras
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
He invented the idea of assigning a theme to each main character called Leitmotif (pronounced light-moteef)
Without this creation we would have no Darth Vader’s theme, or Princess Leia’s theme
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Die Walkure (The Valkyrie; 1856) Act I Love Scene (conclusion) Vocal Guide pg. 383
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Die Walkure (The Valkyrie; 1856) Act I Love Scene (conclusion) Vocal Guide pg. 383
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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Was the last great Austrian romantic composer
He influenced composers of the early 20th century, but his works were not fully appreciated until 50 years after his death
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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Mahler’s Music Is often programatic and reflects his constant
search for the meaning of life He follows Wagner’s lead in taking tonality to the
breaking point Nearly every piece before Wagner’s time was
clearly in a particular key Mahler’s music, on the other hand, has long
stretches that don’t seem to be in any key at all
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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Leider eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer; Composed 1883-1885, Orchestrated 1891-1896)
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Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Leider eines fahrenden Gesellen (Songs of a Wayfarer; Composed 1883-1885, Orchestrated 1891-1896)