Mus 115-003. Review sheet for first test.
This should crystallize and make concise what we covered in class. Your main materials are the textbook
and your class notes.
For all reading, for this and the following tests, terms and listening examples that we covered in class are
what you will need to know. Terms and listening examples included in the book, but not covered in class,
are material that you do not need to study. However, historical and biographical background about
composers we have studied, even though I may have presented it differently in class, is material that I do
want you to know for the test.
Note that in addition to definitions presented in the chapters, there is a glossary following p. 416. This
should be very helpful for review of terms.
Reading: Pp. 1-57; 91-107; 124-47.
Listening: CD I, tracks 63-67; CD II, tr. 1-5, 10-22.
Also for listening, we heard two movements from Bach’s famous Cantata #80, Ein feste Burg is unser
Gott (A Mighty Fortress is our God). To hear this music, go to the database Classical Music Library on
the Randall Library website. Click on composer (left side of page), then letter B, then Johann Sebastian
Bach. Scroll down through the alphabetical listing to reach Cantata #80. Click on that, then on the link,
and then on the movement. I recommend that you use the high quality option when listening.
To get to the text, go on google to A Mighty Fortress. Click the Wikipedia entry
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Mighty_Fortress_Is_Our_God) Scroll down, and past the original
German text, you will find a Modern English Translation. This is my own translation, which is in fairly
direct English, and also retains much of the rhythm of the original.
By the way, the Classical Music Library is a fabulous resource; you can hear thousands of pieces right
from your computer.
Musical terms and concepts.
Four properties of musical tone: pitch, volume, duration, timbre. Pitch is described with the terms high
and low. Volume: loud or soft. Duration: long or short. Timbre is essentially equal to what
instrument(s) is or are playing. The more instruments, the greater the variety of timbre tends to be. I
played you a piece by Mahler (from the 1st movement of his symphony #6) to illustrate variety of timbre.
Groups of pitches create melody – that is, the tunes we know. Melody is horizontal, consecutive pitches;
harmony (pitches played at the same time) is pitches played simultaneously. Pitch is notated on the staff
(a written arrangement of lines and spaces) with letters A-G.
Volume change = dynamics. Forte (f) = loud; piano (p) = soft; mezzo (m) = medium. Mf, mp, pp, ff. (I
illustrated wide dynamic range with the first section of Beethoven’s 5th symphony.) Crescendo is a very
important dynamic: getting gradually louder.
Groups of durations make rhythm: long and short notes. Note lengths equal a number of beats. The beat
is a steady pulse around which duration patterns (rhythms) change. Rhythm is notated by changing the
appearance of the notes on the staff (adding a stem, filling the note in, adding a beam).
Tempo = speed. Allegro, adagio, moderato, presto. Note: tempo and rhythm are NOT the same.
Texture: monophonic (one line only); homophonic (melody with background or chords or harmony –
three ways of saying the same thing). Harmony is the most technically accurate. We also heard
polyphonic texture in a canon or fuging tune: more than one melody line at once.
Form: how a piece of music is organized or structured. Strophic form applies to music with words only.
The same music is repeated as the words change, as in a ballad which tells a story. ABA form is
principally used for music with only instruments, no words. The first (main) idea is followed by a
contrasting idea; then the first idea returns.
Particularly useful for describing what is heard in a piece of music: tempo, form, dynamics, texture, what
instruments are playing. Who wrote it and when; what type of piece it is (for ex.: a symphony). This is
the kind of information to bring to listening essays, along with your own personal, emotional reactions.
The orchestra: the standard large ensemble in Western music. Can range in size from 15 or 20 to over
100. Capable of an enormous range of sound. Instruments of the orchestra. Sections of the orchestra
derive from how instruments produce their sound: Winds and brass (air), strings (bowed or plucked), and
percussion (object hitting object). Examples: flute, oboe (winds); trumpet, trombone (brass); violin, cello
(strings); timpani, snare drum, xylophone (percussion).
Baroque music. Dates: approximately 1600-1750. Style characteristics: primarily polyphonic texture;
long melodies; propulsive, with few breaks in the motion; string orchestra plus harpsichord typical (pairs
of winds and brass are sometimes added); affect: prevailing consistency of dynamics, rhythm, and timbre.
Composers heard: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi. Works heard:
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto #5, 1st movement; Orchestral Suite #3, Bourée; Cantata 140, movements 4
and 6; Cantata 80, movements 1 (fugue) and 8 (chorale). The 80th cantata – one of over 300 that he
composed – is based on both a seminal text and a melody of Martin Luther. The text embodies the core
tenets of the Protestant faith.
Handel: Ev’ry Valley, and the Hallelujah Chorus, both from the Messiah.
Vivaldi: Spring (1st movement only) from The Four Seasons.
Terms: Concerto grosso, ritornello, tutti, solo, cantata, fugue, chorale, oratorio, aria.
Historical background about the baroque included discussion of Martin Luther (1483-1546) and the
Reformation. Bach was a Protestant and a Lutheran. We discussed the Doctrine of the Affections and the
duality of science vs. faith in the baroque era. We also looked at the baroque paintings at the start of that
section of the text, and related them to the musical style.
We heard that in Vivaldi, one can identify baroque qualities mixed with characteristics of the coming
classical period (approximately 1725-1800). The classical is in many ways almost the opposite of the
baroque. We listened to part of the first movement of Mozart’s symphony #40 and heard: primarily
homophonic texture, short melodic units, orchestra of strings and winds, with no harpsichord; large
contrasts of dynamics, including the recently invented crescendo; variety of rhythm, timbre, and melodic
material. Contrast is at the core of classical style, the direct opposite of affect.
Mus 115-003. Review sheet for second test.
The midterm will be cumulative to the course content so far. Be sure to review musical terms and
concepts, as well as previous listening. That said, this test will emphasize the material since the
first one. As before, review the text and your class notes. Here you have a summary of the
material, to give you a concise overview of what we have covered. It is not intended to be allinclusive. As mentioned in the previous review, the pages include some terms or names we have
not studied in class. You are not expected to know those.
Reading: 1-57; 91-106; 110 (bottom)-114; 124-26; 130-35 (top); 138-72; 174-86; 193-205.
Listening: CD I, tracks 63-67; CD II, tr. 1-5; 10-44; CD III, tr. 1-4. Plus from Beethoven’s 5th
symphony:
CD II tracks 45-into tr. 57 (1st movement plus part of 2nd ending at 6:22, the third statement of the
C major march); tr. 59-68, (3rd movement plus part of 4th, ending at 4:18, the recapitulation)
Composers heard (in addition to those from previously): Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. The lives
and careers of all of them are closely connected with Vienna, the imperial capital of the Austrian
empire and a city with great wealth and manifold opportunities
Background to classical style: the Enlightenment. A period in which the rational and scientific
came to the fore. People believed that humans could improve both themselves and their society
through system and order. Large drop in the power of the church and gradual drop in the power
of the aristocracy; rise of the middle class. The U.S. Declaration of Independence and
Constitution are both quintessential Enlightenment-era documents.
Classical style in music (c. 1725-1800) differs from baroque in a number of ways: generally
homophonic texture; short, bite-sized, symmetrical melodies; wind section in the orchestra;
ongoing contrast of dynamics, rhythm, and timbre; strong emphasis on form. The symphony, a
multi-movement work for orchestra, is a creation of this period.
Form is a key point in classical style. We have seen four forms: sonata-allegro (Mozart and
Beethoven first movements); theme and variations (Haydn); minuet and trio (Mozart; scherzo and
trio in Beethoven’s 5th); and rondo (Beethoven string quartet). All are often used. Sonataallegro is the most important for our purposes, but be sure you are familiar with all of them.
Sonata-allegro is an elaborate ABA, usually AABA (first A repeated). These sections have
descriptive names: exposition, development, recapitulation. Sometimes there is a coda as well.
The A section has four subsections. Take particular note of the 1st theme and the 2nd theme,
which contrast one another (remember that contrast is a central element of classical style). There
is a transition between these themes, and a closing segment as well.
In the development (B) the material from A is evolved, transformed. We followed this in both
Mozart and Beethoven. Then the A returns. Important, however: in this return, there is no
change of key (scale) in the second theme. This means that the contrasting key area set up in the
exposition is now resolved to the home key. Both first movements end with a coda, a resolving,
ending section of the piece. In the Mozart it is brief; in the Beethoven it is a substantial section of
the movement.
Be sure to have a good grasp of the sonata-allegro form we heard in the symphonies of Mozart
and Beethoven.
We also heard a segment from a Mozart opera: Don Giovanni. An opera is a full-fledged work
for the theatre. It has all the features seen of the theatre: acting, costumes, props, sets. The
difference is that the story is told in song; all or most of an opera is sung. We heard (and saw)
both aria (solo song) and recitative (quicker-paced narrative or conversation) in the Mozart.
Beethoven’s 5th symphony is in some ways a true classical work, while in other ways it heralds
the coming romantic era. On the classical side, all of its movements are in clear forms. We
looked closely at the fairly rigorous sonata-allegro layout of the first movement. On the other
hand, the power and drama of this piece were something new. Then there are the unusual
features of the first movement that we mentioned: breaks in the rhythm at the start; an oboe solo
in the recapitulation; the second theme returns in C major instead of in c minor. In the second
movement, the lyrical mood breaks 3 times for the triumphal C major march. The third
movement brings back the 4-note motive, connecting it directly with the material of the 1st. At
the end of the 3rd movement there is no break, but a huge buildup going directly into the 4th. And
in that movement, Beethoven brings in trombones, which have not been heard in the piece until
then; this is a substantial increase in sonority and power. He treats the 4-note motive extensively,
and brings back a nearly literal repeat of part of the 3rd movement.
So what we have here is the symphony as an unfolding story, even an epic. The progression of
the music from dark (first movement) to light in the 4th, or from tragedy to triumph, is a new
concept, the point of creation of the Romantic symphony. So too is the unification of the work
across its movements, through the growing use of C major, and through the reappearance of the
4-note motive in the 3rd and 4th movements. Beethoven extended the possibilities of everything
he inherited, and this symphony illustrates that memorably.
Key biographical elements: Mozart is known as the greatest prodigy in the history of music. He
wrote his first symphonies when he was 8. Later he wrote down whole symphonies without
changing a note. Beethoven astounds by the fact that he composed much of his music after he
had become deaf. In the famous Heiligenstadt Testament (1802), he avowed his intent to commit
suicide in despair, then changed his mind to continue the struggle and bring his music to the
world.
Haydn started as one of the Vienna Choir Boys, but as was typical of the time, was put out on the
street by the church when his voice broke. Found a patron, the Esterhazy family, whom he
worked for over many years; his career is a highly successful example of the patronage system.
Had a full orchestra to write for and experiment with. Mozart had an unenlightened patron; he
broke from that and became a free-lance musician in Vienna, a novel idea at the time. That
succeeded at least in part. Beethoven, though he received help from wealthy supporters, never
had a patron, never worked for anybody. These developments illustrate the changing position of
the artist in the Enlightenment into the early Romantic.
End of midterm review material for 5:00 class (section 003).
Mus 115-003. Review sheet for third test.
This test will include only material since the midterm. This takes in the romantic era. As before, review
the text(s) and your class notes. Here you have a summary of the material, to give you a concise
overview of what we have covered. (It is not intended to recount everything said in class.) Be sure to
listen to the music.
Reading: pp. 207-238; 245-50; 252-56; 262-67; 278-85.
Listening: CD 3, tr. 12 – 37 (halfway through the Smetana); 48-50 (Brahms); CD 4, tr. 1 – 8
(Wagner). (We also saw the famous Ride of the Valkyries on film, which is the Prelude to Act III
of the opera. We continued with a bit more of the act, and then saw the great final scene of
farewell, the Magic Fire Music. In fact, we saw it twice.)
Composers we’ve heard: Schubert, Schumann (Robert and Clara); Chopin; Liszt; Berlioz;
Smetana; Brahms; Wagner. The listening guides give you what you need on the music.
Here’s the text of the Clara Schumann song online, for those who don’t have books. Go to:
http://www.geneva.edu/~dksmith/clara/lyric.html for German and English together. You can also
see it performed with orchestra on YouTube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESoy1MpD-Ps (though there isn’t any translation given).
Text for hearing Schubert’s Erlkönig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig
Synopsis of the Ring: http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/ring.html
There is a CD recording of Die Walküre in the library, with synopsis plus text and translation.
We discussed characteristics of the romantic era: the individual paramount, emotions at the center
of experience. Love of nature. The irrational or unknowable (compare with the Enlightenment).
Nationalism. The virtuoso.
Romantic music: direct emotional expression. Development of the large orchestra. Fascination
with timbre. The grandiose (Berlioz, Wagner); the miniature (Schubert songs, for example). The
piano as a leading instrument.
We discussed Beethoven as the embodiment of the romantic artist. His deafness, the new concept
of art as a mission to humanity, his pursuit of his art despite terrible obstacles; his isolation; his
defying of convention. Complete artistic freedom, that is, no patron to work for, even though
there were people who helped him. In many ways the life of the artist as Beethoven lived it, and
defined it in the 19th century, is still the concept of the artist today.
From there we went fairly directly through a series of major 19th century composers and sample
works. Schubert’s Erlkönig received discussion with respect to its theme of questioning 18th
century rationalism. In this connection we heard some turbulent music by Haydn, the 1st and 4th
movements of his 49th symphony. We had previously heard Haydn as a composer of the
Enlightenment, but in the 1760s he was writing pieces that showed tendencies of romantic music.
We referred to this as music of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress). This comes from the same
time that the poem of the Erlkönig was written.
Robert Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt illustrate the meteoric rise of the piano as the instrument of
choice. Schumann especially illustrates the miniature, the piece of just a few minutes duration,
loved by the romantics. Liszt illustrates a remarkable virtuoso, a performer of power and
charisma who performed to enraptured audiences all over Europe. His innovations and dazzling
playing were considered almost superhuman by many listeners of the time.
Clara Schumann, the wife of Robert, was a fine composer as well, and we heard a song of hers.
The huge output of songs by German composers illustrates the strong connection between music
and literature in the 19th century. Robert and Clara are also a great love story, which I told you
about in class.
Berlioz illustrates the grandiose, a large-scale symphony for large orchestra with ongoing
innovations of timbre. It is also program music: a piece based on a source outside the music. In
this case the source is a story written by Berlioz himself. It’s a bizarre tale, highly personal and
featuring the supernatural. Quintessentially romantic.
The piece of Smetana illustrates nationalism, the celebration of the beauty of his homeland. The
symphony of Brahms is by a composer who revered Beethoven and embraced classical norms of
structure. Brahms was also in love with Clara Schumann as a young man.
Wagner is a large and very varied topic. We discussed his remarkable personal charisma which
drew people into his orbit even as he sometimes destroyed them.
In the music, we discussed the Leitmotif. The literal meaning: leading motive. At its simplest a
Leitmotif identifies something: a character, an object, a place. It can also identify an abstract.
But what Leitmotifs really do is help create the unfolding of the drama. Leitmotifs can tell
listeners what a character is thinking or feeling, even if nothing is said (we heard this in the
Magic Fire Music). They can tell what will happen in the future (ditto). They can transform to
follow the development of a character (I illustrated this in class). Thematic transformation is a
concept Wagner inherited from Beethoven. We heard it, in the 5th symphony. Beethoven was an
enormous influence on Wagner, as he was on pretty much every other composer for the whole
19th century.
We listened to excerpts from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, known as The Ring for short.
This is a cycle of 4 operas; they tell a continuing story from one opera to the next. We heard
excerpts from the second opera: Die Walküre. The book clarifies the story leading up to the Act I
scene we saw (which is the one on your CDs). I recounted a bit in class too. The main Leitmotif
for this scene is the one of the sword, heard at the climax of the action when Siegmund pulls the
sword out of the tree.
The Ring is an epic work of the romantic era. It lasts 15 or 16 hours, depending on how fast it’s
played. It starts in prehistory and moves through eons to the dawn of human civilization. It is
scored for probably the largest orchestra ever used to that time: over 100. It is filled with
extraordinary emotional intensity and remarkable innovations in timbre (such as the Magic Fire
Music). Wagner literally created new sounds for the orchestra.
The basis for the Ring is medieval legend; this vast body of literature was another fascination of
the romantic era. The Nibelungenlied was one of his primary sources. Wagner adapted it freely
to his needs. The Ring deals with a number of themes. We mentioned the evil of avarice accumulating wealth to the destruction of others; and the redeeming power of love.
End of third test review material for 5:00 class (section 003).
Mus 115-003. Review sheet for final.
The final is cumulative to the course, except that it will not include the reading and listening from
the first test (baroque). It will include the terms and concepts material, which also was part of the
first test; this has continued as active-use vocabulary (for instance, in your paper). As such, for
the final, use the review material for the second and third tests, as well as the reading, listening,
your class notes, and the tests from those sections. Material since the third test:
Reading: pp. 288-304; 311-327; 345-348; 370-382; 393-4; 398-400. The underlined page groups
are slightly changed from what I gave you earlier.
Listening: All on CD 4: tracks 16-27; 41-46; 58-63. (We omitted tr. 57, given to you earlier.)
We also heard in class the first of Schoenberg’s Five Pieces for Orchestra. This is accessed on
the Classical Music Library, named there in German as Fünf Orchesterstücke, Op. 16. Please
listen to that on your own as well.
The topics for this segment: Schoenberg and expressionism; Stravinsky; Copland; jazz – with a
foray into music of Africa; rock.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). New sounds, especially in harmony. Dissonance, and the
creation of atonality – music no longer organized around a home pitch, home chord, or scale.
Complex, intense, emotionally accessible music, almost hyper-romantic in the strength of its
feelings. We heard the first of the “Five Pieces for Orchestra,” from 1909. Great variety of
timbre and rhythm, might sound like chaotic horror music at first. However it’s structured too,
organized around a two-note motive (short-long).
Schoenberg’s music illustrates a major movement that influenced all the arts: Expressionism.
Abstraction – not depicting literal objects – emerges in painting at this time (Schonberg painted
too). We saw intensely-colored paintings that showed people and landscapes, but in a non-literal
way. This meant to express the essence, not necessarily the factual features of the subject. Color
was the primary medium for this. Expressionism cut across the arts and is best defined by its
focus on emotional extremes. (See Munch’s Scream in your books, p. 319; even though it was
painted earlier, it has essentially expressionist qualities.) In music: new sounds, especially in
harmony (dissonance), as already discussed. Rapid changes of timbre, rhythm, and pitch.
Still, in important ways Schoenberg was a traditionalist. He regarded the classical composers
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as models. He used motive intensively, drawing on the
techniques of Beethoven. And he believed himself to be continuing the path of music history in a
necessary new direction.
We heard two pieces from this period of Schoenberg’s life: the first of the Five Pieces for
Orchestra (on the Classical Music Library) and a song from Pierrot Lunaire (on your CDs).
Intellectual migration. This was a major movement of artists of all kinds, including musicians,
who fled Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s. Among them was Arnold Schoenberg. The intellectual
migration brought major artists and contributed great creative impulses in the U.S.
The “roaring ‘20s” were followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Massive unemployment
and hardship on an international scale. Germany suffered major effects, and this economic
hardship contributed to the rise of the ultranationalist Nazi party headed by Adolf Hitler. Hitler
came to power in 1933. Complete intolerance of dissenting views; the first concentration camp,
for political opponents, was set up at Dachau within months. You can still visit that place, which
is near Munich. Harsh anti-semitism: discriminatory practices, such as firing Jews from state
jobs, began almost immediately. Violence, at first local, was not far behind. This caused
numerous musicians, artists, journalists, and others, to leave or flee Germany. Included among
them were many of the leading talents in German intellectual and artistic life (the intellectual
migration). The majority fled to the United States and made immense contributions to the
creative arts and intellectual life here. Among them: Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Music: A
Survivor from Warsaw (1946, on your CDs), a piece about the Holocaust written just after it
ended, and as shocking facts were reaching a wide public.
Survivor from Warsaw; World War II (1939-45) and the Holocaust. The people who left in
the intellectual migration escaped what became the Holocaust. This was the organized,
systematic mass extermination by the Nazis of the Jews - and numerous other groups as well, in
lesser numbers. Intended to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, it ended up killing about 6
million Jews in Europe, roughly 1/3 of the Jewish inhabitants in the entire world. Round-ups,
ghettos, deportations in cattle cars, concentration camps, savage conditions, and brutal labor
killed large numbers. Then there were gas chambers for organized mass killing, and ovens to
burn the bodies, sometimes thousands a day. Auschwitz was the most infamous. The Holocaust
is the first example of industrial mass murder in human history. Schoenberg’s piece is about this.
Using narrator and orchestra, it describes very compactly the (fictional) recollections of a
survivor from the very real ghetto uprising in Warsaw, which took place in 1943.
The subject of this piece remains contemporary, even though the events happened a few decades
ago. Despite the unimaginable calamity of the Holocaust, Holocaust denial arose almost
immediately after the war, and continues today. People either say the Holocaust didn’t happen, or
claim that the accounts of it are grossly exaggerated. Typical of such stories is the claim that the
Jews fabricated or exaggerated the Holocaust for their own benefit. This is one of many “Jewish
conspiracy” stories that have been around in one form or another since the Middle Ages. The
supposed Jewish poisoning of wells, and the Blood Libel (killing Christian children to take their
blood) are staples of this vocabulary. So is the alleged Jewish plan to take over the world, or
dominate the financial system and the media. This latter is the kind of language the Nazis used.
One prominent Holocaust denier today is the president of Iran – an extremely public figure. In
December 2006 he personally sponsored a conference in Tehran, the purpose of which was to
“examine” whether the Holocaust actually took place. Denial of the Holocaust is widespread in
Arab countries today, and anti-semitic tracts are best-sellers in the Arab world. Yet such hate
isn’t restricted to Muslims or Arabs. One of the many participants in the above-mentioned
conference was a man named David Duke, an American and former Ku Klux Klan leader, who
was also at one time a state representative in Louisiana – an elected American official. It is for
facts like these that a piece like Schoenberg’s, and the story it tells, remain relevant for us today.
The documentation of the Holocaust is overwhelming. Captured German documents, trial
testimony by high Nazi officials, photographs by liberators of the camps, and many thousands of
survivor stories (including from an 88-year-old woman named Bronia Merlin who lives here in
Wilmington) leave no doubt as to what occurred. Deniers are purveyors of hate, but that doesn’t
stop them from claiming that they are pursuing “scholarship” and “free speech.” And it doesn’t
stop others from believing them. Hopefully nobody reading this will be swayed by what amounts
to a racist agenda promoted with lies.
Lesson for today: to promote tolerance over hate. Hate and violence stemming from it remain
amply present in our world. The 1994 mass killings (est. 800,000) in Rwanda and the continuing
butchery in Darfur, Sudan are brutal examples. One fears that nothing was learned from the
Holocaust. As individuals, we should do what we can against this. Anti-Semitism is still very
much with us too, as mentioned above. It remains the same kind of “Jewish conspiracy”
language used by the Nazis. One more example: there is a story put out by Hamas, which is the
government of the Palestinians in Gaza. The story claims that the Jews perpetrated the Holocaust
themselves (!) in order to purge the weak ones from their midst.
In addition to the fantastic nature of this claim, it should be noted that the Palestinian government
in Gaza has as its stated agenda the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel, by violence if nothing
else works. Further, the Palestinians elected this government, which had already killed hundreds
of Israelis in suicide bombings in places like buses and restaurants. Clearly, hatred of Jews is
alive and well and very public; even after the shocking events of the Holocaust it is nowhere near
going away.
We turn from Schoenberg to the other pivotal figure of the early 20th century:
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). We heard his highly influential The Rite of Spring. Composed
just a few years after Schoenberg first used atonality in 1909. Also uses dissonance and atonality,
though quite differently. The direct violence of the story caused a scandal at its first performance
in Paris (1913) where the police were brought in to break up the fighting in the audience.
Interestingly, the same thing happened in Vienna at a concert with Schoenberg’s music in the
same year.
Stravinsky in this piece is particularly innovating in the domain of rhythm (as opposed to
harmony, as in Schoenberg). Small rhythmic cells are combined to make complicated patterns.
A good analogy in painting, cubism, is illustrated on p. 314. Objects are broken down into their
smaller constituent planes. Also notice the faces, which are based on African masks. This was a
vogue at the time, and can be related to the primitivist nature of Stravinsky’s music in The Rite.
The Rite was commissioned and first performed by the Ballets Russes, a remarkable, innovative
company led by Sergei Diaghilev. Their work cut across the arts, a nexus of great creativity.
Stravinsky became part of the intellectual migration, by the way, ending up in Los Angeles at the
onset of WWII.
Aaron Copland (1900-90). From the early 1900’s, important American composers join the
scene. Copland is one. His early music was often very dissonant; some of it was also jazz
influenced. With the onset of the Depression in the 1930s, he resolved to write music to appeal to
wide audiences. He drew on American materials for this: folk, western, Latin. Appalachian
Spring (1944) comes from this period. The variations on ‘Tis a Gift to be Simple (part of
Appalachian Spring) typifies his most popular music. The work was commissioned and
premiered by the Martha Graham dance company, a modern dance troupe that is today one of the
leading companies of this type in America, with an international reputation (easy to find on
google, if you’re curious).
In the last few classes we left the concert music domain and discussed jazz and rock.
Jazz. Based on African traditions which then combined with American elements. Developed in
the immediate post-Civil War period among Blacks, newly freed from slavery, who suddenly had
other options and also urgently had to make a living. Began as oral tradition: communicated
person-to-person by repetition, not written down. Decades later it emerged into print and
recordings; there is necessarily guesswork regarding its early development. Associated with
dancing which, along with the African influence, helps explain the steady bass beat.
Jazz is thought to have begun in New Orleans right after the Civil War, where a thriving musical
culture led to the use of band instruments and the adoption of familiar tunes, with improvisation
as needed, by newly-freed slaves. By the 1920s, when it emerged out of oral tradition, jazz was
being heard in several American cities, and improvisation had become established as a crucial
element. Again, we don’t know exactly how this happened, but by the 1920s, it clearly had. At
that point jazz reached a national fame (the term Jazz Age was coined while it was going on).
Radio and recordings were crucial technology that helped make this possible.
We heard the fabulous Louis Armstrong in Hotter than That, performing on both trumpet and
voice (scat). Louis invented scat, in which the singer improvises both pitches and sounds (not
words) to go with them. Great solos here. The typical jazz structure with the tune followed by
the individual players improvising. Also call and response between voice and guitar.
Much of the origin of jazz is in African music. We heard Song from Angola (not on your CDs).
There we heard characteristics commonly found in African music: multiple simultaneous rhythms
(in the drums); call and response; full harmony; all African music is oral tradition music.
In place of drums, which were typically banned by slave owners, American blacks developed
body percussion: clapping, stomping, thigh slapping.
We also listened to a classic number by Duke Ellington (1899-1974). Composer of perhaps 1,000
tunes, arranger, band leader, pianist. Duke was a leading figure in music for big band. This
emerged in the 1930s. The small ensemble (5 players) that we heard in Hotter than That has
grown to 15 or 20. Sections of instruments (several clarinets or saxophones, for example, instead
of one). Big, rich sound. We heard the innovative Mood Indigo, which shows this sound. The
band and the full tune don’t come in until 2/3 of the way through the piece however, after the
main solo. This reverses the usual order and produces an exquisite effect.
Jazz is part of a pattern in which African-Americans have played an enormous role in American
popular music ever since being freed from slavery. The period after the war was difficult.
Estimates are that there were 4 million Black slaves freed in 1865. Most were illiterate, had no
land or money, and many were laborers with few other skills. But beginning in the 1870s, Black
music began to make an impact on America, with spirituals. In the late 1890s came a craze for
ragtime, followed in the 1920s by the Jazz Age and in the 1950s by the rise of Rock. All of these
are substantially Black musical idioms. The identity of today’s American popular music is
unthinkable without the Black influence and its vibrant creativity.
Rock. Exploded on the scene in 1955, when Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock reached the top of the
pop charts. Rock is a combination of the blues (specifically the chord pattern of the 12-bar blues); rhythm
and blues (R&B), and country-western. Both the blues and R&B are Black, partly with African roots.
Country is White, though including Black influences. As such, rock ’n roll started as a black-white
hybrid with primarily African-American characteristics. It is the most universally-heard musical style
ever created, popular worldwide, and is perceived as a truly American product. Grew out of the
prosperous, sometimes rebellious post-World War II youth culture, and the growing ferment against
segregation. Kids had money to spend, and music was one of the places they spent it. Part of the
rebelliousness came from the fact that beginning in about 1950, White kids were consuming R&B music
in quantity. As it turned out, Blacks and whites both listened to rock (rock ‘n roll is a Black term), often
together at concerts - a true interracial music.
Landmark moment that corresponds to the start of the rock era: Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954
Supreme Court decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. At about the same time,
successful bus boycotts in Baton Rouge and Birmingham reflected grassroots unrest. This soon expanded
to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the momentous 1960s civil rights movement. That decade, with its
upheavals and rebellions (hippies, free love, drugs, Vietnam, Woodstock), embodied the spirit of rock,
and Rock embodied the era.
To illustrate the 12-bar blues, we heard a boogie-woogie tune for piano called Shout for Joy (not on your
CDs). The 12-bar blues pattern had become standardized in the blues by the 1920s and was taken over
into boogie-woogie. The chord changes are shown very clearly in this example. To illustrate R&B, we
heard Choo Choo Ch’Boogie by Louis Jordan (a jump blues, not on your CDs). This illustrates the
rhythms from R&B music that characterized early Rock. Also uses a boogie-woogie bass, blue notes
(from the blues), and saxophones (jazz sound). Country singers (Bill Haley, Elvis Presley) were also
Rock stars and this style of singing was an important characteristic of early Rock.
We heard a song from the great moment of Rock’s creation: the classic Hound Dog. First we listened to
the original version by Big Mama Thornton, not the more often-heard cover by Elvis. It uses the 12-bar
blues. Strophic song, with guitar solo in the middle (typical rock) plus vocal improvisation (jazz or blues
style, though Big Mama’s sound is sometimes gospel). Then we heard and saw the faster, brasher Elvis
cover. Big Mama’s version, performed by a Black artist and put out on a small independent label, didn’t
get remotely the attention - or the earnings - of the Elvis cover. The latter was put out by a well-known
White artist on a large, well-funded and marketed label. The words were changed to remove the sexual
innuendo and appeal to a more mainstream audience. This illustrates how money, marketing, and race
intersected in the industry at the time. For my own money, Big Mama’s version is sassier and classier
than the Elvis, with humor too.
Technology is crucial to the whole Rock genre. Electric guitar, amplification, the recording industry,
radio. Mass dissemination made worldwide visibility possible; the character of rock itself is
unimaginable without amplification.
End of review material for 5:00 class (section 003).
I hope you enjoyed the course. Good Holidays!
Mus 115-125 (Cornerstone). Review sheet for first test.
This should crystallize and make concise what we covered in class. Your sources are the Kamien text,
your class notes, and for what we have covered of the classical period, the Listen to This booklet.
For all reading, for this and the following tests, terms and listening examples that we covered in class are
what you will need to know. Terms and listening examples included in the book, but not covered in class,
are material that you do not need to study. However, historical and biographical background about
composers we have studied, even though I may have presented it differently in class, is material that I do
want you to know for the test.
Note that in addition to definitions presented in the chapters, there is a glossary at the back of the Kamien
book. This should be helpful for review of terms.
Reading: Kamien, pp. 1-56; 95-101; 126-32; 145-61; 168. Listen to This: pp. 36-46.
Listening: Bach, Cantata #80 (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) movements 1 and 8. Don’t forget to listen
with the text. Mozart, Symphony #40, 1st movement.
Musical terms and concepts.
Four properties of musical tone: pitch, volume, duration, timbre. Pitch is described with the terms high
and low. Volume: loud or soft. Duration: long or short. Timbre is essentially equal to what
instrument(s) is or are playing. The more instruments, the greater the variety of timbre tends to be.
Groups of pitches create melody – that is, the tunes we know. Melody is horizontal, consecutive pitches;
harmony (pitches played at the same time) is pitches played simultaneously. Pitch is notated on the staff
(a written arrangement of lines and spaces) with letters A-G.
Volume change = dynamics. Forte (f) = loud; piano (p) = soft; mezzo (m) = medium. Mf, mp, pp, ff. (I
illustrated wide dynamic range with the first section of Beethoven’s 5th symphony.) Crescendo is a very
important dynamic: getting gradually louder.
Groups of durations make rhythm: long and short notes. Note lengths equal a number of beats. The beat
is a steady pulse around which duration patterns (rhythms) change. Rhythm is notated by changing the
appearance of the notes on the staff (adding a stem, filling the note in, adding a beam).
Tempo = speed. Allegro, adagio, moderato, presto. Note: tempo and rhythm are NOT the same.
Texture: monophonic (one line only); homophonic (melody with background or chords or harmony –
three ways of saying the same thing). Harmony is the most technically accurate. We also heard
polyphonic texture in a canon or fuging tune: more than one melody line at once.
Form: how a piece of music is organized or structured. Strophic form applies to music with words only.
The same music is repeated as the words change, as in a ballad which tells a story. ABA form is
principally used for music with only instruments, no words. The first (main) idea is followed by a
contrasting idea; then the first idea returns. Sonata-allegro is an elaborate ABA.
Particularly useful for describing what is heard in a piece of music: tempo, form, dynamics, texture, what
instruments are playing. Who wrote it and when; what type of piece it is (for ex.: a symphony). This is
the kind of information to bring to listening essays, along with your own personal, emotional reactions.
The orchestra: the standard large ensemble in Western music. Can range in size from 15 or 20 to over
100. Capable of an enormous range of sound. Instruments of the orchestra. Sections of the orchestra
derive from how instruments produce their sound: Winds and brass (air), strings (bowed or plucked), and
percussion (object hitting object). Examples: flute, oboe (winds); trumpet, trombone (brass); violin, cello
(strings); timpani, snare drum, xylophone (percussion).
Baroque era (1600-1750). Music: Bach, Cantata #80, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress is
our God). Movements: 1 (polyphonic choral movement, a fugue), and 8 (chorus, simple, basically
homophonic). On the Classical Music Library database, click on composer on the upper left, then B for
Bach, then click on Bach, Johann Sebastian, then on Cantata 80. Baroque music and the baroque in
general (including paintings which give a visual sense of the time) are dealt with in Kamien Part III.
This Bach piece embodies the key elements of baroque style. Characteristics: primarily polyphonic
texture; long melodies; propulsive, with few breaks in the motion; string orchestra plus harpsichord
typical (pairs of winds and brass are sometimes added); affect: prevailing consistency of dynamics,
rhythm, and timbre.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is perhaps the greatest representative of the baroque in music, and
certainly with respect to the intricacy and beauty of his polyphonic writing. He spent the bulk of his
career working for the church in Leipzig, and composed an almost unbelievable amount of music of many
kinds, while carrying out a job involving several churches, choirs, and other responsibilities. Early in his
tenure at Leipzig, he was composing a new cantata (20 – 30 minute religious work for chorus, soloists,
and orchestra) every week. (!) He sired 20 children; 10 survived, and 4 became well-known composers.
This Bach cantata – one of over 300 that he composed – is based on both a seminal text and a melody of
Martin Luther (1483-1546). The text embodies the core tenets of the Protestant faith – a beautiful
example of literature and music in combination.
Luther was a seminal figure in German and indeed in European history. As a monk and professor in
Wittenberg, he instigated the Reformation in 1517 (key date). The Reformation was the (unsuccessful)
attempt to reform the Catholic church which resulted instead in the creation of a new branch of
Christianity: Protestantism.
Luther wanted to reform what he saw as a slew of corrupt practices, but the Church was not receptive.
Instead, he was excommunicated and placed under the ban of the empire, which meant that for the rest of
his life he was never entirely safe from arrest and imprisonment. He spent much of a year in hiding, but
used the time well: for part of his translation of the Bible. Luther was the first translator in literally 1,000
years to go back to the original languages: Hebrew and Greek. He insisted on accuracy and respect for
the text. And he translated the text into German, thus helping to create the modern German language.
His teachings were disseminated widely thanks to the then-recently (1453) invented printing press, which
enabled rapid duplication.
Luther was a great religious reformer, and also a lover of music. He composed lyrics and tunes and
valued music as part of worship. Bach was a staunch, pious Lutheran, which makes his choice of words
and music for this cantata especially meaningful.
Luther was of course not perfect. Among his contentious points was his hostility to the Jews later in life.
In language strongly suggestive of that used by Hitler 400 years later, he advocated the elimination of the
Jews from German society.
Between the lives of Luther and Bach comes the 30 Years War (1618-1648). This huge conflict took in
much of Europe, with enormous damage to the economy and infrastructure in Germany, which stood near
its center. It was the most destructive war in history in terms of casualties (perhaps 10 million) until
WWI. The Protestant-Catholic territories in Europe have been essentially stable since the end of this war.
Bach was born in a Protestant area, indeed in one where Luther had preached 200 years before.
Other background to the baroque that we discussed were the analogies between music and painting (we
saw images in class). We discussed the duality between science and faith that is such a part of the era. In
music, the Doctrine of the Affections helps to illustrate this. And we looked at a map of Germany at the
end of the 30 Years War, with its patchwork of independent sections that was in fact Germany all the way
into the 19th century.
We then turned our attention to the Classical era (1725-1800). This era is also known as the
Enlightenment, because of its focus on science and rationality. The power of the church declined
radically as science and reason became seen as the basis for understanding and conducting life.
Mozart, our next composer, lived in this period. The classical era looked to the ancient Greeks as their
ideal model, and what was believed to be the perfection of form and balance of that culture. The focus in
the classical era on form in music and symmetry in phrasing reflects those ideals. So do the American
Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which look to order and reason to work out the principles
of government and the rights of citizens. Literacy increased greatly, as this was also the time when public
education was introduced. Rapid increase in publication of newspapers; invention of the novel (as for
instance, the one you read by Goethe). Rise of the middle class, as mentioned before; decline of the
aristocracy. Introduction of the new idea of religious tolerance, as you read in Nathan the Wise by
Lessing.
Our starting music: Symphony #40 in g minor, 1st movement, by Mozart (1756-91). This brought
us to a key musical preoccupation of this rational era: form, balance, structure, and especially
sonata-allegro form. This form is used in anything called a sonata, a symphony, or a string
quartet. That makes literally thousands of pieces, from the 1700’s to the present.
Characteristics of classical style are in many ways opposite to, and a rebellion against, the
qualities of the baroque. The emphasis is on contrast rather than affect. Melodies tend to be short
and regular rather than long. Texture is generally homophonic, deliberately a simplification from
the intricacy of baroque style. Winds play a much greater role in the orchestra and the
harpsichord drops out of use. Form is a key focus. A major aspect of contrast in this era is the
development of the crescendo as a dramatic device. Melodic material and rhythm can change in a
short time.
Contrast is the guiding principle in sonata-allegro form, as we heard it in the symphony movement. A
symphony is a multi-movement work for orchestra. Mozart’s 40th has four movements, as is typical. It is
a model of perfection in form. The first movement is in Sonata form = AABA (ABA, with the first A
repeated). We studied this carefully in class. I strongly recommend that you hear this using one or both
of the listening guides, one in each of your text sources.
Inside the A are a 1st theme and a 2nd theme, and these contrast one another strongly. In addition, the 2nd
theme uses a new scale (it is in a new key; there has been a modulation from the home key to a new one).
This sets up tension, which needs to be resolved by returning to the home scale or key at the end. The B
section treats A material, but transforms (develops) it and so creates it fresh with substantial contrasts.
The return of the A brings a return to the home key, and the 2nd theme stays in that key, so cementing the
return to the home key. The movement ends with a short coda (like a rounding off segment).
This movement makes extensive use of a 3-note motive. The use of motive is a strong feature of classical
music, even a defining one. A motive is a short musical idea that can be evolved, and that is typically
heard a good deal within a piece. It can unify a whole diversity of ideas. You already know the idea:
think of the short-short-short-long bit that begins Beethoven’s 5th. Here in the Mozart it’s just short-shortlong. We heard many illustrations of that motive, both the rhythm and the descending half step that is its
melodic shape.
Finally, in the short phrases that make up the 1st theme of this symphony, we heard symmetry: equallength and similarly-shaped phrases, phrases that balance one another. Order, logic, clear structure:
defining characteristics of the era.
Mus 115-125 (Cornerstone). Review sheet for second test.
The midterm will be cumulative to the course content so far. Be sure to review musical terms and
concepts, as well as previous listening. That said, this test will emphasize the material since the
first one. As before, review the text(s) and your class notes. Here you have a summary of the
material, to give you a concise overview of what we have covered. It is not intended to be allinclusive. As mentioned in the previous review, the pages include some terms or names we have
not studied in class. You are not expected to know those.
Reading: Kamien, pp. 1-56; 95-101; 126-32; 145-61; 168. Everything on Beethoven; the listening guide
to his 5th symphony should definitely be of value. Listen to This: All except chapter 23 (Mozart piano
concerto).
Listening: Bach, Cantata #80 (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott) movements 1 and 8. Don’t forget to listen
with the text. All the music in Listen to This except for the Mozart piano concerto. For this listening, use
the automated listening guide at www.pearsonhighered.com/listentothis That gives you a good
breakdown and accurate timings. (Note again that the text for the Mozart opera is in the booklet.)
Beethoven’s 5th symphony on the Classical Music Library. Hear the whole 1st movement; the 2nd
movement to 5:55 (the end of the third march section); the whole 3rd movement; the 4th movement to the
beginning of the recapitulation at 4:08. The timings relate to the Adrian Boult recording, which is the one
we have been listening to in class.
From the first movement of Mozart’s 40th, we followed the typical formal layout of the symphony: 2nd
movement in theme and variation form (illustrated with the Haydn quartet movement); 3rd movement in
minuet and trio form (3rd movement of Haydn’s symphony #102); 4th movement in rondo form (4th
movement of Haydn’s symphony #102). Your listening guides and booklet illustrate the forms clearly.
Minuet and trio is an ABA. Rondo features a main A idea alternating with other ideas (for example:
ABACADA.)
We then saw about a half hour of Act I from the Mozart opera The Marriage of Figaro. The section we
saw includes the scene in your materials (chapter 24). An opera is a drama told in song. It uses full sets,
costumes, and staging, just as in the theatre; in addition to the singers the music includes full orchestra.
Opera is grand, impressive, and durable, still going strong 400 years after it was created in Italy in the
years leading up to 1600. This opera is a funny, frothy story of scheming, pranks, and indiscretions in
love. It illustrates the rise of middle class values in the Enlightenment period, as the foolish royal Count
is outwitted at every turn by his employee Figaro, and the characters interact as peers, regardless of class.
The play (which was the basis for the opera) was at first banned in Vienna, as its portrayal poked fun at
the aristocracy, and was certainly less than flattering.
We heard two works from the Far East that are analogous to the music of Haydn and Mozart we listened
to. The koto piece (Japanese, chapter 20) is in theme and variation form. The work includes a variety of
timbres and also improvisation. The Beijing Opera segment (chapter 25) is a recitative and aria (we heard
both in the Mozart). The parallels between the eastern and western pieces illustrate that certain musical
concepts can be heard across cultures and eras; they are not necessarily particular to Western music,
though of course they have been developed here in our own particular way.
Beethoven’s 5th symphony, which we heard almost in its entirety, is in some ways a true classical
work; in some ways it heralds the coming romantic era. On the classical side, all of its
movements are in clear forms. We looked closely at the fairly rigorous sonata-allegro layout of
the first movement. On the other hand, the power and drama of this piece were something new.
Then there are the unusual features of the first movement that we mentioned: breaks in the
rhythm at the start; an oboe solo in the recapitulation; the second theme returns in C major instead
of in c minor. In the second movement, the lyrical mood breaks 3 times for the triumphal C
major march. The third movement brings back the 4-note motive, connecting it directly with the
material of the 1st. At the end of the 3rd movement there is no break, but a huge buildup going
directly into the 4th. And in that movement, Beethoven brings in trombones, which have not been
heard in the piece until then; this is a substantial increase in sonority and power. He treats the 4note motive extensively, and brings back a nearly literal repeat of part of the 3rd movement.
So what we have here is the symphony as an unfolding story, even an epic. The progression of
the music from dark (first movement) to light in the 4th, or from tragedy to triumph, is a new
concept, the point of creation of the Romantic symphony. So too is the unification of the work
across its movements, through the growing use of C major, and through the reappearance of the
4-note motive in the 3rd and 4th movements. Beethoven extended the possibilities of everything
he inherited, and this symphony illustrates that memorably.
Key biographical elements: Mozart is known as the composer of over 600 pieces, including some of the
great masterworks in the repertoire. He lived the social changes taking place in the Enlightenment, as he
took the unusual step of breaking from his patron (his employer) and setting himself up independently in
Vienna. Economically the results were mixed, but then again, Mozart liked to gamble. Nonetheless, he
managed to live an independent middle class existence in the imperial capital.
Mozart excelled in every genre: symphony, opera, chamber music, more. The beauty of his melodic
writing and perfection of form remain unsurpassed. He is also known as the most remarkable prodigy in
the history of music. He played piano and violin and was composing by the time he was 5. His first
symphonies were written when he was 8, his first opera at 11. He was able, so it is generally believed, to
carry entire symphonies in his head. When he wrote them down, he did it without corrections.
Haydn started as one of the Vienna Choir Boys, but as was typical of the time, was put out on the
street by the church when his voice broke. Found a patron, the Esterhazy family, whom he
worked for over many years; his career is a highly successful example of the patronage system.
Had a full orchestra to write for and experiment with. After retiring from the service of the
Esterhazy’s, with a full pension, he created a new career for himself in London. When he died in
1809, he was the most famous composer in Europe, with the possible exception of Beethoven.
Biographical material on Beethoven, who connects very much with the Romantic, will come after
the test.
End of review material for second test – Cornerstone
Mus 115-125 (Cornerstone). Review sheet for third test.
This test will include only material since the midterm. This takes in the romantic era. As before, review
the text(s) and your class notes. Here you have a summary of the material, to give you a concise
overview of what we have covered. (It is not intended to recount everything said in class.)
Composers heard: Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner
Works heard: Beethoven’s 9th symphony, 4th movement; Schubert: Erlkönig and Gretchen am Spinnrad;
Wagner: the first half of Siegfried, Act III; the Prelude to Act III of Die Walküre, the famous Ride of the
Valkyries. Then the Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre, Act III (end of the opera).
Text for listening to the Beethoven: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Symphony
Text for hearing Erlkönig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Erlk%C3%B6nig
Text for Gretchen am Spinnrade: http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/romanticperiod/qt/gretchenlyrics.htm
Synopsis of the Ring: http://users.utu.fi/hansalmi/ring.html
CD recordings of the Ring are also in the library, with synopsis plus text and translation. You should
know the outline of the events in Siegfried Act III, up to the point we saw, where he awakens Brünnhilde.
The same goes for the 3rd act of Die Walküre, which we discussed in class (not a lot of events in this act).
Reading: Kamien: pp. 203-20, which covers the romantic in general and Schubert. Then also pp.
270-74, which deal with Wagner. You won’t need the following listening guide, as we didn’t
hear this segment. Also reread the Kamien chapter on Beethoven, as he was part of our section
on romantic music as well. (The 5th symphony won’t be on this test, however.)
Wagner biography on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner
Discussion of Wagner’s infamous essay, Jewry in Music, also on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Judenthum_in_der_Musik
Listening: everything is on the Classical Music Library. With the exception of the Beethoven, all of the
listening segments are 3 to 4 minutes long. I don’t expect you to know all 20 minutes of the Beethoven
intimately, but you should have a general idea of the work. For the other music, you should know it
pretty well.
For Siegfried, you’re listening to the Verwandlungsmusik aus dem 3. Aufzug (Siegfried). Once
you click on that, hear the first of the two selections, Siegfried passes through the Ring of Fire.
The two Leitmotifs you hear are the Magic Fire and Siegfried, who actually has two Leitmotifs.
For the Ride, three of the recordings consist just of this. It’s named as Act III Vorspiel (=
Prelude). The Walküre motif is of course the one heard.
For the Magic Fire Music, listen to the recording with the Orchestra National de Lille. We saw
this transcendent scene of farewell twice on film. As you may recall, Wotan first calls up Loge,
the god of fire. His concluding words, as Brünnhilde lies in sleep before him are to decree that
anyone who fears the tip of his spear will never pass through the fire that protects her.
Overview of material
We discussed characteristics of the romantic era: the individual paramount, emotions at the center
of experience. Love of nature. The irrational or unknowable (compare with the Enlightenment).
Nationalism.
Romantic music: direct emotional expression. Development of the large orchestra. Fascination
with timbre. The grandiose (Beethoven’s 9th and Wagner); the miniature (Schubert songs).
We discussed Beethoven as the embodiment of the romantic artist. His deafness, the new concept
of art as a mission to humanity, his pursuit of his art despite terrible obstacles; his isolation; his
defying of convention. Complete artistic freedom, that is, no patron to work for, even though
there were people who helped him. In many ways the life of the artist as Beethoven lived it, and
defined it in the 19th century, is still the concept of the artist today.
Beethoven’s 9th: a work that influenced the entire 19th century. A large reason for that is the
choral finale. It is set to a text called An die Freude (known as “Ode to Joy”, though more
accurately translated simply as “To Joy”). The poem was written by Schiller, whom we
discussed a bit in class (you should have some notes on that).
No composer had ever incorporated voices into a symphony before. Beethoven, in creating this
difficult innovation, essentially redefined the very concept of a symphony. The text of the choral
finale, evoking universal brotherhood, has helped bring this work worldwide renown. A great
example: It was played days after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, with the word freedom substituted
for joy.
Also, this was the longest symphony ever written to that time, by far. The scale of the work is
epic. The last movement is linked with the other three by recalling material from those
movements. This is a romantic-era concept which we have already seen in Beethoven’s 5th.
Schubert: both of the songs were set to texts by Goethe. Schubert is the only composer so far
who was actually born in Vienna, that very important city in the lives of Haydn, Mozart, and
Beethoven.
We discussed the content of the Erlkönig with care. (For the situation with Gretchen in her song,
see Faust). The Erlkönig received discussion with respect to its theme of questioning 18th century
rationalism. In this connection we heard some turbulent music by Haydn, the 1st and 4th
movements of his 49th symphony. We had previously heard Haydn as a composer of the
Enlightenment, but in the 1760s he was writing pieces that showed tendencies of romantic music.
We referred to this as music of Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress). This is the time that the
Erlkönig poem was written. It also corresponds to the time that Goethe’s Werther was written, as
well as The Robbers by Schiller, probably the quintessential play of the Sturm und Drang.
Wagner is a large and very varied topic. You have an overview biography to read. We discussed
his relationship to the upheavals of 1848 (and drew him into relation with Woyzeck and
Büchner). We talked about the upheavals themselves a bit. We discussed Wagner’s remarkable
personal charisma which drew people into his orbit even as he sometimes destroyed them. We
discussed the opera house in Bayreuth, dedicated solely to the performance of Wagner’s works.
We discussed a little about his relationship with King Ludwig II, who helped make the building
of this opera house possible. We discussed his hatred of the Jews (and you have a source to read
specifically about that).
In the music, we discussed the Leitmotif. The literal meaning: leading motive. At its simplest a
Leitmotif identifies something: a character, an object, a place. It can also identify an abstract.
But what Leitmotifs really do is help create the unfolding of the drama. Leitmotifs can tell
listeners what a character is thinking or feeling, even if nothing is said (we heard an example of
this). They can tell what will happen in the future (we heard one of these too). They can
transform to follow the development of a character (I illustrated this in class). Thematic
transformation is a concept Wagner inherited from Beethoven. We heard it, in the 5th symphony.
Beethoven was an enormous influence on Wagner, as he was on pretty much every other
composer for the whole 19th century.
We listened to excerpts from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, known as The Ring for short.
This is a cycle of 4 operas; they tell a continuing story from one opera to the next. We first heard
excerpts from the 3rd of these operas: Siegfried. Then we backed up to hear excerpts from the
second opera: Die Walküre.
The Ring is an epic work of the romantic era. It lasts 15 or 16 hours, depending on how fast it’s
played. It starts in prehistory and moves through eons to the dawn of human civilization. It is
scored for probably the largest orchestra ever used to that time: over 100. It is filled with
extraordinary emotional intensity and remarkable innovations in timbre (such as the Magic Fire
Music). Wagner literally created new sounds for the orchestra.
The basis for the Ring is medieval legend; this vast body of literature was another fascination of
the romantic era. Wagner adapted it freely to his needs. The Ring deals with a number of
themes. We mentioned the evil of avarice - accumulating wealth to the destruction of others; the
redeeming power of love; and the development of free will. Wagner has a place of his own in
German literature as a dramatist and essayist – and as a figure of central cultural importance.
Below I have listed the Leitmotifs heard in the Magic Fire Music, along with the time at which
each is heard. (The recording to hear for this is specified above.) The object of this is so that you
can listen to it a number of times yourselves and get to easily recognize the Leitmotifs. Most
important are Fate, Spear, Magic Fire, and Siegfried. We identified these in class already. You
can start listening at about 10:30, giving a few seconds lead-in to the segment.
10:37 and 10:44 Fate
11:01 Spear
11:08 Fire
11:30 Spear again
12:05 Transformation to the Magic Fire, which from here to the end surrounds everything
12:37 Slumber
12:56 Siegfried, sung by Wotan
13:23 Siegfried again, in the trombones
13:48 Wotan’s sadness
14:36 Fate (listen to the trombones)
14:42 Fate again. From here to the end, the fire is everything.
End of review material for third test – Cornerstone
Mus 115-125 (Cornerstone). Review sheet for final
The material covered on the final will be cumulative to the course, but we will omit the material
on the baroque, and begin with the classical and the Enlightenment. The only exception is
musical terms and concepts, which have been in ongoing use as applied vocabulary. For the
classical era, you can omit the Beijing Opera Company segment. I don’t think it helped you
much. (We didn’t cover the Mozart concerto.)
Review materials: Listen to This booklet; Kamien; internet links; class notes; Classical Music
Library; these review sheets – the material for the final begins with terms and concepts, then
skips to around the middle of the sheet from the first test.
20th Century Topics: Legacy of Wagner; Schoenberg, Berg, Brecht/Weill; Zimmermann’s Die
Soldaten. Music listed below is the 20th century portion of your listening material.
Our look at the 20th century began with the legacy of Wagner. We discussed chromaticism:
remote harmonic relationships; and the use of unresolved chords. These were the techniques that
led at atonality. Earlier, and as part of Wagner’s legacy, we discussed his anti-semitism, seen
generally as leading to Nazi propaganda and the Holocaust; and the building of the Bayreuth
opera house, still standing and staging performances, as the only place ever constructed for the
performance of music by a single composer.
Illustrating chromaticism, we heard the bulk of the prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. In
this piece Wagner created a language to evoke a love that can never be fulfilled – ever. We
discussed some elements of the plot; you need to know this outline. Hear the piece on the
Classical Music Library; it’s the recording conducted by Carl Schuricht.
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Schoenberg, perhaps the most influential composer of the 20th
century, developed new ways to organize pitch, which resulted in new sounds. With techniques
derived heavily from Wagner, he evolved dissonance leading to atonality: music no longer
organized around a home pitch, home chord, or scale. Complex, intense, emotionally accessible
music, almost hyper-romantic in the strength of its feelings. We heard the first of the “Five
Pieces for Orchestra,” from 1909. Great variety of timbre and rhythm, might sound like chaotic
horror music at first. However it’s structured too, organized around a two-note motive (shortlong). Hear it on the Classical Music Library.
Schoenberg’s music illustrates a major movement that influenced all the arts: Expressionism.
Abstraction – not depicting literal objects – emerges in painting at this time (Schonberg painted
too). We saw intensely-colored paintings (google: die brucke, then click on images) that showed
people and landscapes, but in a non-literal way. This meant to express the essence, not
necessarily the factual features of the subject. Color was the primary medium for this.
Expressionism cut across the arts and is best defined by its focus on emotional extremes. In
music: new sounds, especially in harmony (dissonance), as already discussed. Rapid changes of
timbre, rhythm, and pitch.
Still, in important ways Schoenberg was a traditionalist. He regarded the classical composers
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as models. He used motive intensively, drawing on the
techniques of Beethoven. And he believed himself to be continuing the path of music history in a
necessary new direction.
Internet information on Schoenberg to read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg
We then heard the first song from Das Buch der Hängenden Gärten (The Book of the Hanging
Gardens). Again, atonality in an intensely expressive (mostly quiet) mood. And here again is my
translation of the text, for you to follow when listening to the music on the Classical Music
Library. It was written by Stephan George, born just a few years before Schoenberg. George’s
fine, precise, yet evocative use of the German language makes him a poet of special note.
Sheltered by a thick bed of leaves
Where fine snow comes from the stars.
Hushed voices recount their sorrows.
Fantastic animals lurk below
Throw light into the marble basins.
One hears little brooks bubbling sufferings:
Candlelight ignites the greenery around.
White forms divide the waters.
Intellectual migration. This is relevant to Schoenberg, and to Brecht and Weill, discussed later.
Major movement of artists of all kinds, including musicians, who fled Hitler’s Germany in the
1930s. The vast majority emigrated to America. Included among them were many of the leading
talents in German intellectual and artistic life. The intellectual migration contributed major
creative impulses in the U.S. even as it drained Germany’s great cultural flowering from the
Weimar period of the 1920s.
The “roaring ‘20s” were followed by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Massive unemployment
and hardship on an international scale. Germany suffered major effects, and this economic
hardship contributed to the rise of the ultranationalist Nazi party headed by Adolf Hitler. Hitler
came to power in 1933. Complete intolerance of dissenting views (the first concentration camp,
for political opponents, was set up within months) and harsh anti-semitism (discriminatory
practices, such as firing Jews like Schoenberg from state jobs, began almost immediately). In the
face of this, and more, many artists and intellectuals left or fled.
Berg and Wozzeck. From Schoenberg we turned to Alban Berg (1885-1935) and his opera
Wozzeck, first performed in 1925. Berg was a student and disciple of Schoenberg, and followed
him in composing atonal music. His style is nonetheless very different from Schoenberg’s.
Wozzeck is based closely on the Büchner play Woyzeck that you read earlier, but doesn’t include
all the scenes. The themes of the opera are the same. Alienation, ruthless oppression of those in
a lower economic stratum, the death of enduring values like God and morality. The language of
the opera is largely atonal, but not always. Berg’s opera has an expressive depth that makes it
one of the most powerful works of the 20th century. It is one of the finest examples you will find
of great music wedded to great literature.
Internet information on Wozzeck: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wozzeck
We heard the first scene on CD. You can hear that scene on the Classical Music Library (Mvt.
1). The German text is here http://www.allaboutopera.com/opera_resources.php?opera_ndx=93
You can follow the translation from your copy of the play.
We heard and saw scenes 2, 3, and 4 from the third act (including the murder) on YouTube with
English subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHb_4zvIHw8
From there you can pick up with the great orchestral epilogue and the final scene with the
children on the Classical Music Library (Mvt. 15, 16). Read this brief scene in your books.
Brecht/Weill and the Threepenny Opera. We turned next to music that could hardly be more
different: the Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) with text by Bertold Brecht and music
by Kurt Weill (1900-50). You are already familiar with the satirical, cynical, comic content of
the play. Weill’s music mirrors this wonderfully. It also gives ideal voice to Brecht’s concept of
alienation, (or distancing, or the V-Effect) which is the technique of thrusting the viewer outside
the emotional world of the piece in order to make him think, react, and hopefully also act in new
ways after leaving the theatre. The character of the music almost always seems to be in ironic
contrast to the content of the words.
Out of the 20 numbers in the play, we heard three songs: The Ballad of Mac the Knife, the
Cannon Song, and the Love Song, all from the first act. You can hear two of them, the Ballad
and the Cannon Song, as Mvt. 2 and 6 under Kleine Dreigroschenmusik on the Classical Music
Library. No words there; the tune is in the orchestra. Use your books to read what the words say.
This piece is a leading example of the culture of the brilliant Weimar era in Germany. This
period (1919-33) takes its name from the Constitution that was hammered out in Weimar after the
end of WWI. It created a parliamentary system after the abdication of the emperor at the end of
the war. The ten years from 1919-29 (until the onset of the Depression) were one of the most
glittering epochs on record. The arts thrived, as did the exploration of new ideas. Music,
painting, journalism, playwriting, poetry – all of it. Also the life of the cabaret, a whole stratum
of social commentary. Weill’s music, for the most part in a deliberately populist tone, strongly
reflects that cabaret idiom. The famous film The Blue Angel (it’s in our library) also captures
this time and spirit perfectly.
The Threepenny Opera was a smash hit at its premiere in Berlin in 1928. The songs – that is the
name used for them by Weill in this German-language piece – were on everyone’s lips.
Memorabilia was the rage, and performances were sold out. There was a Threepenny craze in
Berlin, reflecting the fevered pace of the times. Eventually Weill, like Brecht, fled Germany
during the intellectual migration, and became a very successful composer on Broadway, in
English. (Brecht, who ended up in L.A., never really adapted. He went to newly-communist East
Germany after the war.)
Threepenny Opera information and background: http://www.threepennyopera.org/
The Soldiers. The last music we looked at was The Soldiers (Die Soldaten) an opera by Berndt
Alois Zimmermann (1918-1970). The music of the opera is 12-tone. This is a way of organizing
pitch which Schoenberg developed from atonality. Highly influential. It takes all 12 notes of the
chromatic scale (all the white and black notes of an octave on the piano) and puts them in an
order called a row. That row ordering is used to generate the melodic and harmonic material.
Zimmermann set the Lenz play you have read to music, for his opera. In general he adheres to
the Lenz text closely, but the impact of the opera is vastly different from the play. The music is
powerful, with an orchestra as big as that in Wagner’s Ring (though with much more percussion).
It is almost apocalyptic in tone. Zimmermann goes far beyond condemning soldiers at a
particular time in German history; he is condemning the brutality of the world.
The ending of the story is transformed from Lenz. Zimmermann changes the outcome and omits
the last scene of the play. In the opera, Marie is not recognized by her father; she is not saved
from the savagery of Desportes’ hunter. Instead she is raped, and then uncovers the mutilated
body of another woman who has been raped. Soldiers march in dark procession, and her father
leaves her and joins them. There is more rape and the vision of a nuclear holocaust. Such are the
overwhelming evils that Zimmermann brings to a militaristic view of the world. The split-level
stage, along with the use of film and loudspeakers allows for great density and simultaneous
scenes. This is akin to the concept of “total theatre,” something of much interest at the time
Brecht was writing his socially critical Threepenny Opera.
*Know the ending of the Lenz play and be able to compare it with the opera.*
Information on the opera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Soldaten
See and hear the overture to the opera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAWLbnxFFI
See and hear the conclusion of the opera, with subtitles in Japanese: (!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWWyGlkuB_Y
Zimmermann committed suicide in 1970. Behind the dark vision of The Soldiers are the evils of
World War II in Germany. Herewith some information on that. This recounts what would have
probably otherwise befallen many who escaped in the intellectual migration (for us, Schoenberg,
Brecht, Weill). And I try to show why this history remains relevant to us today.
World War II (1939-45) and the Holocaust. The people who left in the intellectual migration
escaped what became the Holocaust. This was the organized, systematic mass extermination by
the Nazis of the Jews (and numerous other groups as well, in lesser numbers). Intended to wipe
the Jews off the face of the earth, it ended up killing about 6 million in Europe, roughly 1/3 of the
Jews in the world. The total victims of the Holocaust, from all groups, are estimated at 11
million, greatly larger than the population of North Carolina today. Despite the mass murder of
many groups, the Jews were singled out with special fury. Round-ups, ghettos, deportations,
concentration camps, brutal labor, gas chambers for mass killings, and ovens to burn the bodies,
sometimes thousands a day – these were the tools. The Holocaust is the first example of
industrial mass murder in human history. This is the kind of vision that informs Zimmermann’s
opera.
The evils of that calamity are not over. There are people today who claim that it didn’t happen,
or that it is grossly exaggerated. One prominent Holocaust denier today is the president of Iran –
an extremely public figure. In December 2006 he personally sponsored a conference in Tehran,
the purpose of which was to “examine” whether the Holocaust actually took place. Denial of the
Holocaust is widespread in Arab countries today, and anti-semitic tracts are best-sellers in the
Arab world. Arab suicide bombers target Israeli Jews – men, women, and children – in buses
and restaurants, or anywhere they can find them.
And such hate isn’t restricted to Muslims or Arabs. One of the many participants in the abovementioned conference was a man named David Duke, an American and former Ku Klux Klan
leader, who was also at one time a state representative in Louisiana – an elected American
official. It is for facts like these that a piece like Zimmermann’s, and the warning it conveys,
remain relevant for us today.
The documentation of the Holocaust, it must be emphasized, is overwhelming. Deniers are
purveyors of murderous hate, but that doesn’t stop some of them from claiming that they are
pursuing “scholarship” and “free speech.” And it doesn’t stop others from believing them.
Hopefully nobody reading this will be swayed by what amounts to racist falsification.
Lesson for today: to promote tolerance over hate. Hate and violence stemming from it remain
amply present in our world. The 1994 mass killings (est. 800,000) in Rwanda and the continuing
butchery in Darfur, Sudan are brutal examples. One fears that nothing was learned from the
Holocaust. As individuals, we should do what we can against this. Hatred of Jews is alive and
well and public; even after the shocking events of the Holocaust it is nowhere near going away.
OK - That is where we ended our course. I had intended things to conclude on a more uplifting
note (so to speak) but it didn’t quite happen. Our course has taken in joy and light too. You have
gotten a substantive look at German music and literature, from Bach and Luther, through
Beethoven and Wagner, and into the 20th century. I hope you enjoyed it!
HAVE HAPPY, HEALTHY HOLIDAYS!