Romantic (7/10)

XVII:  Program Music vs. Absolute Music

     Program music, as opposed to absolute music, depicts an image or story.  The concert overture, incidental music, symphonic poem, and program symphony are all examples of program music.  Although overtures were originally designed to introduce operas or plays, they became popular enough to enter the concert hall.  These new independent overtures were called concert overtures.  Incidental music, also related to theater, was a collection of pieces written for a play.  Liszt invented the symphonic poem, or tone poem, which is a one movement work for orchestra.  It differs from the concert overture because the form is much freer.

     A program symphony is exactly what it sounds like.  The most famous is Symphonie fantastique by French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869).  This five movement work tells the story of a young artist who develops an extreme unrequited love for a young woman.  The fourth movement follows him through opium induced hallucinations in which he has killed his beloved, and the fifth is set at a witches' sabbath!  Throughout the symphony is the idée fixe, a recurring motive representing the young woman.  Berlioz is remembered as a great orchestrator, and his scores called for the largest ensembles ever used.

     The symphony and concerto remained popular forms of absolute music.  Like the Classical symphony, the Romantic symphony was cast in the multimovement cycle, but it grew in size and adhered to form more freely.  The Romantic concerto is most often kept in three movements, but again deviated from convention.  First movements might skip a double exposition, and finales often display a second cadenza.  Like the Classical concerto, these works were designed to display virtuosity from the best performers of the day.

XVIII:  War of the Romantics

     Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and his teacher Schumann were in the War of the Romantics against "New German School" composers Liszt and Wagner.  Brahms and Schumann embraced traditional Classic ideals as the basis for their compositions.  After Robert Schumann died, or perhaps before, Brahms fell madly in love with his wife Clara.  As Clara Schumann was an incredible pianist and composer, it's not hard to imagine some young rogue developing such feelings.  The details are unclear, but after Robert died, Brahms left and settled in Vienna.  For the next few decades, he composed steadily, for a perfectionist.  In 1860, he and the great violinist Joseph Joachim attempted to write a manifesto protesting the New German School, but it was taken by the opposing side and published prematurely as a failure.  Brahms died of cancer, less than a year after Clara.  He wrote the German Requiem, four symphonies, eighteen chamber works, several sonatas and piano pieces, and over 200 Lieder.

     Another composer bent on preserving Classical form was Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847).  Born in Hamburg, Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny (1805-1847) were exceptional prodigies.  The two were very close, and some of her songs were initially published under his name.  While Fanny was somewhat robbed of opportunity and musical education due to the misfortune of having two X chromosomes, Mendelssohn toured and worked in Düsseldorf, Britain, Leipzig, and Berlin.  If the discrimination against Fanny got you down, chin up.  Anti-Semitism temporarily erased Mendelssohn, of Jewish ancestry and Lutheran practice, from history.  He and Fanny are both well recognized today.  Already suffering poor health, Mendelssohn died less than six months after his sister.  Mendelssohn composed five symphonies, seven concertos, two oratorios, piano music including eight cycles of Songs without Words, several chamber works, and many Lieder.

XIX:  Choral and Dramatic Music

     In the nineteenth century, a body of musical amateurs grew among the middle class.  Large scale choral music such as oratorios and masses were newly composed for these groups, as well as smaller secular pieces known as part songs.  Meanwhile, Romantic opera continued to develop in France, Italy, and Germany.  In Paris, grand opera using historical themes, large choruses, and spectacle became popular in the the beginning of the century.  Opéra comique was simpler, with a smaller number of performers and spoken dialogue, and in between the two was the very popular lyric opera.  Carmen is a lyric opera.  In Italy, opera seria and opera buffa remained popular.  Romantic Italian operas are said to be in bel canto style, literally meaning "beautiful singing."  Notable composers in this genre include Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835), and Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901).  Verdi, an Italian nationalist, wrote no less than 28 operas, several of which are performed frequently to this day.  Some of these include Rigoletto, Il trovatore, La traviata, and Aida.

     Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), along with Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) and Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) are post-Romantic Italian opera composers.  Their works are associated with the verismo movement, which literally means "realism."  The subjects are chosen from every day life rather than historical or mythological legends.  Puccini's best known operas are La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly.  Madame Butterfly not only an example of verismo, but also exoticism shown through Japanese music and culture.  Puccini was a constant adulterer and chain smoker who died from a failed treatment of throat cancer.

     In Germany, Singspiel eventually gave way to the large scale music drama, invented by Richard Wagner (1811-1883).   In 1850, Wagner published "Das Judenthum in der Musik" attacking Jewish contemporaries like Mendelssohn.  Despite the fact that he was a real asshole, he did have Jewish friends and supporters.  Born in Leipzig, Wagner was largely self taught.  He was first to form the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, a work unifying all artistic elements.  His operas sought to incorporate theater and music completely.  Rather than the traditional structure of arias and recitatives, they are written continuously with Leitmotifs, or recurring themes.  Most of the stories draw upon nature, the supernatural, and medieval German epics.  In 1849 when Wagner sided with revolutionaries in Dresden, he was forced to flee.  Liszt helped him get into Zurich, Switzerland, where he continued composing and putting out literary works.  Wagner would later marry Liszt's daughter, very much against her father's wishes.  Of his music dramas, the four operas that make up the Ring Cycle are best known today.  Wagner died of a massive heart attack.  He also wore women's underwear.

The Ring Cycle: A Synopsis