History Test of much, much less doom than usual

[sanura]

Listening
(be careful; these are not the same recordings as the ones from the reserve list, for the most part, so the voice part on the art songs may vary from here on the test)
Beethoven Symphony 3 E-flat, op. 55 "Eroica" first movement
Demonstration of Beethoven’s stretching conventions of sonata form; larger scale, elided and unfulfilled first theme in exposition, comepletely different theme in the development, coda is the only place themes are fulfilled; they're points of tension rather than resolution. Dynamics are used expressively instead of for clarification of form. Continuous flow instead of sections set off by silence or terraced dynamics. Proportion weighted toward the end, unlike classical balance.
Beethoven String Quartet 14 c-sharp minor, op. 131 fourth movement
Theme first presented in the two violins in hocket, then they play in tenths two repeated eight bar phrases in which the two violins switch parts. The third variation is a double canon. Movements are no longer written to be played separately; continuity's the new goal. Once again, proportion is toward the end.
Schubert Wandrers Nachtlied II D. 768
Very lyric Lied set simply with the aim of direct expression; goal of the romantic philosophy. The literature is poet oriented as opposed to audience oriented.
Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia I.5 cavatina Una voce poco fa (people with perfect pitch be aware this is recording is a soprano singing a mezzo aria transposed up)
Bel canto vocal virtuosity; cabaletta is sung first as written and repeated highly ornamented; in Rossini the ornamentation is left up to the singer;s discretion.
Weber Der Freischuetz II.8 Scena ed aria Wie nahte mir der Schlummer
The single scena ed aria labeled in Der Freischuetz: accompanied recit., cantabile (cavatina) aria, tempo di mezzo (recit.), and cabaletta (aria).
Weber Der Freischuetz II.10 Finale: Wolf's Glen scene
Melodrama; spoken, with orchestral and choral punctuation; recitative and more arioso singing, however, contrary to Italian convention, never in this finale a lyric aria. Singing is only one element and not necessarily the most important. The folklike music and focus on forces of nature are typically German-Romantic.
Liszt Sposalizio
Character piece: form and explicit narrative are relatively unimportant; instead, atmosphere and character enhanced by contrast of themes by the use of secondary parameters.
Chopin Ballade in g minor, op. 23
Ballade is a longer Romantic narrative form invented by Chopin; some resemblance to sonata form in that it has a development.
Schumann Warum? from Fantasiestuecke, op. 12
Character piece: highly saturated with one single theme, and the repeat at the end denies the piece a definitive conclusion.
Schumann Intermezzo from Eichendorff Liederkreis, op. 39
Eichendorff Liederkreis's connection between songs comes in the poetry: one poet. Very typical Lieder: simplicity, folklike, direct expression, lack of artifice. This particular poem is more ambiguous, but Schumann's setting disregards possible religioius implications.
Mendelssohn Piano Trio 1 d minor, op. 49 first movement
In Mendelssohn's style of Romanticism, lyricism and melody are particularly visible. Change initiated by secondary parameters such as tempo, dynamics, articulation; form is deemphasized by making transitions and climaxes longer and more gradual than classical compositions. Mendelssohn was highly musically educated and includes aspects of baroque organization despite extreme romanticism.

Terms and Names
Lied - German art song, following the philosophy of romantic and folklike simplicity; at first composed for ease, could be sung by amateurs
opera fantasy - virtuosic piano piece based on themes from popular operas; the centerpiece of solo recitals, a staple of other concerts
mazurka - Polish dance popularized in Paris as exotic; Chopin composed many
character piece - narrative and form unimportant, merely atmosphere and character, enhanced by contrast
Norma - opera by Bellini set during a conflict between Druids and Romans, notable for Norma's aria Casta Diva, which exemplifies the new kind of written ornamentation that supersedes Bel Canto improvisatory coloratura
Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik - Journal of music founded by Schumann and his friends in Leipzig in 1834 to hold their opinions, reviews and criticism; notable in that it had no commercial backing and was not published by a music publisher, so its reviews were not advertisements
cabaletta - two meanings: short aria in repeats, once straight and once with embellishment, mostly found in Rossini operas; also second part of two-part 19th century Italian aria (cantabile-cabaletta) in Bellini, Donizetti and early Verdi, fast and designed for virtuosity (slow/fast structure occasionally reversed for slow cabaletta)
Goethe - poet on the level of Beethoven in fame and authority; student of Herder, wrote poems on folk songs within the Romantic ideal of simple, direct expression and self-consciousness but not artifice; contributed to the 19th-century literature being poet- rather than audience- oriented
scena ed aria - convention in Bel Canto; accompanied recit., cantabile (cavatina) aria, tempo di mezzo (recit.), cabaletta (aria); entire operas start consisting of these, eventually chorus starts being incorporated; very conventionalized
Liederkreis - song cycle, Liedercyklus, one of the inconsistent names given to a collection of songs published together with some ostensible connection among them; poet, subject, period of composition, something
Singakademie - began in Berlin in the 1790s as an amateur women's choral society, but evolved to include men. Carl Friedrich Zelter was a conductor, and he directed performances of early music because the Bach archives were accessible to the chorus (CPE Bach). Mendelssohn conducted it when he revived the Bach St. Matthew Passion in 1829.
coloratura - virtuosic and agile singing, important to the Bel Canto style
Gewandhaus orchestra - Great Leipzig orchestra Mendelssohn took over at an unusually young age and made into one of the best in Europe; conducting was one of the only things he could do musically that was in keeping with his high-class status.
concert overture - Important genre to Mendelssohn: program music in sonata form, fulfills the role in the romantic period that the symphony movement played in the Classical periond; starts off a concert
E. T. A. Hoffmann - Highly respected music critic whom Schumann idolized; also composed occasionally

Essays
Beethoven's transformation of the classical style in his middle and late periods - Secondary parameters, obfuscation of structural clarity, scale, innovative convolutions of sonata form, pieces across genres; historicism (preoccupation with fugues)
Functions of early 19th-century piano music: virtuoso concert, salon, Hausmusik- There were virtuosos in Paris anti the virtuosos in Leipzig who thought virtuosity was vulgar and substanceless (oversimplification; general frivolity of French culture is false, German stodginess overplayed). In Germany, search for national identity is pretty desperate, myths and fairy tales and unification efforts all contribute to a self-conscious intellectual culture, especially Leipzig: provincial (close to the Volk) as well as intellectual (publishing house). While critics disparaged flashy music, they (Schumann) did display respect for Liszt and technical virtuosity, but thought it didn't have a place in the development of Heilige Deutsche Kunst.
Italian and German opera in the early 19th century- talk about Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, how they relate to Der Freischuetz, and mention Wagner at the end. Two generations in Italian opera: Rossini (coloratura), and early and mature Bel Canto in Bellini and Donizetti. Rossini is known for opera buffa, the other two for seria and high convention. Germans are looking for a German opera; they find it kind of trippingly in the Singspiel in Vienna, but they keep losing it; Schubert writes operas that don't get anywhere, and the Germans are either bad or derivative, usually both, and then you get Weber's Der Freischuetz, which is really syncretic: scenda ed aria, and yet also melodrama, and also aria. Conventional forms make it up, but its overall structure isn't conventionalized. All this changes with Wagner, whose musical aesthetics are entirely philosophically coherent.
The emergence of the Lied and character piece as important genres - Small chamber pieces in Germany; a gig for many composers. Character piece, Lied (kind of the same, really; come in cycles, programmatic); written to be not difficult, to form part of a home culture. Hausmusik, not small-scale forms for the elite, but for the musical amateur. They sold.
Large-scale instrumental form in the early 19th century- secondary parameters and the breakdown and expansion of sonata form: same answer as the Beethoven question, except you can also mention Mendelssohn and the concert overture, absolute music versus program music

Comments

[signorinakatina.livejournal.com]

Is that recording of Una Voce Poco Fa with Lily Pons?

[sanura.livejournal.com]

No, it's Mady Mesple.