Music Appreciation Class Notes

Female Composers:

Portraits of Anomaly: Nannerl Mozart, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann

By: C.M. Sunday

Summary: Women's Studies essay on the lives of three eminent women in music

"The Education of women should always be relative to men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young and to take care of us when grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable--these are the duties of women at all time and what they should be taught in their infancy." Rousseau [1]
"Among a hundred praise-worthy female composers hardly one can be found who fulfills simultaneously all the duties of a reasonable and good wife, an attentive and efficient housekeeper, and a concerned mother." Johann Campe [2]
In examining our own culture, and in cross-cultural comparisons of gender identity, we have seen now, up until around ten years ago, male bias has "informed" the literature of most disciplines; other than certain super-anomalous exceptions, women have been isolated in their nuclear families, and relegated to the "hot stove" and domestic sphere because of their reproductive functions. Men have been the masters of culture and a male world-view has prevailed. Women are seen as outside, and a threat to, the system that men represent. Power is in male hands and women have been trained to accept it. In this paper I will attempt to show how the three artists navigated the uneasy waters of social prejudice through the trajectory of their lives.
Although women had been composers since the Middle Ages [3], the advent of the 19th century brought a marked increased in the number of female musicians, along with journalistic recognition, and a wider audience. The greater participation of women in fields traditionally associated with men was brought about by European social and political currents, and especially by the invention of the piano. The climate of solo and chamber works (especially lieder, or song) fits comfortably into the domestic arena, a setting where women had long been accepted as performers. This contrasted with the public arena of large-scale works where opera, sacred and orchestral music were forbidden to respectable women. Female creative achievements of the 19th century - mainly lieder - include works which compare favorably with men, and some of which are equal to the best composers of the era.
As women were excluded from professional positions, (it is said there is no female Bach because no women had a position like his, as church organist with the duty of regularly composing music for religions services), modern musicological scholarship finds women absent from the conventional mainstream, not because of their non-existence, but due to the nature of musicology, which tends to focus on documents (fewer of which exist for women’s music) and artists who were the most progressive and were leaders in style change, as women have not been (until this century).
Social prejudice was a central factor in the paucity of feminine musical genius in the period 1750-1900. In the eighteenth century it was believed that women did not possess the intellectual and emotional capacity to learn and that it was unnecessary and even dangerous for women to acquire knowledge, as it would detract from their true calling of wife and mother. Even Moses Mendelssohn, thought to be an illuminate of his age, cautioned his fiancé: "Modest learning becomes a lady, but not scholarship. A girl who has read her eyes red deserves to be laughed at."[4]
As women were not allowed to go about without an escort, so concertizing was thought to endanger the morals and character of a young girl. This effectively cut off the meeting of helpful and influential individuals so necessary to catapult a name into prominence. Fanny Mendelssohn, though born into one of the most intellectually and culturally gifted families of the early 19th century, was not allowed to concertize in public until she was 32. Compositions, remaining unpublished, failed to draw the larger audience. Females belittled their own compositions, and required an inordinate amount of positive reinforcement to continue.
As women’s horizons and accomplishments were confined to the home, there was a lack of professional training. When a women did receive training, there was a sharp discrepancy between the high level of training and the negative attitude of society. Women’s work was thought to inspire pity in the eyes of experts. To be female implied being amateur, and the air of dilettantism marked any discussion of women’s work. Women were required to sublimate their talents to the emotional support of others and to household responsibility. What might have been yielded to an individual women of genius or charm was not yielded to women collectively as a right. However, the growing need of women to support themselves transformed the question of women’s right to work and hold professional positions into an issue of great economic importance.
During the 19th century, the problem became a matter of locating enough trained girls to take the feminine parts. The new interest in drama made them indispensable. Therefore, one of the new movements of the 17th and 18th centuries was the institution of girls’ schools.[5] (Prior to this time, female music students were restricted to private tutoring in their homes, or to monastic schools, where they would become nuns.) Women had no access to study at cathedral schools or apprenticeship to a master player. Despite this, a few women, mostly singers, made their living in low-status jobs.
No history of Mozart fails to mention his able sister, Nannerl, who accompanied the young male genius and their parents on three European tours. And yet, as the catalog of their travels unfolds, there is always that point when the narrative continues without mention of the talented elder sister.
The girl Nannerl’s talent is usually mentioned, however. On her third tour with parents and brother (which lasted until 1766) across western Europe, including Longon and Paris, the Baron Friedrich Meichoir Grimm judged that she played the piano brilliantly and performed the greatest and most difficult pieces with an astonishing precision. She was said to have shown an early talent "scarcely inferior to her brother’s" (Burney).
The tragedy of the following sentence from Grove’s will not be lost on people of feeling: "From 1769 on Nannerl was permitted to show her artistic gifts only at home." She was eighteen years old. While her brother triumphed as a composer and virtuoso abroad, she remained with her mother in Salzburg. When she was thirty-three she married a magistrate at St. Gilgan. After three children, and her husband’s death, she returned to Salzburg and lived a simple, peaceful life as a piano teacher. People were anxious to study with the sister of the great Mozart. In 1839, the year of her death, she was found to be blind, languid, exhausted, feeble and nearly speechless - afflicted with poverty and loneliness.[6] She had tried her hand at composition, with results her brother approved, but none of her compositions survived.
The question remains, what might Nannerl have done if it were true that she was, indeed, as able as her famous brother--perhaps the supreme musical genius of all time? Though they were close until their respective marriages, and her diaries and letters are central documents for the study of the Mozart family, one cannot help marvel at the unspeakable loss to the world.
Fanny Mendelssohn, a further development of the trajectory, showed early on a musical talent comparable to her brother’s and was, like him, provided with instruction in piano and music theory from Berger and Zelter - at which she is reported to have equaled her brother. The Oxford Dictionary insults her twice, once by saying she was "almost as good a pianist as her brother," and again by calling her an "amateur pianist and composer."
Fanny Mendelssohn persevered in composing despite her father’s stern admonition against her becoming a professional musician and his insistence that she focus on domestic concerns and not the world at large. Felix’s good opinion of her as a composer, central to her self-esteem, and his pride at being the brother of such a talent, stopped short of total support:
"I consider publishing something serious...and believe that one should do it only if one wants to appear as an author one’s entire life and stick to it. Fanny...possesses neither the inclination nor calling for authorship. She is too much a woman for that, as is proper, and looks after her house and thinks neither about the public nor the musical world unless that primary occupation is accomplished. Publishing would only disturb her in these duties, and I cannot reconcile myself to it. If she decides on her own to publish, or to please Hensel, I am, as I said, ready to be helpful as much as possible, but to encourage her toward something I don’t consider right is what I cannot do." [7]
Fanny was afforded a deep and penetrating introduction to the world via her comprehensive education and was then denied the opportunity to follow through on her training and participate fully in that world. Abraham Mendelssohn told her: "For you it (music) can and must only be an ornament. You must...prepare more earnestly and eagerly for your real calling, the only calling of a young woman - I mean the state of a housewife."[8] Though Felix’s approval and support would have resulted in the publication of a much greater number of the 200 lieder she composed, her father and brother repeatedly discouraged her from considering composition as a career or publishing her works. Achievements of feminine lieder composers from 1775-1850 are magnificent and admirable, though mostly inaccessible to the public, awaiting serious scholarly investigation, publication, and performance.
When she married Hensel, a painter, at 24, Felix had already launched a brilliant career as composer and conductor. She followed her brother’s triumphs closely, while devoting her own life to music "at home." Her isolation, centered as it was in the one outlet of Sunday musicals on the family estate in Berlin, allowed her to compose and conduct works of her own. Wilhelm Hensel encouraged her, though a very negative picture is painted of Felix’s reaction to his sister’s wish to publish and have her works known, and the notable effect of her limited public exposure on her productivity and self-esteem. She wrote:
"If nobody offers an opinion, or takes the slightest interest in one’s productions, one loses in time not only all pleasure in them, but all power of judging their value."[9]
Three of Fanny’s early songs were published in Felix’s Op. 8 and 9; a duet composed by her is said to be the best in the collection. ("An des lust-gen Brunnes Rand.") While similar to her brother’s, these early efforts show certain individual traits and figurations. In addition, she composed one overture and five vocal works which include orchestra. The majority of her works, including large-scale cantatas and oratories, remain unpublished. The best composers and players of this era made constant efforts to avoid the extremes of sentimental salon music and pointless technique - two who happened to succeed were Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann.
Clara Wieck Schumann was accepted as one of the greatest talents of her century. What might have happened to her at an early time, I hope to have illustrated in the proceeding two synopses; what Clara Schumann has in common with them is the connection with some great artist or pedagogue. The Mozart children had Leopold, Fanny had the whole of the brilliant circle to which she was born, and Clara had her father, a man whose pedagogical instinct were said to be formidable.
Though more usually known as muse to her husband Robert (a Romantic figure party to a passionate friendship, a devoted wife and mother, a "consecrated loyal priestess"), Clara Schumann made a decisive mark on the musical life of the time, attaining a remarkable success in view of European society’s general disapprobation of women in professional roles. As one of the genuinely great musicians and teachers of the century, she brought about many innovations in the musical as well as the personal sphere. To say that she ventured beyond the home is an astounding understatement; when her husband died, a sociological shift enabled fuller participation and she took up again the life of a concertizing artist she began at age nine, in order to support their seven children.
She was among the first to play recitals without the music in front of her and give recitals without supporting musicians. (In other words, as in modern practice.) Her programming and standards changed the character of the solo piano recital. She was a peer and had the respect of Paganini, Liszt, Thalberg, and Rubinstein - and tireless promoter of her husband’s work as well as that of the young Brahms, who adored her. She popularized, through her exquisite playing, Beethoven’s music, then considered baffling and obtruse. Her concerts were sold out, and she was everywhere greeted with wild applause, warm review, gifts and honors. Still she struggled to maintain her sense of priority as a composer:
"I have already made a few attempts on the Ruchert poems that Robert noted down for me; however, it is not working - I have no talent whatsoever for composing."[10]
Despite her international success, she is often, in her husband’s biographies, a subordinate figure - or a reproach. She has yet to be accorded the dignity of a full-fledged scholarly study. Many of the details of her life have been glossed over, omitted - and the correspondence abridged. And yet no other performer of her century, male or female, maintained a career over such a span of time, playing more than 1,300 publicized concerts in England and Europe. Though beginning their careers with flashy debuts and brilliant appearances, the bulk of her female contemporaries gave up careers when they married or found the pressure too straining. Clara took the whole job of concert-managing on herself; she rented pianos, had them moved and tuned, made all the arrangements for the halls, lights, heat, had tickets printed, advertisements placed in papers and on posters, and tended to her own costume.
Her father considered her an extension of himself, and brought to bear on her his extraordinary gift for pedagogy. In 1816 he married Marianne, whose grandfather was a well-known and accomplished flutist. No credit has been given to the contribution Clara’s mother may have had on her daughter, though she was an uncommonly talented signer and pianist. When the Wicks divorced, Clara’s mother was only allowed to see her children at Wicks’ pleasure, since according to Saxon law they were the father’s property.
Though her father successfully trained her as a child wonder (his program of moderate work, physical exercise, performance attendance and contact with distinguished musicians was also used on Clara’s sister), he treated her with extreme harshness when she decided to marry. She and Robert Schumann had to take the matter to court; when they won and were allowed to marry, her father took all her savings from her earnings and gave her nothing with which to start married life. Though her husband loved and admired her, they both took it for granted that she would arrange her daily routine around him. In her diary: "My playing is getting all behindhand, as is always the case when Robert is composing. I cannot find one little hour in the day for myself."[11]
However, Clara Schumann did recognize her own importance as a pianist. Because of the seven children and a husband who ended his days in an asylum, she resumed her concert career at 35. (Robert: "We found the solution. You took a companion with you, and I came back to the child and to my work."[12]) She considered herself an artist first and a parent second. While on tour, the children were deposited with family friends, grandparents, or in boarding school. She wrote them constantly and the eldest children were put in charge of managing family reunions (often for an entire summer), and arranging concert tours and teaching engagements, as soon as they were old enough. Robert, survived by her by forty years, was amazingly enlightened for the time. During their fourteen-year marriage, and eight children (one died in infancy, and there was one miscarriage), very little is ever mentioned of resentment by either party.
I hope these brief biographical notes have indicated the types of anomalous positions in which societal prejudice placed these three women of genius. There is something hopeful in their efforts; each person of this trilogy succeeded more than the last. Surely women of the future are continuing this trend, benefiting from a fairer distribution of educational and musical opportunities, as women become less anomalies and more acceptable as artists in society.

Notes

  1. Women Making Music. The Western Artistic Tradition, 1150-1950. Jane Burrows and Judith Tice. University of Illinois Press. Chicago 1986.
  2. Ibid. p. 226.
  3. Hildegard of Bingen in the 12th century, Barbara Strozza in the 17th century, and Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre at the turn of the 118th century, to name a few.
  4. Ibid.
  5. During the reign of Louis XIV, the composer Lully began one of the first schools, which developed into L’Academie Francaise. Girls’ tuition fees made such institutions profitable, and they soon existed in almost every major city. Ibid p. 236.
  6. From the travel diaries of Vincent and Mary Novells, 1829. Grove Diction, p. 680.
  7. Women in Music, p. 230.
  8. Ibid, p. 245.
  9. Ibid, p. 2430.
  10. Ibid, p. 232.
  11. Music and Women, Sophie Drucker. Zenger Publishing Company. Washington, D.C. 1977.
  12. Ibid, p. 91.

Bibliography

 

 

Ancient Music:

Egyptian: Ceremonial dancers and singers as well as various instruments are depicted in sculpture, painting and hieroglyphic representations.

Chinese: Universal order generated by the cosmic vibration fixed by Imperial decree as a means of securing and preserving social order.

Greek: Music as a formal system for the declamation of poetry and dramatic narrative.

Plato mentions the moral qualities of the various modes or scales of Greek music, each of which was used only for a certain fixed and defined type of expression. Modes are mathematical subdivisions of the octave, not identical with later ecclesiastical modes employed in plainchant by St. Ambrose and Pope Gregory. Pythagorean theorem describes the relationship of harmonic intervals as ratios using tuned string or wind column models.

Indian: Raga/tala pitch and time relationship in formal structure of music. Applies to ritual sacred dances and chants. More recently used in improvisational instrumental music.

 

Medieval Music:

Gregorian Chant: The body of plainsong or liturgical music codified and collected under the direction of Pope Gregory the Great during his pontificate (590-604).

Plainsong: Early Christian liturgical music probably deriving from Jewish and/or other Middle Eastern sources codified by St Ambrose in the year 384 following the method of the astronomer Ptolemy.

Ecclesiastical Modes: Divisions of the octave into distinct intervallic sequences usurping the ancient Greek nomenclature forming the melodic basis for Gregorian chant.

Monody: unison singing of one melodic line at the unison or octave.

Organum: The doubling of a melodic line at the fith or fourth above or below in parallel motion, as described in Musica Enchiriadis, a musical treatise from the 9th century.

Polyphony: The blending of traditional plainchant with melodic counterpoint beginning in the 11th century by definition involving at least two melodic lines or voices. The center of early polyphonic music was at the Monastery of St. Martial at Limoges in modern day France.

Gymel: An English discant, or two-part song from the 13th  tp 15th centuries, deriving from the Latin gemellum meaning twin. Noted for its frequent passages using parallel thirds and sixths.

Fauxbourdon: The French version of the Gymel as employed by composers Dufay and Binchois, with the distinction that the cantus firmus is in the top or highest voice, and that it was a written rather than improvisational style.

Cantus firmus: Literally, fixed song. As it applies to Medieval music, it is generally the Gregorian chant used as the subject of embellishment by polyphonic means.

Staff notation: Exact written representation of pitch and mensuration generally accredited the Guido d’Arezzo (c. 990-1050).

Liber Usualis: Collection of all the music used in the Catholic liturgy organized by seasonal chronology of the liturgical year.

Leonin and Perotin: Late 12th Composers of polyphony centered at Notre Dame de Paris.

Ars Antiqua: Term used to describe the 11th and 12th century learned style of counterpoint at Limoges and Paris.

Troubadours and Trouveres: A secular or popular style of music originating in folk music and dance. These balladeers traveled about singing songs, reciting poems and stories of chivalry. The subject of these texts is generally a narrative expounding heroic exploits and/or courtly love. The language is in the vernacular. These minstrels established a vogue in Northern France and Germany, where they were known as “minnesingers”.

Ars Nova: In the works of Phillippe de Vitry (1291-1361) and Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) we see the synthesis of church, folk and courtly traditions in music into a new musical expression in which the ear is the guiding principle. The sensual quality of sound becomes the central focus of their work. It is distinguished from the earlier Limoge and Notre Dame schools in that the tenor no longer is based upon Gregorian chant, but rather uses folk tunes or newly composed melodies as the cantus firmus. Also significant at this time was the development of strictly secular vocal forms such as the madrigal as exemplified in the works of Giovanni de Cascia (1300-1350) and Francesco Landini (1325-1397). Purely instrumental music took expression in the introduction of the lute, used for dance music and solo works, becoming particularly popular in Spain. 

The Golden Age of Polyphony: Pre-Renaissance music reached its zenith in the 14th century with the development of harmonic ideas based on the thirds and sixths of the gymel and fauxbourdon techniques with an emphasis on beauty of sound and essential musical quality. An example of such a composition would be the motet Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585). Other notable composers of this period would include Giovanni da Palestrina (1525- 1594) in Italy, Tomas Luis de Victoria ((1535-1611) in Spain, and the Flemish school of composers including Joannis Okeghem ((1430-1495) and Josquin des Pres (1450-1521).

Renaissance: The Renaissance brought a shift away from the strictly religious modes of artistic expression to an  awakening of interest in the humanities as introduced by Erasmus. The rise of the middle class led to leisure time activities. Study of the arts and literature of ancient Greece led to a flowering of various types of music both vocal and instrumental. Especially significant was the introduction of opera following the precepts of Greek theatrical drama.

Claudio Monteverdi: Late Renaissance or early Baroque composer of madrigals, opera and church music. He introduced a theory of secular and liturgical styles of composition called Prima Prattica and Seconda Prattica. A student of Ingegneri, he entered the service of the Duke of Mantua, where he composed music for the court. His most significant works are his books of madrigals, the Vespers of 1610 and his operas L’Orfeo, Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria and L’Incoronazione di Poppeia.

The Baroque Age: The Protestant Reformation caused important changes in the style and content of liturgical music. The Gregorian chant and the learned polyphonic motets were replaced in Northern Germany by the congregational hymn, or chorale. The Cantata, a choral form using the chorale as its central focus was principal musical element of  the Lutheran service. Baroque forms are largely based on the concept of antiphony between groups of players or singers, as in the works of Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612). Other innovations of the Baroque period include the introduction of purely instrumental forms. The Dance Suite, a collection of musical numbers for aristocratic entertainment would typically include many movements of contrasting tempi and rhythms, such as the Water Music or Royal Fireworks Music suites by George Friderick Handel (1685-1759). These might be assembled for a special occasion, as is the case with these works, or simply be collected for general use. The Concerto is a three-movement piece that features a soloist (or group of solo instruments) such as a violinist, harpsichordist or other instrumentalist against an orchestral accompaniment. Concerti generally display by contrast the virtuosity of whatever solo instrument is featured. The concerto was introduced in Italy where composers like Corelli, Locatelli and others brought it to a high level of development. Antonio Vivaldi (1675-1741) wrote over 600 concerti using a seemingly inexhaustible variety of instrumental combinations, the best known of which are the four comprising the Four Seasons, or Le Quattro Staggione. The six Brandenburg Concertos of Bach must always be mentioned in connection with this genre of composition. Another instrumental form of the Baroque period would be the sonata, which is a piece for solo keyboard or duet for keyboard and one or two other instruments. The harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) are fine examples of the bipartite sonata form. In addition to cantata, the oratorio was introduced as a large-scale religious choral form. The Messiah by Handel and the St. Matthew Passion of Bach are prime examples of oratorios. Opera continued as the most popular form of musical entertainment and was brought to new heights of virtuosity by highly skilled professional singers.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750): Along with Handel, Bach’s works form the corpus of most significant Baroque compositions and include the Brandenburg Concertos among numerous other concerti, choral works such as the Mass in B minor, St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, as well as many cantatas and motets for liturgical use, organ works such as the Tocatta and Fugue in D minor, and the Well-Tempered Clavier which is a collection of keyboard piece in all 24 major and minor keys. Bach’s compositional style is strictly contrapuntal and it is significant that his final work was The Art of the Fugue since his name is practically synonymous with that compositional discipline.  

George Friderick Handel (1685-1759): Along with Bach, Handel’s works form the corpus of most significant Baroque compositions and include many Italian operas written for English audiences including Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare. These operas while embodying much beautiful music are not often heard today because they were written for male soprano roles, something that has all but died out of the repertoire. He composed instrumental suites such as the Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music and many other instrumental works. He is probably best known for his oratorio The Messiah containing the immortal Hallelujah Chorus.

Antonio Vivaldi (1675-1741): Composer of hundreds of instrumental concerti including Le Quattro Staggione and La Cetra, Vivaldi also wrote many operas which are not often heard today. Known as the Red  Priest because of the color of his hair, he wrote numerous choral works for liturgical use, the most famous of which is his setting of Gloria in Excelsis for choir, orchestra and soloists.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757): Composer of harpsichord sonatas under the patronage of Maria Barbara, Queen of Spain. These sonatas are crystal examples of the short bipartite form into which he poured a seemingly inexhaustible variety and inventiveness. Although he composed operas and other choral pieces, his reputation chiefly rests upon his sonatas.

Opera:  An opera is a theatrical musical entertainment sung throughout, fully staged with costumes and scenery, the story being told by via the musical numbers. Having its beginnings in Italy around 1600, early operas reenacted Greek mythological themes, and music was relegated to a declamatory style with emphasis on the precise delivery of the text. There is little if any spoken dialogue. The five main parts of opera are the (1) overture, an instrumental piece that sets the stage for what is to come, (2) recitative, known as speaking in music, replaces dialogue in an opera, the function of which is to advance the dramatic action of an opera or oratorio. The recitative is not melodic in character but relies on the natural rise and fall of the declamation and inflection of the text to convey its meaning. (3) aria, a vocal melody that conveys the main emotion of a character, (4) chorus, in which ensemble parts are sung depicting various larger groups of characters within an opera, and (5) dance, using motion to depict certain interpretive scenes.

Oratorio: A religious work based on a scriptural theme involving the same musical techniques as opera, in that it conveys a narrative story, but is not staged and does not employ dance. Examples of famous oratorios would be Handel’s The Messiah or Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.

Music of the Classical Period. The main innovations of style that determine the Classical period center around the works of Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). These composers introduced standard forms of the String Quartet, symphony, concerto and opera. Based on developments of earlier composers such as J.C and C.P.E. Bach, Stamitz and those composers of the Mannheim school, Haydn introduced the sonata form using it to great effect as a thematic and harmonic vehicle for his compositions. Mozart and others brought this form to a high state of development.

Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809): Austrian composer whose works largely define the classical style. He composed 104 symphonies, many instrumental concerti, string quartets, string and keyboard trios, solo sonatas, choral music such as his oratorio The Creation, and opera. His chief innovation was the introduction of the sonata form as a means of organizing the structure of musical ideas. His style was imitated widely and has become the foundation of classical style. Died in Vienna after a long and illustrious career.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Born in Salzburg Austria, Mozart was the quintessential child prodigy. The son of a professional violinist, Leopold Mozart, the young Wolfgang had the opportunity to develop his genius under the tutelage of expert guidance. He works include 41 symphonies, the first of which was composed at age 8, many instrumental concerti, string quartets and trios, chamber music for diverse ensembles, serenades, choral music, piano and violin sonatas, and most notably, operas which remain some of the most beloved in the repertoire and are frequently performed today.

Sonata form: The sonata form is based on the juxtaposition of two themes, the first in the tonic key and the second in the dominant or relative major. These themes are often of contrasting character. An expository form, the sonata is to music much what the essay is to literature. There are three main parts of a sonata, the exposition, development and recapitulation. The exposition consists of the statement of the principal theme in the tonic key, followed by an episode that modulates to the dominant or relative major key area, then the statement of the subordinate or secondary theme in the new key. This is followed by a codetta, or ending that brings the exposition to a cadence in the new key. In earlier symphonies the exposition is often repeated before continuing on to the development. The development provides interest via a variety of compositional techniques usually employing harmonic sequences with no established order but which through their motion return eventually to the tonic key. In the development section, the composer is free to employ whatever means best expresses his musical intent, showing his inventiveness and creativity. The recapitulation restates the principal theme followed by the episode, this time leading back to the tonic key rather than modulating. The subordinate theme is then restated, but this time in the tonic key, completing the harmonic sequence of events. The coda, or final ending passage brings the piece to conclusion.

Modulation: The process of moving from one key or tonality to another.

Degrees of the scale: The degrees of the diatonic major and minor scales are: tonic, supertonic, mediant, sub-dominant, dominant, sub-mediant, leading tone and octave.

Tempo indication: Adjective traditionally in Italian that in conjunction with a metronome marking indicates how fast or how slow a piece of music is to be played.

Dynamics: Indicate the relative loudness or softness of a musical piece.

Time signature: Indicates the meter, usually duple or triple, (or some combination of those) in terms of how many beats per measure, or bar line in a piece of music.

Intonation: The tuning of a scale or musical instrument. Musical pitches are determined by their relative frequency of cycles per second.

Articulation: The manner in which a piece is phrased whether it be staccato (short), legato (long), or method of attack that gives a certain sound to the music.

Word Painting: The compositional technique of setting words to music in an interpretive way that expresses melodically alliterative, descriptive or implied meanings in the text. An example of word painting would be Handel’s tenor aria Every Valley from the first part of the Messiah, in which words like crooked, straight, high and low are interpreted in a melodic line that embodies those concepts.

Scherzo: A movement of vigorous and sometimes humorous character, the word meaning “joke” in Italian, first used by Beethoven, who in his symphonies replaced the minuet and trio employed by earlier classical composers with a scherzo. The scherzo mirrors the structural form of its predecessor, the minuet, but is usually extended. It is ordinarily in a fast tempo and is in triple meter.

Minuet and Trio: A rounded binary form, the Minuet and Trio is set in triple meter at a moderate, stately tempo (although the minuets of Haydn sometimes have a folk-dance character in the style of a laendler) the first part consisting of an opening theme, or first strain that is repeated, matched by a second theme, also repeated. These two passages together constitute the Minuet. This is followed by the Trio section, consisting also of two themes, each repeated, followed by a da capo repetition of the first two strains of the minuet, this time without repeat. This same formal arrangement is employed in the scherzo, although at a faster tempo and different character.

Theme and Variations: The practice of treating a musical theme in various but recognizable ways. Probably having its origins in improvisational music, contrast and variety is achieved by changing the tempo, key, mode, meter, dynamics, articulation, instrumentation, augmentation, diminution, or other aspects of any given theme. There are many famous sets of variations, notably Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony #94 in G major (Surprise), the Ode to Joy finale of Beethoven’s Symphony #9 in D minor, or Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, just to name several.

String Quartet: Referring to both a piece of music and the group that plays it, a string quartet consists of two violins, a viola and a cello. Haydn established the standard form of the ensemble in the classical period followed by Mozart and Beethoven. It remains the most often heard genre of chamber music.

Symphony: A genre of orchestral music first established in the classical period by Haydn, then Mozart, it was brought to its most profound manifestation in the nine symphonies of Beethoven. Usually consisting of four movements in succession, the first is generally a sonata form at a fast tempo, the second a slow movement which may be an aria form, a theme and variations set, or other formal design, followed by a Minuet and Trio in earlier classical symphonies, but replaced by a scherzo in Beethoven’s works, and concluding with a finale usually a sonata or sonata-rondo form at a fast tempo befitting a finale.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1825): Composer of nine symphonies, 5 piano concerti, an opera Fidelio, a violin concerto, numerous sonata for piano or violin and piano, string quartets, the Missa Solemnis, as well as many other important seminal works that formed the transitional culmination of the classical style and the foundation of the romantic style of musical composition.

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828): Austrian composer of 9 symphonies, chamber music including the Trout Quintet and the Death and the Maiden string quartet, Schubert is manily known for his beautiful songs, or lieder, of which he composed over 900, among these is his famous song cycle Die Schoene Mullerin. He lived and died in relative obscurity, his music being rediscovered in the late 19th century.

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Prolific German composer of 4 symphonies, music for solo piano, including the Carnaval suite that celebrated the styles of well known pianists of the time, songs, concerti for piano, cello and violin, a Konzertstück for 4 horns and orchestra, chamber music, an opera and incidental music for orchestra. Also known as an author on musical subjects, publishing articles in the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik, championing the new romantic style of composition. He often had a narrative intent in his music, for instance the portrayal of a religious ceremony in his Rhenish Symphony, and was among the first to recognize the genius of Johannes Brahms. He married pianist Clara Wieck, daughter of the famous piano pedagogue, who was an accomplished musician in her own right. Near the end of his life he suffered a mental breakdown and spent his last two years in an asylum.

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Mendelssohn is among the most important composers in the generation following Beethoven. A child prodigy, he showed compositional talent at a very young age and was encouraged early on to pursue a career in music. At age 17 he composed some incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream that from its inception has remained a staple of the orchestral repertoire. His other significant compositions include 5 symphonies, overtures, concerti for piano and violin, and much chamber music. His oratorios, especially Elijah, are often heard in concert. He was a founder of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, and served as one of its first principal conductors, in which capacity he brought forth important new works by many other composers. He reintroduced the music of Bach most of which had been all but forgotten by giving the first performance of the St. Matthew Passion since that great composer’s death. He died in Leipzig in 1847.

Nationalism: During the 19th century composers were interested in the development of national styles and idioms. Based on linguistic and literary traditions, folklore, dance music, political, geographical and other regional characteristics, the music of any given country or province was articulated in a unique local expression by native composers into the musical mainstream. In a technical sense, ethnic or national differences in musical expression can be discerned in melodic and harmonic usage, distinctive rhythms, instrumental practices, narrative themes and folk songs. Practically every country and province developed a consciously nationalistic style of music during this period.

Bohemia: Composers Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) and Antonin Dvo*ák (1841-1904) were the main protagonists of a distinctively Czech style of music. Smetana  wrote 8 operas including the popular Bartered Bride for the newly founded Czech national opera company, and in 1879 he composed his musical tribute to his homeland, Ma Vlast, a cycle of 4 symphonic poems including Die Moldau, a piece depicting the progress of the river Moldau from its source high in the mountains, through the plains of Bohemia and on through the great capital city of Prague. In a similar vein, Dvo*ák’s Slavonic Dances for orchestra celebrate Bohemian folk dance traditions in their idiomatic use of melodic line and rhythm. His 9 symphonies, concerti for violin, and cello, and symphonic poems are strongly imbued with the Slavic accent of the Czech national style. The most famous of his orchestral works is the Symphony #9 in E minor (From the New World) which although having been composed during his stay in the United States as an example to young American composers how to go about cultivating a national style of their own, is far more reminiscent of his own background as a central European composer. The second movement of this symphony is especially homesick for his native country.

Italy: Opera remained the most important musical form during the nationalist period in 19th century Italy. Composers such as Rossini, Bellini, Leoncavallo, Mascagni, Donizetti, Verdi and later Puccini brought opera to the state in which we find it today. Although aware of developments in France and Germany, such as the interpolation of ballets and Wagner’s music dramas, Italian composers continued the older tradition of bel canto singing and da capo aria, elevating these forms to a new level of musical expression commonly referred to as Grand Opera. The center of opera production in Italy was the Teatro della Scala in Milan where the most important works were introduced.

Bel canto: This term has two meanings (1) the traditional Italian art of fine singing and (2) the style of writing that began in the middle Baroque period and developed through the 19th century. The term literally means “beautiful singing”.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868): The most widely recognized composer of Italian opera of his day, Rossini’s early works include Tancredi and L’Italiana in Algeri. His career was firmly established with the success of The Barber of Seville in 1816 when he was 26 years old. With this opera he toured Europe including a triumphant journey to Vienna where he met Beethoven who said of him “Rossini has some nice melodies, but what he knows about music wouldn’t fill his fat belly with potatoes.” Other than this somewhat pejorative personal comment, the Maestro is said to have been pleased with the opera. Rossini later settled in Paris where he held the post of director of the Théâtre Italien. There, in 1829, he composed William Tell with its world-renown overture. The best musician among cooks and the best cook amongst musicians, Rossini was a master chef, well versed in gastronomical affairs. He claimed to have wept only twice in his life, once when he saw the great Italian actor Demarini perform, and the other time when a truffled turkey fell accidentally into the water at a boating party. Having heard Wagner’s Das Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth, Rossini is quoted as saying the “Wagner has some nice moments, but some bad quarters of an hour.” Rossini died in Paris in 1868.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901): Italian composer of grand opera, used melodies closer to folk song than his predecessors Rossini, Bellini or Donizetti. Verdi’s operas develop along a continuously unfolding dramatic narrative while preserving the forms of recitative and aria. His first successful opera Nabucco premiered in 1842, and made his name as a musician as well as a political revolutionary due to the association made between the chorus of the Hebrew slaves and the struggle of Italian partisans against Austrian rule. He followed this in 1843 with I Lombardi, and later La Forza del Destino. His opera Rigoletto was among the first to feature a baritone rather than a tenor as the main protagonist. His later operas include La Traviata, Aida, Otello and Falstaff. He also composed a Requiem, a favorite in the choral repertoire. Verdi died in 1901 in Milan. 
 

Russia: Beginning with the music of Glinka, a national style was consciously developed in the later 19th century by a group of composers called The Russian Five: Rimsky-Koraskov, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Cui, and Glazounov. Through their works they sought to cultivate a unique and distinctive nation style based on folklore and dance, language and literary traditions as well as drawing from Russian history. Tchaikovsky, although not a member of the five, also was a main exponent of Russian music, his ballets occupying a central place in the repertoire.

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908): Russian nationalist composer of operas, symphonies and other works. He was the most significant and influential composer of the Russian five, whose works he advocated and some of which he orchestrated. His symphonic poem Scheherazade remains a favorite of the repertoire with its vibrant colors evocative of the mysterious near East.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893): Russian composer of symphonies, concerti, chamber music, operas and ballets. His Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and Nutcracker ballets from the central core of the ballet repertoire. He also wrote symphonic poems such as Romeo and Juliet, the Overture Solennelle 1812, Capriccio Italien and the Marche Slav, all of which remain audience favorites.

Alexander Borodin (1839-1887): Russian nationalist composer of symphonies, an opera Prince Igor that contains the famous Polovetsian Dances, a symphonic poem On the Steppes of central Asia that depicts an encounter in the steppes between a caravan with its loping camels and a group of Russian soldiers. His String Quartet is typical of his work, with its bittersweet melodies full of sentimental nostalgia balanced by an energetic rhythmic vitality the whole effect being evocative of Russian exoticism.

France: French romantic music centered on the opera, with some attention paid to symphonic forms. Composers Gounod, Bizet, Offenbach and Saint-Saens were principal architects of French musical style, followed later by the impressionist Claude Debussy.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Throughout his long and productive life Saint-Saëns was a major exponent of French Romanticism. Saint-Saëns is quoted as having said of himself that he produces music “as easily as an apple tree produces apples.” He is the composer of symphonies, concerti, symphonic poems, and opera, the best known of which is Samson and Delilah with its famous bacchanale. A Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur and a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique, his contributions to the French repertoire were enormous. Among his popular symphonic poems is the Danse Macabre, a fanciful Hallowe’en type piece in which Satan is depicted leading the dance while witches, goblins and skeletons cavort to the strains of his fiddle. The suiteCarnival of the Animals is like a trip to the zoo in which impressions of various animals are given by means of melodic ideas and instrumental color.

Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880): For all his German sounding name, and having originally emigrated from Cologne, Offenbach was essentially a French composer having studied at the Paris Conservatoire. He became director of the Théâtre Français where over the course of 25 years he premiered nearly a hundred operettas. His best-known works are the irreverent operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, which includes the world-famous can-can, and La Belle Hélène in which he combines an effervescent melodiousness with sincere romanticism. With their memorable tunes and witty orchestration, Offenbach’s operettas are quintessentially French music of the Romantic period.

Georges Bizet (1835-1875): Composer of French opera most notably Carmen, first performed in 1875. Although showing great promise as a youth and having won prestigious awards as a student, Bizet’s potential as a composer was not fully realized at his untimely death. He left many projects incomplete. He is historically important in that he rescued opera-comique from the artificialities of operetta.

Germany: The music of Germany during the 19th century is represented by the compositions of Brahms, Wagner, Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss Jr. among many others. Each of these developed a personal style distinguished by genre, style, technique and musical expression. A controversy developed between the partisans of Wagner who took German nationalism to its most extreme, and those of Brahms who pursued a traditional, scholarly almost academic approach to musical composition. The symphonies of Brahms and the music dramas of Wagner can be said to represent the divergence between these two camps.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Began his career as a pianist, and came to the attention of Schumann who is credited with first recognizing his genius. His first orchestral success was a piece entitled Variations on a Theme by Haydn, the stated theme of which more recent scholarship has shown not to be by Haydn at all, but that is not relevant to Brahms’ work. Composer of 4 symphonies, 2 piano concerti and a violin concerto, sonatas, string quartets and other chamber music as well as choral music such as the German Requiem, and numerous incidental instrumental works, he is generally regarded as the inheritor of the Beethoven symphonic tradition. Brahms never wrote an opera.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883): Having heard a Beethoven symphony performed at age 15, Wagner was moved to seek a career as a composer. After composing a symphony himself, he is said to have proclaimed that the symphony was exhausted as a vehicle for new composition, because Beethoven had already achieved everything important in the genre. He turned his attention to opera beginning with Rienzi in 1842, and followed by the Flying Dutchman and Tannhauser in 1843-4. His greatest effort came forth with the Ring of the Nibelung cycle of 4 operas tied together as a continuing saga of Norse mythology. His other operas include Tristan und Isolde, Der Meistersinger and Parsifal.

Music Drama: The operatic productions based on Norse mythology by Richard Wagner. Das Ring des Nibelungen, and Parsifal fall into this genre. Requiring a whole new theater to be built to accommodate his grand vision of the Ring cycle, Wagner introduced many revolutionary ideas into his music, among them the use of leitmotifs to represent specific characterizations in the drama, and the departure from the da capo aria form in favor of the durchkomponiert, or “through-composed” method of vocal writing. Based on Norse mythology, Das Ring cycle is the quintessentially German manifestation of nationalism in 19th century music.

Johann Strauss, Jr. (1825-1899): Strauss was a Viennese composer known as the Waltz king for his many beautiful excursions into this popular 19th century genre. Some 400 waltzes are listed in his catalogue of works. He also composed 15 operettas, the most famous of which is Die Fledermaus. His music is inextricably identified with Austro-Hungarian Romanticism of the Habsburg epoch.

 

Other Romantic period composers worthy of mention:

 

Franz Liszt (1811-1886): Hungarian Composer and pianist, known for his legendary virtuosity, instrumental in promoting the careers of many musicians in the Romantic period. His Transcendental Etudes for piano are a high-water mark for the pianist’s repertoire. Following the nationalist trend, who wrote many Hungarian Rhapsodies which are popular both as piano solos and in orchestral transcription. His other significant works include Les Preludes for orchestra, his Piano Concerti, numerous transcriptions of music by other composers including Wagner and Berlioz.

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): Norwegian composer of incidental music to the play Peer Gynt, and the Piano Concerto in A minor. Grieg studied in Leipzig, Germany before returning to his native Norway where he dedicated himself to composing miniatures for piano displaying a markedly national character. His Norwegian Dances for orchestra often add color to symphonic programs. His piano collection, Norwegian Peasant Dances are representative of his style.

Jan Sibelius (1865-1957):  Finland’s most notable composer, established his career with the success of his symphonic poems Finlandia, a patriotic call to arms against the Russians, and the Swan of Tuonela. His Violin Concerto and 5 symphonies are staples of the orchestral repertoire.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1840): Polish ex-patriot composer of piano music. One of the finest virtuosi of his day, his music endures as some of the most beloved in the piano repertoire. He never forgot the music of his native Poland, and it is best in evidence in his Mazurkas. In addition to numerous concert pieces such as his Waltzes, Nocturnes, Preludes and Mazurkas, he composed many Études, each demonstrating a particular aspect of the pianists’ technique. His compositions also include 2 piano concerti and a sonata for cello and piano.

Impressionism: Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Operetta: A musical entertainment patterned after and deriving from opera, but having a generally lighter character and subject matter. They are comedies, not tragedies, and while opera is sung throughout, operetta allows the use of dialogue. The operetta is regarded as the forerunner of the modern American Broadway musical. Operettas often employ elements of the popular music of the day, including such dance numbers as the waltz, polka or can-can. Composers known for their contributions to this genre would include Johann Strauss Jr., Jacques Offenbach, Franz Lehar, and in England the team of Gilbert and Sullivan.

Opera Buffa: Comic opera, like The Barber of Seville by Rossini.

Ballet: From its beginnings as part of opera, ballet established a vogue and became popular in its own right during the late 19th century. Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet, Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty are examples of the romantic standard ballets. An earlier example would be Coppelia by Leo Delibes, or Les Sylphides, based on the music of Frederick Chopin.

Musical Theater:

Atonality: