How do composers evoke imagery in art song?
What makes music feel like it “belongs” to a particular country?
What are some of the ways a composer can explore deep philosophical ideas through orchestral music?
How can composers create cohesion in a multi-hour opera?
Gesamtkuntswerk: "Total Art Work." An idea of Richard Wagner, in which he would write the music and libretto of his music dramas (aka operas) but also control the staging, sets, costuming, etc.
Leitmotif: German for “leading motif.” A motif associated with a specific idea, person, place, element, goal, emotion, etc. Derived from Berlioz’s idée fixe. Prominent in the music dramas of Wagner, where Leitmotifs can be derived from one another to represent correlating entities.
Romanticism: An artistic movement of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that spread from literature into the fine arts and music. Prioritizes the individual, subjective experience, and the human identity. In music, typically refers to the period between roughly 1820 and 1914, although these boundaries are blurry.
Symbolism: An artistic movement of the late nineteenth century focusing predominantly on the sensory and abstract rather than the naturalist or realist. Spread from poetry (Verlaine, Mallarmé) to music (Fauré, Debussy).
Symphonic Poem: Typically a single-movement work for orchestra that makes extramusical references to poetry, literature, the visual arts, or another non-musical art form. Liszt originated the genre in the 1840s and 1850s, combining elements of sonata form with elements of a four-movement symphonic arc. Synoymous with tone poem, the preferred term of Richard Strauss.
Franz Schubert: "Der Erlkönig" (1815)
Example of Lieder (art song)
Pianist and vocalist are a partnership
Based on a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Romantic poet)
Romantic themes: nature and the supernatural
Richard Wagner: Leitmotifs from Die Walküre (1856)
German nationalism rose throughout the 19th century until German Unification in 1871
Wagner expresses German nationalism through Norse mythology
Leitmotifs help track characters/events/locations/ideas/objects through four music dramas (operas)
Example of Gesamtkuntswerk (total art work)
Bedřich Smetana: "Vltava" from Má vlast (1874-79)
Example of nationalism from smaller/less powerful countries (Bohemia, modern-day Czechia)
From an orchestral cycle about Bohemia (Má vlast = "My Fatherland") -- Vltava is a river that flows through the country toward Prague
Traces the flow of the Vltava from converging streams, through a peasant wedding, through a moonlit scene with mermaids, over the St. John's Rapids, and into Prague
An example of a symphonic poem (single movement composition with a program)
Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 (1879)
Brahms travelled extensively in Eastern Europe as a young man and was exposed to a lot of Romani music
Most of his compositions called "Hungarian" are actually Roma-inspired and not true Hungarian folk music
Claude Debussy: Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894)
Often considered to be the beginning of musical modernism
The opening flute solo is harmonically ambiguous
This music is less about having a tonal goal and more about sensuality and color
An example of symbolist music
Boulez: "The flute of the faun brought new breath to the art of music"