Chapter 17

The Early Romantics

Key Terms

• Lied (plural: lieder)

• Through-composed

• Strophic

• Song cycle

• Character pieces

• Études

• Nocturnes

• Program music

• Program symphony

• Idée fixe

• Dies irae

The Early Romantics

• Perhaps the most brilliant generation in music history

• Profoundly influenced by Beethoven

• Deeply influenced by literary Romanticism

The Lied

• German lied = song• Piano accompaniment• Romantic poetry• Intimate mood

– Not intended for concert hall– Performers seem to share emotional

insights with the listener

Strophic Songs

• Use the same music for all stanzas

• Often used when stanzas are all similar in construction

• Difficult to create variety

Through-Composed Songs

• Use different music for each stanza

• Often used for poems with frequent changes of mood or voice

• Difficult to create unity

Franz Schubert (1797–1828)

• Earliest (and greatest?) master of the Lied

• Born and trained in Vienna• Supported by teaching, publications,

and friends• Prolific—wrote nearly 700 songs in

addition to symphonies, sonatas, etc.• Died in a typhoid epidemic

Schubert, “Erlkönig”

• Story song on a ballad poem by Goethe

• Eight-stanza poem with many voices

• Through-composed setting

• Themes of death and the supernatural

The Story of the Erlking

• A furious horseback ride through the night– Father tries to save his deathly ill son

• The Erlking comes for the child– Beckons, then cajoles, then threatens

• Father does not see the demon• When they reach home, the boy is dead

in his arms

The Music of the Erlking

• Fast triplets suggest hoofbeats• Father’s music is low, gruff, stable• Son’s music is high, frantic, unstable• Demon’s music is ominously sweet• Tension lets up as they reach home• Stark recitative announces boy’s

death

The Song Cycle

• A group of songs with a common theme• Sometimes based on ready-made group

– Schubert’s settings of Wilhelm Müller’s Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise

• Or composer can assemble a set– Schubert’s Schwanengesang

• Unified cycle more impressive than single miniatures

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)

• Studied for career as piano virtuoso

• Married his teacher’s daughter after court battle

• Wrote piano music, songs, works for orchestra, and chamber music

• Founded The New Music Journal

• Attempted suicide; died in an asylum

R. Schumann, Dichterliebe

• His most famous song cycle

• Based on poems by Heinrich Heine

• No story, just a common theme

• Traces psychological progression from optimism to despair

“Im wunderschönen Monat Mai”

In the wonderfully lovely month of May,

When all the buds were bursting,

Then it was that in my heart

Love broke through.

In the wonderfully lovely month of May,

When all the birds were singing,

Then it was that I confessed to her

My longing and desire

“Im wunderschönen Monat Mai”

• The first song in Dichterliebe

• Is it strophic or through-composed?

• What is the effect of the piano interludes?

• Why did Schumann write it this way?

“Die alten, bösen Lieder”

• The last song in Dichterliebe• Is it strophic or through-composed?• How does the mood change in stanza 6?• What is Schumann expressing in the long

piano coda?• What kind of ending does this make for

the song cycle?

Clara Wieck Schumann(1819–1896)

• Eldest child of Friedrich Wieck, famous piano teacher

• Married her father’s student Robert Schumann

• Composed songs, piano and chamber works

• Toured widely after Robert’s death

C. Schumann, “Der Mond kommt still gegangen”

• Is it strophic or through-composed?• What is the relationship between

piano and voice?• How does Schumann create a

sense of climax in the final stanza?• What does the piano coda add to

the song?

C. Schumann, “Der Mond kommt still gegangen”

The Character Piece

• Short piano pieces (miniatures)• Meant to portray a distinct mood or

character• Like a Lied but without a poem

– Songs Without Words

• Composed at all levels of difficulty• Appeared under many genre and

descriptive titles

Form of the Character Piece

• Simple, sectional forms

• Repetition, contrast, return, variation

• Thematic unity– Recurring motives

– Similarity of mood

Schubert, Moment Musical No. 2 in A-flat

• Open title—any mood possible• Form uses contrast and return

– A B A´ (coda) B´ A´´ coda– Lyric A theme: a gentle, rocking figure– Emotive B theme: steady moving

accompaniment– A´ with coda feels like the end– Fortissimo B´ in minor key a surprise

R. Schumann, Carnaval

• Style has warmth and privacy (innigkeit)

• Often assembled piano pieces in sets

• Carnaval = 20 short character pieces– Musical portraits at a Mardi Gras ball– Schumann, girlfriends Estrella and Chiarina,

composers Paganini and Chopin, etc.

R. Schumann, “Eusebius”

• Pen name for his tender, dreamy self• Rhythmically very free (quintuplets, triplets,

rubato)

• Form based on repetition, contrast, and return (aa ba b´a´ ba)

R. Schumann, “Florestan”

• Pen name for his more impetuous self• Opening outburst follows Eusebius’s

tentative ending• Moves in fits and starts

– Abrupt tempo changes; abrupt ending

• Form based on repetition, variation – a a´ a´´ a´´´

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

• Born near Warsaw; settled in Paris

• Pianist of miraculous ability and delicacy– Earned rave review from Schumann at age 20– Rarely performed in public

• Composed almost exclusively for piano

• Moved in high society and artistic circles

• Frail health—died of tuberculosis

Chopin, Nocturne in F-sharp

• Nocturnes (“night pieces”)—various moods• Singing quality, melodic decorations• Relaxed rubato, subtle chromaticism

• Form uses repetition, contrast, return (a a´ b c a´´ coda)

Program Music

• Instrumental music associated with poems, stories, etc.– Intimately tied with nonmusical ideas

• Different genres– Concert overture– Program symphony– Symphonic poem

Franz Liszt (1811–1886)

• Hungarian composer– Learned music at Esterházy estate – Played for Beethoven at age 11

• Virtuoso pianist based in Paris– Dazzled audiences with technique– Dashing looks, personality, and affairs– Wrote fiercely difficult piano music

• Second career as conductor in Weimar– Wrote symphonic poems; championed Wagner

Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847)

• From upper-class family of bankers• Successful composer, pianist, organist,

conductor, and educator– Founded Leipzig Conservatory– Revived Bach’s St. Matthew Passion

• Firm foundation in Classical technique• Wrote concert overtures, oratorios, piano

works, symphonies, etc.

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847)

• Felix’s equally talented sister• A highly prolific composer

– Oratorios, piano works, chamber music, etc.– Weekly performances at Mendelssohn home

• Married painter Wilhelm Hensel• Women composers were not taken

seriously– Little of her music was published– Rarely performed outside the home

The Concert Overture

• A single-movement orchestral work for concert performance

• Resembles opera overture without an opera

• An important step from opera overture to symphonic poem

• Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Hebrides Overture

Hector Berlioz (1803–1869)

• Son of a country doctor in France– Left medical school for Paris Conservatory

• Made living writing about music• Wrote unprecedented, ambitious program

symphonies– Extraordinary, imaginative orchestration– Inspired by literature (Shakespeare, Virgil)

• Toured as conductor of his own music

The Program Symphony

• The Romantic era’s most “grandiose” orchestral genre

• More radical approach than the concert overture

• An entire symphony with a program– Each movement tells part of the story– “Story” often published in the program

Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony

• Program symphony in five movements

• Lurid autobiographical fantasy– Inspired by his unrequited love for

Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson

• Unprecedented originality– Imaginative colors drawn from huge orchestra– Use of idée fixe in every movement

Idée Fixe

• “Fixed idea,” a term popular in medical literature of the day

• Theme represents the composer’s beloved (Smithson)– Recurs in all five movements– Symbolizes each appearance of the beloved

Movement Format of Fantastic Symphony

• Related to Classical symphony format– Middle two movements reversed– Movements IV and V unprecedented

• I: Fast tempo, sonata form, slow intro• II: Moderate tempo, triple meter; waltz• III: The slow movement• IV: Moderate tempo; a march• V: Fast tempo, free form follows story

Fantastic Symphony

The Program of the Symphony

• A young musician of unhealthy sensibility and passionate imagination poisons himself with opium in a fit of lovesick despair. Too weak to kill him, the dose of the drug plunges him into a heavy sleep attended by the strangest visions, during which his sensations, emotions, and memories are transformed in his diseased mind into musical thoughts and images. Even the woman he loves becomes a melody to him, an idée fixe as it were, that he finds and hears everywhere.

The Program: I

Movement 1: Reveries, Passions• First he recalls the soul-sickness, the

aimless passions, the baseless depressions and elations that he felt before first seeing his loved one; then the volcanic love that she instantly inspired in him; his jealous furies; his return to tenderness; his religious consolations.

The Program: II

Movement 2: A Ball

• He encounters his beloved at a ball, in the midst of a noisy, brilliant party.

The Program: III

Movement 3: Scene in the Country• On a summer evening in the country, he

hears two shepherds piping in dialogue. The pastoral duet, the location, the light rustling of trees stirred gently by the wind, some newly conceived grounds for hope—all this gives him a feeling of unaccustomed calm. But she appears again. . . . What if she is deceiving him?

The Program: IV

Movement 4: March to the Scaffold

• He dreams he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned to death and led to execution. A march accompanies the procession, now gloomy and wild, now brilliant and grand. Finally the idée fixe appears for a moment, to be cut off by the fall of the ax.

The Program: V

Movement 5: Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath• He finds himself at a Witches’ Sabbath:

unearthly sounds, groans, shrieks of laughter, distant cries echoed by other cries. The beloved’s melody is heard, but it has lost its character of nobility and timidity. It is she who comes to the Sabbath! At her arrival, a roar of joy. She joins in the devilish orgies. A funeral knell; burlesque of the Dies irae.

Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V

• The most audacious movement yet– Orchestral sound effects reign

• Idée fixe now treated as vulgar parody– On piccolo clarinet with carnival ornaments– His beloved is the witches’ guest of honor

Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V

• Composer’s funeral at same time– Solemn Dies irae chant ridiculed by witches

Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony, V

• Raucous Witches’ Round Dance is a fugue

• Round Dance and Dies irae combine at climax– Witches parodying the church melody

Romantic Features of Fantastic Symphony

• “Grandiose” in scope and scale• Program symphony for large orchestra• Blurs the lines between music, literature,

theater, and autobiography• Cyclic work, unified by idée fixe• Fascination with supernatural, macabre• New orchestral colors, expressive effects,

unusual forms• Only 39 years after Haydn’s Symphony No. 95!