A History of Western Music
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60 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Romanticism | from 1825-1920, music with an emphasis on style and emotion |
| Influences on the Romantic era | Industrial Revolution, wealthier middle class, fewer courts |
| absolute music | music just for the sake of music |
| program music | music that tells a story |
| Lieder | texts dealing with different Romantic literary themes |
| Liederheis (song cycle) | a group of songs with a unifying theme |
| Franz Schubert | Incredibly prolific composer. Popularized the lieder genre |
| strophic song | one melodic line through many verses |
| through-composed song | melodic line changes with every verse |
| virtuoso | a specialist on a particular instrument |
| piano transcriptions | adaptation of a song for an instrument so voice is not necessary |
| piano paraphrase | variations on a theme of a song |
| Robert Schumann | German composer and music critic, wrote many types of music, but only one type at a time |
| orchestral advancement | improvements in instruments, more versatility, larger orchestras |
| conductor | keeps the orchestra together and interprets the music |
| Inclusion of Classical pieces in repertoire | Less expensive to publish, balanced with the work of new composers |
| Influence of Beethoven | Music became a statement, not merely entertainment |
| Franz Chopin | Polish composer, teacher, and piano virtuoso |
| Themes and melodies | the most important element of Romantic music; influence of Bel Canto opera |
| Berlioz | French orchestral composer of program music |
| idee fixe | creates a sense of unification, adding to thematic transformation and cyclical form |
| Chamber music | increasingly played by professionals at concerts, preserving the past |
| Benefits of choral music | encouraged spiritual and ethical values, occupied leisure time, developed a sense of unity, elevated one's musical taste |
| Types of choral music | oratorios, short choral works, liturgical works |
| Partsong | pieces for small choirs with subjects of patriotism, sentiment, and nature |
| a cappella | "in the chapel", Catholic church music without instruments |
| U.S. contributions to choral music | gospel and shape-note singing |
| Felix Mendelssohn | German composer and conductor whose music reflected the tension between Classical and Romantic styles |
| Opera houses | run by impresarios and received government support |
| dissemination of opera music | transcriptions for voice and piano, overtures and arias in orchestral concerts, parodies and puppet shows |
| subjects of operas | relationships, nature, fairy tales |
| Italian opera composers | Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti |
| bel canto | "beautiful singing", an emphasis on the melody and singing, florid style |
| French opera houses | Opera, Opera Comique, Italian theater |
| French "Opera" house | revivals of tragic operas |
| French "Opera Comique" house | not necessarily comic, but includes spoken dialogue |
| Grand Opera | genre of opera appealing to the middle class, included intense drama, dance numbers, crowd scenes, and dichotomy between evil aristocrats and virtuous civilians |
| Carl Maria von Weber | German composer, conductor, and critic. Founded a "secret society" of musicians to improve music criticism. Pioneer of melodrama |
| melodrama | operatic genre where spoken dialogue occurred over the music |
| Nationalism | U.S. Civil War, 2nd French Republic, abolition of serfdom in Russia, modern states of Italy and Germany |
| increase in popularity of opera houses | larger audiences, larger halls, need for more powerful voices, decrease in singer's flexibility and ornamentation |
| Verdi's operas | chose his own subjects: fast action, strong characters, and contrasts |
| reminiscense motives | inclusion of a theme used previously as a memory or reminder |
| verismo style | Italian opera parallel to realism |
| Guiseppe Verdi | greatest Italian musical dramatist |
| Verdi and nationalism | Viva Verdi, Nabucco |
| Conventional opera scene | scena, tempo d'attaco, cantabile, tempo di mezzo, cabaletta |
| scena | recitative with orchestra |
| tempo d'attaco | opening section where characters trade phrases of the melody in dialogue |
| cantabile | slow, lyrical section |
| cabaletta | fast, intense, and emotional |
| Gesamtkunstwerk | poetry, art, and music all working together |
| leitmotif | leading motive, similar to remeniscence motive or idee fixe, but applied to objects and ideas, not just people |
| Wagnerian drama | Singers protray the character's outer actions, while the orchestra conveys the inner motives and emotions |
| French opera | no one significant composer, less nationalistic, introduction of exoticism |
| Richard Wagner | German opera composer reponsible for reorienting operas. Founded a theater in Bayreuth |
| Wagnerian influences on music | abandonment of tonality (chromatic idiom), orchestral development (leitmotif), more powerful singers |
| stabreim | in operas, use of German style poetry of alliteration and internal rhyme |
| Wagnerian influences on libretti | use of stabreim, nationalistic themes (Germanic and Nordic stories), less set-form sections |
| Das Ring der Niebelung | Tetrology including Das Rhinegold, Die Walkure, Siegfried, and Die Gotterdammerung |
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