Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique (Not all points have wider listening)

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Context

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Terms in this set (9)

- Regarded as leading French Romantic composer in early C19th

- Associated with leading figures: Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt

- Had no keyboard skills: influence on harmonic writing and melodic and lyrical aspects of music

- Mastery of orchestral sonorities

- Pioneer of programmatic music

- He (and R. Schumann) was earliest composer to write considerable music criticism

Sonority

- Use of 4 (not 2) bassoons (unusual orchestration)
--------> More than 2 bassoon parts in Rite of Spring, also uses unusual instruments like Alto Flute and soprano/piccolo clarinets

- Pizzicato in strings (bar 7)
--------> 'Psycho' has range of string performance techniques

- Mutes (bar 3, violin 1), changes sonority of melody
--------> Stravinsky explores sonority using bassoon in high register in solo (bar 1) to create raw, primal sound

Texture

- Melody Dominated Homophony (bars 3-16)
--------> Mozart Symphony 40 has MDH at opening of 1st mvt

- Homorhythm/chordal movement (Bars 511-525)
--------> Homorhythm in C. Schumann Piano Trio in G minor (Bar 22)

- Octave wind answered by octave strings (bars 191-197)
--------> Call and response used in 2nd subject in Mozart Symphony No. 40

Dynamics

range of 'ppp' to 'ff'

Tempo, Metre, Rhythm

- Varied rhythmic values (Triplets= opening, dotted rhythms bar 3, sextuplets bar 17) create fluidity
--------> Cor Anglais solo in opening of 'Roman Carnival Overture', Berlioz

- Crossrhythms (bar 29)
--------> Stravinsky Rite of Spring (i.e: bar 64)

- Contrasting passage of mechanical sounding crotchets (bar 198)
--------> Stravinsky Rite of Spring (Augurs of Spring) String part, (Figure 13)