The Classical Music Book

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 149

LMOUVSEICITISSETLRFULY

DCEARRLFRMEAISRCIAHVÜOTZN (W18E2B1E)R,

IN CONTEXT The magic bullets used in the
shooting contest in Der Freischütz
FOCUS are fired in the spooky Wolf’s Glen,
German Romantic opera depicted here in an aquatint of the
opera scene.
BEFORE
1791 Mozart’s The Magic A n example of a Viennese Premiered in Berlin in 1821, Der
Flute, the supreme example Singspiel (“play in song”), Freischütz propelled its composer
of the Singspiel tradition, is which links songs with to stardom. Its success was partly
performed in Vienna. spoken dialogue, Carl Maria because it was grounded firmly
von Weber’s Der Freischütz (The in German culture, using easily
1816 The premiere of E.T.A. Freeshooter) tells the story of Max, recognizable characters, settings,
Hoffmann’s Romantic opera a young huntsman from Bohemia folklore, and folk music. Weber had
Undine, about a water spirit who is persuaded by the wicked envisaged a great new German
who marries a human, takes Caspar to take part in a shooting opera tradition.
place in Berlin. contest that will win Max the
hand of Agathe. To ensure victory, The combination of national
AFTER Caspar gives him magic bullets pride, emotional content, and the
1833 Heinrich Marschner’s forged in the Wolf’s Glen. depiction of the supernatural
opera Hans Heiling, like his impressed the young Richard
earlier success Der Vampyr, Wagner, who saw Der Freischütz at
contrasts the real and the age of nine. At the same time,
supernatural worlds. Weber’s innovative orchestration,
especially the evocative use of
1834 Richard Wagner woodwinds and horns, influenced
completes his opera Die Berlioz, Mahler, and Debussy.
Feen (The Fairies), which is
heavily influenced by Weber’s Weber wrote two more operas.
Der Freischütz. He was in London to conduct the
premiere of his last work, Oberon,
in 1826, when he died of
tuberculosis, aged 39. ■

See also: The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■
La traviata 174–175 ■ The Ring Cycle 180–187 ■ Tosca 194–197

GRIEF,NO ONE FEELS ANOTHER’S

NAONOONTE HUNEDRER’SSTJANODYS

DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN (1824),
FRANZ SCHUBERT



152 LIEDER AND SONG CYCLES

IN CONTEXT T he composer Franz Beethoven were introduced to the
Schubert is most often medium when commissioned to
FOCUS linked to the German art produce arrangements of folk songs,
Lieder and song cycles song (or Lied; plural, Lieder). He did while the songs of Mozart, who
not invent the genre. Several major reserved his most sophisticated
BEFORE composers had written songs word setting for opera, are small-
1816 Beethoven composes before him, such as Beethoven, scale and modest in their scope.
An die ferne Geliebte (“To the Mozart, and Haydn, as well as Writing songs was a sideline rather
distant beloved”), considered lesser-known figures. It is not than a central part of any of these
to be the first song cycle. even true to say that Schubert composers’ activities.
produced the first “song cycle,”
1821 Wilhelm Müller the term used later for a set of Piano and song
publishes his poems of Die songs with an overarching Schubert came of age in a world
schöne Müllerin (including narrative or theme. Beethoven’s of increased poetic sensibility, of
six not set by Schubert) as An die ferne Geliebte, composed emphasis on subjective experience.
part of an anthology. in 1816, was the first important The piano, still a relatively recent
work to fit such a description. invention, had grown both in
AFTER technical capacity and availability.
1840 Robert Schumann Schubert, however, transformed Domestic performances were on
composes several major song the genre. Before Schubert, Lieder the rise, especially in Vienna,
cycles, including Frauenliebe were predominantly naïve or whose middle class, held back in
und Leben and Dichterliebe. straightforwardly lyrical. The form many ways by a strictly controlled
tended to be strophic, the same society, sought private outlets
1856 Baritone Julius melody repeated for each verse
Stockhausen gives the first of the poem; the music engaged Schubert’s art songs, or Lieder, were
complete public performance with the text only as far as usually played in the private homes of
of Die schöne Müllerin capturing its general mood, and his friends. Large-scale public concerts
in Vienna. the keyboard accompaniment were typically reserved for more
was often formulaic, functional, sweeping orchestral works.
and without expression. Haydn and

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 153

See also: Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■ Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 166–169 ■
Faust Symphony 176–177 ■ Also sprach Zarathustra 192–193

My compositions spring whose dilemma is summed up Franz Schubert
from my sorrows. Those in the song’s final line: “There,
where you are not, is happiness!” Born in a poor district of
that give the world Vienna in 1797, Schubert
the greatest delight were Schubert would also compose was the son of a well-known
born of my deepest griefs. songs that espoused folkish schoolmaster and music
simplicity, and throughout his teacher who taught him to
Franz Schubert short but intensely creative life, he play the piano and violin. He
would alternate between complex composed from an early age
for their artistic impulses. This and more straightforward forms. and soon found favor with
amateur form of music making, His output for voice is remarkable prominent figures in Vienna,
away from the formal courts and for the variety and richness of his such as Antonio Salieri.
concert societies, was reaching melodic inspiration, but the role Despite this, success in
new levels of sophistication. of the piano accompaniment also large-scale “public”
developed greatly in Schubert’s composition eluded him.
In his all too brief life, Schubert hands. It grew from offering
composed some 600 songs. The straightforward support to include Schubert managed to
first to be published, “Erlkönig” sophisticated reflections of, and make a respectable living with
and “Gretchen am Spinnrade” reactions to, the content of the works aimed at the amateur
(“Gretchen at the spinning wheel”), poem he was setting. market, such as compositions
composed when Schubert was just and songs for piano. Although
17, remain among his most popular. Song cycles a few of his chamber pieces
Set to texts by Johann Wolfgang The complete array of Schubert’s were performed in public,
von Goethe, they offered a new sort art is evident in his first song cycle, many of his best works—piano
of song: both are “through-composed” Die schöne Müllerin (“The beautiful sonatas and symphonies
(without strictly repeated verses) miller’s maid”), published in 1824. among them—were only
and present powerful miniature For the cycle’s 20 songs, Schubert rediscovered years after his
dramas moving inexorably toward selected poems from a collection death in 1828, at 31. This led
their climaxes. by Wilhelm Müller, a contemporary to a reappraisal that cemented
poet whose verses Schubert also his reputation as a master
“Erlkönig” features a narrating used for Winterreise (“Winter composer of instrumental
voice as well as the voices of a journey”), his second song cycle, music as well as song.
father, his son, and the titular three years later. Die schöne
Erlking—a malevolent goblinlike Müllerin loosely follows the story Other key works
creature who inhabits the dark of a young miller boy’s infatuation
forest of the Romantic imagination. with the beautiful daughter of 1822 Symphony in B minor
Gretchen, meanwhile, is the tragic a mill owner, from his early (“Unfinished”), D759
heroine of Goethe’s masterpiece, obsession, through jealousy 1822 Mass No. 2 in G major,
Faust. In 1816, Schubert composed and resignation to, listeners D167
“Der Wanderer,” one of many songs are left to assume, suicide. 1828 String Quintet in C, D956
focusing on another quintessential
figure of German Romanticism, The narrative is presented
largely through suggestion, with
the poems giving snapshots in
time, presented primarily in the
voice of the miller boy himself.
Together the songs encapsulate
many of the quintessential themes
of Romantic poetry, not least the
solitude of the outsider and the ❯❯

154 LIEDER AND SONG CYCLES

Lied and Song Cycles
Written for voice and piano for performance in homes or
concert halls, sometimes as a cycle of three or more songs

linked by a story or theme.

They appear in three major forms

Strophic: Modified strophic: Through-composed:
all verses are sung to the music varies each verse has different
the same music, as in music to match the words.
Schubert’s “Der Fischer” in some verses, such as Schubert’s “Erlkönig” is
and “Heidenröslein.” “Der Lindenbaum” in
Schubert’s Winterreise. through-composed.

desire, in the face of rejection, cycle, push the genre even further Schubert would give with his
to find solace in nature. These and can be shocking in their friends, known as Schubertiads,
ideas would be explored with an expressionistic power. and they were not initially
even greater level of intensity in published together as a cycle.
Winterreise, in which the poems Private to public The first public performance
chart the progress of a lovelorn, The songs of Die schöne Müllerin of the cycle as a whole was not
solitary wanderer through a bleak were, like so much of the music by until 1856. As the 20th century
wintry landscape. The songs of Schubert that was disseminated approached, the Lied also became
Schwanengesang (“Swan song”), during his lifetime, originally an increasingly public form, even
published together after Schubert’s designed primarily for private if many composers continued
death but never conceived as a performances, such as those to use it for some of their most
personal works.

Romantic vehicle
Schubert’s influence, in terms of
the later development of the Lied, is
difficult to overestimate. What had
been a peripheral activity for earlier
composers became a major area of
activity for several composers who
came after him. The genre’s unique
mix of music and poetry proved
particularly attractive to the

Schubert set several of Goethe’s
poems to music, including his tragic
1778 work “An den Mond” (“To the
moon”). This handwritten manuscript
of Schubert’s dates from 1815.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 155

French Romantic chanson and beyond. The songs of such
composers as Antonín Dvorˇák
The story of the art song in following works by composers and Modest Mussorgsky often
France was largely colored such as Hector Berlioz, whose have a nationalistic coloring.
by the cultural landscape in Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights,
Paris, where song—mélodie or 1841), a setting for six poems At the turn of the 20th century,
chanson—designed primarily for by Théophile Gautier, count Gustav Mahler firmly put the
performance in private salons, among the first songs for voice genre in the public sphere, not
existed in the shadows of opera. and orchestra in the repertoire, least because he was one of the
French song faced an additional although they were written first composers to orchestrate his
problem: the irregular emphases for piano accompaniment songs himself, as would Richard
and rhythms of the language originally. While subsequently Strauss. Several of Mahler’s songs
made it difficult to set words influenced by German composer also found their way into his
to music with naturalness. Richard Wagner, a uniquely early symphonies, either complete
French branch of art song or reworked as instrumental
Nevertheless, the genre in developed in the hands of movements. Strauss, meanwhile,
France became more ambitious Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, composed songs throughout
and sophisticated toward and Francis Poulenc. his long life and wrote his
the end of the 19th century, valedictory masterpiece, The
Four Last Songs, for soprano
Romantics. Subsequent song the scene for his songs, as well as voice and orchestra, in 1948.
cycles often represented attempts postludes to summarize the mood.
to build on Schubert’s legacy. Although Johannes Brahms wrote The art song also flourished
two song cycles, both he and in France, Great Britain, and the
Robert Schumann was greatly the Austrian composer Hugo United States, especially in the
influenced by Schubert. His Wolf concentrated on grouping 20th century, with such composers
own song cycles, many of them their songs into combinations as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald
composed in a burst of inspiration that were suitable for publication, Finzi, Charles Ives, and Benjamin
in 1840, the year of his marriage which did not necessarily imply Britten, who, as a fine pianist,
to pianist and composer Clara that they should be performed made a speciality of performing
Wieck, tend to be on a smaller together. Wolf, in particular, was Schubert’s song cycles. ■
scale, offering a series of poetic remarkable for composing Lieder
impressions or, in the case of almost exclusively. In his works,
Frauenliebe und Leben (“A woman’s he successfully incorporated
love and life”), a broad picture of Wagnerian harmonic complexity
a relationship. Schumann often and psychological insight into the
wrote short piano preludes to set form on the most intimate scale.

There is no song Song legacy
of Schubert’s Schubert’s wider influence was
enormous, too, and a greater desire
from which one cannot to raise song to a higher artistic
learn something. plane coincided, in the second half
of the 19th century, with attempts
Johannes Brahms to assert and define nationhood,
both in the German-speaking world

Hugo Wolf wrote several hundred art
songs, often with deeply romantic and
personal themes, as captured on this
postcard depicting a song from his
Spanish Songbook of 1891.

DREAM.MUSIC IS LIKE A

ONE THAT I

CANNOT HEAR

STRING QUARTET NO. 14 IN C-SHARP
MINOR, OP. 131 (1826), BEETHOVEN



158 LATE BEETHOVEN

IN CONTEXT B eethoven’s music divides Increasing deafness from the age
into three stylistic periods: of 30 led Beethoven to commission
FOCUS the early (up to 1802), the hearing devices from Johann Nepomuk
Proto-Romanticism middle (1803–1813), and the late Maelzel, inventor of the metronome,
(1817–1827). He was born in 1770, including this “ear trumpet.”
BEFORE and by the age of 27, he had written
1781 Haydn, the inventor of a variety of works. However, for Beethoven’s middle period included
the string quartet, publishes much of this period, he avoided the his “Heroic Phase” of 1803–1808,
his Op. 33 quartets. territory dominated by Haydn and during which he wrote the “Eroica”
Mozart—the string quartet. It was Symphony for and about Napoleon
1782–1785 Mozart writes six not until the end of the 1790s, by Bonaparte. The middle period was
quartets, which he dedicates which time he was no longer being a time of energy and positive
to composer Joseph Haydn. compared to Mozart, that Beethoven commitment to Beethoven’s
wrote his first quartets, the Op. 18. humanistic and political beliefs.
1824 Franz Schubert writes These six works show such energy The period is often considered to
String Quartet No. 14, known and technical mastery that had have begun in the wake of his
as “Death and the Maiden.” his life been cut short at this point, “Heiligenstadt Testament” of 1802—
he would still be placed among a letter he had written to his two
AFTER the world’s great composers. The brothers describing his despair
1827–1829 Felix Mendelssohn shadow of Mozart mixes with the at his profound loss of hearing.
composes his string quartets spirit of Haydn through his first five Only his music, Beethoven wrote,
Op. 12 and Op. 13. The Op. 13 quartets, but in the sixth Beethoven held him back from suicide.
quartet in particular has sowed the seeds of his later work.
echoes of Beethoven’s Op. 95 Beethoven’s violin concerto
and Op. 132. No composer before (Op. 61) is an outstanding example
Beethoven ever disregarded of the productive middle period, in
1828 Schubert’s last wish which he began to turn away from
on his deathbed is to hear the capacities of both his classical conventions—developing
Beethoven’s Op. 131 quartet. performers and his audience a bolder individual style and
producing many of his most famous
1873 Johannes Brahms with such ruthlessness. compositions. The beginnings of
publishes String Quartet Charles Rosen Romantic music can be found in
No. 1 in C minor and String the slow movements of Beethoven’s
Quartet No. 2 in A minor, middle quartets. These five quartets
comprising his Op. 51. These stretched the boundaries of the
are Brahms’s 20th attempt at form, first by extending the length,
writing quartets. in his Op. 59 and Op. 74, and then
by compressing it in the concise
1934 Michael Tippett Quartetto Serioso, Op. 95. In all five,
composes the first of his five four players evolve into soloists,
quartets, all inspired by each with virtuoso passages
specific Beethoven works.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 159

See also: Haydn’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 54 122–125 ■ “Eroica” Symphony 138–141 ■ Brahms’s Symphony
No. 1 188–189 ■ Pierrot lunaire 240–245 ■ Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony 274–279

worthy of a concerto, while Op. 74, Variations on a theme in the fourth movement
known as the “Harp” quartet, has
movements in both the heroic and Violin 1 Violin 1
classical moods.

The late period Violin 2 Violin 2
Between 1813–1816, Beethoven
experienced major emotional Violins Cello
upheavals, from financial troubles The theme is In the second
to the struggle to gain custody first played in a variation, the
of his nephew. These years saw dialogue between tempo is faster,
a decline in his production, with the first and and the melody
those works Beethoven did produce second violins. alternates between
showing him to be struggling to In the first the high phrases
develop his style further. However, variation, the of the first
he emerged from these years of theme is played violin and the
refinement with unparalleled ability by the lowest low phrases in
to imagine melodies, forms, and three instruments. the cello.
harmonies that would serve him
well during his late period. Subsequent variations share the developing
theme between the different instruments, in
Beethoven’s indifference to varying time signatures.
contemporary social conventions
and his passionate belief in his forms in concerti, symphonies, 14 minutes to less than one minute,
own ideas created a unique set sonatas, and chamber works, he totaling around 40 minutes and
of circumstances that would lead was ready to experiment further. performed without a break, are in
to the composition of his five late an unconventional sequence that
quartets. He was determined to Opus 131 (1826) is the most at the time seemed unlikely to
push the boundaries of composition unorthodox of Beethoven’s five late succeed as a major work.
to new limits; having successfully quartets, all written in 1825–1826.
extended the length and developed Its seven movements, ranging from Conventional quartets follow a
the structure of the conventional four-movement formula: they begin
and placed a high value on with an allegro in sonata form, in
Music as self-expression personal freedom and heroic the tonic key; they slow down in
resistance to oppressors. It the second movement; they employ
The cultural and literary world advocated a synthesis of a minuet and trio as the third
of Germany and the small states Romantic, Classical, and movement; and they end in rondo
that surrounded it at the time Enlightenment ideas. form. In Op. 131, however, the first
of Beethoven’s birth were movement—a sombre, extended
strongly influenced by the Sturm Like literature and art, the fugue (a piece in which a melody is
und Drang (Storm and Stress) musical world began to reflect strictly imitated by the other
movement. Led by the poet and these ideals, giving them voices)—is followed by a very short
philosopher Johann Gottfried expression in symphonies and dance in the second movement.
von Herder, it was expounded vocal music, with Beethoven The third movement (just 11
by writers and artists, such as himself later setting Schiller’s measures) concludes with a florid
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem An die Freude (“Ode to solo harking back to an earlier
and Friedrich Schiller. The Joy”) in his Ninth Symphony. musical period, while the fourth
movement emphasized national presents a powerful theme and ❯❯
identities, language, and arts,

160 LATE BEETHOVEN

Differences between the Classical quartet the theme has undergone several
and Beethoven’s Op. 131 transformations of rhythm as well
as texture. The second variation
VERY QUICK Typical Classical quartet begins as a gentle dance in which
Beethoven’s Op. 131 melodic eighth-note phrases pass
from one instrument to another,
SPEED QUICK accompanied by detached chords,
but as the variation progresses,
MODERATE the running eighth notes take over
and build to a climax with all four
SLOW instruments playing in octaves—
a different sound world altogether
1 23 4 5 6 from the variation’s opening. The
MOVEMENTS variations continue, punctuated by
a couple of cadenzalike first violin
Classical quartets generally had four movements. After flourishes recalling the “archaic”
Beethoven, some Romantic quartets had more (or fewer) third movement.
movements and abandoned the usual pattern of development.
Thematic development also
variations. The fifth jumps in with Beethoven’s output; it cemented his takes place on a large scale. As in
an extensive scherzo (a fast dance). great legacy and ensured praise for many of Beethoven’s works (most
A 28-measure adagio (leisurely) his late quartets. famously the Fifth Symphony of
sixth movement leads to an intense 1807–1808), the quartet begins with
and energetic seventh movement of Natural variations a short four-note motif, which also
the kind that is generally placed A good example of Beethoven’s preoccupied Beethoven in his
first in more conventional works. structural ingenuity can be seen Op. 132 quartet, although the
in his handling of the theme and pitches are presented here in a
Building a structure with such variations in the fourth movement slightly different order, to unsettling
unconventional foundations was a (which builds on techniques effect. This motif forms the first half
challenge that Beethoven set for developed in his Diabelli variations, of the opening fugue subject,
himself. Some consider Op. 131 to Op. 120). The traditional problem which, in turn, provides many of
be the greatest composition of faced by composers in this form the motivic ideas from which the
was how to create a feeling of other movements are developed.
[Beethoven’s quartets] natural continuity instead of the
stand … on the extreme formulaic repetition of a set theme. Rousing ending
boundary of all that has Beethoven’s approach is to allow The fifth movement’s key of E major is
hitherto been attained by constant evolution of the music, the optimistic sister to the sad home
human art and imagination. even from the very outset of the key of C-sharp minor, and, following
theme. It begins at the top of the convention, a light-hearted scherzo
Robert Schumann texture, as a dialogue between the alternates with a contrasting trio.
first and second violin; it is then Unusually, however, Beethoven not
doubled in 10ths, before moving only extends the conventional “A-B-A”
down toward the middle of the form with a further repeat of the trio
texture. When the first variation and scherzo (as he does in several
begins with the theme in the three other works) but finishes with a
lower strings, it feels like a natural curtailed repeat of each theme.
continuation of this development,
but by the end of this variation, This repetition allows him
to explore various moods and
techniques, not least in a passage
played sul ponticello (with the bow
near the bridge of the instrument),
creating a glassy, delicate sound.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 161

A powerful crescendo then leads before one of Beethoven’s most To play a wrong note is
to two sets of three chords, each Romantic themes appears, free in insignificant. To play without
followed by a dramatic silence its pacing and encompassing
heralding the sixth movement. In expressive leaps. After the theme passion is inexcusable.
this short adagio, led by the viola, reaches its culmination, a “ghost” Ludwig van Beethoven
the four-note motif from the first appears, recalling the melody first
movement is transformed by heard at the very start of the work. were his final gift to the world
denying the use of its fourth and before his death in 1827. With
most expressive note. An optimistic After this, the music begins to them, Beethoven transformed
upward motion is always repelled by reflect the drained physical state of the string quartet—influencing
a sad, descending answer. the players after continuous playing Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms,
for almost 40 minutes. The music Bartók, Schoenberg, Shostakovich,
In the seventh movement, the dissipates as the tempo gets slower, and Tippett—and became an
previous ideas come to a satisfying yet the expected soft ending to the imposing mentor and inspiration
musical conclusion. As the music piece does not appear. In one last, to all those who came after. ■
progresses, fragments of the first defiant gesture, the energies of the
movement begin to surface until players are revived for a last push
the four-note motif reappears. Many to end on three affirmative chords.
dark and menacing sounds follow
Lasting influence
A statue of Beethoven was erected, Beethoven’s late quartets—which
in 1880, on the Beethovenplatz in start and end with four movement
Vienna, Austria. The figures sitting structures (Op. 127 and Op. 135)
below the composer are allegorical but experiment with five, six, and
representations of his symphonies. seven movements (Op. 130–132)—

162

IITSNHSAETTMRTUAHMRECEHHNETAADTIOOFN

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE (1830),
HECTOR BERLIOZ

IN CONTEXT T hroughout his career, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
French composer Hector starring the Irish actress Harriet
FOCUS Berlioz explored the format Smithson as Juliet. It proved to be
The programmatic of the programmatic symphony— a fateful encounter, because Berlioz
symphony a mood-evoking work influenced fell in love with Smithson and
by subjects outside of music, such would expend much energy over
BEFORE as literature and art. It was his the next few years pursuing her.
1808 Beethoven premieres Symphonie fantastique, however,
his Sixth Symphony, the composed early in his career, that During the course of this
“Pastoral,” which the composer proved to be his most successful infatuation, he felt compelled to
insists is “more expression of and enduring work in the genre. write a piece that would describe
feeling than tone-painting.” his heightened passion and its
Berlioz’s inspiraton attendant joys and sorrows. He
1824 Beethoven’s Ninth In 1827, as a 23-year-old music intended its performance to launch
Symphony ends with a choral student, Berlioz went to see his career with a bold stroke and
setting of a text taken from a performance in Paris of at the same time dazzle Smithson.
German poet Friedrich The resulting piece Symphonie
Schiller’s “Ode to Joy.” No one who hears this fantastique premiered at the Paris
symphony here in Paris, Conservatoire on December 5, 1830,
AFTER played by Berlioz’s orchestra, and a printed synopsis of the “plot”
1848–1849 Liszt composes can help believing that was supplied.
Ce qu’on entend sur la he is hearing a marvel
montagne, the first symphonic Love and death
poem, based on a poem by without precedent. The title suggests a symphony
Victor Hugo. Richard Wagner of the imagination, while its
subtitle—“Episode in the life of
1857 First performance an artist”—hints at the work’s
of Liszt’s Faust Symphony, autobiographical element, although
which he dedicated to Berlioz. its descriptive program (which
Berlioz provided to audiences)
focuses more on fantasy than
reality. In the first movement, a
young musician awakens to find
love in the shape of an unknown
beautiful woman. Her image

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 163

See also: The Four Seasons 92–97 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177 ■ The Ring
Cycle 180–187 ■ Also sprach Zarathustra 192–193 ■ Das Lied von der Erde 198–201

(represented by a recurring melody Scaffold,” he is executed. In the Hector Berlioz
Berlioz called the idée fixe) imposes second nightmare, he dreams
itself upon his vision everywhere that he is at a Witches’ Sabbath The son of a doctor, Berlioz
he goes, such as at a ball and even and sees his beloved joining in was born at La Côte-Saint-
in the country, where the sound of the grisly spectacle. André, in southeastern
thunder seems to symbolize his France, in 1803. At 12, he
gloomy state of mind. Lasting influence began studying music, and
Other composers emulated Berlioz’s at 17, he moved to Paris to
Determined to poison himself combination of music and story- study at the Conservatoire.
with opium, he finds instead telling, notably Franz Liszt in A
that the dose merely induces Faust Symphony and 12 symphonic In 1833, on his fifth attempt,
nightmares. In the first of these, he poems (one-movement pieces in Berlioz won the Prix de Rome
imagines he has been condemned the programmatic genre), including (a prestigious scholarship).
to death for murdering his beloved: Mazeppa and Hamlet. Although By then, he had produced his
at the end of the “March to the some major composers, including Symphonie fantastique to
Bruckner and Brahms, avoided the impress the actress Harriet
Hector Berlioz conducts a deafening form, others such as Tchaikovsky, Smithson, whom he later
orchestra in a caricature published César Franck, Elgar, and Richard married. In Paris, he enjoyed
by the French newspaper L’Illustration, Strauss mined its possibilities limited success as a composer
in 1845. Behind him, members of the inventively and exhaustively. ■ and so also worked as a
audience hold their ears. journalist. From 1842, he
toured abroad, finding
audiences in Russia, England,
and Germany more receptive.
He longed for success in the
opera house, but his opera
Benvenuto Cellini (1838)
failed, and his masterpiece
Les Troyens (1858) had only
a partial production during
his lifetime. Suffering
from Crohn’s disease and
depression, he died in 1869.

Other key works

1837 Grande Messe des morts
(Requiem)
1839 Roméo et Juliette
1856–1858 Les Troyens

164

SIMPLICITY
IASCTHHIEEVFEIMNEANLT

PRÉLUDES (1839), FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN

IN CONTEXT W hile Chopin was one of evocation of moods. Every one
the supreme composers of his compositions includes the
FOCUS of the early Romantic piano, and the vast majority are
Solo piano music period, he was in some respects for piano alone, yet within this
untypical of the age he has come precisely defined area the breadth
BEFORE to embody. Unlike fellow musicians of his musical thought is vast.
1812 John Field, an Irish Robert Schumann and Franz
composer based in Liszt, Chopin had little interest in Chopin created an unparalleled
St. Petersburg, publishes using music to express narratives intensity of melody, harmony, and
the first Romantic piano piece inspired by Romantic art and expression. Writing in a style that
to be called a “nocturne.” literature, or in producing grandiose seemed to represent the soul of
works with huge orchestras in
1833 In Paris, Chopin’s the manner of Hector Berlioz. Chopin plays for Prince Radziwiłł
Nocturnes, Op. 9, are the Instead, Chopin perfected his art during a trip to Berlin, in 1829. The
composer’s first nocturnes within circumscribed confines, same year, he composed the Polonaise
to be published. tending toward brevity and the brillante for the prince (a cellist) and his
daughter (a pianist) to practice.
1834–1835 Robert Schumann
composes Carnaval, a collection
of 21 piano movements, one of
which is titled Chopin.

AFTER
1892–1893 Brahms publishes
four collections of small piano
pieces, including intermezzos,
fantasias, and capriccios.

1910–1913 Debussy, who
described Chopin as “the
greatest of us all,” writes his
two books of Préludes.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 165

See also: Pièces de clavecin 82–83 ■ Die schöne Müllerin 150–155 ■
Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune 228–231 ■ Ravel’s Piano Concerto in D for
the left hand 266–267

Preludes, nocturnes, rain at Valldemossa, on the island
and études of Majorca, where she and Chopin,
who was then her lover, spent the
winter of 1838–1839 together.

Preludes Short introductory Polish dance
movement often Chopin’s interest in dance was
preceding a partly a conscious homage to his
larger piece. Polish heritage. The polonaise
(meaning “Polish” in French)
Nocturnes Expressive and was used by many composers Frédéric Chopin
tranquil compositions across Europe, and Chopin wrote
inspired by the night, more than a dozen examples, Born near Warsaw in 1810,
following no set form. his first when he was just seven Chopin studied the piano
years old. Like the polonaise, in the Polish capital and
Études Pieces designed for the mazurka was a traditional performed at musical soirées
practice, to perfect dance form to which Chopin in its greatest houses. He
musical skills. returned regularly on no fewer visited Paris at the age of 20
than 50 occasions. and settled there, making a
the instrument itself, Chopin had a living by teaching, publishing
profound effect on piano technique Chopin mainly used the waltz his music, and appearing at
and helped push the instrument dance form for lighter salon music. salons. Chopin disliked
to the forefront of 19th-century The so-called “Minute Waltz” concerts, and performed in
music. Preferring to compose in and the Waltz in E-flat, Op. 18 few, yet his influence was
miniature rather than on a large (Grande valse brillante) are rapid huge, founded on works that
scale, he produced three four- pieces. In contrast to the showy embraced the folk music of his
movement piano sonatas and many waltzes, Chopin’s 20 nocturnes native land, as well as other,
short “character” pieces, especially are predominantly intimate and more conceptual forms that
preludes, nocturnes, études, and introverted in mood, slow and lifted piano technique to new
dances, such as the mazurka, dreamy, as their title suggests. levels. Initially composing in
polonaise, and waltz. The nocturnes enjoy an enduring a style that favored virtuosity
legacy as some of the most popular in the tradition of composers
Mood and style solo works ever written for piano. Johann Nepomuk Hummel,
Between 1835 and 1839, Chopin The term “nocturne” and its style Friedrich Kalkbrenner, and
composed a set of 24 preludes— were the invention of the Irish Carl Maria von Weber, he later
one in each of the major and minor composer and celebrated pianist absorbed within his piano
keys—using J.S. Bach’s Preludes John Field, whose work Chopin textures the influence of Bach.
from the Well-Tempered Clavier knew and admired. His most durable personal
(1722) as his model. For Chopin, the relationship, with the novelist
prelude was essentially an abstract Like Field, Chopin was a George Sand, ended in 1847.
form, although some of his pieces virtuoso pianist, and his interest He died of tuberculosis two
were prescribed titles by his in the extension of piano technique years later in Paris.
publishers that suggested specific is demonstrated in his 27 études
influences. The “Raindrop” Prelude, (“studies”), which he began writing Other key works
for example, earned its (inauthentic) in his teens. In these pieces, Chopin
nickname from the French novelist managed to combine technical 1830 Piano Concerto No. 1
George Sand’s account of incessant advances with great expressive 1835 Ballade No. 1 in G minor
and musical quality. They have 1844 Sonata No. 3 in B minor
remained both a challenge and 1846 Barcarolle in F-sharp
a joy to pianists ever since. ■

166 IN CONTEXT

MOWWPYORUUISSTLYT1DME0PNH0HATIOVFHENEIIRMEHESADADOCWHEND FOCUS
The Romantic symphony
SYMPHONY NO. 1, THE “SPRING” SYMPHONY (1841),
ROBERT SCHUMANN BEFORE
1824 First performance of
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
in Vienna.

1838 Schumann “discovers”
Schubert’s “Great” C major
Symphony in Vienna.

AFTER
1876 Premiere of Brahms’s
Symphony No. 1, which
Hans von Bulow dubs
“Beethoven’s Tenth.”

1889 Mahler’s Symphony
No. 1 premieres in Budapest.
It marks the beginning of
a cycle that redefines the
symphony as a form.

A t the end of the Classical
age, Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony, with its
revolutionary message, inclusion
of a choir and soloists, and many
narrative musical features, offered a
bold new vision of what a symphony
might be. Yet many other Romantic
composers, such as Chopin and
Wagner, felt that Beethoven had
taken the symphony to such
heights with his Ninth that they
could go no further with developing
its form, and they turned to other
genres instead. This led to a dearth
of symphonic writing until the
second half of the 19th century.

Nonetheless, the symphonies
that were produced by the most
successful Romantic composers
were among the greatest music
written in the 19th century. These

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 167

See also: “Eroica” Symphony 136–139 ■ Die schöne Müllerin 148–153 ■
Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177

Nothing right in art can a visit to Vienna after Schubert’s Robert Schumann
be accomplished death. Schumann took a copy of the
manuscript back to Leipzig, where Born in the Saxon city of
without enthusiasm. Felix Mendelssohn conducted its Zwickau (now part of
Robert Schumann premiere in 1839. Germany) in 1810, Schumann
began composing music as a
works include Hector Berlioz’s While Beethoven’s works young boy. No less interested
Symphonie fantastique, Franz focused on an intense musical in literature, he wrote a
Liszt’s Faust Symphony, and Robert argument and inner drive, Schubert number of youthful novels
Schumann’s Symphony No. 1, approached the form as a more before heading to Leipzig to
known as the “Spring” Symphony. gentle and discursive structure, study law. Schumann gave up
reminiscent of the romantic novels his studies in order to become
Schubert’s influence of the period. In Schubert’s Ninth a concert pianist, but a hand
At the same time that Beethoven Symphony, unexpected and injury prevented him from
was writing his last symphony, nontraditional keys are used to achieving his goal. Instead,
Schubert was also working on his produce a greater range of moods. he focused on composition and
mature works in the genre. In 1822, Taking some 55 minutes to musical criticism, becoming
he started on his Ninth Symphony, perform, a long work for the period, editor of the New Journal for
now known as the “Great C Major” the piece extends many traditional Music, through which he
Symphony. Unperformed in his features of the symphony, suchas introduced the world to the
lifetime, it was discovered by the introduction to the first music of Chopin and Brahms.
Schubert’s friend Schumann, on movement (almost a complete His novel piano works, often
sonata in itself) and the numerous inspired by literature, quickly
thematic elements in the last. became popular. After
marrying Clara Wieck, a
Taking up the baton famous pianist herself, he
It was only after hearing Schubert’s began to concentrate on other
Ninth Symphony that Robert musical genres. His last years
Schumann was inspired to begin were plagued with mental
working on his own first symphony, illness, and he died in an
in 1841. Until then, he had mainly asylum in 1856.
been known as a composer of
piano pieces. For the most part Other key works
eschewing large-scale works, he
had concentrated on collections or 1838 Kreisleriana, Op. 16
cycles of smaller pieces, cementing 1840 Dichterliebe, Op. 48
his reputation as a miniaturist. 1845 Piano Concerto in
As such, writing a symphony was A minor, Op. 54
a new challenge for Schumann. 1850 Symphony No. 3, Op. 97
Extraordinarily, he sketched the
whole work in just four days.
Five weeks later, the fully
orchestrated work premiered in ❯❯

Schumann’s wife, Clara, was the
daughter of his first piano instructor,
Friedrich Wieck. Both Clara and her
father were celebrated for their skills
on the keyboard.

168 THE ROMANTIC SYMPHONY

New era, new aesthetics

Classical Romantic

Inspired by the Inspired by nature,
Enlightenment and the poetry, and myth.

Age of Reason. Emphasis is on
emotional expression.
Emphasis is on elegance New styles of melody,
and structure.
harmony, and
Era of the symphony, rhythm emerge.
instrumental sonata, Growing audiences
expand to include the
and string quartet. middle classes.
Music is largely the
preserve of the court and

the wealthy.

Leipzig, with Mendelssohn as its score for the symphony, he gave a symphony of the Romantic period.
conductor, and was well recieved each of his movements titles: Full of contrast and surprise, its
by its audience. “Beginning of Spring,” “Evening,” quickly shifting moods keep
“Jolly Playmates,” and “Spring listeners in suspense. Avoiding
A Romantic symphony Replete.” However, by the time the both the musical arguments of
The title of the “Spring” Symphony symphony was published, he had Beethoven and the discursive
was taken from a poem by Adolf removed them. approach of Schubert, Schumann
Böttger that ends with the lines, found a way to direct the music’s
“Oh turn and turn and change your It is clear from the opening energy through juxtaposition and
course, In the valley Spring blooms brass fanfare, with its intense repetition, while still conveying
forth,” which inspired the opening feeling of expectation, that this is subtle emotions. He also avoids
of the symphony. The poem is using traditional key structures
about a melancholy lover whose To send light into the so that the second subject—or
pain is heightened by the arrival of darkness of men’s hearts— melodic theme—is in a minor key,
spring, but Schumann claimed that such is the duty of the artist. adding a note of melancholy.
a longing for spring in general
inspired the work. In a letter to the Robert Schumann The symphony’s second
conductor William Taubert in 1843, movement often seems as if it were
he wrote, “I should like the very first originally written for the piano—
trumpet call to sound as though a criticism frequently leveled at
proceeding from on high and like a Schumann’s orchestral works—
summons to awaken. … It might be but this brings an original, almost
possible to feel the world turning improvisatory quality to the piece
green; perhaps … a butterfly that marked a departure from
fluttering.” In Schumann’s first classical strictures. Meanwhile,
in choosing to write the third

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 169

I feel so entirely in my element considerable acclaim. In using Form gives way
with a full orchestra; even if programmatic titles and literary to expression
my mortal enemies were … references, as well as in the very
before me, I could lead them, sounds of the music he produced, The music composed by the
master them, surround Schumann helped to define the Romantic generation strove to
them, or repulse them. early Romantic ethos. reflect the importance of the
Robert Schumann individual. Taking their cue in
The early Romantic symphony part from Beethoven—whose
movement as a scherzo and trio, paid more attention to orchestration Ninth Symphony had broken
Schumann was influenced by than the classical symphony had; the mold—composers sought
Beethoven, who had created this it used a wider palette of orchestral to create music free from
structure out of the older minuet timbres and combined instrumental well-established structures,
and trio, but here, too, Schumann’s forces in new ways. Instruments such as the minuet and trio
composition contains further that had previously been less and the rondo, and develop
innovation: there are two trios popular—such as the harp, tuba, other forms, such as the
instead of the usual one, and they and trombone, as well as a number sonata principle and fugue.
are in different time signatures. of percussion instruments—also
The last movement of the “Spring” became standard features. Their innovations gave
Symphony is traditional in its the music of the Romantic
structure but full of a humor that Composers of this period seldom composers an immediacy that
seems to anticipate Tchaikovsky thought of themselves as markedly enabled it to be more easily
in his lighter moments. Toward different from their classical understood by middle-class
the end, Schumann has one last forebears and were essentially audiences, who were generally
surprise in store—a theme from his trying to bring the new “Romantic” untrained in music but wished
piano piece Kreisleriana suddenly spirit of revolutionary politics to to enjoy it as entertainment.
appears in a slightly altered form. life, using quite traditional means. In the same vein, Romantic
Although it is not known why he However, as the wider Romantic works were often given titles
did this, such self-quotation was movement gained traction, some to help new listeners grasp
not unusual for Schumann. innovative composers—such as the mood and story of the
Berlioz and Liszt—experimented, music. Some musicians, such
not always successfully, with new as Berlioz and Liszt, would
approaches to harmony, rhythm, even provide a written
and structure. It was this spirit of program to explain the
experimentation that paved the intended narrative of the
way for late Romanticism. ■ music to their audience.

New approach
Almost entirely self-taught as
a composer, Schumann brought
an originality and freshness to
the symphony that earned him

The German city of Leipzig became
Schumann’s home from 1828. He wrote
many works at the house he shared
with his wife, Clara Wieck. Situated on
Inselstrasse 18, this is now a museum.

170 IN CONTEXT

IWTVNHOAAELSLULEDANYRSAOOTNWFINMNPOOLETUADESU…DITS FOCUS
19th-century sacred
ELIJAH (1846), FELIX MENDELSSOHN choral music

BEFORE
1741 Handel composes his
oratorio, Messiah.

1829 Felix Mendelssohn
conducts Bach’s St. Matthew
Passion for the first time since
the composer’s death in 1750.

AFTER
1857 The Handel Festival at
the Crystal Palace in London
includes a performance of
Messiah with a choir of 2,000
people and an orchestra of
500, creating a vogue for very
large choral performances
in England.

1900 Edward Elgar composes
The Dream of Gerontius—a
setting of an 1866 poem by
Cardinal Newman—for the
Birmingham Music Festival.

C horal music had started
to wane in popularity by
the 19th century. The
Classical period had heralded a
new philosophy that deemed
music to be at its purest when it
was self-contained and referenced
nothing outside itself. Instrumental
music—especially the symphony—
had become the most important
genre. While church musicians kept
the choral tradition alive to some
extent, they were increasingly
amateurs. Secular choirs began to
flourish, but because they were not
professional musicians, the prestige
of choral music suffered, compared
to other types of music. In the
absence of a market for choral

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 171

See also: Magnus Liber organi 28–31 ■ Canticum Canticorum 46–51 ■
Monteverdi’s Vespers 64–69 ■ St. Matthew Passion 98–105

Oratorios, such as Elijah, were
regularly performed with huge choirs
and crowd-drawing soloists at the
Crystal Palace, London, and elsewhere
in England during the Victorian era.

sacred music, there was also little professional conductor and defray Felix Mendelssohn
incentive for composers to write concert expenses. It started as an
new choral works. As a result, the educational venture for wealthy Born into a wealthy German-
choral music performed tended to ladies, then went on to include men Jewish family in 1809, the
draw on works from the past. in 1791, and thereafter gave regular young Mendelssohn was a
concerts. It was here that the young child prodigy. He excelled
An appetite for oratorios Felix Mendelssohn, whose father not only at the piano, violin,
In England, regular renditions was a member of the choir, first conducting, and composition
of Handel’s oratorios in the late came across the works of J.S. Bach but also at painting, fencing,
1700s marked the start of a trend and was inspired to conduct a and riding. At the age of 20,
that continued through the 19th performance of the St. Matthew he conducted a performance
century. Among the first works Passion, which helped to establish of the St. Matthew Passion—
to be revived after the composer’s the Bach revival in Germany. the first since Bach’s death.
death, they were often updated Further choral societies sprang up
for large, grandiose performances. throughout Europe and America, Mendelssohn’s visit to
At later music events, such as the and publishing choral music England in 1829 was well
Three Choirs Festival (instituted became a lucrative concern, as received and made a great
by the cathedrals of Hereford, some choirs needed in excess of impression on him, resulting
Worcester, and Gloucester), 300 copies of a vocal score for a in nine further extended trips
choirs could number more than single performance. and invitations to Buckingham
a thousand singers—a far cry from Palace. As well as composing
the composer’s original intentions. It was almost certainly through and performing, Mendelssohn
attending performances of Handel’s conducted the Leipzig
The Berlin Singakademie was oratorios in London in the 1790s Gewandhaus Orchestra and
one of the first choral societies to be that Haydn was inspired to create also founded the Leipzig
established, with amateurs paying a similar work in the Classical style. Conservatoire. Following
a regular subscription to engage a The Creation, based on the Book of ill-health, possibly due to
Genesis, was published in 1800, overwork and the death of
and curiously in a bilingual edition his beloved sister, he suffered
in both German and English— a series of strokes and died in
probably because Haydn had an 1847, at the age of 38.
eye on the British market, in which
he was very successful. The Creation Other key works
was an instant success and was
performed throughout the Western 1826 Overture “A Midsummer
world in Haydn’s lifetime. Even as Night’s Dream,” Op. 21
his other music dropped out of the 1833 Symphony No. 4 in
standard repertoire, this oratorio A major (“Italian”), Op. 90
remained one of the core works 1844 Violin Concerto in
for choral societies and festivals. E minor, Op. 64

It was within this cultural
climate that Mendelssohn
composed his oratorio St. Paul in ❯❯

172 19TH-CENTURY SACRED CHORAL MUSIC

1836. Its subsequent performance Never before was anything it still reflects the Early Romantic
(in an English translation) in like this season … I got period in its colorful orchestration
Liverpool, England, and later in through more music in and subtle lyricism. The chorales
the US gained him a reputation as two months than in all mark structural divisions in the
a composer who was sympathetic the rest of the year. music, as found in the Bach
to the possibilities of amateurs Felix Mendelssohn Passions. Also, unlike other works
performing his works. of the period, a surprisingly wide
Eventually, she sang the soprano variety of styles and textures can
Mendelssohn had conducted role of Elijah in London in 1848, be heard, which is reminiscent of
St. Paul for the Birmingham after Mendelssohn’s death, in a Handel. However, Mendelssohn
Triennial Music Festival in 1837, charity concert that funded the also uses innovative forms, such
and its organizers requested a new Mendelssohn Scholarship, which as including the choir in certain
oratorio for 1846, the year before he still exists today. recitatives for dramatic effect, and
died. The composer at first declined he attempts to bring a sense of
the invitation but was persuaded to Elijah itself has a curious hybrid unity to the whole work by linking
write Elijah when told that the quality. Although clearly influenced movements and using recurring
festival could provide as many by the Baroque and modeled on motifs, both of which were musical
performers as he requested. Its the oratorios of Bach and Handel, devices of his own era. Of special
premiere featured an orchestra of interest are the fugues in the
125 players and a chorus of 271 overture and finale, which clearly
singers. The organizers even tried demonstrated to the Romantic
to engage the famous Swedish generation that this Baroque form
opera singer Jenny Lind, for whom could be revived to great effect.
Mendelssohn had tailored the
soprano part. However, because Elijah was immediately
this would have been her British successful, especially in its English
debut, she declined, preferring an version, and became a mainstay
opera to showcase her vocal skills. of choral concerts throughout the
19th century. Later commentators,
however, often found it too
conventional and considered it a
product of mid-Victorian values.

Grand sacred works
While many composers of the
period were not very interested in
choral music, Hector Berlioz created
two of the grandest choral works
in the repertoire. With their
extraordinarily large forces, his
Requiem of 1837 and his Te Deum,
first performed in 1855, are vivid
examples of the excesses of
High Romanticism; the Requiem
requires four off-stage brass
ensembles while the score of

The prophet summons the Israelites
in the bass recitative “Draw near all ye
people” from the oratorio Elijah. This
page, handwritten by Mendelssohn, is
from an original 1846 score of the work.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 173

Four strong Elijah’s curse Somber since, opinion has been divided
chords introduce woodwind and as to whether it is a religious work
brass are used. The or an outpouring of rather more
drama and brighter strings drama than sacrament.
foreboding.
are silent. A “human” requiem
Brahms’s German Requiem was
Descending A final drum roll perhaps the most singular sacred
tritones, imparts a sense choral work of the period. It was his
of doom. first major composition and brought
signaling danger, him international acclaim. He
are capped by a avoided the traditional requiem
trombone blast. Mass text, instead creating his
own from the Lutheran Bible. There
Mendelssohn’s Elijah begins with the prophet’s curse on King is a focus in the work on comforting
Ahab and the Israelites. Their punishment for corrupt governance the living, no reference to the Day
and the worship of false idols will be a terrible drought. of Judgment, and no mention of
Jesus. Brahms thought of it as a
the Te Deum specifies 12 harps. As between secular operatic and “human requiem” rather than
a result, performances were—and sacred choral works. Verdi belonging to any particular
still are—rare and impractical, and composed it in the operatic style, theological outlook, which is
so this music had little opportunity with immense drama, especially perhaps why it is still so frequently
to affect the genre. Composers in the powerful “Dies Irae,” and performed. Written in seven large
such as Rossini wrote a number wrote parts for female voices at sections, the musical material
of cantatas, but these tended to a time when the Catholic Church is tightly organized around the
be overshadowed by their more used only men in its choirs. The opening notes sung to Selig sind
popular operas and are seldom Requiem’s first performance was (“Blessed are”). This creates a very
heard. It was Verdi’s Requiem at St. Mark’s in Milan, but its unified whole, in which Brahms
that managed to bridge the gap second was at La Scala. Ever seems to have avoided using any
previous models. A work of subtle
majesty, the German Requiem
stands in sharp relief to most
choral music of the 19th century. ■

Music in Victorian Britain

Between industrial innovation wealthy background, and even Prince Albert plays the organ for
and empire building, the arts— feted by the Queen, became Mendelssohn as Queen Victoria looks
especially music—were rather ubiquitous. Meanwhile, the brass on. The composer enjoyed several
marginalized in early Victorian band movement in northern visits to Buckingham Palace in 1842.
Britain. Although there was a England and music halls in the
thriving concert culture, it was cities were both thriving musical
predominated by foreign artists. outlets for the working classes.
Yet, with a rapidly expanding,
wealthy middle class, there Later in the century, the search
were many amateurs—young for a cultural identity inspired
women especially—who needed British classical musicians, which
socially acceptable music to also led to the creation of British
play. In this climate, Songs conservatoires. Figures as diverse
Without Words by Mendelssohn, as Sullivan and Elgar emerged
a “respectable” composer from a from this new, so-called “English
Musical Renaissance.”

174

IOSLPOOERRVEEAC—IKTLAIELTSI’SASN

LA TRAVIATA (1853), GIUSEPPE VERDI

IN CONTEXT I t was usual in the first decades Italian tenor Francesco Meli
of the 19th century for Italian performs as Violetta’s lover, Alfredo,
FOCUS opera to be concerned with in the brindisi drinking song in a 2016
Italian opera the tragedies of the great and production of La traviata. His love for
noble. Giuseppe Verdi challenged Violetta brings shame upon his family.
BEFORE this and produced operas about
1829 Rossini shocks the ordinary people as well. However, it wasn’t until well into
musical world by retiring Verdi’s creative life that he fulfilled
from opera after his final Verdi enjoyed notable early his democratic ambitions with
stage work, William Tell, successes, such as Nabucco (1842), three masterpieces composed in
premieres in Paris. based on the biblical story of quick succession—Rigoletto (1851),
Nebuchadnezzar II. Its chorus Il trovatore (1853), and La traviata
1848 Composer Gaetano “Va pensiero,” in which the Hebrew (1853). Rigoletto focuses on the
Donizetti dies, 13 years after slaves lament the loss of their eponymous character—a hunchback
his compatriot Vincenzo homeland, would later become an who, in trying to protect his
Bellini, leaving Verdi as the anthem for Italian independence.
leading light of Italian opera.

AFTER
1887 Milan hosts the premiere
of Verdi’s Otello, his first opera
since Aida in 1871.

1890 Italian composer Pietro
Mascagni’s masterpiece
Cavalleria rusticana premieres
in Rome and ushers in the
naturalistic, melodramatic
“verismo” style of opera.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 175

See also: The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■ Der Freischütz 149 ■ Tosca 194–197 ■
The Wreckers 232–239 ■ Peter Grimes 288–293

daughter, unwittingly brings about censors, so the opera was set in the To copy the truth can
her undoing; Il trovatore tells the 1700s for the premiere. La traviata be a good thing, but to
melodramatic tale of the beautiful was nonetheless unique as it boldly invent the truth is better,
Leonora who is caught between confronted society’s hypocritical
two men and a gypsy woman’s treatment of women. much better.
vengeance; and in La traviata (“The Giuseppe Verdi
fallen woman”), a courtesan named Although some of La traviata’s
Violetta sacrifices her love and, most famous numbers—especially written for the opening of the new
ultimately, herself, for the sake of the brindisi drinking song in Act opera house in Cairo in 1871, marked
the patriarchal society that seeks One—feature crowd scenes, La a break for Verdi, who was unhappy
to control her. These three operas traviata is an opera remarkable for with the importation of French and
confirmed Verdi’s break away from its moments of intimacy. Verdi German opera to Italy. Verdi began
what he described as his galley draws us into the world of his to focus on other aspects of his
years: time spent producing works heroine, and this groundbreaking life and composed little after the
to order for the “opera industry.” focus on a female protagonist paved Missa da Requiem of 1874, written
the way for others, such as the in memory of the nationalist poet,
Bending the rules gypsy heroine of Georges Bizet’s Alessandro Manzoni, until his
Verdi managed to manipulate and Carmen (1875)—a character from final two pieces, which were both
subvert operatic conventions to French opera, who is similarly based on works by his beloved
achieve a synthesis of tradition and drawn from the literary world (from Shakespeare: Otello (1887) and
innovation. With La traviata, he a story by Prosper Mérimée) and Falstaff (1893). ■
took a subject drawn from a well- similarly exposed the hypocrisy
known novel, La Dame aux camélias of 19th-century sexual mores.
(The Lady of the Camellias) by
Alexandre Dumas, and, in a step Final masterpieces
unprecedented then, set the Verdi’s many subsequent works
drama at the time of composition. saw the composer tackle the
Ultimately, the portrayal of a fallen different conventions of grand
woman in modern society was opéra in such masterpieces as
rejected as too risqué by the Italian Don Carlos, composed for the Paris
opera in 1867. However, Aida,

Giuseppe Verdi Verdi was born in Busseto, become the most successful
northern Italy, in 1813. His father, opera composer of his day, and
an innkeeper of modest social from the 1850s his music was
standing, encouraged his son’s embraced by the nationalist
early education, and a wealthy Risorgimento movement.
merchant in the town, Antonio
Barezzi, paid for the young Verdi In 1859, Verdi married the
to study in Milan. operatic soprano Giuseppina
Strepponi, staying with her until
In 1836, Verdi married Barezzi’s her death in 1897. Verdi himself
daughter, but both she and their died four years later, in 1901.
two young children died four
years later. In spite of this tragedy, Other key works
Verdi’s career began to take off.
His breakthrough came with 1842 Nabucco
Nabucco in 1841. Over the 1867 Don Carlos
following decade, he produced 1874 Missa da Requiem
13 operas. The 1850s saw him 1887 Otello

176

HDWEOHVLOIDLH,HOLIMELTDWSHEITMLHLE

FAUST SYMPHONY (1854–1857), FRANZ LISZT

IN CONTEXT Mephistopheles holds a mirror up T he central myths of
to Faust in a poster created by Richard European art can often
FOCUS Roland Holst for a 1918 Dutch National be traced back to sources
The Faust legend and Theatre production of Goethe’s play. thousands of years old. Unusually,
German Romanticism the Faust legend is a more recent
phenomenon, based on a real
BEFORE person. The original Johann
1830 The premiere of Berlioz’s Faustus was a late 15th-century
Symphonie fantastique, with magician-illusionist, who claimed
the young Liszt in the Paris to be in league with the devil. His
audience, sees the debut of the dubious career traveling through
Romantic symphony orchestra, the southeast German region
much more colorful than those of Thuringia even secured him
that came before. a doctorate from Heidelberg
University. The Faust story had
1846 Berlioz conducts already become part of folklore
the first performances of The when the literary doyen of the
Damnation of Faust, based on German Romantic movement,
Goethe’s Faust Part I. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
began to explore the character
AFTER in the 1770s.
1861 Liszt arranges a piano
version of his Mephisto-Waltz Powerful appeal
No. 1, which was originally Romanticism had multiple roots in
written for orchestra. the political and social upheavals of
its time. With industrialism came
1906 Mahler composes his the rise of a middle-class less
Eighth Symphony; its main beholden to the Church and the
movement is a huge setting of aristocracy, and in this more
the closing “Chorus mysticus” liberated climate, Goethe’s verse-
scene of Goethe’s Faust Part II. play Faust developed a potent
appeal. Faust concerns the
corruption of a secular, rational
mind. Goethe’s hero is a brilliant

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 177

See also: Stamitz’s Symphony in E-flat major 116–117 ■ Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor 128–131 ■ “Eroica” 138–141 ■
Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■ Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 166–169 ■ Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 188–189

agnostic philosopher, whose Berlioz. Enthralled, he sketched out A frontispiece of sheet music for
intellectual disillusionment leads some ideas first for an opera, then a Lizst’s Faust Symphony, published
him to be waylaid by the demon symphony, but the idea remained in Leipzig, Germany, lists the main
Mephistopheles’s offer of a world on hold until he had settled in characters of the symphony and the
of sensual and sexual satisfaction. Goethe’s adopted hometown of type of orchestral arrangement.
Weimar. In 1854, over a period
In the poem’s first part of two months, he composed added the finale, with its tenor
(published in 1808), Faust is and orchestrated the first three soloist and male-voice choir, for the
introduced to the trusting young movements of his Faust Symphony. first performance three years later.
Gretchen, whom he seduces, Dedicating the work to Berlioz, he
impregnates, and abandons to Rather than following Goethe’s
madness and death. The second complex narrative, each of the
part (completed in 1831) finds the symphony’s first three movements
remorseful Faust applying his presents a portrait of one of the
powers to the cause of human main characters. The long first
good; as Faust’s death approaches, movement portrays the multiple
Gretchen’s soul intercedes for him, layers of Faust’s restless nature
and angels carry Faust aloft to a in a complex, chromatic musical
higher world. The legend was taken language (based on all 12
up in Charles Gounod’s grand opera semitones in an octave). While
Faust, Robert Schumann’s oratorio Gretchen’s movement is Faust’s
Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, and by opposite in its sweet winsomeness,
Wagner in his Faust Overture. The Mephistopheles has a diabolic
most significant musical version, Scherzo, in which each theme is
however, is the one by Hungarian a distortion of one already used
virtuoso Franz Lizst. to portray Faust. The finale is a
radiant choral setting of the poem’s
Liszt’s Faust concluding “Chorus mysticus,” as
The young Liszt was introduced to Gretchen’s theme leads Faust’s
Faust Part I (in Gérard de Nerval’s soul, much like in Goethe’s version,
French translation) by his friend into a transfigured musical world. ■

Franz Liszt In 1848, Liszt moved with the
Ukrainian Princess Carolyne
Born in Raiding, eastern Sayn-Wittgenstein to Weimar,
Austria, in 1811, Liszt showed where he composed principal
early talent as a pianist. He works of the Romantic era. Later,
studied in Vienna, where he he took minor Catholic orders
played to an amazed Beethoven, in Rome. In 1886, Liszt died of
and his subsequent teenage pneumonia in Bayreuth, Germany.
years in Paris consolidated his
standing as the supreme pianist Other key works
of his time. At 24 years old, he
eloped to Switzerland with 1842 Années de pèlerinage
Countess Marie d’Agoult; later, (Years of Pilgrimage)
in Italy, they had three children 1853 Piano Sonata in B minor
but drifted apart as Liszt 1856 Dante Symphony (choir
pursued a relentless concert and orchestra)
schedule throughout Europe. 1868 Christus (choral oratorio)

178

IGWANINDHTDDIHRYTELHMWEAARADZOLAETUNSZNC’DSERGSAILY

THE BLUE DANUBE (1867), JOHANN STRAUSS II

IN CONTEXT O ne of the most instantly Europe’s ballrooms. Couples held
recognizable waltzes ever one another face to face as they
FOCUS written, An der schönen, twirled around the floor, in contrast
19th-century waltz music blauen Donau (By the Beautiful to the stately minuets and other
Blue Danube) was first performed in French-style court dances that
BEFORE Vienna in February 1867 as a choral the waltz was starting to replace.
1819 Carl Maria von Weber’s piece, conducted by its Austrian By the early 1800s, the waltz had
Invitation to the Dance is composer, Johann Strauss II. spread throughout Europe, with
the first waltz written for Comprising five interlinked waltz Vienna as its capital. Invigorated
concert performance rather themes, it was designed to lift the first by Johann Strauss I, then his
than dancing. spirit of the Austrian nation after son, it became the signature
its defeat by Prussia in the Seven dance of the 19th century. ■
1823 Schubert writes Valses Weeks’ War. It was, however, the
sentimentales, a collection of purely orchestral version, premiered
34 waltzes for solo piano. in Paris later that year, that took
off. The lilting beauty of Strauss’s
1834 Chopin’s Grande valse melodies made the piece beloved
brillante is the first of his solo the world over.
piano waltzes to be published.
Waltzes have their roots in
AFTER the country dances of southern
1877 Tchaikovsky’s Swan Germany, Bohemia, and Austria.
Lake is one of many late From the mid-1700s, more refined
19th-century ballets and versions, with a distinctive triple
operas that feature waltzes. beat, started to become popular in

1911 Maurice Ravel publishes A statue of “The Waltz King”
a suite of waltzes, Valses playing the violin stands in Stadtpark,
nobles et sentimentales. Vienna. As a child, Strauss practiced
the violin secretly, as his musician
1919–1920 Ravel composes La father wanted him to become a banker.
valse, about the rise and fall of See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70–71 ■ Water Music 84–89 ■ Symphonie
the waltz as a musical genre. fantastique 162–163 ■ The Nutcracker 190–191

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 179

IILNILKIWVEEAATIFNEIRSMHUSIC

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN G MINOR (1868),
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS

IN CONTEXT T he French composer replaced the usual fast-slow-fast
Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano sequence of movements with a
FOCUS Concerto No. 2 premiered in slow-fast-faster progression, giving
19th-century solo Paris in May 1868. It had taken him rise to the quip that it “begins with
concertos 17 days of flat-out labor to finish it Bach and ends with Offenbach.”
in time for the concert, which his
BEFORE friend, the Russian musician Anton Lack of rehearsal time resulted
1830 Chopin’s Piano Concerto Rubinstein, conducted. Saint-Saëns in a disappointing premiere, but the
No. 1 in E minor is premiered played the solo part. concerto won admirers and remains
in Warsaw, Poland. a staple of the concert repertoire.
Exploring the form Saint-Saëns wrote another three
1836 Clara Schumann writes Solo concertos had evolved over the concertos for the piano, three for
her Piano Concerto in A minor, course of the 19th century. Dazzling the violin, and two for the cello. ■
nine years before her husband, displays by virtuoso performer-
Robert Schumann, writes his composers, notably violinist He who does not get
Piano Concerto in A minor. Paganini and pianists Chopin and absolute pleasure from
Liszt, dominated the years after a simple series of well-
1849 Liszt completes the final 1810, with the orchestra providing constructed chords, beautiful
version of his Piano Concerto little more than a backdrop. Later only in their arrangement,
No. 1 in E-flat major. figures, such as Robert Schumann, is not really fond of music.
called for a better balance. Camille Saint-Saëns
AFTER
1868 Grieg composes one Most major composers of the
of the most popular piano time, including Mendelssohn,
concertos ever written, his Brahms, Grieg, and Dvorˇák, wrote
Piano Concerto in A minor. concertos and experimented
widely with the form. In his Piano
1881 Johannes Brahms Concerto No. 2, Saint-Saëns ignored
completes his Piano Concerto convention by opening not with
No. 2 in B-flat major. the orchestra but with a solo piano
prelude in the style of Bach, and he

See also: Pièces de clavecin 82–83 ■ Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor, K.9,
“Pastorale” 90–91 ■ Clementi’s Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor 132–133

WEEP,OPERA MUST MAKE PEOPLE

FEEL HORRIFIED, DIE

TRHICEHRAIRNDG CWYACGLNEE(R1848–1874),



182 COMPLETE ART WORK

IN CONTEXT T wo things changed beyond The valkyrie Brünnhilde meets the
recognition in Wagner’s lovers Siegmund and Sieglinde to warn
FOCUS lifetime: German opera and Siegmund of his imminent death. This
Complete art work Germany itself. The country that he scene from Wagner’s Die Walküre was
grew up in was little more than a painted by Gaston Bussière (1893).
BEFORE group of loosely linked principalities
1821 Weber’s Der Freischütz, and kingdoms, while German opera for even a fraction of the quasi-
considered to be the first before Wagner was fighting a losing religious devotion that Wagner’s
German Romantic opera, battle against imports from France vast musical dramas inspired.
premieres in Berlin. and Italy—apart from a few notable
exceptions. Beethoven’s Fidelio, The road to Revolution
1824 Beethoven completes Mozart’s Don Giovanni (performed More than any other composer
his Ninth Symphony. In a form in German in the German-speaking before him, Wagner’s own life
that was traditionally wordless, lands), and the Romantic operas of and art were intertwined with the
Beethoven’s use of words in Carl Maria von Weber represented developments—political, historical,
the symphony’s finale greatly the only resistance against the and philosophical—of the world
influenced Wagner. prevailing taste for foreign operatic around him. From an early age,
imports, often poorly performed in he was fascinated with how to
1849 After being forced into the various court theatres that were combine drama and music, and
exile, Wagner begins a series dotted around Germany. increasingly, with how a new sort
of essays setting out a plan for of opera could help revitalize the art
reforming opera. The first step By the time of Wagner’s death in form in Germany, as well as inspire
later becomes The Ring. 1883, Germany was a nation-state. and unite the country itself. He was
German opera—or, more correctly, unusual among opera composers
1862 Wagner conducts Wagnerian opera—had conquered in that he always wrote his own
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony France, Italy, and beyond. Other librettos (the words that were set to
in Bayreuth to celebrate the composers rushed to emulate his music) and did so even in his early
laying of the corner stone of harmonic adventurousness and his operas. His first opera, Die Feen
the Festspielhaus. richly symphonic style and longed

AFTER
1883 Wagner’s widow Cosima
takes over the running of the
Bayreuth Festival, exercising
iron control until her death
in 1930.

1933 Hitler comes to power
in Germany and, as an ardent
Wagnerian, involves himself
intimately with the running
of the festival.

1976 Bayreuth’s centenary
staging of The Ring, later
widely televised, presents
the work as a critique of
19th-century industrialization.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 183

See also: The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■ Der Freischütz 149 ■ La traviata 174–175 ■ Tosca 194–197 ■
The Wreckers 232–239 ■ Peter Grimes 288–293

(“The fairies,” 1834) delved deep Wagner founded at Bayreuth. They With one bound I became
into Romanticism, while his second, show the composer increasingly a revolutionist, and acquired
Das Liebesverbot (“The ban on love,” breaking down the traditional
1836), loosely based on Shakespeare’s structures of opera—blurring the the conviction that every
Measure for Measure, was closer to lines between individual arias, decently active being ought
Italian comic opera. duets, and choruses, and focusing
on the psychological development to occupy himself with
A largely unsuccessful period in of characters of unprecedented politics exclusively.
Paris in the late 1830s exposed the complexity. The operas addressed Richard Wagner
young composer to the bel canto of subjects that would concern him
Vincenzo Bellini (whom he much for the rest of his creative life: came up with the idea of the
admired) as well as to grand opéra, redemption, the nature of desire, Gesamtkunstwerk (literally
a local genre whose extravagant and, in Tannhäuser, how religion “complete art work”), which would
scenic features would broaden his can and should temper this desire. combine all the elements of stage
theatrical horizons. The German- performance in one. His new works
born composer Giacomo Meyerbeer Theory and practice would amalgamate the genius of
was among the most successful Wagner’s involvement in the Beethoven and Shakespeare and
exponents of this type of operatic uprising in Dresden in 1849—part be modeled on ancient Greek
spectacle. Wagner’s next work, of a series of republican revolts drama, which, as far as Wagner
Rienzi (1840), was modeled closely that swept through Germany understood it, not only combined
on Meyerbeer’s style and proved to and other parts of Europe—led all the arts but did so in a way
be his first breakthrough, leading to a warrant being issued for his that was essential for uniting a ❯❯
to Wagner’s appointment as arrest, forcing him into exile in
Kapellmeister (director of music) Switzerland. During the first five
at the Dresden Court Theatre. years in exile, he did not compose a
single note of music, concentrating
Wagner’s subsequent works in instead on setting out the
the 1840s, Der fliegende Holländer foundations for his operatic reforms
(The Flying Dutchman), Tannhäuser, in a series of long essays. It was
and Lohengrin, are the earliest during this period that Wagner
operas included in the canon of
works performed at the festival that

Richard Wagner Wagner was born in Leipzig most ambitiously in The Ring. In
in 1813 and was drawn to the the 1860s, his fortunes improved
theatre at an early age, also thanks to the financial aid of
developing an obsession with King Ludwig II of Bavaria, which
music—particularly Beethoven. gave him new artistic freedom.
His early years were dominated Wagner died in Venice in 1883,
by instability, exacerbated by his the year after Parsifal premiered
irresponsible attitude toward in Bayreuth.
money. His operas began to see
success in the 1840s, and a job as Other key works
Kapellmeister in Dresden followed,
but both were jeopardized by his 1841 The Flying Dutchman
political activism. 1848 Lohengrin
1859 Tristan und Isolde
Forced into exile in Switzerland 1867 Die Meistersinger
in the 1850s, he set about a von Nürnberg
wholesale reform of opera: first in 1882 Parsifal
theoretical essays, then in practice,

184 COMPLETE ART WORK

population. Wagner sought to originally called Siegfrieds Tod I shall never write an
create an artistic experience with (“Siegfried’s death”), led to him Opera more. As I have no
religious, social, and ethical aspects. expanding it backward, adding wish to invent an arbitrary
more and more prehistory in each title for my works, I will
Such an artwork would gain additional work.
yet further resonance with its call them Dramas.
audience, he argued, by being This process also necessitated Richard Wagner
based on subjects rooted deep in the development of “leitmotif”—a
their unconscious, ideally myth. technique latent in his works of the with conversation-like directness
In his new “music dramas,” as his 1840s but raised in The Ring to a (using punchy alliterative verse
works became known, he would be level of extraordinary complexity called Stabreim), while the
able to harness the power of music and sophistication. This method orchestra provides commentary.
to explore the inner workings of allowed Wagner to weave together
his characters. Unlike with the continuous acts over large spans For the “first day” of the cycle,
predominant forms of opera, in but also meant that the orchestra Die Walküre (“The Valkyrie,” 1856),
which musical concerns and, in the could begin to offer “commentary” Wagner created music of far greater
worst cases, the vanity of singers, on the action, much as the chorus sensuality and warmth, in part
were primary considerations, here had done in ancient Greek drama. because this installment added
it would be the drama that would humans into the tale, specifically
define the form of the music. Wagner finally completed his the long-lost twins Siegmund and
text for the cycle by 1852, and he Sieglinde, who fall in love during
Composing the world began composing the music shortly the course of the first act. (The
The work that came closest to this afterward, without any realistic
aim was a cycle of operas, Der Ring prospect of the works ever being
des Nibelungen (“The ring of the performed. Das Rheingold, which
Nibelung”), based on a mixture of Wagner called a “preliminary
Norse and Germanic mythology. evening” to the main drama, came
It was not initially conceived as a first and was the nearest Wagner
tetralogy (a cycle of four works), but came to realizing the theoretical
Wagner’s inability to progress with ideal laid out in his essays.
the subject as a single opera, The opera’s cast of Norse gods,
dwarves, and giants communicate

Timeline for the production of The Ring

The Ring was made up of four operas, Key Tristan und Isolde First performance
which Wagner worked on in two distinct Text written Die Meistersinger
phases during his lifetime, beginning
and ending with Götterdämmerung. Music composed

Das Rheingold Munich
Die Walküre
Siegfried Bayreuth

Götterdämmerung 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885
1845

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 185

Tristan and its chord

Inspired by his discovery
of Arthur Schopenhauer's
philosophies and a romantic
obsession with Mathilde von
Wesendonck—the wife of his
Swiss patron—Wagner began
composing Tristan und Isolde
in 1857, finishing it less than
two years later. The work,
which explores the adulterous
romance and subsequent
death of the legendary lovers,
arguably laid the foundations
for the breakdown of tonality.
In it, Wagner creates a
disorientating, intoxicating
world built on harmonic
tension that—reflecting
the drama’s obsession with the
impossibility of perfect love—
remains unresolved until the
very end. Emblematic of this
work is the so-called “Tristan
chord”—the first chord in the
Prelude—whose apparently
unrelated notes of F, B, D-sharp,
and G-sharp form the basis
for the work’s harmonic
instability. The Tristan chord,
as used by Wagner, was
hugely influential on composers
seeking to push—and break—
the boundaries of harmony.

Wagner’s style was not popular with creative output. Not only did Tristan und Isolde (1859) first
everyone, as seen in this American Schopenhauer present a philosophy premiered in Munich in 1865,
cartoon (1877), which criticized the of pessimism incompatible with starring Ludwig Schnorr von
dense noise of Götterdämmerung, the revolutionary zeal that inspired Carolsfeld and his wife Malwina
the last opera of the Ring Cycle. The Ring, but he viewed music as Garrigues as the doomed lovers.
the most profoundly expressive of
promotion of incest was just one of any of the arts—turning Wagner’s
many sins the composer would be drama-first conviction on its head.
accused of during his career.) By
1856, however, Wagner had also Breaking the cycle
discovered the philosopher Arthur In practical terms, Wagner’s
Schopenhauer, who would prove discovery of Schopenhauer brought
to be a powerful influence on his about a break in his composition ❯❯

186 COMPLETE ART WORK

of The Ring: he stopped composing cycle, bringing an even greater The English National Opera
Siegfried (the “second day” of the harmonic richness to the third act performs “The Ride of the Valkyries”
cycle) after completing a draft score of Siegfried and to the fourth opera, at Glastonbury Festival in 2004. The
of the second act in 1857. He did Götterdämmerung (“The twilight well-known piece comes at the start
not return to it for seven years. of the Gods”)—in which the Ring of Act Three of Die Walküre.
is finally returned to the Rhine
During the interim, Wagner Maidens, and Valhalla, home of the The theatre that Wagner built in
completed two very different works, gods, collapses. Wagner completed the Franconian town of Bayreuth
both of which were deeply inspired his final installment in November to stage The Ring in 1876 is in
by Schopenhauer’s philosophy— 1874, 25 years after first starting many ways as revolutionary as
specifically, its idea that relative work on the project. the works it was built to stage.
fulfillment could be achieved only It has a broad auditorium, with
through renunciation. The first of Festival theatre long rows of seats laid out to
these new works was Tristan und Upon completion of The Ring, resemble an ancient amphitheatre.
Isolde (completed in 1859, though Wagner decided that no existing The orchestra and conductor are
not performed in its entirety until theatre would do to stage it and not visible to the audience, as
1865), an overtly philosophical and set about raising funds for a new their pit is sunk beneath the stage.
sensuous work in which Wagner Festspielhaus (festival theatre). In an unprecedented step for the
pushed traditional harmony to
its limits. The second work, Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The
master-singers of Nuremberg,” 1867),
was a comedy of unprecedented
dimensions—the final act alone is
more than two hours long when
staged—that dealt with profound
issues, such as the place of art
within society, art’s relationship
with national identity, and the
balance to be struck between rule-
based tradition and innovation.

When Wagner finally returned
to his composition of The Ring, he
immediately applied the musical
and philosophical lessons learned
from his interim projects to the

I laid my plans on so important Leitmotif musical fabric—specifically in
a scale, that it would be the orchestra—of the work was
The leitmotif (or “leading motif”) built from melodic fragments
impossible to produce this technique is related to Berlioz’s that become associated with
opera … at any lesser theatre. idée fixe, a fixed idea or theme different characters, ideas,
in a work, which he used in his or states of mind. From the
Richard Wagner Symphonie fantastique. It is very first performances of The
also related to other earlier Ring, attempts were made to
forms of “reminiscence motif,” a “decode” these leitmotifs and
recurring set of notes signifying to interpret the orchestral
a character or their memories. writing as a commentary on
Motifs were utilized to a greater the drama. The technique
extent, and with unprecedented went on to be widely adopted—
sophistication, in Wagner’s The including, in the 20th century,
Ring, however, where the whole by film composers.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 187

time, the lights in the auditorium wife, Cosima, famously complained conventional symphonies and
would be extinguished during the that the costumes, painstakingly those who were fully under the
performance, and comings and researched, made everyone look Wagnerian spell.
goings were forbidden. like Native American chiefs. The
dragon Wagner had ordered from Leitmotif became a standard
Operatic pilgrimage Manchester, UK, for Siegfried, never technique for a generation of
From the very first festival in 1876, arrived in full—the neck section, younger composers, many of whom
the great and the good flocked the story goes, ended up not in attempted, after Wagner’s death,
to Bayreuth, and with Wagner’s Bayreuth but Beirut. to create earnest facsimiles of his
final opera, Parsifal (1882), the operatic works. Italy, traditionally
unmistakable allure of the festival A new beginning the home of opera, had a crisis
only grew. Things were not The legacy of The Ring, Wagner’s of musical identity, torn between
straightforward, however, and the Bayreuth project, and the composer embracing Wagner’s innovations
unprecedented scenic demands himself cannot be overestimated. and preserving its own revered
of The Ring were only imperfectly Wagnérisme was fashionable in traditions. Thanks to Wagner,
met at its first production. One of Paris at the end of the 19th century opera—which he once criticized
Wagner’s most vocal critics, Eduard as artists were inspired by the for being too susceptible to
Hanslick, said that the rainbow heady mix of religion and sex in frivolousness—was now an art
bridge that leads to Valhalla at the Parsifal. Meanwhile, in Vienna, form that dealt with the grandest
end of Das Rheingold resembled a debate raged between those who philosophical questions and
“seven-colored sausage”; Wagner’s supported Brahms and his more demanded a new revolutionary
sort of music to do so. ■

The opera house Wagner had Bayreuth Festspielhaus
built in Bayreuth was designed
by Gottfried Semper, with Dressing rooms beside
continental seating (no central the stage for the opera's
aisle) that allowed all patrons principal singers.
an equal view of the stage.

Wings providing Deep stage to allow
access to the stage action in the foreground,
from the dressing rooms. middle ground, and
background.
Sunken orchestra pit Wooden interior to
to give the illusion that provide greater resonance.
the sound is coming Fantailed seating
from the stage. instead of traditional
No boxes or galleries, horseshoe shape to focus
in line with Wagner’s attention on the stage.
democratic principles.
Darkened auditorium to
create a “mystic chasm.”

188

IHFFRESO…EMNGTCOOSDMTREASIGASHT

SYMPHONY NO. 1 (1876),
JOHANNES BRAHMS

IN CONTEXT I n the first decades of the Franz Liszt. Brahms believed in
19th century, Beethoven took producing “pure” music, which was
FOCUS the symphony to new heights, abstract, rather than associated
Fall and rise of making it the most important with a plot line.
the symphony genre in the Austro-German
tradition. In the wake of his death, In 1853, Brahms met Robert
BEFORE a handful of composers stepped Schumann and his pianist wife,
1824 Beethoven completes in to assume Beethoven’s mantle. Clara. Schumann, who was the
his Symphony No. 9. Among them was German composer of four symphonies,
composer Johannes Brahms, who hailed Brahms as the great hope
1853 Robert Schumann hails deplored program music—music
Brahms as the hope of German that sought to follow or describe Brahms and Adele Strauss, wife
music in an influential essay, a narrative line—and openly of Johann Strauss II, sit down to
Neue Bahnen (“New Paths”). criticized the New German School breakfast in his villa in the summer
represented by Richard Wagner and of 1894. Brahms often visited their
1858 Brahms completes his villa in Bad Ischl, Austria.
First Piano Concerto, which
at one point was conceived
as a symphony, and his
First Serenade.

AFTER
1877 In a review, the
conductor Hans von Bülow
hails Brahms’s First Symphony
as “Beethoven’s 10th.”

1889 Mahler conducts the
premiere of his Symphony
No. 1 in Budapest, the first of
his nine completed symphonies.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 189

See also: Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 128–131 ■ “Eroica” Symphony 138–141 ■ Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■
Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 166–169 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177 ■ Dvorˇák’s Symphony No. 9 212–215

Johannes Brahms The son of a struggling musician, particularly close to his widow,
Brahms was born in Hamburg, Clara, and would be a friend of
northern Germany, in 1833. He hers for life.
received his first music lessons
from his father, and as a teenager In later life, Brahms focused
he helped support his family on instrumental music, but in
by playing piano in the inns of 1896, the year before his death,
Hamburg, before finding work he wrote Vier ernste Gesänge
as a choral conductor. (“Four Serious Songs”), reflecting
on the transience of life.
In 1863, Brahms settled in
Vienna, marking the start of a Other key works
highly successful period in which
he composed A German Requiem, 1853 Piano Sonata No. 3 in
the First Symphony, and his F minor, Op. 5
Hungarian Dances. In the years 1868 A German Requiem
following Robert Schumann’s 1869 Hungarian Dances (for
death in 1856, Brahms became piano duet)

of German music, describing the A German Requiem (1868), Brahms Brahms’s First Symphony, like
20-year-old composer as a “man of set Lutheran texts in a manner that Beethoven’s Ninth, moves from
destiny,” placing on Brahms the looked back to the earliest German darkness to light, with a stormy
weight of public expectation. choral music, while his so-called opening from bass and timpani
Haydn Variations (1873) explored an that subsides into a dreamy
First Symphony array of compositional devices old Andante before bringing in
Brahms started sketching his First and new in an orchestral context. urgent pizzicato strings. The third
Symphony soon after Schumann’s movement, the Allegretto, captures
endorsement but did not complete This synthesis of tradition a joyful atmosphere while at the
it until the mid-1870s—more than and innovation distinguished the same time showcasing Brahms’s
20 years later. In the interim, First Symphony, whose themes close attention to symmetry.
Brahms tried his hand at other fused folk song and chorale, as
symphonies, but none reached well as allusions to Bach and to Further works
fruition. Meanwhile, he composed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Following the success of his First
many orchestral and chamber Symphony, Brahms composed
works, including sonatas for violin, [Brahms is] someone three more, choosing to conclude
cello, and piano. He destroyed the destined to give ideal his Fourth Symphony (1885) with a
works he was unhappy with, but presentment to the thrilling passacaglia—a Baroque
parts of his attempts at symphonic highest expression form that develops its material over
writing were recast in other pieces, a constantly repeating bass line.
such as the opening of his First of the times. Brahms’s symphonies may seem
Piano Concerto. Robert Schumann conservative in comparison to
those who succeeded him—such
The intensely self-critical as Gustav Mahler, whose First
composer published his first string Symphony heralded a new direction
quartets—another Beethovenian when it burst onto the scene in
genre par excellence—only in 1889—but Brahms’s development
1873, and they, as well as two other of earlier forms and processes
important works rooted in different would prove influential for a whole
traditions, arguably paved the way generation of modernists. ■
for the symphonic breakthrough. In

190

TTHHEERNEOOTNESTHDEANSCTEAGUEP

THE NUTCRACKER (1892)
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY

IN CONTEXT T he 19th century brought a for dancers to explore “floating
revolution in the world of motion” and pointe work (dancing
FOCUS ballet. Earlier ballet music on tiptoe), with ever-shorter dresses
Ballet music had been largely made up of well- to allow the dancers’ feet and legs
known opera songs linked by to be seen. The music for these
BEFORE melodies written by a theatre earlier ballets was very much
1832 La Sylphide, the first musician. Few original scores for at the service of the dance, and
Romantic ballet, opens ballet were composed before 1820. usually written by “specialists”—
in Paris, choreographed by composers prepared to produce
Filippo Taglioni to music At this time, light Romantic light, rhythmic music that would
composed by Jean-Madeleine ballets began to appear, dominated not upstage the dance.
Schneitzhoeffer. in Europe by dancers such as Marie
Taglioni, whose father Filippo Ballet moves east
1870 Léo Delibes’s ballet choreographed La Sylphide to From about 1850, ballet’s center
Coppélia, about a dancing doll showcase her skills. Its central began to shift from Paris to Russia,
that comes to life, is staged at themes of enchantment and an where tsarist patronage facilitated
the Paris Opéra. ethereal female lead were a vehicle lavish productions. Tchaikovsky
received the commission for his
1876 Delibes’s ballet Sylvia The heart of the first ballet, Swan Lake, in 1875.
opens in Paris. Tchaikovsky classical repertory is the Approaching the commission
praises his score for Sylvia with symphonic ambition, he
above Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Tchaikovsky–Petipa created melodies associated with
Sleeping Beauty, and characters in the story. The critics,
AFTER however, were not ready for a ballet
1911 Stravinsky’s ballet no ballet is harder score worthy of the concert hall,
Petrushka premieres in Paris. to get right. and in spite of a warm audience
reception, critical incomprehension
1920 The Paris Opéra stages Robert Gottlieb saw the work shelved.
the premiere of Stravinsky’s
Pulcinella, with choreography American writer and dance critic While the choreographer on
by Leonid Massine. The Swan Lake, Julius Reisinger, had
libretto is inspired by a allowed Tchaikovsky quite a lot of
folk tale. freedom, the choreographer Marius
Petipa was more specific about
what he required of the music when

See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70–71 ■ The Magic Flute 134–137 ■ ROMANTIC 1810–1920 191
Le Sacre du printemps 246–251 ■ Romeo and Juliet 272 ■ Appalachian
Spring 286–287 Pyotr Ilyich
Tchaikovsky
he collaborated with Tchaikovsky defeat a vicious Mouse King, the
on Sleeping Beauty (1890). The work Nutcracker turns into a prince, who Born in Votkinsk, Russia, in
was well received by the critics, takes her to the Land of Sweets, 1840, Tchaikovsky received
and the two men joined forces again ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy. piano lessons from an early
for The Nutcracker two years later, age. He enrolled at the newly
although illness compelled Petipa The charm of Tchaikovsky’s opened St. Petersburg
to delegate much of the work to his score is in large part due to his Conservatory in 1861 and
assistant Lev Ivanov. creative use of the orchestra, wrote his First Symphony in
from the sinuous woodwind of the 1866. His Romeo and Juliet
Fairytale ending Arabian Dance and the trilling overture (1869) was his first
Composition of The Nutcracker flutes’ and piccolos’ contrast with international success.
had a difficult start. Tchaikovsky felt the low bassoons in the Chinese
constrained by the unimaginative Dance, to the novelty of the celesta, Despite recognizing
libretto Petipa had created from a newly invented keyboard his own homosexuality,
Alexandre Dumas’s adaptation of instrument with bars like a Tchaikovsky entered a
German author E.T.A. Hoffman’s glockenspiel, to introduce the Sugar doomed marriage in 1877.
darker tale. The composer finally Plum Fairy. While the music gave A year earlier, the wealthy
found inspiration in the death of his Petipa and his dancers the lead widow and arts lover
sister, his childhood playmate. He they required, Tchaikovsky’s unique Nadezhda von Meck had
poured his memories of her into the sonority raises the music far above become his patroness,
music, particularly into the central the old music of the “specialists.” ■ enabling him to devote his
character, the young girl Clara, time to composing. Von Meck
who creeps down on Christmas Columbine and Harlequin evoke declared herself bankrupt
Eve to play with her favorite gift, a The Nutcracker’s fantasy world in in 1890, causing a rift with
nutcracker figure, which magically costumes designed by Denmark’s Tchaikovsky. The fatalism
comes to life. After she helps it to Queen Margrethe II for a production that often tinged his music is
in Copenhagen in 2016. clearly present in last works,
such as his Sixth Symphony
(“Pathétique,” 1893). He died
nine days after its premiere.

Other key works

1876 Swan Lake
1878 Eugene Onegin
1889 Sleeping Beauty
1893 Symphony No. 6
(“Pathétique”)

192

CALIOSKNYETMTAPHINHEOEWNVYOERRMYLUTDSH. TIITNBGMEUST

ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA (1896)
RICHARD STRAUSS

IN CONTEXT T he period after Richard traditional symphonic form. Gustav
Wagner’s death in 1883 Mahler expanded the form even
FOCUS was a time of uncertainty further, employing an orchestra of
From Romanticism for German music. Some composers unprecedented size in symphonies
to modernism sought to emulate Wagner in their that incorporated programmatic
own operas; others avoided opera elements and vocal parts.
BEFORE altogether and applied Wagner’s
1849 Franz Liszt completes innovations to music composed for New forms
his first tone poem, Ce qu’on the concert hall. Anton Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Mahler’s great
entend sur la montagne for example, brought Wagnerian contemporary, took a different
(“What one hears on the grandeur, dimensions, and route with the tone poem—a
mountain”), after the poem harmonic adventurousness to the musical form that seeks to capture
by Victor Hugo. the story or atmosphere of a
nonmusical work, such as a
1865 Richard Strauss’s father, poem or painting. The genre
Franz, plays the horn in the was pioneered by Franz Liszt
premiere of Wagner’s Tristan and formed the basis for Strauss’s
und Isolde in Munich. early reputation as a firebrand.

AFTER Strauss’s breakthrough was the
1903 Gustav Mahler conducts daringly erotic Don Juan (1888), and
the first full performance of his in the next decade he produced a
100-minute Third Symphony, series of works that combined his
which he completed in 1896. virtuosity as an orchestrator with
formal innovation—eschewing,
1917 The premiere is held of for example, the need for a piece
Alexander von Zemlinsky’s to end in the key it begins in.
A Florentine Tragedy, an opera Controversial at the time, Strauss’s
based, like Strauss’s Salome, works were not written to be
on a work by Oscar Wilde.
The prophet Zarathustra’s
(or Zoroaster’s) writings about Ahura
Mazda (god) form the basis of the
Zoroastrian faith. This portrait of him
hangs at a fire temple in Yazd, Iran.

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 193

See also: The Four Seasons 92–97 ■ Faust Symphony 176–177 ■ The Ring
Cycle 180–187 ■ Symphonie fantastique 162–163 ■ Das Lied von der Erde 198–201

I would only believe the way for his brand of amoral Richard Georg Strauss
in a God that knows modernism, epitomized in his
scandalous breakthrough opera The son of a famous horn
how to dance. Salome (1905)—based on a play by player, Richard Strauss was
Friedrich Nietzsche Oscar Wilde that featured incest, born in Munich in 1864.
necrophilia, and blasphemy. After early success with
Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–1891) Age of uncertainty his tone poems and songs
Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra (many composed for his wife),
edifying or morally empowering, as depicts a conflict between nature, he finally found the operatic
demanded by 19th-century musical which is represented by the success he longed for with
aesthetics. This aligned him with trumpet’s simple opening C-G-C Salome (1905), followed by
other “modernist” composers, motif, and humanity, whose Elektra (1909). The latter
whose defining feature was their complex passions and intellectual marked the start of a 20-year
emphasis on innovation and struggles are conveyed by more collaboration with the writer
progress—redefining composition harmonically adventurous writing. and librettist Hugo von
by challenging formal conventions. The tone poem includes nine Hofmannsthal—one of the
sections, named from Nietzsche’s greatest partnerships in
Role of the artist book, with music that includes a operatic history.
Also sprach Zarathustra (“Thus mocking fugue and a light-hearted
spake Zarathustra,” 1896) was waltz. Man and nature remain Strauss’s prestige suffered
arguably Strauss’s boldest tone unreconciled at the work’s daring in the 1920s and especially in
poem. The 35-minute work took conclusion, which vacillates the 1930s, as his relations
its title from the book by Friedrich uncertainly between the keys with the Nazi Party tarnished
Nietzsche, in which the philosopher of C major and B major. ■ his reputation in the English-
used the character of the ancient speaking world. In the 1940s,
Persian prophet to present his Also sprach Zarathustra was however, the elderly Strauss,
philosophy. In Strauss’s own words, completed in 1896. This frontispiece heartbroken by the national
he set out “to convey in music an from that year, printed in Munich by catastrophe, produced a series
idea of the evolution of the human Joseph Aibl, prefaced the original of late works, including the
race from its origin, through the orchestral score. Four Last Songs, composed
various phases of development … just months before his death
up to Nietzsche’s idea of the in Garmisch-Partenkirchen,
Übermensch” through his tone Germany, in 1949.
poem. This idea of the Übermensch
(superman), a figure unburdened by Other key works
conventional morality or religion,
resonated well with Strauss’s own 1888 Don Juan
vision of the role of the independent 1905 Salome
artist at the dawn of the 20th 1911 Der Rosenkavalier
century. It also helped to pave 1949 Four Last Songs

194 IN CONTEXT

EOAMRFTOILTILSIONANESAKLSIND FOCUS
Verismo
TOSCA (1900), GIACOMO PUCCINI
BEFORE
1890 Winner of a competition
for a new one-act opera,
Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria
rusticana launches the
“verismo” (realism) music
movement in Rome.

1892 Modeled on Cavalleria,
Ruggero Leoncavallo’s opera
Pagliacci is a hit in Milan,
consolidating verismo style.

AFTER
1904 Puccini suffers a setback
when Madama Butterfly is
booed at its premiere in Milan,
although it bounces back three
months later in Brescia.

1926 Two years after Puccini’s
death, his Turandot, completed
by his younger colleague
Franco Alfano, is premiered
at La Scala in Milan.

W ith the first performance
of Cavalleria rusticana
in 1890, a new kind
of opera was born. Rather than
being based on romanticized
historical or legendary subjects,
it strove for realism (or verismo, in
Italian), embracing down-to-earth,
sometimes sordid events, lived by
believably ordinary people in often
contemporary settings.

At this time, Puccini, a former
flatmate of Cavalleria’s composer
Pietro Mascagni, was six years into
an opera career. This had begun in
1884 with Le villi, a picturesque
leggenda drammatica (dramatic
legend) based on the same story of
dead spirits as the romantic ballet

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 195

See also: Orfeo ed Euridice 118–119 ■ The Barber of Seville 148 ■
Der Freischütz 149 ■ La traviata 174 ■ The Wreckers 232–239 ■
Peter Grimes 288–293

Giselle (1841). It was followed five Although Manon Lescaut was not Giacomo Puccini
years later by Edgar (1889), an opera truly a “realist” work, it contained
set in a 14th-century world of two scenes in particular that sat Born into a family of church
medieval knights. Although not squarely in the new style. In Act III, musicians in Lucca in 1858,
the strictest follower of verismo, the poignant spectacle of the Puccini claimed to have
Puccini, once the new style became embarkation of the prostitutes decided on an operatic career
established, took its passionate, condemned to transportation and, after watching a performance
heartrending, and cruel elements in Act IV, the heroine’s lengthy of Verdi’s Aida in Pisa in 1876.
and clothed them in daring music death scene in an American desert After studying at the Milan
that reached a breathtaking climax both provided a focus for some of Conservatory, he entered his
in the tragic opera Tosca. the most emotionally powerful one-act opera-ballet Le Villi in
writing in the score, delivered in a competition. Although it was
Embracing the realistic a style that epitomized the essence rejected for being illegible, it
Puccini’s first response to verismo of musical verismo. was staged by the publisher
was the opera Manon Lescaut Giulio Ricordi.
(1893), based on an 18th-century Puccini’s next opera, La Bohème
French novel by the Abbé Prévost. (1896), set among down-at-the-heels Puccini’s breakthrough
This had already been turned into artists and their girlfriends in came in 1893 with Manon
several operas, notably Manon Paris around 1830, was closer to Lescaut, which put him at the
(1884) by the opera specialist, Jules the true subject matter of verismo. forefront of Italian composers.
Massenet. He was one of a number It also crystallized the intense Thereafter, he produced his
of French composers whose operas sentiment, characterization, and three greatest successes—La
had been gaining ground in Italian craftsmanship of the musical Bohème, Tosca, and Madama
theatres. These included Faust (1859) language of verismo that was ❯❯ Butterfly. His productivity
by Charles Gounod and Carmen slowed in later years, but the
(1875), the final masterpiece of Carmen talks to the smuggler operas La fanciulla del West
Georges Bizet, which shocked Le Dancaïre in a scene from Carmen (1910), La rondine (1917), Il
critics of the time with its earthy by Georges Bizet. The opera, with trittico (1918), and the
realism and amoral heroine. its themes of passion, jealousy, and posthumously produced
violence, was an influence on verismo. Turandot displayed increasing
refinement. He died of a heart
attack in Brussels in 1924
following an operation for
throat cancer.

Other key works
1896 La Bohème
1904 Madama Butterfly
1918 Il trittico

196 VERISMO

widely apparent in Puccini’s work. works of fellow composers, such as News of Napoleon’s victory at
This he handled with a greater Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky, and Marengo, pictured here by the
degree of flexibility and far more even Schoenberg, but also made French artist Louis-François Lejeune
technical variety and finesse than modernist musical initiatives of his (1775–1848), reaches Rome in Act II
most of his contemporaries. There own, many of which came to the of Tosca, three days after the battle.
was also in Puccini’s scores a fore in Tosca.
persistent interest in new musical by this time), seems to prefigure
developments from beyond Italy’s Using music for menace innumerable individuals who,
(or even opera’s) borders, which Puccini premiered Tosca, his fifth over the next century, served
added heightened expressive color opera, in Rome in 1900, a time of cruel, dictatorial regimes,
and richness to his music. He made great uncertainty and instability in including Fascist Italy.
use of the harmonies, rhythms, and Italian politics. Though clothed in
orchestral effects displayed in the the theatrical dress of a period 100 Scarpia is introduced in the
years prior to its opening, the opera concise motif of two chords on
dealt with issues and characters lower woodwind, brass, and
that seemed contemporary to its strings, followed by an unrelated
first audience but would become and clashing third chord by the
even more starkly relevant as the higher strings and woodwind, and
20th century progressed. In a lurid gleam from the cymbals.
particular, the figure of Scarpia, Every note in this chord sequence
the sadistic police chief, who is a is accented and marked “fff”
presence in the opera musically (“extremely loud”). Long before
from its opening bars right through we see him, here stands Scarpia
to the final act (although dead in all his power and brutality.

At the premiere of Tosca, the lead Musically, this tiny (yet
role was played by the Romanian-born sonically huge) motif also throws
39-year-old soprano Hariclea Darclée, our expectations of standard
seen here in Act II holding the knife harmonic progression out of kilter
she will use to kill Scarpia. by landing not only in a key
(E major) unrelated to the first
chord (B-flat) but in a diminished

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 197

fifth (a semitone less than a fifth) which, at first, is loud, violent, and of lyrical reflection, not simply as
below it, resulting in a tritone (an consistently moving off the beat. opportunities for aria or duet but
interval of three tones). Medieval gradually diminishes into a to voice the hopes, desires, and
musical theorists regarded this downward slither that ends up, memories that motivate them and
interval as highly disruptive and with a feeling of exhaustion, on drive the plot. The drama’s final
forbade its use, calling it diabolus another tritone. This image of impression is of individuals hurtled
in musica (“the devil in music”). disheveled flight and collapse along by events over which they
Puccini, who came from a long line serves as a second harbinger have little control, and certainly far
of distinguished church musicians, of what is to come in the opera. less than they believe they have.
would certainly have been familiar Its emotional and musical power
with the nickname. The opera’s action is based helped to redefine the English
on the play La Tosca (1887) by the tradition of choral music. ■
In a clear break with harmonic Frenchman Victorien Sardou,
orthodoxies, Puccini not only which was criticized at the time for Verismo
uses the motif to characterize his its dizzying tempo of unrelenting
secular devil-figure in the opera but action and reaction. Puccini’s Puccini’s Verismo creates a
also employs the theme throughout librettists despaired of making a musical naturalism that
the opera as an emblem of Scarpia’s viable libretto from it, but the
influence on events that take place composer was able to use daring reflects real life.
when he is not present, or even harmonic instability not only to
alive. The impact of this is to place contain but also to hold together, He places the emphasis on
harmonic instability at the center and even magnify, the play’s helter- psychological reality, with
of the musical action. skelter ride of swiftly changing
events as part of his overall emotionally charged arias.
Real drama musical strategy.
Immediately after the Scarpia He uses atmospheric music to
theme, the curtain rises on the Tosca’s three central characters suggest a sense of character
church of Sant’Andrea della Valle, all begin the drama with their lives
and we see the fleeing figure of apparently secure, yet through an and inner conflict.
Cesare Angelotti, a political unpredictable and unstoppable
prisoner on the run. Beginning in sequence of cause and effect, all
another unrelated key (G minor), three are dead by the curtain, in
the harmonic movement here is less than 24 hours. Yet Puccini
much faster. The chord sequence, still manages to give all three of
his chief characters their moments

Opera and the rise of the new reality

Verismo owed its philosophical often allied to a corresponding He uses familiar sounds,
basis to a literary movement focus on the social evils of such as church bells, to mimic
begun in France by the novelists poverty, crime, and violence.
Émile Zola (1840–1902) and everyday reality.
Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850). In opera, the new style’s
It was represented in Italy by emotional extremities were The ultimate effect is
the Sicilian Giovanni Verga, realized in taxing vocal writing, to make the music
whose short story and play which threw away the remnants and drama more
Cavalleria rusticana inspired of the display and niceties of bel
Mascagni’s opera of the same canto (“beautiful singing”) in personal, immediate,
name. The premise of verismo favor of hard-hitting directness. and effective.
lay in a scrutiny of the lives of Musical continuity was
“ordinary people”—usually increased with the dissolution
urban or rural workers—in a of the old divisions between
local and everyday setting and recitative (speechlike singing),
arias, and other set pieces.

198 IN CONTEXT

ISSWTFOAAOAYYSUICWNALOYGDHMIIANNTPTOOWIHTNSEOBEMRRHOUDATCSSHDOI,ECUHRLED FOCUS
Exotic worlds in music
DAS LIED VON DER ERDE (1908–1909),
GUSTAV MAHLER BEFORE
1863 Set in Ceylon, The Pearl
Fishers, by rising opera-
composer Georges Bizet, is a
success at its Paris premiere.

1882 Wagner’s final opera,
Parsifal, blending elements
of Buddhist spirituality with
Christian ideas and imagery,
is first performed at Bayreuth’s
Festival Theatre.

AFTER
1926 Maurice Ravel composes
Chansons madécasses (Songs
from Madagascar), based on
three prose-poems written in
1787 by Évariste de Parny.

1957 Benjamin Britten
conducts the premiere of
his ballet The Prince of the
Pagodas in London. The score
is influenced by Indonesian
gamelan music, which Britten
heard in Bali in 1956.

W hen Gustav Mahler
began work on the six
settings of Chinese
poems that make up Das Lied von
der Erde (The Song of the Earth),
he was exploring what was for him
new territory. But exotic oriental
subject matter was already a
familiar theme in European art and
culture, reflecting the yearning of
the popular imagination for more
colorful and intriguing worlds.

This sense of longing had come
into sharper focus in the 15th and
16th centuries, when long-distance
sea voyages had led to the discovery