Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

 Symfony 3, 5, 9
 Symfony 3 was written to celebrate the memory of a great man  Napoleon
before he made himself emperor
 Deafness 3 stages
o Early period until 1802
 Ringing in the ears from age 28
 Heiligerstadt testament
 Letter to brothers of his last will written in 1802
o Middle period: heroic decade (1802 – 1813)
 Largely deaf from 1810
 Returned to Vienna after Heiligenstadt
 He wanted to make adjustments to his stile
o Complete deafness 1823 to 1827
 Symfony 5
o Fate symfony, “fate knocks at the door”
o Final in c major
 The immortal beloved
o 1812: letter to immortal beloved
 Love letter found after Beethoven’s death
 Nobody knows for whom he wrote it
 He had different women
 Josephine van Brunsvik, therese von Brunsvik, Therese
Malfatti
o Decreasing compositional output
o Antonie Brentano: a close friend of Beethoven
o Late period: 1814 – 1827
o Movie
 Symfony 9
o 1823: completely deaf
o Finale is based on Ode an die Freude, ode to joy
o 75 min
o Choir and 4 soloists
o Alle menschen warden brüder
 Missa solemis
 Piano concertos
 Violin concertos
 String quartets
o 16 string quartets
o Middle period
 7th to 9th string quarte: Razumovsky quartets
  Content, emotional range
o Late period
 Opus 131: 7 movements
 15th string quartet: Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesesenen
 Grosse fugue

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

 +/- 1000 pieces
 +/- 600 songs
o Die Schöne Mullerin: a rejection by a miller’s daughter
o Die winterreise: a wandering young man after a rejection
 9 symfonies
o No 8: Unvollendete
 16 string quartets
o No 12: Quartettsatz
o No 13: Rosamunde
o No 14: Der tod und das Mädchen
 Piano works: 21 sonatas, impromtus, momentus musicaux, Wanderer Fantasy
 Unfinished pieces
 Der Erlkönig (de elfenkoning)
o Narrator: middle range, begins in minor mode
o Father: lower range, minor/ major mode
o Son: high range, minor mode
o Erlkönig: major mode, break ostinato bass triplets
o A father is riding home with in his hands his dying son who tell’s him that
the fairyking is asking him to go with him and play. The fairy king is in
this story actually death that the son awaits
 Style
o Expanding form
o Change minor-major and vice versa
o Catabile melodies
o Postponed tonics
Hector Berlioz (1803 – 1869)
 Épisode de la vie artiste
 5 movements
o Reveries, passions
o Un bal
o Scene aux champs
o Marche au supplice
o Songe d’une nuit du sabbat
 4 harps, death bells, col legno
 Program music
 Idée fice  leitmotiv (Wagner) Dies Irae

Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)

 Pianist, piano pieces
o Piano concerto
 Songs: more dissonant, important piano part
o Frauenliebe und -leben
o Liederkreis
o Dichterliebe
 4 symfonies, chamber music
 Life and works
o Clara Wieck: schumanns wife she is a pianist and composer herself
 Split personality: Florestan and Eusebius
 Mental diseases

Fryderyk Chopin (1810 – 1849)

 Poland, France, Mallorca
 Paris; salon
 Short piano pieces: nocturnes, mazurkas, waltzes, preludes, etudes
 Long piano pieces: piano concertos, scherzo, ballads
 Cantabile and ornamental melodies; elegance Harmonic subtleties: modulations,
chromatism

New German school

 Franz Lizt, Hector Berlios, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss
 Programmatic, literary and theatrical
 Symphonic poem: orchestral piece, non- musical source
 ‘opponents’ of First Viennese school and Mendelssohn/Brahms
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
 “The new Beethoven”
 Friendship with Schumanns
 4 symphonies
 Solo concertos, chamber music
 Absolute music; no descriptive titles
 No “extreme” romanticism
 Conventional forms

Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896)

 Sonata form with 3 themes (Brahms)
 Slow harmonic rhythm (Wagner)
 9 symphonies (Beethoven)
 3 masses
 Cyclical works
 Music dedicated to God
 Success at age 60
 Big works, big orchestras: brass instruments

Italian opera
 Opera buffa: comic opera
 Opera seria: serious opera
 Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi
 Belcanto: color of the voice, vibrato, Maria Callas

Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868)

 One of the most popular composers of his generation, also in Vienna and Paris
 Composed rapidly, for commission and particular singers
 39 operas, sacred works, chamber music
 Retired at age 40
 Style
o Belcanto: virtuoso, lyrical and elegant, written ornaments (less
improvisation)
o Transparant and supportive orchestration, clear rhythms and phrases
o Rossini crescendo: repeated motif
Vincenzo Bellini (1801 – 1835)
 Opera seria
 Norma: casta diva
o Narma asks goddess of the moon for peace between Gauls and Romans
because of her forbidden love for a roman.

Guiseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

 Human drama: simple and clear vocal melodies
 26 operas, requim, string quartet
 Nabucco, il trovatore, La travista, Aïda, Otello

French opera
 Paris  cultural center of Europe, French revolution
 Grand opera after 1820: for underdeveloped middle class
 Opera comique
o Spoken dialogues
o Simpler than grand opera
 Opera lyrique
o Charles Gounod
 Faust
 Professor Faust sells his soul to the devol for invincibility
 Gounod: foust marries a young lady and leaves her,
Marguérite kills the child
o George Bizet
 Carmen
 Femme fatale, don José is in love with her and kills her:
crime passionel
 Longing for death

German opera
 Predecessor German Romantic opera: singspiel (Zauberflöte)
 Based on history, legends, fairy tales, the supernatural
 Village life, rural life
 Atmosphere: harmony and coloring (Italy: melody)
Carl Maria Von Weber (1786 – 1826)
 Der Freischütz
o Max sells his soul to the devil, hets seven bullets and wins shooting
contest. Agatha is protected against the devil’s bullet
o French horn in overture: gloomy forrest
o Wolf Glen’s scene (wolfskloof): preparing bullets, scary environment

Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)

 Limits of tonality, based on liszt’s chromatism
 Leitmotiv: motif belongs to character or subject
 Unendliche Melodie: avoidance of cadences
 Der ring des Nibelungen: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Der
Götterdämmerung

Fin de sciècle
 Relgion vs science
 Politics
o Liberalism
o Socialism
o Imperialism
o Nationalism
o Wars

Nationalistic music
 Expansion Germany
 “resurrection” Italy after domination by Austria
 French nationalism after French-German war
 Russia, Bohemia, Scandinavia, Spain, Hungary, Finland
o Own language
o National past in operas and symphonic poems
 Nationalism
o Smaller states disappeared
o German Federation disappeared
o Germany unified
o Austro-Hungarian empire
Russia
 Tsar Peter the Great open the borders to western countries
 European professionals entered Russia
 Russian Musicians were trained abroad
o Father of Russian music: lix Italian opera and Russian character: a life for
the Czar, operas based on Russian fairytales
 “Western” conservatory Saint Petersburg: 1862, Anton Rubinstein
o Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Shostalovich,…
 Free school of music
 The mighty handful
o Mily Balakirev (1837)
o Alexander Borodin (1833)
 40 compositions, string quartet no.2
o César Cui (1835)
o Modest Mussorgsky (1839)
 Pictures at an exhibition
o Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844)
 Symphonic suite sheherazade

Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)

 Western form principles
 Extremely passionate
 6 symphonies
 3 piano concerto
 Violin concerto
 Personality
o Insecure
o Gay
o Depressed
 Ballet music
o The Nutcracker
 Overture
 March
 Dance of the sugar plum’s fairy
 Waltz of the flowers
o Swan lake
 Swan lake theme
Rachmaninov (1873 -1943)
 Pianist, composer, conductor
 Personality
o Insecure
o Depressed
o Moved to USA
o Friendship Vladimir Horowitz
 Piano concerto no.2
o Depression after premiere no.1
o Hypnosis
o Successful

Scandinavian music
 Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
o Finlandia (1899), “Finland is awakening”: forbidden title
o Violin concerto (1904)
 Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907)
o Piano concerto
o Peer Gynt: “bad character”: flees to the Norwegian mauntains (trolls),
Africa and back to Norway
o Morgenstimmung: Peer wakes up in Africa, beginning of the Suite

Bohemian music
 Antonin Dvorak (1841 – 1904), source of inspiration: Brahms
o 9 symphonies, no.9: “from the new world”, composed in USA
 Leos Janacek (1854 – 1928)
 Bedrich Smetana (1824 – 1884): Ma vlast (my homeland): Moldau

Gustav Mahler (1860 – 1911)

 Bohemian-austrian composer, jewish background, composing between seasons
 “Last German-romantic symphonies”: synthesis of romanticism:
o Liszt, Berlioz, Wagner: experiments, innovation
o Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner: symphonies
 Symphonie 8 “symphony of a thousand”/”sinfonie der Tausend” attempt to get
his wife back
Franco-Prussian War
 1814: Congress of Vienna: German federation
 1865: Austro-Prussian war
 1870: German candidate for Spanish throne
 1870: Franco-Prussian war
 1871: United Germany
 1919: Treaty of Versailles
 1939: WW2
 After WW2: allies and trading partners
 Immerge of Impressionism

Impressionism in music
 Sober
 Suggestive
 Whole tone scale
 Pentatonic scale

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

 “music is made of colors”
 I try to do something else that some imbeciles call impressionism
 Long pedal notes
 2x12 preludes for piano
 La mer, piece for orchestra
 Suite bergamasque: clair de lune

Maurice Ravel (1875 – 1937)

 Half Spanish, half French
 Falling 5th, classical forms, virtuosity
 Piano concerto
 Bolero
 String quartet
Expressionism
 Response to the impressionism
o Impressionism: representation of how you see something
o Expressionism: representation of how you feel
 Expressionism: continuation of romantic subjectivism
o Romanticism: about desire, longing to love and death
o Expressionism: isolated, helpless, madness, rebellion

2nd Viennese school

 Arnold Schönberg (1874 – 1951)
o Early period until 1909: highly romantic and chromatic music, inspired by
Gustav Mahler
 Verklärte nacht (1899)  sources of inspiration: Wagner
(chromatism), Strauss (pogram music)
o Middle period (1909 -1920) free atonality, all notes equally important,
“emacipation of the dissonant”
 3 klavierstücke (1909): (the first atonal work)
o Late period (after 1920): dodecaphny/12-tone technique: all tones sound
as often as one another
 Pierrot Lunaire, 21 melodramas: sprechstimme
 Anton Webern (1883 – 1945)
o “for me, a piece is finished when the 12 tones has sounded.”
o Extreme reductions
 Alban Berg (1885 – 1935)
o Small oevre: 20-25 works
o Operas: Wozzeck and lulu(unfinished)
o Rows with tonal and harmonic potentials
o Violin concerto: death of Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler dem
Andenken eines Engels
Russian Revolution (1917 – 1923)
 Russian Empire (1721 – 1917): Tsarist government
 February revolution (1917): end of tsarist government
 October revolution (1917): Bolshevik government, Lenin
 Russian civil war (1917 – 1922)
 Foundation sovjet union
 Jozef Stalin: Leader from 1922 until 1953

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975):

 15 symphonies
o Under pressure from communist regime
o Lady Mcbeth (1934): “muddle instead of music”
o Symphony no.5 (1937): “response of a sovjet artist to legitimate
criticism”
o Symphony No.7: “Leningrad” (1941), WW2
o Symphony no.13 (1963): “Babi Yar” (Germans killed 100.000 Jews in Kiev)
 String quartets
o 15 string quartets
o String quartet no.8 (1860): Shostakovich in Dresden: remnants of
bombing
o D-S-C-H motif, also in 1st violin concerto, 1st cello concerto, 10th symphony
o Other works: suites for jazz orchestra, film music, paino trios, sonatas

Sergej Prokofiev (1891 – 1953)

 1918: moved to USA, 1920: moved to France, 1936: back to Russia
 Pianist and conductor: piano concert 2 & 3
 7 symphonies, violin concertos, Romeo and Julliet, Peter and the wolf, sonatas
 Died the same day as Stalin
 “Classical symphony” No.1: one of the first neoclassical works
Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971)
 Lived in Russia, France (1910), and USA(1940)
 General characteristics: rhythm and dissonance
 Versatility
o Early works (1910 – 1913): ballet music: Le sacre du Printemps
o Toward neoclassicism (1913 - 1920): short pieces: l’histoire du soldat
o Neoclassicism (1920 – 1950): symphonies des psaumes
o Twelve tone technique (1950 -1971)
o Also: film, jazz,…
 Le Sacre du Printemps (1913)
o Ballet music commishioned by Sergej Diaghilev, ballets Russes in Paris
o Le Sacre: tight rhythm, harsh dissonances, changes of time signature,
unusual timbre: extremely high bassoon in the beginning
o Controversial choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky
o Prehistoric story: a young virgin is chosen to dance herself to death as a
sacrifice to the god of the sun
o Tumultuous premiere
o Petrushka, L’oiseau de Feu

Neoclassicism (1920 – 1950)

 Anti-romantic movement: against individual subjectivity
 Visual arts: back to classic antiquity
 Objectivity
o Superhuman/mythology: religious works
o Use of baroque and classical balancing elements:
 Classical forms: sonata, symphony, …
 Transparent and smaller orchestration
 Clear rhythms
 Short melodic phrases
o But also
 Dissonant music; bitonality
 Time signature changes
o Neoclassicism: early elements in a contemporary context
o Stravinsky neoclassicism:
 Pulcinella (1920): ballet music; character from commedia dell’Arte
 Symphony in C (1940)
 Symphonie de Psaumes (1930)
 Choir orchestra
English music in the 20th century
 Edward Elgar (1857 – 1934)
o Enigma variations (1899)
 Romantic music: violin concerto, cello concerto
 Enigma variations: about friends and an artist’s loneliness
 Mystery possibly solved after more than 100 years
 Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958)
 Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976)
o War Requiem (1962)
 War requiem and violin concerto
 Pacifist and atheist
 Futility of war and hypocrisy of church
 Gustav Holst (1874 – 1934)
o The planets (1916)
 7 movements named after planets (pluto not yet discovered), each
with their own character
 Order of planets is a mystery
 Fade-out at the end of Neptune  out of the solar system

Jean Cocteau – parade (1917)

 Ballet; décor by Picasso, music by Satie
 Noise-making instruments: foghorn, gun, typewriter, milk bottles
 Street entertainment for the elite

Groupe des Six

 Satie: les nouveaux jeunes
 1920: Le groupe des Six
 Against romanticism and impressionism
 Uncomplicated, strong music, jazz
 Short pieces
 Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud
 Traditional: tonal centers, clear melodies
 New: Bitonal, dissonances, modality
Béla Bartok (1881 – 1945)
 Foundation Hungarian school
 Music around key centers: modality, whole tone, pentatonic
 Rhythm: changing time signatures, syncopation
o Percussion: piano, “Bartokpizzicato”
 Concert for orchestra

Olivier Messiaen (1908 – 1992)

 Unique composer, own compositional system (technique de mon langue musical)
 Teacher of stockhousen, Boulez, de Leeuw
 Catholicism/spirituality  angels  bird sonds
o Quatuor pour la fin du Temps
 Violin, clarinet, violincello, piano; 8 movements; 40-45 min
 Premiere in concentration camp, 1941; all musicians survived
o Turangalîla symphony Sanskrit:
 L^la = divine play in cosmos, lila = love
 Turanga = running time/movement
 10 movements, +/- 80 min

USA: jazz and classical music

 George Gershwin (1898 – 1937)
o Rhapsody in blue (1924)
o Porgy and bess (1935): porgy black beggar, tries to save bess from violent
lover and drug dealer
 Leonard Bernstein (1918 – 1990) : conductor, composer, celebrity
o West side story: rivalry between 2 teenage street gangs

Avant-garde in late 20th century

 Avant-garde: experimental, unorthodox, redical composers
o Arvo Pärt (1935)
o Pierre Boulez (1925 – 2016)
o John Adams (1945)
o Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928 – 2007)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791)
 Mozart’s life
o Born in Salzburg
o Affectionate child, wanted recognition
o Travelling around Europe with father
o Moved to Vienna, married Constanze Weber
o Self-employed and in service of emperor
o Financial problems and depressions
o Died in poverty, buried in mass grave
o Enlightment: reason and philiosophy instead of authority