Chapter 16Piano Music, Chamber Music, and Songs

Thursday, February 7, 13

Chapter Overview

• orchestral genres (symphony, concert overture) were “public” genres performed in concert halls for large audiences

• piano music, songs, and string quartets were more “private” genres, meaning they were performed for much smaller audiences in homes and salons

• end of the 1830s, the piano recital (for a large audience) emerges

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Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and String Quartets

• piano sonatas, though widely admired, were repeatedly criticized for their technical difficulty

• string quartets reflect trend toward increasing technical difficulty

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Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas

• Piano Sonata in C, Op. 53, “Waldstein”

- dedicated to Count Waldstein, an early patron from Bonn (later in Vienna)

- difficult passage work and broken octave scales beyond reach of most amateurs (Bonds p. 413)

- 1st mvmt. Sonata Form Exposition:

• Th-1 in C -- Th-2 in E

• mediant relationship between themes reflects the 19th century’s use of more harmonic chromaticism

- harmonically progressive, thematically still very Classical

• compare with Th-1 from Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 33, No. 3

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Beethoven’s String Quartets

• his string quartets show a trend toward greater difficulty

- early string quartets accomplished by good amateurs

- by the Op. 59 (1808) too difficult

- the late quartets among the most difficult in the genre

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Beethoven’s String Quartets

• String Quartet in Bb, Op. 130 (1826)

- 1st mvmt.

• beginning would have sounded very unique with unexpected starts and stops

• Th-1 in Bb -- Th-2 in Gb

- 2nd mvmt.

• fast Scherzo (very short compared to 1st movement)

- 5th mvmt.

• labeled a “Cavatina” though this term is used in Italian Opera, Beethoven uses it to mean a simple, introspective aria

• “beklemmt” marking use in m. 42. The player uses reduced bow pressure, creating a tone that is not full or beautiful, rather it is dramatically moving (Bonds p. 414)

- The original “Finale” of this string quartet published as “Grosse Fuge” Op. 133

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Music in the home. The private home was ideally suited for piano music and song. The

grandmother prefers the warmth of the tile oven, but everyone else (inclucing the dog) gathers around the piano.

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Song

• most contemporary performers and listeners preferred less demanding music

• popular genre (song for solo voice and piano) in first half of 19th century

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Song• German composers cultivated genre with much intensity

• Lied (plural is Lieder) is the German word for song

• Lied found prominence due to:

- rise of popularity of German poetry

• Fredrick the Great conducted official Prussian business in French

• German becomes a “literary” language with Goethe and Schiller (mid to late 1700s)

- growing availability of piano

• improvements in production makes more affordable (see Bonds p. 416)

- idealization of domesticity and family

• especially from Congress of Vienna (1815) to the Revolutions of 1848

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Song

• songs generally fall into one of three categories:

1. strophic - each verse (strophe) of a poem is set to the same music

2. modified strophic - music varies from strophe to strophe but remains recognizably the same

3. through-composed - no pattern of repetition

• song cycle: collection of songs ordered to convey a story or idea

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Song

• Schubert “Erlkönig” (D. 328)

- strophic poem but the Lied mixes elements of modified-strophic and through composed form

- four distinct characters in the Lied (narrator, father, son, and the Erlkönig)

- Schubert uses musical forces to create the world of Goethe’s poem

• piano rhythm (like the horse galloping); note what happens to the surface rhythm when they arrive at home

• each character has a unique range and melody

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Song• Schubert “Prometheus” (D. 768)

- Goethe’s poem is in free-verse

- Schubert uses a through-composed form

- passages marked “Recit.” are sung like an recitative from opera; with a declamatory style (Bonds p. 417)

• Schubert “Wanderers Nachtlied” (D. 768)

- title translates as Wanderer’s Night Song

- single strophe poem by Goethe

- through composed musical setting

- mood of the text reflected in the musical setting

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Song:Goethe’s “Kennst du das Land?”

• This poem set by many composers

• The text (Do you know the land) is by Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister's Years of Apprenticeship)

• By looking at four settings, we can see the changes the Lied underwent from Classical Style to Late-Romantic Style

- increase in level of complexity

- harmony: from straight forward diatonic to much more chromatic

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Song:Goethe’s “Kennst du das Land?”

• Johann Friedrich Reichardt "Italien" (Kennst du das Land)

- Good example of a Classical Period song

- Setting is: strophic, syllabic, technically undemanding, and the vocal range only slightly exceeds an octave

• Schubert’s setting

- strophic, syllabic, technically more demanding, range is octave + P4

- more harmonic complexity (mm. 1-8 move from F-Major to Ab-Major)

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Song:Goethe’s “Kennst du das Land?”

• Robert Schumann’s setting

- modified strophic form

- range is slightly larger than an octave but the high note is an A above the treble clef staff

- showing greater chromaticism

• mm. 1-11 move from Gm -- Bb -- Gm

• mm. 12-24 very tough to call the key

• by mm. 26-31 back in Gm

• note the III+ [Bb-D-F#] chord in m. 10

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Song:Goethe’s “Kennst du das Land?”

• Hugo Wolf’s “Mignon”

- high level of chromaticism

- level of difficulty very high for voice and pianio

- this setting shows traits common to Late-Romantic style

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African-American minstrels (ca. 1860s).rare photograph; instruments include tambourine,

violin, banjo, and castanets

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Song• songs for voice and piano popular in U.S.

• Stephen Foster (1826-64) was most important 19th-century American songwriter

• associated with pre-Civil War South because of contribution to subgenre of minstrel song

• minstrel songs

- typically performed by white performers in blackface

- purported to represent African American slave life

• Foster’s songs usually portrayed subjects with compassion and dignity

• Foster also wrote parlor songs

- parlor songs are typically strophic, with sentimental text, for performance in the home

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Song• Stephan Foster “Beautiful Dreamer”

- parlor song

- though written 1862, it is natural and direct (like early 19th century Lied)

- strophic setting

- simple melody and simple accompaniment

- harmony is diatonic

- what little chromaticism there is tend to be decorative melodic pitches and secondary dominants

• see m. 6, where the E-natural is a chromatic neighbor note

• see m. 15 -- V7/V

• see m. 20 -- V7/vi

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Song

• mélodie, as the song was know in France

• Russian composers often incorporated folklike elements

- often exhibit chromaticism and modal inflections

• Modeste Mussorgsky “V chetyrjokh stehakh”

- title in English is “In Four Walls”

- naturalistic declamation

- chromaticism

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The Character Piece• new genre associated almost exclusively with the piano

• instrumental counterpart to the song

• relatively small dimension

• portrays and explores mood of particular person, idea, situation or emotion

• brief, sectional and simple in construction

• ABA, AAB, or ABB pattern

• Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Gottschalk

• Mendelssohn’s Lieder ohne Worte (Songs without Words)

- Only tempos are given, no titles or hints as to their “words.

- see Bonds p. 423 for Mendelssohn’s letter about this

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The Character Piece

• Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel

- also wrote a set of Lieder ohne Worte

- her Piano Trio in Dm, Op. 11 extends the “character piece” idea

• third movement of this Piano Trio is called a Lied (song)

• strophic-like setting of the melody

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The Character Piece

• Chopin Mazurka in Am, Op. 17, No. 4

- 19th century piece modeled on a peasant dance in triple meter

- complex harmony, linear harmony typical of the Romantic Period style

• At the beginning, ask yourself what key we are in?

• In which measure are you sure of the key?

• What do you make of the final cadence?

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The Character Piece

• Chopin Preludes, Op. 28

- set of preludes which systematically work around the circle of fifths (Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier was a model)

- our anthology features the first 4 Preludes

• No. 1 C Major

• No. 2 A Minor

• No. 3 G Major

• No. 4 E Minor

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The Character Piece

• Chopin Ballade in Gm, Op. 23

- single-movement form

- longer than other “character pieces”; more developed like a piano sonata

- in modified sonata form

• Expo: Th-1 (Gm) -- Th-2 (Eb)

• Dev: various keys and themes worked; introduces a new theme

• Recap: Th-2 (Eb) -- Th-1 (Gm); themes reversed and in “wrong” keys

• Coda

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The Character Piece

• Schumann Carnaval, Op. 9 (1835)

- cycle of character pieces

- Carnival is a brief season of revelry just before Lent (Bonds p. 428); people wore masks, acting in ways they would not normally act

- filled with hidden messages; Schumann able to say things he might not normally say

• “Chiarina” marked passionato (the woman he will marry)

• “Estrella” marked con affetto (the woman he was currently engaged to)

• see Bonds p. 432

- these pieces are small-scale, single-theme works

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The Character Piece

• Liszt Nuage gris (1881)

- title translates and “Grey Clouds”

- in Late 19th Century style; highly chromatic; difficult to determine the key at times

• likely begins in Gm

• note the use of augmented triads (mm. 11-20); what key is this?

- seems related to the music of Debussy (Impressionism)

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The Virtuoso Showpiece

• highlighted performer’s ability to play works whose technical demands are far beyond capacities of average player

• Liszt (piano), Paganini (violin), Gottschalk (piano)

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The Virtuoso Showpiece

• Niccolò Paganini Caprice in Am, Op. 1, No. 24

- (1782-1840) Italian virtuoso violinist (and guitarist)

- legend says he made a pact with the devil to be able to play so well (he did nothing to stop the rumor)

- Caprice No. 24 is in Theme and Variations form

• each variation features a special effect or manner of playing the violin

• Variation 1: spiccato arpegiation (bouncing the bow lightly on the string)

• see Bonds p. 433 for details

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The Virtuoso Showpiece

• Franz Liszt Etudes d’exécution transcendante, No. 1

- Liszt was the great piano virtuoso

- the term “etude” used here means study, but it is not a beginner’s study; better to think of it as a study in virtuosity

• Schumann called them “...studies in storm and dread, fit for ten or twelve players in the world.” (Bonds p. 437)

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The Virtuoso Showpiece

• Louis Moreau Gottschalk The Banjo

- (1829-1869) born in New Orleans; toured in Europe and Latin America

- often performed his own music

- The Banjo “An American Sketch”

• uses syncopation typical of American folk music

• many of the mannerisms of the banjo are replicated

• sections marked “facilité” are simplifications to make the piece slightly easier

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