Music History 5

form of German music drama that developed out of the miracle plays in Germany

It is characterized by spoken dialogue, which is alternated with ensembles, songs, ballads, and arias (which were often lyrical, strophic, or folk-like), rather like an operetta.

ex: Mozart Magic Flute and beethoven Fidelio

total art work, unites all forms of art

associated with Wagner and his form of music drama (Der Ring des Nibelunges)

church reform concentrated in Italy

reaction to the near disappearance of Gregorian chant from Catholic mass from 1800-1900

wanted to revive chant and Ren. polyphony of Palestrina, Lassus and Victoria

lit. "leading motif", or perhaps more accurately "guiding motif") is a musical term (though occasionally used in theatre or literature), referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. In particular such a theme should be 'clearly identified so as to retain its identity if modified on subsequent appearances' whether such modification be in terms of rhythm, harmony, orchestration or accompaniment. It may also be 'combined with other leitmotifs to suggest a new dramatic condition' or development.[1] The term is notably associated with the operas of Richard Wagner, although he was not the originator of the concept.

piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section (a movement) in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another (non-musical) source is illustrated or evoked.

term first applied by Franz Liszt

• intended to inspire listeners to imagine or consider scenes, images, specific ideas or moods, and not to focus on following traditional
• patterns of musical form

ex Strauss, Don Juan

popular 1840-1920

ballroom or folk dance in 3/4 time

ex of Viennese waltz: The Blue danube, Strauss

Salon music was a popular music genre in Europe during the 19th century. It was usually written for solo piano in the romantic style, and often performed by the composer at events known as "Salons".

fairly short and often focus on virtuoso pianistic display or emotional expression of a sentimental character


composers: Chopin and Liszt

refers to a one-movement musical piece with lyrical and dramatic narrative qualities.

type of musical setting of French poetry common in the 14th and 15th centuries. One of the formes fixes, the ballade typically featured a prominent upper voice, which was texted, and two lower voices which may have been vocalised or performed with instruments. Guillaume de Machaut is the most famous composer of polyphonic ballades; the style continued to be popular among composers of the Ars subtilior, though it fell out of fashion by the middle of the 15th century.

4 Important large scale piano pieces by Chopin

other inst. ballade compsoers were Brahms, Liszt, Faure

single-movement character piece usually written for solo piano, the nocturne was cultivated primarily in the nineteenth century, inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

most famous use is Chopin- cantabile mlody over arpeggiated bass

a simple melodious air, as distinguished from a brilliant aria, recitative, et cetera, and often forms part of a large movement or scena in oratorio or opera.

Beethoven's 5th movement of his String Quartet No. 13.

Cabaletta describes the two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera, and is more properly the name of the more animated section following[

• In later parlance, cabaletta came to refer to the fast final part of
• any operatic vocal ensemble, usually a duet, rather than just a solo
• aria: the duet between Gilda and Rigoletto in Rigoletto ends with a relatively slow cabaletta.

Rossini and Verdi

often used to convey strong emotions: overwhelming happiness (Linda's famous cabaletta "O luce di quest anima" from Donizetti's Linda di Chamounix), great sorrow (Lucia's "Spargi d'amaro pianto" from Lucia di Lammermoor), timeless love (Lindoro's short cabaletta from Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri). Cabaletta is one of the most important elements in opera, particularly in belcanto opera:

"beautiful singing"- Italian opera term- evolved during baroque with da capo aria and castrati

prevalent 1700's-1840

In a narrower application, the term "bel canto" is sometimes attached exclusively to Italian opera of the time of Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Vincenzo Bellini (1801–1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848).

an impeccable legato production throughout the singer's (seamless) range,the use of a light tone in the higher registers,an agile, flexible technique capable of despatching ornate embellishments,the ability to execute fast, accurate divisions,the avoidance of aspirates and a loose vibrato,a pleasing, well-focused timbre,a clean attack,limpid diction, andgraceful phrasing rooted in a complete mastery of breath control.

The myth of Verdi as Risorgimento's composer also led to claims that the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used throughout Italy to secretly call for Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel II, then king of Sardinia.

• genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied to certain
• productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to around 1850

• Rossini, WilliamTell (1829)
• Jerusalem, Verdi (1847)

genre of opéra that contains spoken dialogue, and sometimes recitatives, in addition to arias. Not always comic or light in nature—indeed, Carmen, likely the most famous opéra comique, is a tragedy. It is sometimes confused with 18th-century French version of the Italian opera buffa.

arose in 1700's

characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.

Musicologist Carl Dahlhaus restricted his definition of musical modernism to progressive music in the period 1890-1910, although some say not time specific and apply to later composers like Cage with prepared piano, etc.

Historically speaking, musicologists primarily use the term "avant-garde music" for the radical, post-1945 tendencies of a modernist style in several genres of art music[1] after the death of Anton Webern in 1945.[2] In the 1950s the term avant-garde music was mostly associated with serial music.[1] Today the term may be used to refer to any other post-1945 tendency of modernist music not definable as experimental music, though sometimes including a type of experimental music characterized by the rejection of tonality.[2]

a musical genre that focuses largely on the timbral characteristics of sounds, often organized or performed to evoke an "atmospheric",[2] "visual"[3] or "unobtrusive" quality.

• Brian Eno is generally credited with coining the term "Ambient Music" in the mid-1970s to refer to music that, as he stated, can be either "actively listened to with attention or as easily ignored, depending on the choice of the listener", and that exists on the "cusp between melody
• and texture." Eno, who describes himself as a "non-musician", termed his experiments in sound as "treatments" rather than as traditional performances. Eno used the word "ambient" to describe music that creates an atmosphere that puts the listener into a different state of mind; having chosen the word based on the Latin term "ambire", "to surround".

Ambient music

• Stylistic origins
• 20th century classical music
• Electronic art music
• Minimalist music
• Drone music[1]
• Psychedelic rock
• Krautrock
• Space rock
• New Age

• Cultural origins
• 1970s, United Kingdom

• Typical instruments
• Electronic musical instruments, Electroacoustic music instruments, and any other instruments or sounds (including World instruments) with electronic processing

movement in European classical music, mainly in France, that began in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Like its precursor in the visual arts, musical Impressionism focused on suggestion and atmosphere rather than strong emotion or the depiction of a story as in program music. Musical Impressionism occurred as a reaction to the excesses of the Romantic era. While this era was characterized by a dramatic use of the major and minor scale system, Impressionist music tends to make more use of dissonance and more uncommon scales such as the whole tone scale. Romantic composers also used long forms of music such as the symphony and concerto, while Impressionist composers favored short forms such as the nocturne, arabesque, and prelude.

1890-1940

Debussy and Ravel

also known as American Primitive Guitar, is the music genre started by John Fahey in the late 1950s. Fahey composed and recorded avant-garde/neo-classical compositions using traditional country blues fingerpicking techniques, which had previously been used primarily to accompany vocals. Other famous early proponents were Leo Kottke, Robbie Basho and Peter Lang who all played at one time or another on Fahey's Takoma Records label.

use of more than one key simultaneously

Stravinsky, Rite of Spring

genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918.[2] Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged", rhythm.[2] It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published as popular sheet music for piano.[3][4] It was a modification of the march made popular by John Philip Sousa, with additional polyrhythms coming from African music.[5] The ragtime composer Scott Joplin became famous through the publication in 1899 of the "Maple Leaf Rag" and a string of ragtime hits that followed, although he was later forgotten by all but a small, dedicated community of ragtime aficionados until the major ragtime revival in the early 1970s.[6][7] For at least 12 years after its publication, the "Maple Leaf Rag" heavily influenced subsequent ragtime composers with its melody lines, harmonic progressions or metric patterns.[8]

name given to both a musical form and a music genre created primarily within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.[1] The blues form ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions—the twelve-bar blues chord progressions being the most common—and the blue notes, notes that for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale.

The 12-bar blues (or blues changes) is one of the most popular chord progressions in popular music, including the blues. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics and phrase and chord structure and duration. It is, at its most basic, based on the I-IV-V chords of a key.

• The blues progression, in C, is as follows:
• C C C C or C7 C7 C7 C7F F C C or F7 F7 C7 C7G F C C or G7 F7 C7 C7