Marie Sumner Lott
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039225
- eISBN:
- 9780252097270
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039225.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines three programmatic works for strings, each with a different relationship to the cultural and political scene of its day: George Onslow's string quintet “The Bullet” deals with a ...
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This chapter examines three programmatic works for strings, each with a different relationship to the cultural and political scene of its day: George Onslow's string quintet “The Bullet” deals with a hunting accident; Niels Gade's string quartet “Willkommen und Abschied” (Welcome and departure) interprets a Goethe poem; and Bedřich Smetana's string quartet “From My Life” provides a politically charged autobiography in tones. In all three cases, the composer has addressed a particular group of performers or listeners by using musical style and the written word to create a narrative that would resonate with a shared experience or identity. As such, these three works demonstrate the range of possibilities for programmaticism throughout the nineteenth century, as well as different points along the spectrum of depiction, from “characteristic” works that narrate a series of events with mimetic devices to more abstract works that attempt to translate a poetic ideal into musical sounds.Less
This chapter examines three programmatic works for strings, each with a different relationship to the cultural and political scene of its day: George Onslow's string quintet “The Bullet” deals with a hunting accident; Niels Gade's string quartet “Willkommen und Abschied” (Welcome and departure) interprets a Goethe poem; and Bedřich Smetana's string quartet “From My Life” provides a politically charged autobiography in tones. In all three cases, the composer has addressed a particular group of performers or listeners by using musical style and the written word to create a narrative that would resonate with a shared experience or identity. As such, these three works demonstrate the range of possibilities for programmaticism throughout the nineteenth century, as well as different points along the spectrum of depiction, from “characteristic” works that narrate a series of events with mimetic devices to more abstract works that attempt to translate a poetic ideal into musical sounds.
Jonathan Bellman
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195338867
- eISBN:
- 9780199863723
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195338867.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, History, Western
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to ...
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Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.Less
Chopin's Second Ballade, op. 38, composed in the late 1830s and published in 1840, is a well‐known yet poorly understood work. Not only was the piece rumored to exist in an alternate version and to derive—somehow—from the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there has even been disagreement on matters as basic as tonic key, form, and narrative content. The ballade is generally understood to relate in some way to Poland's increasingly precarious political status in the early nineteenth century and Russia's eradication of the last vestiges of Polish independence in 1831—turmoil that affected Chopin deeply on both the personal and the political levels. Discussions of the work's compositional strategies have tended to rely on the sonata‐allegro model and its contemporary variants, but these have not proven very fruitful. Instead, the formal and stylistic antecedents for the Second Ballade are to be found in the operatic repertoire, where a ballade tradition had been developing since the 1820s, and in the amateur piano repertoire, where narrative and depictive works had been a thriving genre for decades. A close examination of the Second Ballade reveals it to be a work more closely linked to the music of its time than has previously been realized: referencing well‐known operatic music and drawing on the repertoires and stock gestures of contemporary middlebrow music, it tells a story of Polish national martyrdom in a way understood by certain of Chopin's contemporaries but by virtually no one since. Reexamined in this light, the Second Ballade proves revelatory regarding both the composer's compositional aesthetic and the way his music engaged the wider culture.
Broyles Michael
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300100457
- eISBN:
- 9780300127898
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300100457.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition
After the musical canon became established in the Gilded Age, the status quo in American music persisted well into the second decade of the twentieth century. George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Horatio ...
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After the musical canon became established in the Gilded Age, the status quo in American music persisted well into the second decade of the twentieth century. George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Horatio Parker, and many other late romantic composers remained active and maintained much of their styles. Before 1915 two American composers, Charles Ives and Leo Ornstein, were writing unusual and original music. Despite their completely different backgrounds, career tracks, and historical reputations, both men arrived at musical positions that were remarkably similar and endured comparable problems. Both also wrote programmatic music in the broadest sense. In January and February 1915, Ornstein gave a series of four concerts at the Bandbox Theatre in New York City, by far the most significant event in his American performing career. His most uncompromising foray into modernism was the Violin Sonata, Op. 31. For Ives, his Concord Sonata was a bold move that established his name before the musical world. This chapter focuses on the lives and musical careers of Ornstein and Ives.Less
After the musical canon became established in the Gilded Age, the status quo in American music persisted well into the second decade of the twentieth century. George Chadwick, Amy Beach, Horatio Parker, and many other late romantic composers remained active and maintained much of their styles. Before 1915 two American composers, Charles Ives and Leo Ornstein, were writing unusual and original music. Despite their completely different backgrounds, career tracks, and historical reputations, both men arrived at musical positions that were remarkably similar and endured comparable problems. Both also wrote programmatic music in the broadest sense. In January and February 1915, Ornstein gave a series of four concerts at the Bandbox Theatre in New York City, by far the most significant event in his American performing career. His most uncompromising foray into modernism was the Violin Sonata, Op. 31. For Ives, his Concord Sonata was a bold move that established his name before the musical world. This chapter focuses on the lives and musical careers of Ornstein and Ives.
K. J. Donnelly
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199773497
- eISBN:
- 9780199358816
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199773497.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, History, Western
This chapter argues that musical sensibility and sensitivity are of benefit for critically addressing sound in film, and indeed film and audiovisual culture more generally. Sometimes music and sound ...
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This chapter argues that musical sensibility and sensitivity are of benefit for critically addressing sound in film, and indeed film and audiovisual culture more generally. Sometimes music and sound dominate films, determining the aesthetic patterns and having particular ramifications for sound and image synchronization. This is most obvious in film musicals and music videos, but musical techniques are also apparent in non-musical films as discussed here. Dominance by music is not surprising, perhaps, seeing as there has been a perceived close relationship between the processes of the moving image and music. Indeed, on some levels, there appears to be a shared core of aesthetics and assumptions. Furthermore, psychological conditions such as synaesthesia have extended into cross-medium traditions, based upon structural isomorphism, which is most evident in audiovisual cadences, visual music (visuals often without music), and programmatic music (music without visuals).Less
This chapter argues that musical sensibility and sensitivity are of benefit for critically addressing sound in film, and indeed film and audiovisual culture more generally. Sometimes music and sound dominate films, determining the aesthetic patterns and having particular ramifications for sound and image synchronization. This is most obvious in film musicals and music videos, but musical techniques are also apparent in non-musical films as discussed here. Dominance by music is not surprising, perhaps, seeing as there has been a perceived close relationship between the processes of the moving image and music. Indeed, on some levels, there appears to be a shared core of aesthetics and assumptions. Furthermore, psychological conditions such as synaesthesia have extended into cross-medium traditions, based upon structural isomorphism, which is most evident in audiovisual cadences, visual music (visuals often without music), and programmatic music (music without visuals).
