Chapter 18: The Late Romantics

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Chapter 18The Late Romantics

• Late Romantic Program Music

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Key Terms

• Realism
• Symphonic poem
• Theme transformation

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Late Romantic Timeline
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The Late Romantics

• 1848 a year of failed revolutions
• In France, Italy, various German states
• Hopes for political freedom seemed to die
• Many Romantic aspirations died as well
• Romanticism lived on, but as nostalgia
• 1848 a convenient point of demarcation
• Early Romantics were dying Mendelssohn, Chopin,
  Schumann died 1847-1856
• Revolution exile transformed Wagners career

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Romanticism and Realism

• Dominant trend in literature art from 1850s on
  was realism not Romanticism
• Novelists Dickens, Trollope, Eliot, Balzac,
  Flaubert, Zola, Howells
• Painters Courbet Eakins
• French Italian opera also more realistic
• Wagners music dramas not realistic at all
• Much late 19th century music assumed an
  inspirational yet escapist function
• Escape from political economic conditions

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Late Romantic Program Music

• Liszt wrote a series of symphonic poems in the
  1850s
• A new genre a one-movement orchestral work with
  a program in a free musical form
• Word poem emphasized literary connection
• Could be based on a poem, play, or other work
• Liszts works include Les préludes Hamlet
• Gave new impetus to late Romantic music
• Genre was used by Smetana, Chaikovsky, Musorgsky,
  Rimsky-Korsakov, Strauss, Sibelius, and others

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Pyotr Ilyich Chaikovsky(1840-1893)

• Music not a respectable Russian career
• Chaikovsky was fortunate to study at the
  brand-new St. Petersburg Conservatory
• Professor at Moscow Conservatory at 26
• Long subsidized by wealthy recluse Nadezhda von
  Meck though they never met!
• A prolific composer
• 6 symphonies, 11 operas, symphonic poems, chamber
  music, songs, concertos, ballets
• One of the best-loved melodists in music history

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Chaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet

• One of several of his symphonic poems
• Lengthy pieces in one movement
• He uses free forms that adopt features of sonata
  form, rondo, so on
• Romeo and Juliet followed outlines of the
  original play in a general way
• Easy to link themes to aspects of the play
• Surging, Romantic melody for the two lovers
• Angry, agitated theme for families enmity
• Hymnlike theme for kindly Friar Laurence

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Romeo and JulietSlow Introduction

• Introduction already heavy with drama
• Somber, solemn Hymn theme statements
• In low clarinets bassoons
• Anguished strings answer
• Forecasting an unhappy outcome
• High woodwind announcement
• Punctuated by strumming harp
• The above repeats builds to a climax
• Over dramatic drum roll

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Romeo and JulietAllegro (1)

• Begins with fast Vendetta (Fate) theme
• Short, vigorous rhythmic motives
• Climax punctuated by cymbal claps

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Romeo and JulietAllegro (2)

• Shifts to highly romantic Love theme
• First heard in English horn violas
• Interrupted by a gentle sighing figure
• Returns to Love theme in woodwinds

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Romeo and JulietAllegro (3)

• Lively development section follows
• Reminiscent of sonata form development
• Battle between Vendetta Hymn themes

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Romeo and JulietFree Recapitulation (1)

• Vendetta theme returns in original form
• Reminiscent of sonata form recapitulation
• Sighing motive Love theme also return
• Big, ecstatic statement of Love theme

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Romeo and JulietFree Recapitulation (2)

• Ending broken up interrupted a reference to
  the dramas tragic outcome
• Vendetta Hymn themes combine once more
• They build to a huge climax die down
  unwillingly

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Romeo and JulietCoda

• Introduces transformations of Love theme
• Begins with broken version of Love theme
• Over funeral drum taps in timpani
• Woodwinds sound an optimistic note
• Transformation of sighing motive
• Harp strumming introduces Love theme
• Beautiful new cadential version surges upward
  ecstatically
• Suggestion that their love transcends death?