Chapter 18: The Late Romantics

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Chapter 18The Late Romantics

• Responses to Romanticism

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Key Terms

• Classicism
• Double stops
• Cross-rhythms

• Romantic nostalgia
• Parody
• Round

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Responses to Romanticism

• After 1850, music continued to develop along
  Romantic lines
• Seemed increasingly out of place in a world
  devoted to industrialization commerce
• Music became an emotional fantasy-world for a
  society that suppressed feelings in real life
• Composers responded in different ways
• Brahms used Classical models to temper
  Romanticisms unbridled emotionalism
• Mahlers music laments Romanticisms loss of
  innocence credibility

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The Renewal of ClassicismBrahms

• Rejected many early Romantic innovations
• Went back to Classical genres forms
• Wrote string quartets other chamber works,
  symphonies, and concertos
• Found new life in Classical forms sonata form,
  theme variations, rondo
• Beethovens music was a lifelong model
• Brahms was inspired by his nobility power
• Brahms tried to temper the richness variety of
  Romantic emotion with Classicisms strength
  poise

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Johannes Brahms(1833-1897)

• Son of a bassist in Hamburg
• Started musical studies at age 7
• Later played piano in taverns wrote tunes
• Met Robert Clara Schumann at age 20
• They befriended encouraged Brahms
• Part of Brahms-Wagner controversy
• Signed manifesto against Wagners music
• Uneventful bachelor existence in Vienna
• Steadily wrote symphonies, concertos, piano
  works, chamber music, German Requiem, etc.

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Brahms, Violin Concerto in D

• Concertos written to show off virtuosos
• Often the composer e.g. Mozart or Chopin
• Brahms wrote this one for Joseph Joachim
• Joachim helped out, even wrote 1st movement
  cadenza
• Brahms uses Classical movement plan
• Three movements, fast-slow-fast
• 1st movement double-exposition sonata form
• Last movement rondo form, the most common
  Classical concerto ending

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Brahms, Violin Concerto, III (1)

• Rondo theme has a spirited gypsy-like lilt
• Exoticism gypsy fiddling popular in Vienna
• Double-stops add to virtuoso fiddling effect
• Cross-rhythms at the end disrupt meter

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Brahms, Violin Concerto, III (2)

• Episodes provide various contrasts
• Romantic sweep in B
• Lyrical tune in C
• Short cadenzas feature soloist

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Brahms, Violin Concerto, III (3)

• Thematic transformation in coda
• Swinging march version of rondo theme (over a
  drum beat) in very fast compound meter

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Romantic Nostalgia Mahler

• Embraced Romanticisms excesses
• Wrote huge program symphonies, some with solo
  singers and choruses
• Often attempted to express profound spiritual or
  metaphysical messages
• He once said a symphony is an entire world
• But he could not fully enter this Romantic
  fantasy world
• He pits lost innocence against cynical realism
• Music feels uneasy, exaggerated, distorted

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Gustav Mahler(1860-1911)

• Born raised in a dysfunctional family
• Musical training at Vienna Conservatory
• Pursued rising career as a conductor
• Led many of the finest orchestras of his day
• Ten years at Vienna Opera but anti-Semitism
  made for a stormy tenure there
• Ended career with Metropolitan Opera New York
  Philharmonic
• Could only compose during the summer
• Wrote 10 long symphonies 6 song cycles

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Mahler, Symphony No. 1

• At first a one-movement symphonic poem
• Grew into a five-movement symphony
• Finally revised into four movements
• Includes fragments from his songs
• Songs about lost love
• Originally a program symphony
• Hero overcomes distress of lost love
• Individual style of orchestration
• Contrapuntal melodies pass from instrument to
  instrument in kaleidoscopic fashion

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Third MovementBackground

• March inspired by a nursery picture
• The Huntsmans Funeral Procession
• Forest animals shed tears as they follow the
  hearse of a hunter
• Full of pomp ceremony torches, solemn gowns,
  a banner, pallbearers, a bell, a choir, a
  complement of mourners
• Why would animals mourn the death of their
  tormentor in such a lavish manner?
• The paintings innocuous qualities mask its
  incongruities

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Third MovementUse of Frère Jacques

• Similar incongruities pervade the March
• On first hearing the music seems genuinely
  solemn, mournful, perhaps even tragic
• This feeling is completely deflated when you
  finally recognize the tune Frère Jacques!
• Distortions make the tune harder to recognize
• Mahler casts the tune in minor mode, slows down
  the tempo, alters a few notes
• Tune introduced by the last instrument you would
  expect a bass playing in high register
• Vulgar dance band phrases also deflate mood

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Third MovementFuneral March (1)

• Very free march-trio-march form
• Ironic funeral march personal lament
• March theme a distorted minor-key parody of
  childrens round Frère Jacques
• Trio taken from a Mahler song about lost love
• March theme treated as a round
• Over mournful, monotonous drumbeat

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Third MovementFuneral March (2)

• Section 2 present dance-band fragments
• Exaggerated, parodistic, even vulgar phrases
• Return to funeral-march motives at the end

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Third MovementFuneral March (3)

• Trio offers a complete contrast
• Begins with warm major-mode sounds
• Trios theme is a delicate, lyrical melody
• Tune from a nostalgic song about lost love
• Its innocent quality soon turns bittersweet

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Third MovementFuneral March (4)

• March returns in final section
• Faster tempo with new counterpoints
• Dance-band phrases interrupt at even faster tempo
  for a wild moment of near chaos
• Return of funeral-march motives that ended
  Section 2 the music dies away