Hector Berlioz. Symphonie fantastique. Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste ... en cinq parties (Fantastic Symphony: An Episode in the Life of an Artist, in Five Parts) Op. 14 is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is an important piece of the early Romantic period, and is popular with concert audiences worldwide. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire in December 1830. The work was repeatedly revived between 1831 and 1845 and subsequently became a favourite in Paris.
Instrumentation[edit] The score calls for a total of over 90 instrumentalists, the most of any symphony written to that time. specifically: Outline[edit] The symphony is a piece of program music that tells the story of "an artist gifted with a lively imagination" who has "poisoned himself with opium" in the "depths of despair" because of "hopeless love. " First movement: "Rêveries – Passions" (Reveries – Passions)[edit] In Berlioz's own program notes from 1845, he writes:[1] idée fixe melody. Idée fixe (psychology) An idée fixe is a preoccupation of mind held so firmly as to resist any attempt to modify it, a fixation. The name originates from the French [French : idée, idea + fixe, fixed]. Although not used technically to denote a particular disorder in psychology, idée fixe is used often in the description of disorders, and is employed widely in literature and everyday English.
[citation needed] As an everyday term, idée fixe may indicate a mindset akin to prejudice or stereotyping:[1] Here again cognitive psychologists have done miracles in disclosing the well-nigh unlimited capabilities and eagerness of human beings to ward off contradictions inter alia by closing their eyes to data that are at variance with their assumptions. ... people who accept the stereotype...are forever coming up with evidence to support their idée fixe and seem unable to notice any information which might disturb their belief.[2]—H. [non-primary source needed] An example of an idée fixe is in Cervantes's Don Quixote:[22]
Thematic transformation. Development[edit] Controversy[edit] Conservative critics in Liszt's time viewed thematic transformation as merely a substitution of repetition for the musical development demanded by sonata form.[6] However, the evocative, atmospheric melodies which Romantic composers such as Liszt tended to prefer left him little choice. These melodies, complete in themselves, already bore all the emotion and musical interest which they could hold; therefore, they could not be developed any further. The only apparent course open was to substitute a form of repetition for true development—in other words, to say in a different way what had already been said and trust the beauty and significance of what are fundamentally variations to supply the place of the development section demanded by sonata form.[7] Moreover, Liszt's own view of repetition was more positive than that of his critics.
Legacy[edit] See also[edit] Leitmotif Hector Berlioz Antonín Dvořák Diminution Faust Symphony Bibliography[edit] Harriet Smithson. Henrietta Smithson in 1832 Henrietta Constance (Harriet) Smithson (1800–1854) was an Anglo-Irish actress, the first wife of Hector Berlioz, and the inspiration for his Symphonie Fantastique. Smithson was born on 18 March 1800 at Ennis, Co.
Clare, Ireland, the daughter of a theatrical manager. She made her first stage appearance in 1814 at the Crow Street Theatre, Dublin, as Albina Mandeville in Frederick Reynolds's The Will.[1] Three years later she made her first London appearance at Drury Lane as Letitia Hardy in The Belle's Stratagem. Marriage[edit] At the time of her wedding, her popularity was past and she was deeply in debt, a factor believed to have strongly influenced her decision to marry. Death[edit] Toward the end of her life, Smithson suffered from paralysis which left her barely able to move or speak. Portraits of Harriet Smithson[edit] Claude Marie Paul Dubufe (1790-1864), oil on canvas, ca. 1830, Musée Magnin, Dijon. Notes[edit] References[edit] Program music. The term is almost exclusively applied to works in the European classical music tradition, particularly those from the Romantic music period of the 19th century, during which the concept was popular, but pieces which fit the description have long been a part of music.
The term is usually reserved for purely instrumental works (pieces without singers and lyrics), and not used, for example for Opera or Lieder. Single movement orchestral pieces of program music are often called symphonic poems. Absolute music, in contrast, is intended to be appreciated without any particular reference to the outside world. Renaissance period[edit] Composers of the Renaissance wrote a fair amount of program music, especially for the harpsichord, including works such as Martin Peerson's The Fall of the Leafe and William Byrd's The Battell.
A good example of this is Marin Marais's "Le tableau de l'Operation de la Taille", which describes gall bladder surgery. Classical era[edit] Romantic period[edit] Niccolò Paganini. 24 Caprices for Solo Violin (Paganini) Niccolò Paganini Edition Peters first published them in 1819; Ricordi later published another edition in 1821.
When Paganini released his caprices, he dedicated them "to the Artists" rather than to a specific person. Unlike many earlier and later sets of 24 pieces, there was no intention to write these caprices in 24 different keys. In 1947, the American virtuoso Ruggiero Ricci made the first complete recording of the 24 Caprices in their original version. EMANUEL VARDI PAGANINI: THE 24 CAPRICES (LP box set)Itzhak Perlman Paganini: 24 Caprices (EMI Great Recordings of the Century)Midori Gotō Paganini 24 Caprices Violin CBS Digital CDDavid Garret:Paganini Caprices (Jun-1997, Deutsche Grammohpon)James Ehnes:Paganini: 24 Caprices 1995 Recording, TelarcJulia Fischer:PAGANINI: 24 Caprices, 2010 DECCALi Chuan Yun:Paganini 24 Caprices 2010 Stratton, Stephen (1907).
Stephen Foster. Parlour music. Parlour music is a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of middle-class homes by amateur singers and pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century, as a result of a steady increase in the number of households with enough surplus cash to purchase musical instruments and instruction in music, and with the leisure time and cultural motivation to engage in recreational music-making. Its popularity waned in the 20th century as the phonograph record and radio replaced sheet music as the most common method of dissemination of popular music.
This is the middlebrow and lowbrow music from which European classical music began to gradually and eventually self-consciously distance itself beginning around 1790. (1989, p.4, 17-18, 321) Front cover of "Just Awearyin' for You" (published 1901), a widely selling example of a parlor song. Mediant-octave mode examples[edit] Sources[edit] Hamm, Charles.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works.[1] He spent most of his working career outside of the United States. Life and career[edit] Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to a Jewish businessman from London and a Creole mother. He had six brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings by his father's mulatto mistress.[2] His family lived for a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in the Vieux Carré. Louis later moved in with relatives at 518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sally had both been born in Saint-Domingue (known later as Haiti). He was therefore exposed to a variety of musical traditions, and played the piano from an early age. He was soon recognized as a prodigy by the New Orleans bourgeois establishment, making his informal public debut in 1840 at the new St.
Charles Hotel. Works[edit] Recordings[edit] Notes[edit] Souvenir de Porto Rico. Souvenir de Porto Rico, Op. 31, is a musical composition for piano by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk written from 1857 during a tour in Puerto Rico. Dedicated to the Dutch piano virtuoso and salon music composer Ernest Henry Lubeck, and published in Mainz circa 1860 with the subtitle of Marche de Gibaros,[1] it is based on the Christmas folk song Si me dan pasteles, denmelos calientes, performed by local peasants known as Jíbaros.[2] The piece makes use of Latin-American and Afro-American melodies and rhythms almost fifty years before early ragtime and jazz would popularize its use. History[edit] Souvenir de Porto Rico was written in the last trimester of 1857, when of Gottschalk's stay at the sugar plantation of English-born Mr.
Cornelius Cartwright, in Plazuela.[4][n 1] At the time, Gottschalk was on vacation with singer Adelina Patti and her father. He would decide not to leave Puerto Rico, but instead remain there for weeks. Musical analysis[edit] Notes[edit] Sources[edit] Nationalism. Nationalism is a belief, creed or political ideology that involves an individual identifying with, or becoming attached to, one's nation.
Nationalism involves national identity, by contrast with the related construct of patriotism, which involves the social conditioning and personal behaviors that support a state's decisions and actions.[1] From a psychological perspective, nationalism (national attachment) is distinct from other types of attachment, for example, attachment to a religion or a romantic partner. The desire for interpersonal attachment, or the need to belong, is one of the most fundamental human motivations.
From a political or sociological perspective, there are two main perspectives on the origins and basis of nationalism. One is the primordialist perspective that describes nationalism as a reflection of the ancient and perceived evolutionary tendency of humans to organize into distinct groupings based on an affinity of birth. History[edit] Causes[edit] Varieties[edit] Frédéric Chopin. Photograph of Chopin by Bisson, c. 1849 Frédéric François Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/; French pronunciation: [fʁe.de.ʁik ʃɔ.pɛ̃]; 22 February or 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,[n 1] was a Romantic-era Polish composer.
A child prodigy, Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw. He grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland, and there completed his musical education and composed many of his works before leaving Poland, aged 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. Both in his native Poland and beyond, Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest 'superstars', his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his amours and his early death have made him, in the public consciousness, a leading symbol of the Romantic era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy. Life[edit] Childhood[edit] Nocturnes, Op. 27 (Chopin)
Manuscript to Nocturne Op. 27, No. 2 The Nocturnes, Op. 27 are two solo piano pieces composed by Frédéric Chopin. The pieces were composed in 1836[1] and published in 1837. Both nocturnes in this opus are dedicated to Countess d'Appony. This publication marked the transition from triplets of nocturnes to contrasting pairs.[2] David Dubal feels that the pieces are "more aptly described as ballades in miniature".[3] Blair Johnson states that these two nocturnes are "two of the most powerful—and famous—nocturnes [Chopin] has ever penned" and that these nocturnes are "virtually unrecognizable" to those of John Field.[4] The opening bars of No. 1 in C♯ minor The opening alternates between major and minor and uses arpeggios, commonly found in other nocturnes as well, in the left-hand. The second theme of No. 1 in C♯ minor The opening bars Some of the highly intricate ornamentation in No. 2 Jump up ^ Huneker, James G. (1966).
Mazurkas (Chopin) Over the years 1825–1849, Frédéric Chopin wrote at least 69 mazurkas, based on the traditional Polish dance (see mazurka): 58 have been published 45 during Chopin's lifetime, of which 41 have opus numbers13 posthumously, of which 8 have posthumous opus numbers11 further mazurkas are known whose MSS are either in private hands (2) or untraced (at least 9). The serial numbering of the 58 published mazurkas normally goes only up to 51. The remaining 7 are referred to by their key or catalogue number. His composition of these mazurkas signaled new ideas of nationalism, and influenced and inspired other composers—mostly eastern Europeans—to support their national music.
Chopin based his mazurkas on the traditional Polish folk dance, also called the mazurka (or "mazur" in Polish). Chopin started composing his mazurkas in 1825, and continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death. After scholars created this myth, they furthered it through their own writings in different ways. Ballades (Chopin) Chopin, 1835 Frédéric Chopin's four ballades are one-movement pieces for solo piano, composed between 1831 and 1842. They are some of the most challenging pieces in the standard piano repertoire.[1][2] The term "ballade" was associated with an old French verse-form used for grand and rhetorical subjects, but may also have connotations of the Medieval heroic ballad, which was sung and danced.
There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin's use of the genre, and he may be said to be a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by poet Adam Mickiewicz.[1][3] The exact inspiration for each individual ballade, however, is unclear and disputed. The four ballades are among the most enduring of Chopin's compositions and are frequently heard in concerts.[4] They have been recorded many times. Main theme of Ballade No. 1 Opening bars of Ballade No. 2 Opening bars of Ballade No. 3 The second theme sounds like a donkey's pace.
Ballad. Origins[edit] Ballad form[edit] The horse | fair Ann | et rode | upon | He amb | led like | the wind |, With sil | ver he | was shod | before, With burn | ing gold | behind |.[4] However, there is considerable variation on this pattern in almost every respect, including length, number of lines and rhyming scheme, making the strict definition of a ballad extremely difficult. In southern and eastern Europe, and in countries that derive their tradition from them, ballad structure differs significantly, like Spanish romanceros, which are octosyllabic and use consonance rather than rhyme.[9] Ballads usually use the common dialect of the people and are heavily influenced by the region in which they originate.
Composition[edit] Transmission[edit] The transmission of ballads comprises a key stage in their re-composition. Classification[edit] European Ballads have been generally classified into three major groups: traditional, broadside and literary. Traditional ballads[edit] Broadsides[edit] E. T. A. Hoffmann. Romantic music. Ludwig van Beethoven. Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Franz Schubert. Schubertiade. Der Erlkönig. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Symphony No. 8 (Schubert) Winterreise. Wilhelm Müller. Lied. Strophic form. Song cycle. Winterreise. Wilhelm Müller. Dichterliebe. Heinrich Heine. Through-composed. Robert Schumann. Dichterliebe. Heinrich Heine. Carnaval (Schumann) Clara Schumann. Felix Mendelssohn. Songs Without Words. A Midsummer Night's Dream (Mendelssohn) Overture. Johannes Brahms.
Franz Liszt. Transcendental Etudes. Étude. Les préludes (Liszt) Symphonic poem.