The Romantic era is so rich with variety that it is difficult to have a sense of chronological motion but also to cover the sheer number of key concepts that can help to inform one’s listening of music from this time. There were also composers from all over Europe exploring these concepts in different ways. Last entry focused on the early signs of Nationalism in music with Chopin. Before we talk about too much else in Western Europe, I can’t leave behind a towering and influential example of Nationalism we have not yet mentioned.

Russia, the most immense country in the world by a significant margin, has its geography to thank for facilitating the development of its fascinating culture. Through these opposing forces of East and West, and the intensity of isolation, it’s no surprise that Russia’s political, cultural and artistic climate have been unique and not quite compatible with anyone else’s. But its sheer size have made this single viewpoint very influential throughout history.

Russia’s relationship with the rest of Europe has always been tenuous at best and this entry isn’t meant to focus on that. What I care about is how composers in Russia took their musical education, similar in content to the harmony, theory and voice leading that European composers were taught, and used it to express a unique set of cultural ideals and struggles.

A longstanding debate for a Russian artist or composer is how “European” they consider themselves. Some composers, like Tchaikovsky, went relatively Westward in their aesthetic. For now, let’s look at the composers who looked East for their inspiration.

Alexander Borodin: Polovetsian Dances

Alexander Borodin (1833-1847) is on a short but interesting list of composers who, despite their enduring success, pursued music as a hobby alongside a different profession. Borodin was a chemist and a doctor by trade, and made substantial contributions to organic chemistry. Borodin considered himself first and foremost a scientist; music was only a hobby. Would he be surprised to see the fame his music has brought him after his lifetime?

Prince Igor, Act II: Polovetsian Dances

Like all of his other compositions, Borodin wrote his opera, Prince Igor, in his spare time or when he was ill. This melody has since become famous; it is performed without choir as an orchestral overture, and it was even made into the show tune Stranger in Paradise.

The A section is tuneful and evocative, perhaps accompanying a beautiful and effeminate dance. The melody covers a wide range of pitches in a slow tempo, and trill-like ornaments give it an exotic quality as well. To me it evokes movement, optimism and excitement, but all within a sense of serenity.

The B section is very much the opposite—raucous, rhythmic and non-diatonic. Borodin uses a highly chromatic scale, which sounds very unlike either the major minor scales to the Western ear, to outline the melody in this B section. The sound gets its harshness by focusing on low, loud instruments. Lower strings bark out interjections, brass is overpowering, and rhythm is frenzied. Clearly whoever is dancing is masculine and aggressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVURal-QYsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWU1uj9WmOM

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

A master of orchestration, a poster-person for “musical orientalism” (the use of nonwestern harmonies and folk melodies) and a passionate nationalist for Russian folklore, language and traditional music, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) is a culminating figure for the “Russian sound” of the 19th century. His famous orchestral work, Scheherazade, encompasses all of his greatest talents and the musical orientalism that he championed.

Scheherazade tells the story of 1001 Nights, or Arabian nights. The young bride Scheherazade is married off to the king of Arabia who has a bad reputation for killing all his wives after their first night together. Smart and resourceful, she begins to tell him stories every evening, fantastical adventures of conquest, love and loss, anything she can think of to keep him interested in the story instead of killing the storyteller. She manages to keep him curious about the cliffhangers 1001 times, and for this the king rewards her by deciding to keep her alive.

The first movement depicts her first story, a great ship sailing at sea. The second movement is about the adventures of a prince and the evil Sultan (subtle) out to get him. The third is a love story between a prince and princess, and the fourth is a festival and shipwreck followed by the peaceful conclusion of the real-life evil Sultan granting Scheherazade her life.

This is very programmatic music, with several orchestral instruments or groups of instruments representing different characters or aspects of the stories. The most prominent is the solo violin, representing Scheherazade herself. Each movement opens with a substantial violin solo, and as the movements go on, the solos become more emphatic. By the final movement, in which the violin solo is particularly wild and angry, Scheherazade seems to be sick of all the storytelling and fed up with her impudent husband. Other notable storytelling instruments include:

• First movement: lower strings represent flowing ocean waves
• First movement: brass represent a ship floating over the ocean
• Second Movement: solo woodwinds represent the young prince
• Second Movement: brass and low strings represent the evil Sultan
• Finale of the piece: Both the Schererazade and Sultan melodies are played together, the Sultan melody quietly and as if pacified as the Scheherazade melody riseing up above it, out of reach.

Other than instruments, many melodies represent characters, and these are repeated to create the formats of each movement. One criticism could be that this piece is just the same few melodies over and over again, but they are great melodies, so RK gets away with it. He also uses the excessive repeats creatively. By repeating smaller and smaller aspects of melodies, especially at the end of second movement, and rote repetition becomes a tool for building musical tension.

Scheherazade is a staple in the orchestral repertoire for a reason; enjoy listening to such a colorful and evocative adventure transferred into music!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQNymNaTr-Y

Modest Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

Another staple for the piano and orchestral repertoire, Pictures at an Exhibition is a musical setting of the Modest Mussorgsky’s walk at an exhibition of art. Mussorgsky (1839-1881) had a deep friendship with painter Viktor Hartmann, and both of them were dedicated to finding an intrinsically Russian style of art, distinct from both Europe and Asia. Saddened by his friend Hartmann’s sudden death, Mussorgsky attended a memorial exhibition of Hartmann’s paintings and was inspired to write this piece. Its unique format, a spinoff of the rondeau (ABACADAE etc), reflects Mussorgsky walking in between each painting as well as the paintings themselves.

The titles of Hartmann’s paintings that are featured in the work also delineate sections of the piece. Here are the titles as they appear in order in Mussorgsky’s music; read them along as you listen to each section. Knowing the titles will help the music depict the paintings even more vividly.

• Promenade (Mussorgsky walks into the exhibition)
• Gnomus (a scary, ugly Gnome or monster)
• Promenade (Mussorgsky walks to the next painting)
• The Old Castle (a stately, mysterious melody)
• Promenade
• Cattle (a cattle driver approaches and walks past, then onward, with his cattle)
• Promenade
• Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks (fast, spritely and energetic, just like chicks peeping!)
• Samuel Goldenberg and “Schmuÿle: Two Jewish Men, One Rich and One Poor
• Promenade
• The Great News at the Market (a bustling, gossiping, crowded market)
• Catacombs (Roman Tomb)
• Scrolls in a Dead Language
• The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba Yaga, a monster of Russian folklore)
• The Great Gates of Kiev (Finale)

You will hear lots of scales and melodies that sound different from simple major/minor relationships. You’ll also hear huge changes in range, such as very low and very high pitches in unison with nothing in the middle, and sudden changes in dynamics (loud-soft) that are made even bigger by dramatic changes in range. The low register is used extensively to create scary, aggressive sounds, but also mysterious sounds, such as the accompaniment to the Old Castle. The upper range typically plays the promenades and the more songful melodies, but also the skittering notes of the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.

Mussorgsky’s original composition was for solo piano, and it is still performed often this way. It’s both a technical challenge to play as well as a musical one; a single performer on one instrument has to convey ten different paintings, some with more than one character in them.

Another very popular way to listen to this piece is with orchestra. Maurice Ravel, a blog-worthy composer for later in our chronology, was a master orchestrator just like Rimsky-Korsakov, and he assigned all of the piano score’s pitches and rhythms to instruments of a symphony orchestra in his 1922 transcription of Pictures. All of the contrast is magnified when different instruments are at the composer’s disposal. Ravel includes Saxophone, a rare addition to the orchestra, as well as giving creative roles to percussion, orchestral piano and other instrument groups.

In the recording below, original paintings by Hartmann are included when possible but some of the paintings referenced in the music have since been lost.

Whichever version you prefer, both of them are rich with contrast, excitement and color. All of the entries in today’s blog highlight strongly programmatic music from a Russian sound palette. There is still lots of contrast to explore in Russia during the 19th century, so next time we will look at how Tchaikovsky, another towering name in music, fits into all of this.

Taking a break from program versus absolute music, we will explore another major force at work in European art in the early Romantic period: Nationalism. We’ll see how Chopin perhaps unknowingly started a powerful trend in European music, and we’ll enjoy his gorgeous and unique works for solo piano.

The European industrial revolution created wealth, prosperity and massive urbanization in the early 19th century. An increasingly varied class system evolved in which more people had more means, and wealth spread across the continent. More countries had more to be proud of, and many countries rallied for independence, liberalization over old monarchial systems, or social change. Colonialism was also in full swing; powerful European nations were proud of their way of life and excited to share it, wealthy enough to pay for the logistics, and buying into the competition of who could annex more offshore territories both for economic gain and sheer pride.

We are still only talking about the early 19th century, 1800-1850, and many major 19th-century conflicts, such as the Revolutions of 1848, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, the Austro-Prussian War which led to the disillusion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which took up nearly half of Europe, took place after that. All the buildup to these conflicts, though, took place in in the years before.

Nationalism, a love for one’s own culture, country and way of life, was a hugely influential force in music during this time. Whether that meant choosing a vernacular language instead of Latin when composing liturgical music, writing in dance formats particular to one’s culture, such as a Polish polka or an Italian tarantella, or reflecting happenings of the surrounding political climate in one’s work by telling a literal story with music, composers were finding creative ways to express their own personal views of the world around them, which were of course biased by where they lived, what language they spoke and how they were taught.

We should be very thankful for this now because the sheer variety in output from composers around Europe, and even elsewhere in the world, still fills programs and concert halls today. Differences between music written in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and other major contributors to European music will be easier to hear from this point onward. Some music was associated so strongly with the culture from whence the composer came that later in history it would be used as a political tool. During the height of Russia/Poland conflict, after Chopin’s death, Russian soldiers destroyed Chopin’s childhood piano by throwing it out a second-story window. During the Nazi occupation of Poland a hundred years later, Chopin’s music was banned because of the national pride that it carried.

Frederic Chopin’s Unique Voice

During Frederic Chopin’s short lifetime, Poland had spent years as Russian territory. The political climate was beginning to intensify and calls for pride in being Polish, even independence from Poland’s powerful controller, were gaining momentum.

Frederic Chopin was born in Warsaw, but his musical talent prompted a move to Paris after he completed his education. Less than a month after the 20-year old Chopin left Poland, the 1830 Uprising in Warsaw began armed conflict between Poland and Russia. Chopin spent the remainder of his life largely away from Poland – it was, after all, a war zone – but he took his heritage with him, and living in another place gave him the freedom to write as he wished. This helped Chopin to start the trend of nationalism in music. Whether he deliberately placed Polish themes into his music to make a point, or it was simply the music he knew best, we aren’t sure. In addition to the more pan-cultural formats like concerti, ballades and nocturnes, Chopin wrote several mazurkas and polonaises, both Polish dance forms. Today we’ll look at one example of each.

Polonaise in A Flat Major, op. 53

Dignified, stately and proud, the polonaise is a dance similar to a peacock showing off his finest feathers. Polonaises are characterized by a slow, deliberate triple meter (in 3, like a waltz), lots of pomp and resonance from pedal use, block chords (meaning all the notes of a chord played simultaneously), and lots of parallel octaves to fill out sound.

There is also a particular rhythmic motif that brings out the pompous character and, while difficult to write in words, it is important, so I will try to describe it. Think about pronouncing the word Amsterdam. There is strong emphasis on AM, a very quick ster and a slightly longer, unaccentuated dam. A slight variation of this would be saying po-lo-naise, with po and lo very quick and naise longer and with emphasis. If you hear rhythms that resemble this word, chances are good that you’re listening to a polonaise. Listen to this particular Polonaise in A Flat and see if you can identify these rhythms.

This particular polonaise begins with an almost purely chromatic passage, making us wonder what we’re about to hear. It isn’t yet clear if it’s a polonaise, or even a dance at all. Even the key isn’t immediately clear. In the early 19th century this opening must have been a shock for listeners. Perhaps Chopin’s love for playing in small salons and dislike of playing in large concert halls encouraged him to write more idiosyncratically, without worrying about whether he could sell out a hall with his style.

Pitches are repeated for emphasis and to build excitement, and eventually the chromaticism gives way to the polonaise’s main melody. Enjoy the pompous rhythms, exciting dynamics and the compulsion to get up and dance along!

Mazurka in a minor, op 17 no. 4

On the other side of the spectrum of Polish dances, the mazurka is for later in the evening, slow and melancholic. Gone are the enormous chords and angular rhythms; instead we have another classically Chopin sound characterized by rubato and expressive ornaments. Rubato implies slight slowing down, and speeding back up, for expressive emphasis. Although it was already a widely used tool before Chopin, nobody had such a strong logistical reason to use it before him. Chopin’s idiosyncratic ornamentation made melodies take so long at certain times that without rubato, the accompaniment would end up several paces ahead!

This leads us to ornamentation. This practice was also old news by Chopin’s time; as long as music had existed in Europe, people had also added their own personal touches to the basic melody lines to make them more interesting. We discussed ornamentation already in the Baroque opera entry and saw that already by that time, there were many ways to inflect and emphasize aspects of a melody. Since the Baroque period, the most popular ornaments were trills (flipping between two neighboring pitches), and mordants (A slightly more complicated trill with more notes), but neither of these had an effect on the overall pace of the music.

These weren’t enough options for Chopin, so he chose to insert more creative ornaments to inflect the AB format of his dances. Back to the Baroque period once again, AB(A) format is still king for dances, so all of Chopin’s Mazurkas (and polonaises) will follow ABA. When the material repeats, ornaments are extended to give contrast and to show rhetoric and emotional emphasis. In the repeat of the A melody of this mazurka, you’ll hear an entire collection of upward and downward scales, arpeggios and other flourishes of emotion that stop the pulse of the dance completely. Only when the ornament is finished can the dance can go on. The accompaniment is completely at the will of the melody in Chopin’s slower, meditative music, and although it’s a dance, it isn’t predictable enough to dance to without paying it due respect and attention!

I’m most interested in the similarities between the early Baroque opera singing and these ornaments. The repeated pitches are especially unique to Chopin’s voice, and Monteverdi’s writing from 200 years before called for similar interpretation. Truly music does move in a pendulum across eras and although this entry is mostly about nationalism in music, even bring from different cultural backgrounds doesn’t stop the two genres from sounding eerily similar.

Chopin is a widely loved name in Western music and his compositional output is vast. Every piece he wrote involves the piano, and most of them are for piano alone. There are entire collections of polonaises, mazurkas, ballades and nocturnes to explore. Here are some more favorites if you’d like to keep listening.

In the early 19th century, a debate had already started about what music should be as an art form. You can’t touch or see it, and it begins and ends, but can be repeated. This intangibility and finite nature made it difficult to define it, and having an opinion on this matter became fashionable and important for writers, performers and appreciators of music. Two general aesthetics emerged: Programmatic music and absolute music. Should music be loved for its craftsmanship, and be rendered untouchable, above our personal feelings and the changing events of the world around us? Or should it be harnessed as a powerful tool to tell a very specific story, even if that story may lose its subtleties as its audience changes?

For example, let’s say you’re you’re feeling sad about a particular thing, such as a rain storm that ruined your plans to go on a walk today (only semi-autobiographical). You then write a piece of music to express your specific sad experience of the rainy day, and put in plenty of word painting describe rain, write instrumental lines that reflect falling rain, thunder and other aspects. You even take painstaking efforts to express other things around you like a phone ringing, someone else talking in the other room, perhaps a TV upstairs or a bird outside, replicating the experience as much as you can. Your personal reactions will of course be there too. That composition will now only apply to you and your rainy day, and although people may enjoy listening to it, they’ll never experience it quite as you intended because they weren’t there, and they aren’t you.

Is this okay? What about writing a piece of music that, even if it’s inspired by an experience of personal sadness, is still open-ended enough to appeal to a listener just with its harmonies, melodies, form, and other aspects related to music as a science? Then, whether you were there or not, you can get what feels like a full experience of listening to the music without needing context, program notes and a biography of the composer to understand it fully.

This is the central point of debate for composers around the turn of the 19th century. What is music’s purpose as an art form? Let’s see what various well-known composers did in response to it. We’ll begin with Mendelssohn and Berlioz today and continue on the topic in later entries.

Felix Mendelssohn

While his most enduring legacy is his compositions, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) was a great instrumental player, conductor, music historian, writer, teacher, founder and director of what’s still one of Europe’s most respected music conservatories (Leipzig Conservatoire), and painter. Scholarly research of his life raises interesting questions surrounding his pristine, nearly superhuman reputation–multitalented, excelling at everything he did, kind, intelligent and free of scandals–but that’s a topic for another blog series. For now, let’s talk about some of his most famous compositions and how they show a nearly 50-50 balance between programmatic and absolute music.

Mendelssohn’s compositions balance his passion for musicology, Bach’s counterpoint, and compositional methods from earlier periods with his Romantic-era bias for a good story. To well-crafted counterpoint and meticulous harmonic progressions, Mendelssohn adds emotional heft, personal feelings and descriptions of things in the world around him. His works satisfy our brain’s need for logic and our imagination’s need for adventure all at once.

Midsummernight’s Dream: Incidental Music

Mendelssohn composed his famous Midsummernight’s Dream incidental music to accompany a reading of the famous Shakespeare play. This means that it was never intended to be performed by itself, but as a part of something else, a different art form (theatre) fused with music. This is a great example of highly programatic music, literally telling the story of the play. As you listen you can hear Mendenssohn’s musical interpretations of four main characters sleeping in the woods, fairies flying around them, even a donkey, and that’s just in the overture, or introduction.

Other notable movements are the nocturne, which is played while the characters sleep again, because it doesn’t make use of the character motifs. It is an example of more absolute music, music for its own sake, in the middle of the play, and it’s one of the most popular movements to be played alone in concert. The wedding march, meant to accompany a wedding on stage, is now one of the most popular choices at real weddings in the Western world today. While this music was meant to be stuck to its play, the quality of the music by itself pulled it away and suites of this music-usually the Overture, Scherzo, Nocturne ad Wedding March-are still a concert staple today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yijwRZ6eqe0

The Hebrides: Fingal’s Cave Overture

Mendelssohn spent much of his professional life in the UK, premiering works, conducting, performing and on scholarly business. The lure of its natural beauty, folklore and culture influenced his writing significantly. This overture is inspired by his visit to the Hebrides, an island chain off of Scotland’s rugged upper West coast. There, the wind is fierce, rain falls sideways, and the cliffs are steep and awe-inspiring. As part of a concert tour in Scotland, Mendelssohn took a boat trip to see Fingal’s Cave at the recommendation of his sister, who had visited before. Fingal’s cave is enormous, filled with naturally occurring hexagonal basalt pillars, and looks like a manmade concert hall. It’s even supposed to have excellent acoustics. Mendelssohn may not have even set foot on the island, having probably only seen the cave from the boat, but he jotted down what would be the opening theme of the Hebrides Overture while on the boat and completed the overture soon after his return.

Mendelssohn’s own experience at the cave was probably brief, and the influence his trip had on the music itself is atmospheric at most. One can imagine mystery, awe, and water (running notes in the strings) in his opening melody that he supposedly jotted down at the scene, but everything else– the gales of wind (loud tutti passages with percussion), imposing rock (brass chorales), and contrasting themes– was composed afterward. What the actual experience couldn’t contribute, his compositional talent made up for, and this work is another example of a balanced meeting between programmatic music and absolute music.

Hector Berlioz

French composer Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) is one of Western music’s most amusing and unique personalities. In short, he was highly driven by emotion, with his music inspired directly by his active pursuit of dreams and love. He did things his way, in his musical language, staying absolutely true to the way it happened in his head, his experience, and this was polarizing. Berlioz was a member of the highest circles of music performance, composition and conducting alongside other titans of European music like Schubert and Rossini and Mendelssohn, so his music got lots of attention. However, many people during his time did not like what they heard; it sounded nothing like music other people were writing. Harmony, counterpoint and timing were idiosyncratic and followed unusual patterns. Today, Berlioz’s music is popular and seen as ahead of its time. Perhaps Berlioz should have lived a generation or two later, and then he would have been right at home.

Symphony Fantastique

At the highly emotional age of 22, Berlioz fell intensely, obsessively in love with Shakespearian actress Harriet Smithson, whom he met through professional engagements. She initially rejected his heartfelt and desperate wooing attempts, and although they did eventually marry, it eventually fell apart. During the period in which she rejected Berlioz initially, he wrote this now famous work for orchestra. It is based on dreams that he had, his own suffering, and things that he wished could happen to him. It is a “dramatic symphony,” a multi movement symphonic work that tells a specific story.

The movements all have narrative titles, making storytelling even easier:

• 1. Reveries and Passions: Berlioz introduces a young, emotionally fragile artist/musician (sound familiar?), who meets the woman of his dreams and falls desperately in love with her.
• 2. A Ball: The artist can’t shake the image of the woman he loves. This movement describes a dance, or a ball, where the artist can’t forget about her despite his efforts to have fun.
• 3. Scene in the Countryside: Two shepherds converse over a long distance using pipes (represented by oboe and english horn in the music). They speak of the first shepherd’s desire to be optimistic and to one day have a companion. Doubt and pessimism constantly force their way in and there’s a storm. After the storm, the first shepherd is alone; his friend has left.
• 4. March to the Scaffold: After a frenzied march to guillotine, the artist is publicly and dramatically murdered. The graphic nature of the movement goes as far as to depict his head bouncing down the stairs to the scaffold!
• 5. The Witches’ Sabbath: Now in Hell, the artists happens upon hoards of witches and other terrifying creatures that have gathered for his funeral. The woman he loved arrives at the funeral to mock him as well. The movement is sarcastic, dancelike, and boisterous.

Berlios coined the term idee fixe, meaning a motif that represents someone or something, to aid the narrative of his works. Symphony Fantastique has an idee fixe that represents his love for the woman. It appears in every movement to unify them, but shows the development of the story by changing in character. Listen to the very opening of the symphony; the first melody played is the idee fixe. Its off-kilter rhythmic structure strikes me as youthful, excited, and earnest. When it reappears in the ball, it is still optimistic and carefree. In the countryside, it begins to change form into something darker. By the march to the scaffold, it has become a perverse, rhythmic battle cry. In the witches’ dance, it is a sardonic taunt. This adds another level of narrative value and unity to the otherwise highly contrasting movements of Symphony Fantastique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK6iAxe0oEc

If you like Berlioz, you may also enjoy his other dramatic symphony, Romeo and Juliet, or L’Enfance du Christ, another work for orchestra and solo singers depicting the events leading up to birth of Christ. Both of these works are great examples of Berlioz’s unique language.

We’ve given lots of attention to instrumental music lately, and I don’t want to give the impression that the entire Classical period went by without any noteworthy vocal music being written and performed. Mozart wrote some of the most iconic operas in history, and both Haydn and Beethoven, among others, left behind wonderful choral works. My bias is what it is, but the terms we discussed about Classical form will come in handy whatever you choose to listen to. Before delving into this entry I recommend enjoying some of the great operatic singing from the classical period, such as Mozart’s operas, such as Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Marriage of Figaro.

Franz Schubert and the Lied

I can’t put off talking about vocal music any longer now that the Romantic period has started, because the early Romantic period was the high point for the lied, or song, which is a simple, short work for solo singer and keyboard accompaniment. The lied’s format goes all the way back to the days of the Renaissance chanson; remember El Grillo and Bonjour, et puis, quelles nouvelles from the Renaissance? If not, give them a refresher read here.

Think of your favorite pop or folk song, and it will probably look similar format to the verse/chorus alternation seen in this example, “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles.

This format is called strophic form, and it lends itself particularly well to setting poetry to music. Poetry tends to follow patterns, or strophes, in which a consistent number of syllables and lines match up with other parts of the poem, and it separates itself easily into corresponding groups. Here’s an example:

Wir saßen so traulich beisammen
Im kühlen Erlendach
Wir schauten so traulich zusammen
Hinab in den rieselnden Bach

Der Mond war auch gekommen
Die Sternlein hinterdrein
Und schauten so traulich zusammen
In den silbernen Spiegel hinein

Ich sah nach keinem Monde
Nach keinem Sternenschein
Ich schaute nach ihrem Bilde
Nach ihren Augen allein

This is from a poem by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), a contemporary of Franz Schubert (1797-1828). You don’t have to speak German to see that the text above follows a pattern of line length, syllables and rhyme. It separates itself nicely into three stanzas, or strophes. When setting this to music, Schubert chose to use the same melody for each stanza to reflect the stanzas’ lexical connections to one another. The dynamics, articulation and other small aspects would change to bring attention to certain words in particular stanzas since this poetry told a progressive story, and it was important to build tension and show the audience what would happen to the story’s characters. These subtleties, such as deciding which words to accentuate and how to phrase sentences based on the words being said, gave the vocalist lots of interpretive freedom, but all this would be done within a satisfyingly repetitive melody and accompaniment to keep the audience familiar and respect the poetic origin of the words. Hence, strophic form was wildly popular in lieder (songs), and it clearly has a profound impact on music still today.

Die Schöne Müllerin (op. 25)

This is the title both of the poetry collection written by Wilhelm Müller, and the song cycle written by Schubert using this poetry as the text. A song cycle is a collection of short songs that follow a unifying plot or theme and are typically performed together. Die Schöner Müllerin is the earliest example of a song cycle that’s still widely performed today. This cycle consists of 20 lieder, or songs, that tell a tragic love story. A young man is hiking in the countryside, follows a brook to a mill, and encounters the miller’s daughter with whom he falls in love. Despite his attempts to impress her, she instead falls for another man who has since also appeared at the mill. In despair, our main character ends his life by drowning in the brook, and the final song is a lullaby by the brookside.

The subject matter alone is romantic in many senses compared to that of the Classical period, and shows the beginning of what would be a significant shift in all art forms from light entertainment to an outlet for darker emotions. It’s worth noting that both Müller (the poet) and Schubert (the composer of the music) both lived tragically short lives and filled their time with passionate expressions of love, nationalism and heartbreak in their respective mediums. Müller was highly educated and academic but spent many years of his adulthood fighting in the Napoleonic war, seeing all that he’d learned being tested and perhaps even negated in the face of war. Experiencing war firsthand was one of the biggest influences on the darkening of music after the Classical period, and as wars became even bigger, more destructive and all-encompassing, art and music followed in a steep descent into melancholy, suffering and even bitter sarcasm in their subject matter. Schubert himself died young due to syphilis, transmitted out of passion, and causing him equally strong feelings of suffering in a slow, painful death.

The emotional heft is serious in these works, and note that while the singer has the task of telling the story, the pianist does most of the atmospheric and mood-setting work. For example, the piano introduces the first lied with a cheerful, walking pattern to set the tone for the words the singer will sing, expressing how happy he is to be wandering in the beautiful countryside. The piano opens the second lied with fast, flowing notes to emulate flowing water, and the singer tells the audience about the brook. In sad moments, such as the lied entitled Tears, during which the singer laments that the miller’s daughter has chosen another man, the piano is much more subdued, with slow suspensions and simple chords. In addition to “word” painting in the instrumental part, literal word painting in the singer’s part is everywhere, and I highly recommend following the words as the singer sings them to catch the many examples.

Gioachino Rossini and Italian Opera

Meanwhile in Italy, the romantic era started on a very different foot and took on a two-faced identity not dissimilar to that of the Renaissance in Italy several hundred years before. Music was either deeply melancholy or frivolous to the point of being silly, with scarcely little in between. Opera in particular was either categorized as “opera seria” or “opera buffa” to embody this dichotomy.

Gioachino Rossini (192-1868) made a name for himself particularly in the buffa category, and found great success composing light, frothy vocal music for Paris Opera. His most famous works are operas such as The Barber of Seville, The Italian Girl in Algeria, The Thieving Magpie and William Tell.

Rossini’s life was a direct contrast to that of Schubert in that he had a long, decadent life, relatively little suffering to express in his music, and lots of wealth and success to celebrate with his many high-society friends. His lighthearted, entertaining music reflects this. Rossini had a healthy middle-class childhood, good musical education, fame at a young age, and a well-paid job in the epicenter of Europe’s music scene (Paris). For the latter half of his long life he stopped composing entirely, probably because he simply didn’t feel like it anymore. Instead he used his wealth to hold salons, inviting other great composers, artists, socialites, and political personalities. In this manner Rossini was very much like the courtly princes from not-so-many years earlier!

Rossini was a practical man and when he had found a compositional style that worked, like any good product, he branded it as his own and made it his niche. More than many other composers, Rossini’s work is remarkably consistent in how it sounds. There’s even a musical term called a “Rossini crescendo” in which a repeated rhythmic pattern starts quietly, then repeats over and over, louder and louder, while other material is added gradually alongside it. Rossini really was a businessman selling a product with his position at Paris opera, and it’s hard to blame him for a bit of self-borrowing when the demands of the job required 39 full-length operas in 13 years. And the audience didn’t seem to mind anyway; Rossini’s work was generally very popular and even brought him fame outside Europe. Don’t reinvent the wheel, they say, and Rossini took this to heart.

The Barber of Seville-Figaro’s Aria

You’ll blame Rossini even less for all the self-borrowing when you hear his operas, which are infectiously fun and can cure even the worst of bad moods. Anyone new to opera would do well to start with Rossini. The experience is lighthearted, highly theatrical, even ridiculous, arguably a precursor to today’s broadway musical in many ways.

This aria is one of the most famous moments in any opera ever written, and contains the “Figaro, Figaro, Figaro” that many people who’ve never seen an opera will recognize. It has many of the classic Rossini trademarks:

• The “Rossini Crescendo” which starts from a single rhythmic pattern and grows gradually, creating lots of excitement
• Highly repetitive rhythms,pitches and words
• Comically wordy vocal part; an opportunity for the singer to show off their diction and breath support. Imagine singing supercalifragilisticexpialidocious several times in a row in one breath!
• Nonsense words in the singer’s part, such as “la la la” to fill space and add to the nonchalant character.
• Virtuosic cadenzas (definition here) for the singer in which the orchestra will stop entirely while the singer elaborates on as little as a single syllable, also adding comic value.
• The singer is clearly the most important, and interesting, element. The orchestra strictly accompanies in a repetitive fashion and does not compete with the singer for attention.

All this analysis aside, it’s helpful and entertaining to keep in mind that all of the musical effort, singing virtuosity and exciting stage work is telling a simple and ridiculous narrative about a barber advertising his business. It’s easy to see how the broadway musical developed when already over 200 years ago, virtuosic arias were being sung about haircuts.

I hope you enjoy this aria as much as I do, and if you’re ever in a bad mood, just find your favorite Rossini aria.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is probably the most recognizable name not only in the Classical era but in Western music as a whole. His compositions are among the most known and loved, and the story of his life is as inspiring as the compositions themselves. Few artists, music and otherwise, have such a compelling and emotionally conflicted life story and put it so clearly into their work.

Beethoven was raised in a dysfunctional home. When Ludwig showed musical promise his domineering, sociopathic father attempted to teach Ludwig himself and damaged Ludwig’s psyche significantly. Ludwig was eventually able to receive tuition, and emotional support, elsewhere, and it eventually became clear that he would be next in the succession of Europe’s it-musicians after the still-living Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven studied composition with Haydn. He spent his young adulthood pressured by the shadow of his predecessors, and received disrespect and doubt as he developed his unique compositional voice.

Most famously, just as Beethoven had found his footing as an internationally renowned composer and pianist in his own right, he gradually became completely deaf. His last compositions were performed and conducted by other people, without the composer being able to hear how they sounded. If that wasn’t enough for a good story, Beethoven was also in perpetual romantic despair, cripplingly shy, and although he loved and dedicated works famously to the women he loved (the Moonlight sonata, for example!), Beethoven could never get over his anxieties enough to confess, court and marry. He had no children, and judging by the way he interacted with the families of his contemporaries, his loneliness pained him deeply.

A fictional drama could do little better designing a story to compel an audience to root this poor man on. The pristine, elegant aesthetic of the Classical era just didn’t accomodate the level of pain and frustration that Beethoven had to express. In Beethoven’s attempt to express himself adequately, he singlehandedly ended an era and began a new one; Classical cleanliness gave way to the raw, emotional and, well, Romantic.

One characteristic of Beethoven music, as it diverged from the High-Classical era works of his teachers and predecessors, was a sense of extremity. It is clear that Beethoven’s own personal pain affected the emotional unpredictability of his music. Dynamics (volume, and changes of volume), are sudden, extreme and unsettling in Beethoven’s music. In formatting his multi-movement works, Beethoven’s works had more movements, and longer movements, than any of his predecessors, as if he had too much to say to fit into the frame set out for him. Instead of the tried-and-true minuet, Beethoven favors a hyper-speed mutation called the scherzo. Harmony moves unpredictably as well, sometimes with speed or stasis for dramatic effect. It’s also heavily chromatic (closely neighboring pitches, dissonant) compared to that of his teacher, Haydn. Haydn himself disapproved of Beethoven’s early works saying that the audience just wouldn’t be able to cope with his ideas.

Piano Trio, op. 1 no. 3

Beethoven composed this piano trio while studying in Vienna with Haydn, and it was with this work the Haydn decided things had gone too far. Haydn told his student that the frequent, alarming changes in volume, as well as the dark harmonies, would lose the audience. They wouldn’t understand or enjoy it; it wasn’t light enough to enjoy anyway.

Listen to this beautiful trio immediately after listening to a work of Haydn, such as a quartet from last week. This will give you the clearest sense of contrast between the two composers, and you will hear just how unsettled Beethoven was as a young man being told to compose in a certain way. In addition to the sudden volume and character changes, pay special attention to the frequent accents, or heavy demarcations on certain pitches, and the many dark, minor chords present despite this being a major-key piece.

String Quartet, op. 18 no. 4

Another shameless show of bias on my part, but string quartets are particularly important when talking about Beethoven. Since we spoke so much about them last week, this is another opportunity to hear clear contrast between Haydn, the father of the pristine string quartet, and his student who adopted his ideas and ran with them. Beethoven’s string quartets make up the core of the quartet repertoire alongside Haydn’s, and they also fall cleanly into three “periods” of his life. Beethoven’s development as a composer is clearer in his quartet writing than in any of his other genres of work.

This quartet is in his early period, but it already sounds entirely different than even the late quartets of his teacher, Haydn. The emotional state of this work is and heavy and wrought with angst. This kind of work would not do well accompanying a courtly cocktail hour and demands to be the main, and only, event in the room. While post-baroque music had been filling the role of light entertainment, it was clearly on its way to being an art form that had serious things to say and demanded a listener’s undivided attention.

Symphony number 7, op. 92

Another opportunity for contrast, this symphony is a jarring foil to the Mozart symphony from last week, even though the composers lives overlapped and the formats share much in common. I would highly recommend listening to this symphony immediately after the Mozart to see the evolution in between the two closely related but disparate styles.

Beethoven 7 is in a major key, just like the Mozart, and both symphonies begin with a stately introduction. Both present loud chords that simultaneously establish a character but also make the audience wonder what will happen next. Beethoven’s rendition is clearly heavier and more jarring, and despite the major key it is serious and profound, with a sense of rhythmic drive as if an important journey is underway.

The sonata form properly begins after this stately introduction, but carries on with the rhythmic drive throughout. The journey is just getting started, and even though it’s in a major key it will be exhausting. In addition to the loud, shocking dynamics, listen also for extended range both in low and high instruments, rhythmic excitement, and surprise changes in texture. Texture refers to the sound created by certain instruments playing together at any given time; for example the texture may change from everyone together to suddenly a quiet passage with only the strings, or a woodwind solo. Beethoven uses sudden changes in texture often to make surprises even bigger.

The best example of a shocking texture change is the end of first movement transitioning into the beginning of the second. The first movement ends heroically, with the brass giving the sense that victory has been won. This is immediately followed by the famous funeral march, which starts with lower strings by themselves. What could this uncomfortable contrast mean?

Piano Concerto no. 5, op. 73

Beethoven was a pianist above all else, so I need to include one of his many incredible works for piano here as well. The 5th piano concerto, for piano and orchestra, is a listening suggestion for its beauty alone, but it’s also worth noting that this work is one of the clearest indicators that the Classical period was over and the Romantic had begun.

The piece begins with the most romantic-sounding opening that any audience had probably ever heard up to that point. Mozart and Haydn had firmly established the concerto format with a lengthy introduction in which the orchestra presented both A and B themes, and it would be several minutes before the soloist would be heard. Toward the end of the first movement, the soloist would have a chance to show off their virtuosity with a cadenza, a passage in which the soloist plays alone and can be as idiosyncratic as they wish. The cadenza was initially a way to show off technical prowess, but as the romantic period began, cadenzas started becoming emotional centers of a concerto and not just an opportunity for showing off.

With all that in mind, listen to how Beethoven’s 5th piano concerto starts. Beethoven chooses to have the soloist enter immediately, and with short cadenzas. They sound to me like a medium between technical showing-off and emotional expression, a perfect halfway between classical and romantic.

With all the terms we’ve discussed, listen to this work take note of how many times you hear dissonance, extended range (high-low sounds), melodies passed from one instrument to another for the sake of color, dark changes in harmony, and long periods spent on one single harmony for dramatic effect. In the development of the first movement, the orchestra will sit on chords for long lengths of time while the piano and the solo woodwinds create different effects on top of the chord. There is no harmonic motion, it’s all sounds for the sake of sounds, a very Romantic era trait.

The second movement is slow, emotive and harmonically richer than the status quo of Beethoven’s predecessors. Strings and winds use vibrato liberally. Cadences are drawn out to great lengths, and harmonies are slow-moving because the interest is in the feeling of peaceful stasis. The third movement is a jolly but heavy-handed scherzo, faster and more rigorous than any minuet would dare to be. The romantic period has begun.

We’ve established classical era music as a delicate balance between a logically satisfying format and emotionally stirring character, and looked at how Mozart’s symphonies embodied these concepts. Another hugely influential medium developed during the Classical era was the string quartet, which we’ll look at today through the same analytical lens we used in the last entry. If you need reminders about terms, you may wish to visit the last entry for a refresher.

“String quartet” can refer to the work of music itself, the entire string quartet sub-genre, or the actual ensemble performing said work of music. So, all three of these sentences are correct:

• The string quartet is one of the quintessential formats for Western music.
• Haydn wrote 68 string quartets.
• The Guarneri string quartet were known to sit at separate tables when they ate out and take different flights on tour!

As you can see, it depends on context, and I will be as clear as I can whether I’m referring to the genre, a specific composition or a four-member ensemble of musicians.

The String Quartet (as a genre)

Two violins, one viola and one cello make up a string quartet, and together they perform without additional accompaniment. All string player bias aside (as possible), this ensemble is undeniably pleasing to the ear, and has become a staple of the Western art music canon. I suspect this is because of the way its instruments are similar enough to one another to produce remarkable unity, but they are also distinct enough to provide subtle contrast. The members of the bowed, fretless viol family are, after all, progressively larger iterations of the same design.

The string quartet as an ensemble is large enough to build both thin and full sound textures with all instruments able to produce one or several simultaneous pitches. Yet this ensemble is also small enough to fit in most rooms, move location relatively quickly, and employ fewer people, which made it logistically versatile and of great popularity in royal courts.

Haydn: The Father of the String Quartet

This is where Austrian composer Josef Haydn comes in. Standard for the time period, his composing was almost entirely supported by wealthy patrons in courts, his principal patron being the Austro-Hungarian court of Esterhazy. During his years as musical director of the Esterhazy court, Haydn was required to write whatever the family wanted, but his freedom grew as his reputation did, and his talent for writing string quartets, among other things, was getting him international attention. His collection of 68 string quartets is also a particularly interesting window into his development as a composer, since the dates in which he wrote quartets span his entire adult life. His later quartets are notably different than the earlier ones, but even the earliest ones show creativity and wit that was a cut above the rest.

Today I will give three examples of Haydn’s string quartet writing that will give a small window into this lifetime of evolution as a composer. We’ll look at an early, middle-period and later quartet from his repertoire and compare general aspects of each. I hope you enjoy not only the beauty of the music, but also the differences in character that become clearer when these works are played in succession.

Take note that we’ll start referring to composers’ works in opus numbers. Opus numbers are a way to group and organize a composer’s complete collection of works. An opus can have one single work or it can have several in a set, but it will always refer to a work’s place relative to everything else that composer wrote chronologically. For example, String Quartet no. 14 may be Haydn’s 14th quartet to be written, but is not Haydn’s 14th composition, since he wrote operas, cantatas, masses and concerti and more in between. Opus numbers put works into context of everything the composer ever wrote, so low opus numbers mean chronologically earlier, higher numbers later.

String Quartet no. 14 in E Flat Major, opus 9 no. 2

This quartet is one of Haydn’s early works, and already shows his talent for texturing the four instruments of the quartet in a pleasing way. The first violin (remember, there are two) has a soloistic presence in the ensemble, playing nearly every melodic line by itself while the other instruments are strictly accompanying. Sometimes the melodies introduced by the first violin are imitated, passed around the ensemble, or developed. Almost never does another instrument besides the first violin introduce new melodic material by itself.

This type of texture is pleasing to the ear because the highest voice, the easiest one to hear, plays all the melodies, and as the instrument ranges become lower, the role in the ensemble is akin to singing alto, tenor and bass. The lower three instruments very much resemble a choir in how closely related their rhythms and pitches are, building chords and providing harmony under the melody going on above.

Pay special attention also to the fact that even in the early works, Haydn plays with melodies being different lengths. The opening melody of the first movement does not have a symmetrical 8-bar length, but is only 6 bars. There is also modal mixing which means that a chord suddenly changes from a major to a minor sound unexpectedly.

The minuet is also an example of melodies that aren’t symmetrical length. The second half of the minuet is cleaner, with a satisfyingly symmetrical melody, but even this is quickly developed by other instruments, and low voices suddenly entering after higher voices finish cause surprise to the ear. The somber slow movement has an introduction in which Haydn plays with instruments entering chords at different times, one after another. The last movement is short and spritely, and the melody jumps large intervals to add to the hopping, dancelike feeling. It also showcases the dexterity of the musicians, especially the first violinist!

String Quartet no. 30 in E Flat, “The Joke,” op. 33 no. 2

Biographers, scholars, and contemporaries for whom writings about Haydn survive, all agree that Haydn had a robust sense of humor. He was sacked from his first chorister post for snipping off a fellow chorister’s ponytail, and he wrote his “Farewell” symphony, in which the musicians progressively leave the stage, to tell the then-prince of Esterhazy that the musicians were overdue for their vacation.

His quartets are often lighthearted anyway, but this particular quartet even gets a nickname for its odes to humor on several levels. Some jokes are on the musicians, some on the audience, and some reward the most active listeners with unexpected harmonic progressions, lapses in counterpoint and phrases that aren’t completed in a way we expect.

The first movement is frivolous and light, as any good joke is. Midway through first movement, there is a joke on the first violinist, who out of nowhere has a flurry of notes that are exceptionally challenging and even out of character with the lightheartedness set up by the beginning of the movement.

The minuet is a peasant dance which appropriates antics of peasants in both of its parts. First is a stomping dance that doesn’t paint peasants as very graceful dancers. Second is a graphic depiction of the village fiddler, complete with glissandi (slides between notes) that, in that time period, were not stylish.

The slow movement starts oddly as well, featuring a duet between viola and cello while the violins sit out. This movement also has phrases that should end, but are cut off by either silence or other unrelated material, making it difficult to listen to with expectations.

The last movement takes this cutting off concept to new heights. In addition to the unfinished phrases throughout the movement, the opening phrase of the movement is repeated many times at the end, so much that it’s difficult to tell when the movement, and the quartet as a whole, is over. Haydn himself said about this ending that “the ladies will surely be talking already” before the piece actually ended. See if you also guess wrong when the movement ends as you listen. Wouldn’t want to clap at the wrong time!

String Quartet no. 63 in B flat, “Sunrise,” op. 76 no. 4

This quartet also has a nickname, probably due to the opening which really does resemble a grand, ascending appearance out of nothing. A simple held chord accompanies a rising melodic line, and each instrument has a chance to be in the spotlight. Haydn began experimenting with his op.76 quartets, which are among his most celebrated for their creativity. For example, instead of the clearly separated roles which became the usual in his earlier works, Haydn gives melodic material to all members of the group in his later quartets, and everyone rotates their responsibilities. This particular first movement is a great example of this rotation of players, since much of the material is dense with counterpoint. It sounds as if each instrument states melodies with equal importance, rather than as imitations of other players.

The second movement is calm and inward-looking, with the first violin taking much responsibility again, but other instruments offering notable counter-statements too. The harmonies also darken to a point that wasn’t usual for Haydn before, and dissonance is used daringly.

The minuet is another classic peasant dance, this time with more counterpoint and interest in individual parts. There’s also more interesting harmonic structure than in previous minuets; the first and second themes are bridged together with shared held chords that fall into dissonance before the second theme can really begin.

The last movement applies many of these general concepts, along with melodies that are extended well past the usual 8-bar, symmetrical pattern with daring tags, ornaments and harmonic continuations.

I hope you enjoy these quartets, and know that there are over 60 others waiting for you! Mozart, a good friend of Haydn’s, also wrote excellent string quartets. Mozart and Haydn admired one another’s works, using them as inspiration and even quoting the other within works. If you listen to enough of these quartets perhaps you will even hear quotes as well! When appreciating any art out of context, the more you know about what was happening around the artist and who influenced them, the more you enjoy its details. Music is no different, so for this week enjoy as many string quartets as you dare!

You can even listen to my own string quartet performing Haydn on our web site.

The end of the Baroque era tends to be placed in 1750, the year of Bach’s death. Even before this, though, tastes were changing in Europe. Regardless of what era or art medium, it’s interesting to observe that tastes tend to alternate between opposites through time. Music embodies this by going through alternating states of grandiose/decorated/dense style and understated/simple/ clear style, and in no two eras is this more evident than between the Baroque and Classical eras. The Baroque period is the epitome of grandiose, dense, contrapuntal writing, so it’s no surprise that what came after it was the epitome of squeaky-clean lines, clear separation of melody and harmony, and a dramatic reduction of counterpoint. By the mid-18th century Europe’s courts and middle class homes were embracing style galant, which prized elegance and superficiality over grandeur or profundity. And to achieve clean elegance in music, there need to be rules.

The Classical Obsession with Form

One of the most significant departures from Baroque to Classical eras was the development of, and strict adherence to, new formats for music. Some bear closer resemblance to older forms than others. Themes (distinctive, “main” melodies of a work) are key ingredients to all Classical era forms, and are generally referred to with letters when being analyzed. Here’s a list of just some of the main forms of Classical era music, with letters to represent themes.

• AB(A): The big-picture distillation of most forms. Two distinct melodies, one after the other. Many Baroque works, such as Bach’s cello suites, already used this form but didn’t repeat A at the end. This bookended A is a hallmark of the Classical era.
• Sonata form: a highly narrative form. Two contrasting themes are stated, developed and then brought back to their rightful forms at the end. A sophisticated ABA.
• Theme and variations: Just as it sounds. Similar to the chaconne from last week, except that the composer has much more freedom to change the speed, key and meter (in two, in three, etc) as well. A rare relaxation of rules.
• Rondeau: A theme is presented before alternating between different sets of unrelated material and the theme recurring in between. Hence A-B-A-C-A-D-A etc.
• Minuet Trio: Always in three, like a waltz. Two contrasting melodies are presented and the first will repeat itself at the end. Hence ABA.

As you can see, rules are strict in the Classical era. Unsurprisingly, most scholarly analysis of music is based on Classical era conventions. The good news is that a listener who hasn’t studied music will find Classical era music easier to follow than that of other eras because of the rules. Familiar melodies return in all of the above forms, so even if you are unsure of the form of a piece as you listen, you will hear familiar music come back and give clues.

Some other major changes also occurred in the Classical era in instrumentation, meaning how many people tended to play at once and what kind of music they played. The continuo section (Unfamiliar? See Introducing the Baroque Period) fell out of fashion and the newly developed piano overshadowed the harpsichord. Instruments were now more technologically well-developed, louder, more durable and capable of more subtlety, so no continuo was required to provide backup. Instead, the symphony orchestra rose to popularity and made an entirely new combination of sounds possible for composers to explore.

The Symphony

Before we go any further, a note about wording. “Symphony” can refer to the work of music and the ensemble playing it, which can be confusing, so I will make sure to say “symphony” and “orchestra” separately. I will never say “symphony” and refer to the orchestra itself.

The symphony is a format of music in which many instrumentalists play together, and those people are separated into distinct groups of instruments. Generally these groups are strings, woodwind, brass and percussion. The Classical symphony has a remarkably consistent format regardless of the composer, and can be analyzed with ease due to this. Rules were followed so strictly that they would become the backbone of symphonic writing in all subsequent eras.

The form of a Classical symphony:

• Sonata form first movement, perhaps with a slow introduction
• Slow second movement, likely a theme and variations
• Minuet trio movement in three, ABA
• Fast finale, likely rondeau or sonata form

Again, this can be applied to any symphony from the classical period and nearly any symphony ever written afterward. Composers may switch the order of the two inner movements, and by Beethoven’s time the minuet will become much faster and go by a different name (the scherzo), but other than that, you are now ready to enjoy the entire Classical symphonic repertoire.

Mozart: Symphony no. 39 in E Flat Major

Mozart, the prodigy that took Vienna, Europe and the world by storm, needs little introduction. In his tragically short life he composed symphonies, string quartets, operas and concerti that still form the foundation of each of these respective genres. He knew all the rules for writing, but what made him stand out was his equally inventive knowledge of how to break them.

Mozart’s 41 symphonies are all worth a hundred listens, but the one I’ve selected is my personal favorite. It’s probably because it’s the one I’ve played most often and know best. It’s frequently programmed and well-loved by audiences. We will look in detail at the first movement now.

The first movement begins with a slow introduction that, while grand and dignified, makes the listener wonder what will happen with sudden dissonance in the third chord. The movement “properly” begins after this section, when the meter changes to a fast tempo in three. This is a great example of sonata form, overwhelmingly the most common format for first movements.

Sonata Form as a Story

• Introducing the characters: A theme and B theme stated, A in home key and B in another key. Something separates them from relating well to one another!
• Characters undergo an adventure or a struggle: This is called the development. Themes are deconstructed and put through all sorts of variations and cycle through lots of different keys. You’ll hear the most dissonance here.
• Characters return home, this time getting along much better by finally being in the same key. This is called the recapitulation, or recap.

Listen for the A theme, stated by the strings in the beginning of the fast section. The winds and percussion join to make the theme more boisterous, and same chords from the slow introduction return underneath (genius Mozart moment!). Eventually you’ll hear a transitional passage and then the contrasting B theme which is more understated. The B theme will also be made more lively in its second iteration. It is unusual for both themes to have two “versions,” such as the soft-loud varieties that Mozart gives both his themes here.

It can be difficult to tell what’s a theme and what’s transitional material, especially for an untrained ear, because it all depends on the key. B themes are always in a particular key relative to the A theme. If you can hear that the music is now in another key, you’ve reached the B theme. Part of the narrative aspect of sonata form is the face that, at first, the themes are in different keys, but in the end, they will reunite in the same key.

The development section of this symphony is particularly long and makes creative use of concepts stated earlier in the piece. All good developments will be, at all times, based somehow on material you’ve already heard. Even if you find yourself losing attention amidst all the key changes, try to identify what earlier music a particular passage might be based upon. It’s a bit like Where’s Waldo, except with sounds!

The recap happens when you hear the A theme again, just as it was at the beginning. In this particular symphony the recap is clean and happens after a notable silence, so it should be easy to identify. You’ll then hear the B theme but this time it will be in the same key as if all is right in the world and B has found its place.

The movement can now end, since the B theme has been fixed! Composers might add extra material to make a grand finish; this is called a coda. Mozart adds a short coda after the end of the second B theme and after a grand cadence the movement is over.

When you listen to the other movements, see if you can identify their forms. They will all fall into one of the categories (sonata, rondeau, etc) above. As you get better at identifying themes, you’ll be able to tell very quickly what form a movement has, and enjoy it more because of form’s imperative part in Classical music’s narrative.

Classical era music creates an expectation, playing with the audience thinking it knows what comes next. If you don’t know what you’re supposed to expect to happen, you’ll miss out on a good composer’s creative defiance of that expectation. Strict rules led to vast numbers of boring compositions that trapped classical music in the background noise of dinner parties, but the composers who rose above the rest were able to manipulate, turning rules into a vehicle for unique expressions that the audience could use the form to understand.

Continuing in the vein of solo instrumental works, today we will look at Bach’s writing for solo stringed instruments. Bach wrote six cello suites and six sonatas and partitas for solo violin. He also wrote many works for soloist and accompaniment, for example sonatas for gamba and keyboard accompaniment, but our focus today will be what Bach was able to do with one stringed instrument all by itself.

These solo works have become the backbone of even modern instrumental repertoire for several reasons. They are, above all, exquisitely beautiful pieces of music. They are also compelling examples of harmony, counterpoint, form, and all the music theory terms you could want to study as a student of classical music. Despite all the depth they contain, the suites, sonatas and partitas are also logistically friendly in that only one musician is required. For these reasons they have been transcribed for all sorts of other instruments and have become a staple in the repertoire for instruments as far-reaching as the marimba and xylophone! If you learn to play any orchestral instrument, you will almost surely come across one of these exquisite works.

Format of the Sonatas, Partitas and Suites

Bach’s solo suites, sonatas, partitas draw from Baroque formats that we’ve already seen, the only difference being that only one person is playing instead of several. They all have several movements, usually dance-inspired, that contrast in character but are all united by being in the same key.

The six suites for cello all have the same format: a prelude to establish the key, and a series of dance movements in that key. The prelude to Cello Suite 1 is particularly famous and many people don’t realize that it’s the introduction to several more movements. I recommend listening to the entire suite, not just the prelude!

There are three sonatas for violin, and these follow a typical trio sonata format of four contrasting movements, just like the Corelli we saw last week. The main difference is that Bach chooses to have a prelude and fugue (which we also discussed last week) as the first two contrasting movements for each of his sonatas.

The three partitas for solo violin are even more unorthodox in their format. Their four (sometimes more) movements are drawn from the favorite Baroque dances of the day:

• Allemande, “German Dance,” slow, stately and in two.
• Courente, “French Dance,” fast, in three, and spritely.
• Sarabande, “Spanish Dance,” slow, in three, lyrical and melancholy.
• Gigue, “English Dance,” a translation of jig, a pub dance in a two/three hybrid called compound meter. Think of a drinking song such as “For He’s a jolly Good Fellow.” Usually used as a rousing finale!

The partitas also have added dances from various European origin. We will discuss one of the most striking of these additions now.

Sonata for solo voilin no. 2 in d minor

Bach’s sonata no. 2 is the most widely known of his solo violin works; it is perhaps his most emotionally tortured writing and no music appreciation training is required to hear its grieving character. Whether its profound emotional effect is due in part to the sudden death of Bach’s wife shortly before writing it is a topic of debate still today.

The partita presents the four classic baroque dances in order: First a stately allemande, made particularly brooding by the minor key, a dark but rhythmically compelling courente, a mournfully lyrical sarabande and finally an athletic, virtuosic gigue. The gigue’s active and flourishing character is a compelling end to the sonata, four usual movements in the expected order, all gorgeous and very much worth a listen. Hearing this trajectory and finale makes it all the more effective when, in fact, there’s still a movement to go.

The Chaconne

This extra movement, the chaconne, is one of the great works of the violin repertoire, a masterpiece held above nearly everything else ever written for the violin (and there’s a lot!). Although scholarly opinion is inconclusive as to the chaconne’s relationship to Bach’s personal grief, it’s hard not to be convinced of it. Not only is the chaconne tacked onto a tried-and-true format that should already be over, it’s 16-minute length is as much as the other movements put together. Bach knew what the audience was expecting to hear and chose to format it this way. There’s no timeline for a person’s grief, and even the placement of this chaconne in relationship to the other movements could be interpreted as a powerful statement.

Chaconne is another dance term, meaning a baseline and progression of chords that repeats, over and over, while the upper voices decorate this basic “theme” in different ways. You may have seen the Italian term passacaglia which has the same meaning. It can continue on and on, until the composer decides which variation will be the last.

The Narrative of Bach’s Chaconne

Bach managed to make the repetitive format into a narrative which has buildup and release of tension on an impressive number of levels: within each four-bar cell (the theme), over several cells in a group, and over the entire 16 minutes. Despite hearing the same basic harmonies over and over again, you’ll pay this no attention because cells are related to one another in an almost story-telling way.

This is also an opportunity to remind listeners that the performer they listen to will take interpretive license and elements may differ slightly. For example, I hear the beginning as an angry, agonized expression of grief. I enjoy performances that highlight this by playing in a rougher, “modern,” or “romantic” way that probably isn’t accurate to how it would have been played in the Baroque period. Other performers may choose to dial this back and express the harmonies more simply, since this opening tells us what our repeated “theme” is and should be made very clear. Both arguments, and many more, are convincing, so you select the interpretation to which you connect most.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhCoV8SP97Q

Bach’s Chaconne is split into three large parts. The first third is in d minor, the home key, the second is in D Major, still based on our “home key” but varied to highlight major harmonies, and the last section is back in d minor again. All sections end on a single held pitch, D. The first phrase of the Chaconne repeats after the end of each section and at the end.

The first third of the Chaconne has its overarching rise in intensity interrupted by a low point in the middle. Pay particular attention after the two variations with very fast, aggressive running notes. The subsequent loss of intensity seems anxious instead of calm due to the chromatic (pitches related by a the smallest distance,half-step, usually dissonant) pitches that Bach adds. This mood instigates a climb to the high point of this section. The increased use of dissonance, use of several notes at once and entire chords, all make this high point effective, and finally we hear the opening of the piece again but even more emphatically. This opening material starts to morph into something else, and we’re left with a very long single pitch, D.

At this point, we assume we will continue in d minor, but Bach uses this common pitch, also the home pitch of the entire sonata, to transition to D Major instead. In contrast to what’s just happened, it is particularly cathartic and peaceful. The following several variations are calm and optimistic. Perhaps Bach’s grief is over? Perhaps he’s reflecting on happier times with his wife? Eventually this section also builds in energy toward another truly glorious high point, one that lasts nearly ten variations, in which victory has been decisively won over whatever darkness came before. This is most evident when the opening material returns in a Major key. The same ending, the lone D pitch, sounds.

This brings d minor, the darkness we thought we dealt with, back. This is the shortest section of the piece, starting at a low point for several variations, even delving into major tonalities as if it’s teetering over an edge. This section stays quite low-energy for a long time, but the use of dissonant, chromatic motion makes it perhaps the more foreboding of the two minor sections. It gathers lots of speed over just one variation and the final variations flourishes to the finish. But like hitting a wall, the opening cries of grief (the harmonic theme by itself) are back. They finish the chaconne once and for all, again on the solitary D. Depending on who you listen to, this last note may be a myriad of different characters. Some are bold and loud, some are defeated and quiet, or somewhere in between. Much can be said for either extreme and that’s the beauty of it.

We left off last time with several examples of the trio sonata and the concerto grosso, both classic genres of Baroque instrumental music.

If I wanted to give you a representative image of the Baroque period, I’d have to spend about ten more entries talking about the concerto and the concerto grosso. Handel wrote ten organ concerti, six trumpet concerti and twelve concerti grossi, among others. Bach wrote six concerti grossi (the “Brandenburg” concerti), several harpsichord concerti and still more concerti for violin, two violins and others. Vivaldi wrote over five hundred concerti, a lot more than just the Four Seasons, for nearly every orchestral instrument (even the bassoon has not just one, but several!). Composers you’ve probably never heard of wrote masterpieces for oboe, trumpet, viola and other instruments that are still part of those instruments’ core repertoire today. You can’t take a step without tripping over Baroque concerti and I feel that, with the music theory terms we discussed in the last entry, you are equipped to actively listen to as many as you desire without any more analysis from me. I will, though, provide some suggestions to get you started. Paste these titles into your favorite music streaming search bar and enjoy.

• George Frederick Handel: Organ Concerto in g minor
• Allessandro Marcello: Oboe Concerto in d minor
• Georg Philipp Telemann: Viola Concerto in G Major
• Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerti, Concerto for two Violins

You’ll soon discover just how much there is to listen to in the sub-genre of Baroque concerti. Enjoy, and use the terms we talked about last week. In the mean time, I will move on to the sub-genre to which I really want to dedicate this entry.

The Prelude and Fugue: J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier

Ask my close colleagues and friends “What does Jill like to listen to in her spare time?” and among their first responses will be preludes and fugues. I’m probably more excited about Shostakovich’s preludes and fugues than most anything else, music or not, and if I wan’t afraid of boring you to death I’d probably do a blog post for each of Bach’s, and Shostakovich’s, preludes and fugues individually, and love every second of it. We all have our vices.

I will refrain from that now. No promises for when we get to Shostakovich though.

J.S. Bach’s two-book collection of preludes and fugues, The Well-Tempered Klavier, is arguably the most influential work of his output, and Bach composed 1,128 pieces of music in his lifetime. You might even say that The Well-Tempered Klavier is the most influential thing to come out of the entire Baroque era, the most prolific era of composition the Western world has ever seen.

So what makes The Well-Tempered Klavier such a superlative work? First, it’s the height of Bach’s contrapuntal (polyphonic) writing, and Bach himself was already the height of contrapuntal writing. It’s the best of the best. It also introduces a new compositional model in which a two-movement work explores a particular key, the first movement being freely structured and the second movement contrasting with a highly detailed set of rules. Many composers wold use this format, and would study Bach’s work in order to refine their own fugue writing. Although the piano wasn’t yet in Germany at the time of Bach’s writing, he titled this work intending for it to be played on any keyboard instrument, such as the clavichord or harpsichord. By doing this, Bach brought the keyboard out of the continuo section and into the soloist’s spotlight. From this point forward the keyboard, especially the piano, would be a dominant solo instrument in the West.

Structure of the Prelude and Fugue

There are 24 diatonic keys in Western music, 12 Major and 12 minor. Bach wrote one prelude and fugue set for each key. With twelve keys in each mode it takes a genius to make them sound truly distinct from one another; the twelve major keys can’t all just be “happy,” and the twelve minor keys can’t just be “sad” either. Luckily, Bach was more than fit for the job and all 24 of these are unique and interesting.

One of the elements that makes the prelude and fugue structure so satisfying is the contrast between the two halves while still being unified by being in the same key.

The prelude will be the first thing the audience hears in the particular key, so its main purpose is to establish which of the 24 keys we are exploring. Bach followed the Baroque era conventions of harmony which help the listener’s ear to understand which pitch is the most important, but beyond that, he did whatever he wanted. The prelude had no specified format. His preludes range from grand fanfares to rhapsodic melodies and spritely dances, brooding meditations to anxious wandering. This free definition of “prelude” will hold true for future eras as well.

The fugue, by contrast, had incredibly struct rules for its format. It is is the culmination of imitative polyphony. It uses strict counterpoint rules to avoid displeasing harmonies, but also aims to have three, four or even five voices state a melody, explore it independently, and somehow make it back to the home key without breaking any counterpoint rules. A fugue will always begin with one voice by itself, stating a melody, called a subject. You’ll then hear another voice come in with the subject, but at a different pitch (there are strict rules about this pitch relationship too). The voices will seem to be playing catch-up with each other, and then yet another voice will come in with the subject too. This can go up to four, even five voices at a time. Once each voice states the subject, a development phase starts in which all the voices individually explore other keys and different variations of the subject. You’ll want to remember the tune of the subject, because with a genius like Bach, despite all the rules of harmony and counterpoint, it can shapeshift into all sorts of disguises:

• twice as fast
• twice as slow, usually in the bass
• in parallel between two voice
• backwards!

Subjects are also woven into harmonies and cadences so that all of this activity sounds miraculously cohesive and purposeful. You can listen to a good fugue a hundred times and still find another place that the subject was hiding all along!

The truly amazing aspect of a good fugue is that, just like preludes, fugues have unique moods and musical trajectories despite all the rules. They even have an overarching form in which they start in a home key, leave, and find their way back. This return to the home key can be made as climactic, or intentionally not so, as fits the mood of that particular fugue, but the narrative value of wandering and finally finding one’s way home again will be of profound influence in later eras.

I promised earlier not to put you through each of the prelude and fugue sets in The Well Tempered Klavier individually, so I will leave you from here to listen. I particularly like a live recording of Keith Jarrett, but he is known mostly as a jazz pianist, so you may choose to find a more traditional interpretation by another pianist. There are endless recordings of such a cornerstone work in the piano repertoire. Regardless of your favorite performer, the attributes we’ve discussed will help you listen actively, and take special notes of the fugue subjects which will be stated right at the start of each fugue. Notice how different they are, what emotions they each inspire, and where they wander off to before coming back to the home key. And of course, enjoy!

All of the Listening Club entries so far have focused on vocal music, and there’s a reason: music that has words is usually more accessible to the untrained ear. Word painting is a powerful technique that anyone can appreciate if made aware of it. With no words to paint, instrumental music is easy to listen to passively but difficult to make sense of on a more attentive level. It requires at least some music theory knowledge, and nobody looks forward to a music theory course when they’d just like to be entertained.

But, instrumental music is worth the work. Just as we get more out of vocal music with some contextual knowledge, the difference between passive and active listening to instrumental music is even greater.

So, bear with us. We encourage you to have some of today’s listening suggestions playing already while we get some essential theory out of the way.

Theory Crash Course Part 1: Keys, Rhythm, Counterpoint

In general, from this point forward in Western history, music will appear as being in a diatonic key, e.g. C Major or d minor. In writing, Major keys are capitalized and minor keys aren’t. Being in the key of C means that this piece of music will use the notes comprising the C Major scale— coincidentally these are the white keys on a piano. To get any other major key besides C, notes have to be altered to make the do-re-mi pattern work out correctly. This is what the piano’s black notes are for.

The human ear associates Major keys with happiness, celebration or toe-tapping on a dance floor, and minor keys with sadness, introspection and sometimes even anger, although in the Baroque period the minor keys were used for dancing too.

Our trio sonata for today is a good example of that. It’s in the key of g minor but has several moments that invite the listener to dance. There will be several changes in mood throughout the piece which we separate into “movements.” In the Baroque trio sonata this means different dance-inspired sections, some fast and some slow. They will almost always alternate within a larger work; today’s trio sonata has a slow-fast-slow-fast format.

In Two or In Three?

While the tempo (speed) can vary, rhythm in general tends to fall into one of two categories: either two beats to the bar or three. Within the general pulse of a piece of music, the brain will break what it hears into the smallest denominators—it’s no coincidence that the smallest prime numbers are 2 and 3. This concept can be difficult to describe, but the way you move to what you hear can give you a clue as to whether you’re listening in two or three. Imagine a dance in which you could waltz, either slowly or quickly, versus a dance where you’d probably move left and right equally. This general feeling of “in two” or “in three” is the biggest takeaway from today by far; while it’s a hallmark of the Baroque period, it continues to shape the western sense of rhythm throughout history going forward, even today.

Counterpoint

A general but critically important term. Simply put, more than one voice at a time is counterpoint. Even in the Middle Ages, people had harmonies they did not like, such as the tritone, which was associated with the devil. Therefore, composers had to be careful when writing for more than one voice to ensure that a tritone never accidentally occurred between the voices. Counterpoint became increasingly complex (lots of voices at once) in the Renaissance and reached a high point with J.S. Bach in the late Baroque period. Here are some of the ways counterpoint looks and sounds:

• Imitative: One voice copies the previous voice.
• Parallel: Both voices move in the same direction and the same number of pitches, so they always stay the same distance apart.
• Contrary motion: Voices move in opposite directions.
• Oblique motion: One voice stays on the same pitch while another moves up or down.

See how many of these types of counterpoint you can hear in the music we have for today, and in all music you hear from this point forward. You could easily go back to the Renaissance and earlier to apply these concepts too.

Corelli: Trio Sonata in g minor, op.1

Archangelo Corelli is best known for developing the trio sonata and the concerto grosso, two instrumental formats that would influence Vivaldi, Bach and many other great composers who came after him. Corelli was in direct competition with George Frederick Handel, as they were both highly respected court composers who were welcomed in the highest levels of aristocracy, and both served some of the same patrons.

Today’s main listening example is Corelli’s Trio Sonata no. 10 in g minor, from his collection of 12 Trio Sonatas. It is a great example of a typical trio sonata format, and has some unique points of interest as well. Its four movements are simply named by the tempo marking at the beginning of each of them. The “trio” consists of two violins and a gamba, or cello, and there is also a continuo of organ and theorbo (lute).

Here’s some analysis to keep in mind, movement by movement. First is the Grave (slow) processional in two, full of suspensions to add to the mournful tone. The continuo section generally just provides chords and baseline, but occasionally we hear the theorbo add passing tones and embellishments to the baseline, as continuo performers were given considerable freedom to add their own decoration to the notes on the page. The next section is marked Allegro and has a unique two-part format. The same music is presented in each of our essential rhythmic categories, first in two, then in three. See if you can feel the slight difference in how move or tap along with the music. An Adagio (slow) section follows, again with many suspensions. You will hear the bass move, or “walk” into several keys before the home key (g minor) is reached. The final Allegro section is a fast dance in three; flourishes of scales up and down are separated by contrasting pillars of chords.

This sonata has many classic Baroque giveaways, described more below. See how many you can hear. It’s important to mention these because they won’t go away; many of these techniques continued shaping Western music well after the Baroque era was over.

• Sequence: the same pattern played several times over, but ascending or descending in pitch. This differs from imitation in that it happens in one voice only, but imitation can sometimes be in a sequence if the conversation between voices follows a repeated, ascending pattern.
• Imitative counterpoint: Running rampant in this and most other Baroque compositions, imitative counterpoint will be most noticeable in fast dance movements.
• Suspension: The harmony changes, but one voice stays in the previous harmony a moment longer to build tension. We already saw this in the Renaissance.
• Walking bass: The voices seem to switch roles in that the upper voices hold a series of chords, probably with suspensions, while the bass voice is comparatively more active. Commonly occurs in slow movements.

If you enjoyed Corelli’s trio sonata, you’re ready to listen to the other 11 in this collection, which will have much in common with this one. You can also listen to his concerti grossi, which apply many of these rules but use a group of soloists against an accompanying orchestra (and always a continuo section too). Handel is also well-known as a master of the concerto grosso. Here are some suggestions:

You’ll hear lots of counterpoint between solo voices amongst themselves, and also between soloists and accompaniment, so two separate levels of interaction between voices. Listening to instrumental Baroque music and making sense of it is a great exercise for anyone, especially someone new to art music. Baroque trio sonatas and concerto grossi are some of the most timelessly popular genres for the general listener; St. Martin in the Fields hosts a performance of this genre nearly every other night and the hall is full and enthusiastic every time. If you can stay actively involved for the duration of Baroque instrumental work, you’ll be aptly prepared to make sense of music from eras both before and afterward.