MUSIC 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Jazz Harmony, Claude Monet, Oboe
Music and Image: French Impressionism
● Recap
○ Western harmony so far, up to the 20th century, teoleological: music we've
studied so far:
○ e.g. music of Hyadn (classical period), Schubert, Chopin, Medelssohn,
○ Rachmaninoff (romantic period)
■ Pushing boundaries (wagner, massanet (late-romantic)
● Teleological: working towards an end. Teleological direction driven
by tension between tonic and dominant and eventual return to
tonic
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
● culmination of Romanticism-bringing together music, drama, poetry, set design, staging,
architecture in his famous operas
● Idea for his operas were so all encompassing, he even built own theater in Bayreuth
● Gesamkunstwerk-All the elements coalesce into single unified piece
● today one of the most important (if not the most important) figure in the genre of opera
○ symphonies consist of four movements, the audience doesn't clap in between
■ mozart used to have hour long concerts! one moveent, some pieces in
between, another movement
■ wagner: one whole symphony, one artwork, clapping only at the end
● Tristan und Isolde (1856-59), Act II love duet, "Parting Song #3" in MITA
○ One of Wagner's mature operas
○ Wrote it in between his "Ring" cycle (4 operas), based on NOrse legends
○ Hugely influential work for post-Romatnic composers
○ Famous for its "Tristan chord," introduced in the prelude, that doesn't resolve
conventionally
■ from dissonant chord to another dissonant chord! (very unusual during
classical times)
■ augmented fourth (tritone): "devil's interval" with augmented sixth
● the way Wagner decided to move from the Tristan chord was
more special than the chord itself
○ Theme of love-death, prolonged yearning tha tonly resolves in death
■ Dissonance doesn't resolve until the very final moments of the opera,
where Isolde dies alongside her dying lover Tristan
■ Unresolved dissonace captures the yearning of the lover
○ How does Wagner conjure up up the effect of endless yearning?
■ How would you describe melody?
● Cadences?: Yes, many of which are unfinished (I-V half cadences
the entire way)
● How many distinct phases? No, when a phrase should end, it just
continues (endless melody characteristic of Wagner)
■ How would you describe harmony?
● Restful or restless?: harmony is restless, never really resolves
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