Chapter 18 The Early Romantics
Prelude
-instrumental music can communicate pure emotion without using words
-audience was increasingly made up of middle class
-Lied is a German art song
-became favourite outlet for intense personal feelings
-piano accompaniment
-composers grouped songs into collections with unifying characteristics, such as texts by a single
poet or focus on common theme
-song cycle is a collection of song
-all songs are to be performed in order as movements of a multi-movement vocal work
-tell a story through succession of songs
-combine narrative emphasis with expressivity of lyric poem
-song cycle provides balance between small and large forms, lyric and narrative content, unity
and variety
-piano was capable of producing full, firm tone at any dynamic level
-suitable for expressiveness and virtuosity
-splitting accompaniment between 2 hands
-reinforcing melody by simulating orchestral technique of doubling
-extended legato effects with damper pedal
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Lieder
-wrote over 600 songs
-Schubertiads are lieder first performed in home concerts
-simple, artless quality of folk song
-suggest uncomplicated feeling
-some are filled with sweetness and melancholy
-some are declamatory, intense, and dramatic, strong sense of harmonic colour
-strong sense of harmonic colour
-complex modulations are embodied in long passages in which tonality is kept in suspense and
underlined dramatic qualities of song text
-harmonic boldness
-alternating between major and minor forms of triad
-chromatic colouring in diatonic sound
-modulations move from tonic toward flat keys, and median/ submediant
-use of harmony reflects expressive purpose
-set poetry by Goeth
-embody character, describe scene and convey situation, express emotions through melody,
harmony, accompaniment, and form
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