Week 14 : Symphony

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Bruckner Symphonies

•  Famous for his symphonies, masses, and motets.

•  His symphonies are known for their depth and emotional intensity. They are very large in size and exist in different versions.

•  Referred to as cathedrals of sound:: commanding scale, structure, and sonorities.

•  Concentrated on writing symphonies while a teacher of music theory at the Vienna Conservatory. These symphonies considered “wild” and “nonsensical.”

•  Symphonic Style:

•  All four movements

•  Modified sonata form allegro, slow movement, scherzo in 3/4, ending with a modified sonata form.

•  Standard orchestra scoring: 2 woodwinds, four horns, 2-3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings. Later symphonies expand on this instrumentation (his last three symphonies make great use of Wagner tubas).

•  No subtitles (except sym. 4).

•  Forceful codas and elaborate finales, frequent use of unison and tutti orchestra. His orchestration modeled after the pipe organ:his primary instrument.

•  Influenced by Wagner, Liszt, Schumann & Beethoven.

Study Symphony f minor 1863: an assignment given by Otto Kitzler. Reminiscent of Schumann with the hallmark traits of the later Bruckner style.

Symphony 3 d minor 1873: Wagner chose this symphony for his dedication. Contains quotations from Wagner's music dramas (Die Walküre and Lohengrin).

Symphony 4 E flat major 1874, 1878, 1880-81, 1886-88: His first great success. Known as the Romantic Symphony. The title given by the composer.

Symphony 5 B flat major 1876, 1876: considered his lifetime masterpiece in counterpoint. The finale combines a fugue with the sonata form movement.

Symphony 9 d minor 1891-94, 1896: Unfinished. Bruckner wanted to use his Te Deum as a Finale in order to pay homage to Beethoven's Ninth symphony (also in d minor).

 


Strauss Orchestral Music

•  Wrote 7 tone poems. The definition of a tone poem is a one movement, extra-musical program providing a narrative or illustrative element such as a poem, novel or painting. It is less dependent on the symphonic procedures as the Symphonic poem. However, all tone poems can be related to standard forms à sonata allegro form, rondo, and variation. His goal was to evoke feelings and portray character.

•  Influenced by Wagner and Liszt in his embracing of the extra musical but does not carry their idea for music as a sacred unity.

 

Don Juan E major 1889 à Don Juan by Nikolaus Lenau.

•  Left to the listener to make connections between music and poem.

•  Large orchestra for strength and variety

•  This was the first piece to show his maturity à he earned his reputation as a symphonic composer.

•  He merges rondo and sonata principles à The exposition à E & B major. There is a restatement of the first theme in the tonic, the follows a developmental section with two new ideas. The recapitulation is truncated in E major which draws freely on all the material. A terse summary of the beginning motto theme is typical for Strauss.

•  The opening uses an ascending motion (C-E), an effect which is a favorite for Berlioz à the climax of the phrase is intensified by a sudden turn to a remote sonority.

•  Violins and high winds in their upper register. Brass spaced chords can sometimes create muddiness.

 

Tod und Verklärung 1888-89

•  Based on a narrative of Strauss' own conception. “a dying artist obsessed by an artistic ideal, transfigured at death to recognize his ideal in eternity.” Poem, by Ritter postdates the composition.

•  Transfiguration was one of Strauss' life long fascination (Rosenkavalier, Metamorphosen).

•  Clear musical subdivisions but not related much to the sonata form.

•  Quiet syncopated introduction into an agitated exposition à episodic development (dreams of childhood/ youthful passions) à Principle theme (artistic ideal) à Coda (place of culmination).

 

Till Eulenspiegel 1894-95

•  Was initially to be an opera

•  About a wicked goblin, who mocks religion, flirts with women and uses double talk. He ends up being hanged.

•  Strauss did not call this a tone poem but a Rondeau form for large orchestra. An expansion of the rondo form through poetic content à The rondo is achieved mostly by the return of Till's two themes to articulate his adventures.

•  Beethoven's eighth symphony used as his model

•  Episodic in nature.

 

Mahler Symphonies:: A staple of Modernism and postmodernism.

•  Known during his day as a leading orchestra and operatic composer.

•  Post Romantic composer à combines song and symphony

•  His songs à songs of a Wayfarer / Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Kindertoten lieder, Das lied von dear Erde).

•  Bright tonal melodies, clarity of line through soloistic or chamber style orchestral scoring.

•  A “potpourris” of themes.

•  Symphony 2 and Symphony 8 his most successful.

•  Biggest influence was Wagner but was obsessed by the Beethoven legacy, “curse of the 9 th .”

•  Expressive use of both large and small instrument combinations.

•  Increased use of percussion

•  Combined voice and chorus in symphonic form

•  Extreme voice leading in his counterpoint. Orchestral style based on counterpoint à two melodies seem like they start off each other.

•  Clarity is chosen over a large mass of sound.

•  Works often involved the usage of Austrian song and dance (The Ländler, The minuet, the waltz à all three present in his dance movement in his ninth symphony).

•  He combined ideas of Romanticism, program music and song melodies through the symphonic orchestra. His goal was to extend and break the conception of symphonic form and that the symphony was its own world.

•  Harmonic writing at times very innovative à chords constructed in perfect 4 th (7 th symphony), the nine note sonority (10 th sym I movement), First movement ending in F major the finale in D major (3 rd symphony), A minor—E flat—A minor (6 th symphony), C sharp minor—A minor—D major—F major—D major (5 th symphony), G major—E major (4 th symphony) are some examples of his harmonic tendencies, C minor I movement with an E flat major conclusion.

•  Progressive tonality

•  Mahler was one of the few composers who liberally mixed their work and their life

•  Musical connections between symphonies which bind them together as a larger narrative.

•  3 à 4

•  4 à 5

•  6 à 7

•  10 à comments about his personal life notated within the score.


Mahler's Three periods

1 st period

•  Wunderhorn Poems, Symphonies 1-4.

•  Symphony 1 à uses a melodic idea from one of the Gesellen songs.

•  At first called a symphonic poem

•  Symphony 2 à 3 rd movement is a voiceless orchestral rendering and expansion of a Wunderhorn song.

•  Symphony3 à 3 rd movement is an orchestral fantasia on a Wunderhorn song (uses the post horn). 5 th movement is a Wunderhorn setting.

•  Symphony 4 à finale is a pre existing Wunderhorn setting.

 

2 nd Period

•  Symphonies 5-7, He increased the intensity of expression and took up interest in non traditional instrumentation.

•  Symphony 5 à a whip

•  Symphony 6 à Cowbells, deep bells, hammer

•  Symphony 7 à cowbells, tenor horn, mandolin, guitar.

•  Song is hinted in symphony 5 first movement, and the finale where a Wunderhorn song is used. Symphony 6 slow movement uses his Kindertotenlieder.

 

3 rd Period

Symphonies 5-7, Das lied von der Erde.

Increased use of polyphony.

Did not appear to incorporate song.

 

Mahler's inspirations

Symphony 1 à Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

Symphony 2,3 à Beethoven's 9 th Symphony (solo song, choral elements, and spiritual and social struggle), Beethoven scherzo incorporated in Mahler's symphony 3. Mahler's sym. 2 is a program similar to Beethoven's symphony 6. Beethoven, Bruckner, Wagner influenced in symphony 3 where there is tension between the chorale like benediction and the espressive string style incorporating a great amount of dissonance.

Symphony 4 à high and low style like that of 18 th century symphony.

Symphony 5 à Richard Strauss in its dense orchestral polyphony and more mixed in timbre.

Symphony 6 à “ My sixth will propound riddles the solution of which may be attempted only by a generation which has absorbed and truly digested my first five symphonies." (Mahler, in a letter to Richard Specht). "The only Sixth, despite the 'Pastoral'." (Alban Berg, in a letter to Anton Webern).

Symphony 7 à The program of Sinfonia Domestica of Richard Strauss

Symphony 8 à Polyphony of Bach cantatas. Chinese music (metrical innovations).

 

Mahler's influence

Schoenberg à Mahler's irregular melodic structures

Berg à Mahler's symphony 6. Two hammer blows heard in Berg's 3 orchestral pieces.

Webern à conducted performances of Mahler symphonies. Textural clarity.

Britten and Shostakovich à referenced Das Lied von der Erde.

Das Lied von Erde influenced à Richard Strauss, Havergal Brian, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Kurt Weill, Dmitri Shostakovich, Alfred Schnittke, Benjamin Britten, Alexander von Zemlinsky.

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