With the Romantic era taking a foothold in the nineteenth century, the rise of the German opera was nourished with the rise of nationalism in music. Due to the comparative nature of the German language versus the Italian language, early German language operas were imitative but could not effectively compete with Italian language operas. “Traditional operatic singing was a function, an outgrowth of the Italian language, the nature of its vowels, and consonants, and its ability to sustain melisma. As long as German language opera attempted to compete with Italian opera on its own artistic turf without one embracing the unique character of German language vocal music and two, by employing plot elements that would somehow distinguish it from …show more content…
Growing out of the eighteenth century literary movement called Sturm und Drang (translated as storm and stress) the German Romantic opera (and German Romanticism in general) came into being as a revolt against Classical restraint. “The Sturm und Drang movement 's emphasis on feeling, and on mystery, and the supernatural, influenced profoundly, a number of young, early 19th century German composers, of whom the most important, from the standpoint of opera, was Carl Maria von Weber”. Drawing its inspiration from “John Jacques Rousseau 's belief that human feelings serve us better and more reliably than reason; Sturm und Drang authors advocated free expression and language, dress, behavior, and love” (L39). Der Freischutz being the definitive work which established German Romantic opera also exemplified its characteristics. The German Romantic opera features: “plots drawn from medieval history, legend, or fairy tale, and generally take place in some sort of mythical time of the past; stories typically involving supernatural beings and supernatural happenings; a background of nature wild, mysterious, and uncontrolled; and German Romantic opera sees supernatural incidents not as incidental elements, but as essential plot elements intertwined with the fate of human characters” …show more content…
Schopenhauer claimed that only instrumental music could express both the full range of human emotions and impressions and the greater truths that lie behind the facade of everyday life” (L40). A quote from Schopenhauer’s writings: "instrumental music is entirely independent of the phenomenal, that is, the conscious, everyday world. It ignores it altogether. It is a copy of the will, the great inner truth itself. That is why the effect of instrumental music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that of the other arts. It expresses the essence behind appearance. Thus, the creator of instrumental music reveals the inner truth of the world," According to Green berg (2009), this philosophy influenced Wagner to shape his concepts of both leitmotif and
In his day, Johann Adolph Hasse was at the forefront of Italian opera. Although he composed a fair amount of sacred works, he is best known for his operatic output. He was widely popular throughout Italy and Germany, and was commissioned by courts and opera houses throughout Europe. His performances were attended by cultural figures at the time, as well as some of the biggest names in common-era music today. In his later life, styles changed and so Hasse’s acclaim diminished after his death. But generations later, he was re-established as a figurehead and icon of classic ancient Italian opera, a designation he possesses even today.
For almost half a century, the musical world was defined by order and esteemed the form of music more highly than the emotion that lay behind it. However, at the turn of the 19th century, romantic music began to rise in popularity. Lasting nearly a century, romantic music rejected the ideas of the classical era and instead encouraged composers to embrace the idea of emotionally driven music. Music was centered around extreme emotions and fantastical stories that rejected the idea of reason. This was the world that Clara Wieck (who would later marry the famous composer, Robert Schumann) was born into. Most well known for being a famous concert pianist, and secondly for being a romantic composer, Clara intimately knew the workings of romantic music which would not only influence Clara but would later become influenced by her progressive compositions and performances, as asserted by Bertita Harding, author of Concerto: The Glowing Story of Clara Schumann (Harding, 14). Clara’s musical career is an excellent example of how romantic music changed from virtuosic pieces composed to inspire awe at a performer’s talent, to more serious and nuanced pieces of music that valued the emotion of the listener above all else.
I want to discuss the function of music to combine intention and perception. I believe in the prehistoric, people sing or beat on the tough surface because they want to express their emotions, otherwise they have no reason to sing. Similarly, the composers also write the songs to express their feelings. Nevertheless, a piece of music which cannot trigger the change of feeling to audience cannot regarded as a musical sound. According to Thomas Schafer, "When people listen to music they usually try to attain specific goals. Those related to self-awareness and the regulation of mood and arousal are relatively important to them and those related to social relatedness less so"(12). From the research, Schafer get a conclusion that the music which can let people attain goals related to self-awareness and the regulation of mood and arousal will increase the strength of music preference(12). Hence, the function of music is to express the emotion and then influence the audience to let them have the same feeling as composers or performers. For example, Beethoven composed the famous Fate Symphony, or called Symphony No.5 in C major to show his determination to fight with the fate, for Beethoven the fate is the loss of his lover. While it is not the only purpose to write this symphony. The final goal is to move the
Until the nineteenth century, music was generally regarded as an international language. Folk music had always been in place and linked directly with particular regions. On a larger scale though, European music was a device for expression through the application of Italian techniques and styles. In other words, its technical vocabulary was Italian, and from the time of the early baroque, European music, in general, had evolved its styles and technical devices from the developments of Italian composers. Furthermore, court opera was nearly always performed in Italian, whether in Dresden or in London, no matter who composed it or where it was performed. For example, in 1855, Queen Victoria suggested to Richard Wagner that he translate his opera Tannhauser into Italian so that it could secure a production in London. Thus, European music, regardless of where it was composed could be (and was) performed throughout Europe and understood through the common Italian commands, descriptions, and styles. It was unacceptable for most to compose in any other way. The international idea began to collapse in the early nineteenth century as embattled nations or nations subjugated by a foreign invader began to think of music as an expression of their own national identity, personality, or as a way of voicing national aspirations.
Eastern Washington University Department of Music presented a program of Opera works by Giacomo Puccini, Aron Copland, W.A. Mozart, John Dowland, Franz Shubert, Maurice Ravel, and Robert Schumann on Friday, March 7, 6:30 p.m., in the Music Building, Recital Hall. These Opera works were sung by Senior Recitalist, Alexandra Rannow.
The Romantic Period existed as a testament to the epochal changes that occurred between the years of 1825 and 1900. Culture was colored by the changing of ideals and moral principles, music was composed to capture the frailty and fallibility of human emotion, and composers of this age allowed themselves to be guided by their emotions and injected these powerful feelings into their works. Music was no longer a means to convey class and refinement; music had become a vehicle by which composers could rid themselves of sophistication and instead express their deepest feelings and thoughts often cloaked by the twelve, humble semi-tones that make up all Western music ever written. The Romantic culture, the Romantic music, and the Romantic composer could be considered subversive as they served to reinvent classical music for the rest of time.
Romanticism acted as a distinct backbone of political and social rhetoric for theorists throughout the 19th and 20th century across Europe. Through artistic mediums, people created a cultural basis for nationalistic thought, and these literary, illustrated, and musical productions planted the seed of national and often ethnocentric pride of the people in various states. Simultaneously, rapid industrialization occurred, and cities grew immensely; to support the expansion, the developing industries assembled flocks of pe...
On October 12th, I saw Tosca by Giacomo Puccini held at Atlanta Opera. Tosca is an Italian opera, directed by Tomer Zvulun, accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen, included a cast of Kara Shay Thomson, Massimiliano Pisapia, and Luis Ledesma (The Atlanta Opera). Opera is an art form in which singers act out drama through a combination of acting and vocal performance. Singers deliver conversation in a musical manner, essentially singing the conversation. Since we recently learned about opera in class, I want to explore the future of opera - where it will go next with the ever advancing modern technology, media and entertainment, and what researches are currently being done at both the industry and academic levels. I will briefly describe what the traditional opera is like using Tosca as an example. Next, I will look at modern opera after the World War II. I will also select one example from the industry and university that are experimenting with opera. At last, I will offer my imagination of what the future of opera may be.
Opera in the Romantic Period was a time when opera changed drastically, especially in the country of Italy. The recognition of singers as being important, almost irreplaceable, in the art of “bel canto” opera changed the idea of a vocalist in opera forever. A singer’s voice was prized and Italian composers, like Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini wrote operas and works to showcase the voice, it’s color, range and agility. These Italian composers were moving away from the normal style of composition of the time, and the composer Rossini, who set the stage for many other followers. Many of the operas written during this time are still performed today and are highly acclaimed. For the most part, before Italy became a main player, France and Germany were the main areas for music. These composer’s lives were extremely important in the development of the romantic period of opera and they really put Italy in the eye of the public for their amazing operas and musical styles.
Baroque music is characterized by its development of tonality, elaborate use of ornamentation, application of figured bass, and the expression of single affections. A considerable philosophical current that shaped baroque music is the interest in Renaissance ideas that spawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greeks and Romans considered music to be an instrument of communication that could easily stimulate any emotion in its listeners. Therefore, musicians became progressively knowledgeable of the power one’s composition could have on its audiences’ emotions. Because of this, one of the primary goals of baroque art and music was to provoke emotion in the listener, which is closely connected to the “doctrine of affections”. This doctrine, derived from ancient theories of rhetoric and oratory, was the theory that a single piece of art or a single movement of music should express one single emotion. Intrinsically, instead of music reflecting the emotions, composers aspired to cause emotions in the listener. Ma...
During the nineteenth century, opera stories most of the time had a theme of passion and romance. That is one of the reasons that this century is also called the Romantic Era. What is an opera? Opera is a theatrical work that is set to music for people to sing. People that sing regular music probably never tried to sing opera because the singers never had a microphone to use and the opera houses that they did the operas in were big
Mahler's early career was spent at a serious of regional opera houses (Hall in 1880, Laibach in 1881, Olmutz in 1882, Kassel in 1883, Prague in 1885, Liepzig in 1886-8, Budapest from 1886-8, and Hamburg from 1891-7), a normal career path, until he arrived as head of the Vienna Opera in 1897. Mahler ended some of the more slovenly performance pra...
In many respects, and with hindsight, it seems natural that the Romantic composers and writers would take a new direction in their approach to expression, reacting against the classical and neo-classical ideas of reason and order from the previous age. It was a revolt against classicism, and against the pre-prescribed rules that defined it. The main catalyst for this change was the French Revolution in 1789, where the French monarchy and aristocracy was overthrown by a rebellion of the people and France became a republic. This, in a musical sense, had an immediate impact on French opera, with the emphasis of the stories now beginning to be drawn into the present as opposed to the ancient world, and the old hierarchy of the Gods and feudal systems. T...
Opera is a unique genre of spoken word and song accompanied by music. The music takes one through ascending and descending ranges of emotions. Mozart's Don Giovanni is a perfect example of how this genre emits a wide variety of feelings and attitudes. This "dark comedy seems to convey Mozart's feeling that events have both comical and serious dimensions…" (Kerman, 205). The opera, as a whole, is neither exclusively comedic nor entirely tragic.
Other societal practice during romanticism is the Romantic Opera. In comparison to the classical and baroque opera, romantic opera has a continuous flow of music in each scene and soon, people pay less attention to tenors and pays equal attention to choruses. To name a few of many composers for romantic operas, Wagner and Bizet are known for their works for romantic opera during the romantic era. Romantic music is also influenced by folk music, tunes, rhythms and themes as many romantic composers wrote nationalist music, which is inspired from folk dances and songs, during the romantic period (http://absoluteastronomy.com). Another factor that contributed to romantic music in defining its traits is the instrumentation.