Chapter 26:Late Romantic Orchestral Music

Romantic Venues and Today’s Concert Hall• Construction of large concert halls– Vienna (Musikverein, 1870), New York (Carnegie Hall,

1891), Boston (Symphony Hall, 1900)

– Newer concert halls: Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003) and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville (2006) continue this tradition

• Today’s symphony-going experience very similar to that of the late Romantic Era

The Late Romantic Symphony and Concerto• Both the symphony and the concerto expanded in length

during the Romantic Era– Longer, more complex movements

– Concerto remained in three movements (fast – slow – fast)

• Solo Concerto – Virtuoso soloists: Franz Liszt and Niccolò Paginini

mesmerized audiences

– Flashy showpieces, showmanship

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)• Born in Hamburg, Germany

• Pianist and composer

• Robert Schumann spoke Brahms’ praises (1853)– Brahms was a lifelong friend of Robert and Clara

Schumann

• Moved to Vienna in 1862

• Lived a modest (“un-Wagnerian”) lifestyle

• Champion of absolute music

• Used traditional musical forms

• Revered Beethoven and was humbled by Beethoven’s legacy

Violin Concerto in D major (1878)• Friend and violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim assisted

Brahms and played the solo part at the premiere

• Mvt. 3 - Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace– Traditional Rondo form

– Lively rhythm

– Double stops

– Refrain has the flavor of a Hungarian gypsy tune

A Requiem for the Concert Hall:Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem (1868)

• Brought the sacred Requiem Mass into the secular concert hall

• Ecumenical work in his native German

• Profession of faith that extends sounds of solace to all who have suffered the loss of a loved one

• Brahms had lost his mentor Robert Schumann and more recently his mother

• Hour-long, seven-movement work

• Movement 4: “How lovely is Thy dwelling place”– Text from Psalm 84

– Blend of homophonic and polyphonic textures

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904)• Native of Bohemia, an area of the Czech Republic

south of Prague

• Worked as a freelance violist and organist in Prague while composing

• Musical Nationalism– Dvorák became known throughout Europe

• 1892 received an offer to become director of the newly founded National Conservatory in New York

• There that he began writing, and while traveling for a summer to Spillville Iowa among the mainly Czech-speaking people of this rural farming community, he finished, his ninth symphony.

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World” (1893)

• Capstone of Dvorák’s career and is his best-known work

• Premiered at the new Carnegie Hall in New York

• Interest in the indigenous music of African Americans and American Indians

• Tribute to the memory of some distant home

• Movement 2: Largo– Calm strength of the brass leads to a haunting melody in

the English horn

– Tune published later as “Goin’ Home”

The Orchestral Song• Full orchestra replaces the piano as the medium of

accompaniment

• Large orchestra adds more color and more contrapuntal lines – Orchestral songs grew longer, denser, and more complex than the piano-accompanied art song

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)• Born in Czechoslovakia; made his career in Vienna• Composer and conductor• Travelled to the United States (1909-1911); conducted

and toured with the New York Philharmonic• 1897-1907 Director of Vienna Opera• Also directed the Metropolitan Opera in New York• Symphonies of great size and length; use of solo voice

and chorus in symphonies• Wrote only orchestral songs and symphonies• “The symphony is the world; it must embrace

everything.”• Last in the long line of great German symphonists that

extends back to Haydn

Mahler: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen(I Am Lost to the World, 1901-1902)

• Reflected his own outlook on life and on art

• Text from German Romantic poet Friedrich Rückert

• Third song from Five Rückert Songs (1901)

• Speaks of the artist’s growing remoteness from the travails of everyday life and his withdrawal into a private, heavenly world of music

• Through-composed form depicts the emotional progression of the text