History of the Musical Experience

Exam #2 Notes

Terms--Classical, Romantic, Twentieth Century

Twentieth-Century Composers

Be able to list three important works by each of the following composers:

Essay Questions

1. Oratorio‹an opera of sacred subject matter
   1. Points
      1. We don't really know that it wasn't staged
      2. Opera may have had its start here as the church was looking for things to bring people in
      3. La Rappresentatione di anime et di corpo
      4. Probably not staged
      5. Used choir and narrator to tell Bible stories
      6. Handel
         1. Elevated the importance of the chorus
         2. 2. Enlarged the scope of expressive elements
   2. Works & Composers
      1. Handel, Messiah
      2. Haydn, Creation
      3. Mendelssohn, Elijah
2. Sacred Music in the Romantic Period
   1. Oratorio
      1. Mendelssohn--Elijah
      2. Berlioz didn't base his on earlier models; wrote "L'enfance du Christe"
      3. Liszt--Il Legende von Heiligen; Christus (uses plainsong in both)
      4. Elgar, Parker
   2. Masses (Catholic music)
      1. Largely emphasized the Sicilian movement (like the Oxford movement)
      2. A return to earlier music and a purging of Protestant influences
      3. People were doing transcriptions and translations pieces into modern language
      4. Came from the Romantic period interest in things from the past
      5. Sought to use that knowledge to reform the church to recapture formative qualities
      6. Specific things done in music
         1. A move away from orchestral qualities (use of winds)
         2. Return to white-note, alla breve notation
   3. Works & Composers
      1. Bruckner
         1. A church organist; used orchestra to accompany organ (?)
         2. Wrote several masses; three significant works in his maturity
         3. Mass in E minor--pays homage to Palestrina by using a point of imitation on a Palestrina theme in the "Sanctus"
      2. Brahms--Ein Deutsches Requiem
      3. Verdi--his Requiem was written for Manzone
3. The Enlightenment and Music
   1. Ideas & Thinkers
      1. Key shifts from Christian theology to a morality-based on social equality, and from governmental authority to greater independence in thought & behavior
      2. Rationalism--reason as the sole guide in life
         1. Rene Descartes ("Discourse on Method")
         2. Baruch Spinoza ("Tractatus Theologico-Politicus")
      3. Empiricism--only the sensory experience is the true way to knowledge; intellectual pursuits were the key to life and looked down upon the feelings as suspiscious
         1. Francis Bacon ("Novum Organum")
         2. Thomas Hobbes ("Leviathan")
         3. John Locke ("An Essay Concerning Human Understanding")
         4. Immanuel Kant ("Critique of Pure Reason")
   2. Works & Composers
      1. Christoph Gluck---Orfeo ed Euricie
      2. Franz Joseph Haydn--worked for Esterhazy
      3. Mozart
         1. Father said, "To find one man in a thousand who is your true friend from unselfish motives is to find one of the great wonders of this world."
         2. Return to Greek plays as a basis for Opera
         3. Theatre as a moral institution
         4. Free Masonry role in Vienna & on the period of political and aristocratic society