Power point 24. The Romantic Era: Brahms and the Wagnerians

1. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
• German pianist and conductor
• encouraged by Schumann
• after Schumann placed in asylum,
involved in a relationship with Clara
Schumann
• destroyed many of his own early
works
• War of Romantics—Brahms and
Joseph Joachim (violinist) signed a
document in protest of “music of the
future” (the music of Liszt and
Wagner).
– Compared with Liszt and Wagner,
Brahms’ music was considered
conservative and classical

2. Style
• Rhythmic intricacies—3 against 2, syncopations, shift of metric accents
• low registration
• avoidance of cadences—elision
• overlapping phrases
• counterpoint
• Romanticism
– rich harmonies
– lyrical melodies
• Classicism
– absolute music
– craftsman
– no technique for show--all parts of a work contribute to its innate
musical coherence
– form

3. Works• Keyboard
– sonatas, dances
– character pieces: Intermezzo in A major, Op. 118, no. 2
• Chamber Music: Piano Quintet in f minor, mvt. I
• Orchestra
– serenades, concert overtures, Variations on a theme by Haydn, Hungarian
Dances
– 4 symphonies: Symphony no. 4 in e minor, mvt. 4
• influenced by Beethoven
– motivic development
– modulations to mediant/submediant
– movements related by 3rds
– 4 movements: sonata, slow, scherzo, finale
• Songs: influenced by Schubert and Schumann
• Choral:
– German Requiem: requiem mass in German
• No operas or stage works

4. Wagnerians: Liszt, Bruckner, Wolf, Strauss

5. Franz Liszt (1811-1886):Later Career
• gave up concert career
• music director @Weimar
– conducted new works,
including Wagner’s
– symphonic poem
• one movement work for
orchestra
• program music
– inspired by poetry
• Les Preludes
• took minor orders in Catholic
Church
• died at Bayreuth
• experimentation—Nuages Gris
(piano)

6. Anton Bruckner (1824-96)
• organist—improvised,
but didn’t write his
improvisations down
• symphonist—but
wrote in a Wagnerian
style; his music
changed after hearing
Wagner’s music
– Symphony no. 4
• choral works

7. Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
• born in Yugoslavia, worked in Vienna
• music critic—critical of Brahms, supportive of
Wagner
• syphilis—went insane
• songs
– poetry more important than music
• said music was a “translation” of poetry not a
“setting”
• only set poems not set by other composers (or
not set adequately)
• poetry by Mörike, Eichendorff, Goethe, Spanish
poets, Italian poets
– as in Wagner’s operas, voice is just a tone
color in the fabric of the music

8. Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
• conductor
• orchestral tone poems in 1880s and 1890s
– Don Juan
– Death and Transfiguration
– Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
– Also Sprach Zarathustra
– Don Quixote (start from 2:19)
• operas—early 1900s
– Salome; Elektra
• negative critical reaction; positive audience
reaction: audiences respond to violence
• “shock value”
– musical—dissonance
– stage—Salome sings to the dismembered
head of John the Baptist
• Elektra—continual music, leitmotifs
– after Salome & Elektra, his music became more
conservative:
• Der Rosenkavalier—classical lightness
• over 200 lieder
– Vier letzte Lieder –Four Last Songs (1948)