This document summarizes key aspects of Late Romanticism in German music, focusing on Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner as representatives of opposing aesthetic approaches. Brahms composed in the Classical tradition, influenced by Beethoven, while Wagner saw Beethoven's legacy pointing in a different direction and developed new concepts like the leitmotif. The document also discusses Franz Liszt, Anton Bruckner, Hugo Wolf, and Richard Strauss as later Wagnerians who incorporated his techniques into their symphonic poems, operas, songs, and other genres.

1. Chapter 29
Lecture Slides
A History of
Western Music
TENTH EDITION
by
J. PETER BURKHOLDER
DONALD JAY GROUT
CLAUDE V. PALISCA
© 2019 W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

2. Dichotomies and Disputes
• Old versus new
• Classical repertory
• by 1850, concerts increasingly focused on musical classics
• proportion of older works grew
• revival of past music
• new field of musicology - most scholars were German
• music unearthed, published, studied
• Brahms vs. Wagner
• some created works in Classical tradition (Brahms)
• others saw legacy of Beethoven pointing in different direction (Wagner)
• shared common goals, linking themselves to Beethoven
• Nationalism and internationalism
• repertoire of German-speaking composers performed across Europe, Americas
• nationalism strong force in instrumental music, song, and choral music
• nationalism, as part of the international repertoire
LATE ROMANTICISM IN GERMAN MUSIC

3. LATE ROMANTICISM IN GERMAN MUSIC
Beethoven
Brahms
(Old-style with Romantic
elements)
Wagner
(“The New German School”)

5. JOHANNES BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) - Leading German
composer of his time
• born in Hamburg, settled in Vienna in 1868
• 1853, met Robert and Clara Schumann, strongest
supporter
• made living as a pianist and conductor, sales of
music to publishers
• active as editor of Baroque, Classic, and Romantic
composers
• major works: 4 symphonies, 2 piano concertos,
Violin Concerto, 2 overtures, 2 serenades, 3 string
quartets, 21 other chamber works, 3 piano sonatas,
numerous piano pieces, A German Requiem, choral
works, vocal ensembles, about 200 Lieder

6. Brahms’ Orchestral works
• standard established by Beethoven, wrote four symphonies after age of
forty
• Symphony No. 1in C Minor, Op. 68 (1876) - C minor to C major, echoes
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5
• Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 (1877) – has the lullaby theme from
his song “Wiegenlied”
• Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 (1883) - Brahms trademark in finale’s
second theme: simultaneous triple and duple divisions of the beat – hemiola
• Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98 (1885), finale (NAWM 160),
chaconne
• form reflects fascination with Baroque music
• variations on bass ostinato and harmonic pattern
• possible models for chaconne and variations from Bach
JOHANNES BRAHMS

7. Brahms’ Chamber music
• Chamber works include
piano trios, 3 piano
quartets
• string quartets:
comparison to
Beethoven inescapable
• Quintet for Piano and
Strings in F Minor, Op.
34 (1864), first
movement
• developing variation:
continuously building on
germinal ideas
• theme, series of variants
of its opening measure
JOHANNES BRAHMS

8. Brahms’ Piano music
• highly individual piano style
• frequent use of cross-rhythms,
hemiolas
• 1852–53, three large sonatas
• tradition of Beethoven
• incorporates chromatic
harmony of Chopin and Liszt
• songlike style of Schumann’s
character pieces
• in his twenties and thirties,
focus on variations
• Waltzes, Op. 39 (1865),
Hungarian Dances (1872)
• last two decades, six sets of
intermezzos, rhapsodies, and
other short pieces
JOHANNES BRAHMS

9. Brahms’ Songs
• Schubert as model for songwriting
• over 200 Lieder, many strophic or modified strophic form
• some imitate folk song style;
• piano, varied in texture, some accompaniments are very hard to play
• figuration changes every two to four measures, recalling Mozart
• accessible for amateur performers, and interesting to connoisseurs
• Some great songs of Brahms (in my humble opinion)
• “Von ewiger Liebe” – three characters (the boy, the girl, and the narrator), harkens
back to Schubert’s “Erlkönig”, hemiolos, tempo and figuration changes in the
piano for each secrtion and character who’s speaking
• “Wiegenlied” (“Lullaby”) – the famous lullaby song, sweet folk-like style
JOHANNES BRAHMS

10. Brahms’ Choral works
• all composed for amateur performers
• arranged German folk songs for chorus
• many short, unaccompanied partsongs
• many larger pieces, chorus with orchestra
• Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem, 1868)
• soprano and baritone soloists, chorus, and orchestra
• German text, passages from Old Testament, Apocrypha, and New Testament
• universal themes of mortality, loss, comfort, blessing
• developed subtle and complex techniques; enormous importance to later composers
• never lost sight of average listener or musical amateur
JOHANNES BRAHMS

11. CHAPTER 29
Lecture Slides
A History of
Western Music
TENTH EDITION
by
J. PETER BURKHOLDER
DONALD JAY GROUT
CLAUDE V. PALISCA
© 2019 W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.

12. THE WAGNERIANS
The “New German School”
term by Franz Brendel, music critic
• composers leading new developments: Wagner, Liszt,
Berlioz
• German in spirit; Beethoven as their model
Beethoven
Brahms
(Old-style with
Romantic elements)
Wagner
(“The New German
School”)

13. THE WAGNERIANS
Franz Liszt – Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor
• 1848, retired from career as touring pianist
• court music director at Weimar, focused on composition
• poetic ideal, logical development of material more important
• symphonic poem –one-movement programmatic work that comes from
a variety of sources – poems, operas, etc.
• Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung based on Carl Loewe’s term
the tone poem (Tondichtung – tone poem in 1828)
• 1848 to 1858, Liszt wrote twelve symphonic poems
• Most famous is Les Preludes (1849-1855) – written for large orchestra, lots
of brass, and lots of percussion
• The Programme - What else is our life but a series of preludes to that
unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—
• two programmatic symphonies - Faust Symphony (1854) &
Dante Symphony (1856)
• thematic transformation, like Wagner’s idea of the leitmotif and the
programmatic work like those of Berlioz (Symphonie Fantastique)

14. Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) – Austrian Composer,
Organist
• absorbed Wagner’s style and ethos into traditional
symphony
• reverent, liturgical approach to sacred texts
• internationally renowned organ virtuoso
• taught at Vienna Conservatory, lectured at University of
Vienna
• 9 numbered symphonies, 2 unnumbered ones
• Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 as model
• influences of Wagner
• orchestration influenced by his experience as organist
• Symphony No. 4, first movement
• opens in similar manner to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9
THE WAGNERIANS

15. Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) – Austrian/Slovenian Composer
• best known for adapting Wagner’s methods to German
Lied
• piano pieces, string quartet, symphonic works,
choruses, and an opera
• incapacitated by mental breakdown
• Lieder - 250 Lieder, periods of intense creativity, 1887
to 1897
• five principal collections of Lieder; single poet or group
• like Wagner, ideal of equality between words and music
• “Zur Ruh, zur Ruh” (1883)
• was composed shortly after Wagner died
• it is speculated that it was intended as an elegy
for Wagner
THE WAGNERIANS

16. Richard Strauss (1864–1949) – German
composer
• dominant figure in German musical life for
most of his career
• celebrated as conductor
• positions in opera houses of Munich,
Weimar, Berlin, Vienna
• conducted most of world’s greatest
orchestras, numerous tours
• as composer, best remembered for tone
poems, operas, Lieder
THE WAGNERIANS

17. Strauss Tone Poems
• studied score of Tristan und Isolde, profoundly
changed his style
• modeled tone poems after Liszt and Berlioz
• programs based on literature
• Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), musical
commentary on a prose-poem by Friedrich
Nietzsche
• Christian ethic should be replaced by superman
above good and evil
• program is philosophical, some moments directly
representational
• programs on personal experience
• Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life, 1897–98), openly
autobiographical
• programs range from representational to
philosophical
THE WAGNERIANS

18. Strauss Lieder
• Usually composed for high voice – his wife famous soprano Pauline de
Ahna
• Most productive song composition period was before 1900
• 6 different collections containing 31 songs, also some orchestral Lieder
• His songs display passionate lyricism and richly-textured
accompaniments
• Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) (1948) - Orchestral song cycle
• Wagnerian in scope, with long, lyric lines, intense harmonies
• Correlation between life and death and nature
• No. 1 – “Frühling” (“Spring”) – Vibrant life and love
• No. 2 – “September” – Summer is ending, cool rain falls, Leaves fall as one
waits for the grave
• No. 3 – “Beim Schlafengehn” (“Time to Sleep”) – Now the day (life) has
wearied me and I must rest
• No. 4 – “Im Abendrot” (“At Dusk”) – We walked hand in hand throughout
our life and now it’s time to sleep. Is this perchance death?
THE WAGNERIANS

19. “Where there is music, it
must carry all before it; it
must not come after the
poetry.”
THE WAGNERIANS