"Museum Pieces: The Historicist Mainstream of the Last Hundred Years"
J. Peter Burkholder [Journal of Musicology, Vol. 2 (1983) 115-134], outline, Brunner.
I. Introduction
A. Catalyst for change- Music of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s is characterized by
diversity and rapid change
B. Results found in the music that followed for the next 100 yrs
1. No rules for this music-no consensus for the new style
2.Creating music that differs radically from their contemporaries
3. Individuals change their own style & musical language from one piece to the next
C. Art Music is divorced from other traditions
D. No common conceptual tradition/no framework for understanding contributions of
individual composers
E. Labels created that do not work: Modem music, contemporary music, new music,
20th century music
F. Cannot define what binds this diverse group of composers together
II. Finding a mainstream in 20th-century music
A. No sense of shared style, but of shared concerns...
B. Mainstream is Historicism: in the past 100 years, concert music consists primarily of
music written for an audience familiar with the art music of the 18th &19th centuries.
C. Composers begin writing music for the concert hall as a museum
III. Historicism/Transition of the Concert Hall/Split of Serious and Popular music
A. Tradition arose among composers in the 19th century that involved the gradual
development of an audience familiar with music of dead composers.
B. The concert is the center of this development as it was here that the shift/split developed
1. Created the simultaneous split between classical (serious) and popular musics
2. Other Reasons for the split
C. The new respect for “dead composers” was as much commercial as artistic
1. Stemmed from music publishing, instrument manufacture, and concert management
2.This music had little to engage the attention of the musically intelligent.
3. Reaction: serious musicians went back to Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn
4. The concert became more an intellectual venue than “entertainment”
5. Serious music became something to be “understood” rather than just enjoyed.
6. Popular music turned away from the concert halls
7. The current dichotomy between “serious” and “popular” solidified [Opera was the
exception: serious and popular audiences continued to coincide at least until the
turn of the 20th century. Elsewhere music was no longer offered to an audience
including both skilled and unskilled listeners.]
8. By the last 25 years of the 19th century, the concert hail had already become a
museum for display of art works from previous generations rather than the new.
9. Problem surfaced for living composers... not to please the audience of the present,
but how to win space in the museum
IV. In seeking the museum, composers found modernism: audience opinion becomes secondary
to importance of placement in the museum
A. Composers began to emulate and study the composers of the previous several centuries,
not just their immediate predecessors, e.g., revival of Bach, Palestrina
1. this music was less familiar and therefore “new” music
2. when the works of dead composers were revived they had lost whatever original
social function they had originally
3. served and were valued as autonomous works of art available for the concert hall.
B. Young composers devoted themselves to perfecting their craft and ignoring the goal the older masters, who kept the social role of music in the forefront while composing.
C. In taking this step, Brahms and Schoenberg, and their followers developed the unique
esoteric tradition associated with modernist “classical” music. Communicating with the
audience was secondary to creating music that would last (in the museum).
V. German Tradition and the move towards experimental music
A. Ideology: emphasis on technical innovations and compositional firsts
1. Brahms was the first example
2. Later came Schoenberg, Reger, Hindemith
3. As a whole they created a new tradition of experimental music
B. Composers outside of Germany
1. Found a personal style through several means:
a. Exoticism-incorporation of non Western music, medieval music, and jazz).
This was found primarily in France and Russia
b. Nationalism- found primarily in the peripheral countries of Europe, N. America
c. Folk elements
C. Still the need to emulate German traditions: Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Hindemith, Strauss, Stravinsky, Bartok, and Ives each answered demand for novelty by bringing
aspects of other traditions into concert music, but to make it to the museum, they
needed to participate in some sense in the progressive developments of the 20th cen.
VI. Differences & Combinations of Progressive Music, Emulative, and Neo-Classical Music.
A. Both Progressivism and Emulation complement sides of the historicist mainstream.
VII. Most works written in the late 19th and first half of the 20th cen. intended as museum pieces.
A. Extreme stylistic diversity within the historicist mainstream is result of each artist seeking an individual solution to the common problem of creating museum pieces.
1. When composers like Schoenberg and Webern sought to extend new and unfamiliar
musical procedures they created music that is difficult to listen to, but rewarding
to analyze and study.
2. This music had no social function
B. Comparisons between concerts of early and “new music”
1. “Contemporary,” “Early,” and “Non-Western” music serve to provide “New Music”
a. Heard as different from the mainstream
b. Measured in some sense against central European standards
c. Attract a small, but enthusiastic audience, almost cultic following.
VIII. Exceptions: of the Historicist mainstream.
A. Music that does not pretend to continue the tradition of “serious” music.
1. Popular music, light classics, and jazz.
a. Jazz is a potential rival to “serious” music but represents a distinct tradition
rather than a sub group within European art music because its roots are deep in
African music and American vernacular culture.
B. Art Music- conservative in style, reveals no progressivism or emulation of the master
composers but serves a social function outside the museum
1. Religious music, film scoring, militaristic types of music
C. Avant Garde Music- (radical wing of progressivism)- includes a rejection of the past, rejection of the conception of the concert hall as a museum; has found no permanent
place in the concert hall and is allowed entrance primarily as a curiosity.
IX. Experimentalist Music
A. Before World War II- Varese, some of the music of Ives, Cowell, John Cage and “ultra modern” composers in the Americas After World War II, the avant garde works of Boulez,
Stockhausen, and Cage came to dominate the scene.
1. This wasn’t music of the past, but music of the future. Music about the very structure of sound as in works of Varese, Cowell, and many electronic composers also the super-serialists like Babbitt and Boulez.
2. Cage suggests “stop listening to masterpieces and start listening to sounds, the music all around us, with new and open ears.
C. Poses as concert music- is presented in concerts and recordings are made of it, but it is not music in the Western tradition and will never find a place in the museum. Experimental music is Western Music, but not music as that word is commonly understood.
D. In the last 40 years it has become research music, finding its home in universities in America and government supported research institutions in Europe.
E. Experimentalist composers create not for the museum, but for the library or laboratory.
X. All concerts in the art tradition are now living museums.
A. Promoters of contemporary music may seek to establish “museums” of their own to
display modern music.
1. There are contemporary chamber groups all across America
2. However, a realization is needed since the great orchestras of America and Europe
are never going to pursue modern music enthusiastically.
XI. Conclusion:
A. Musical value is not determined by popularity alone, especially true for museum pieces
B. While Music for public events and occasions is designed to be played only once or twice and must have instant appeal, works in the art music tradition need only find a small, but devoted audience and group of performers to find a place in the permanent collection.
C. The intense seriousness with which we take our past masterpieces has made it possible for living composers to write works that encompass and transcend all traditions.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Brahms and 20th-Century Classical Music (Brunner, notes)
J. Peter Burkholder, “Brahms and 20th-century Classical Music” in 19th-Century Music, Volume VIII (Summer, 1984), pp. 75-83. [Outline, by Lance Brunner]
I. Traditional View of Brahms and Modernism in music
A. Brahms was a conservative, prevailing view that he was fighting losing battle for classic musical values and forms in the face of growing nationalism and programmaticism.
B. Modern music generally viewed with respect to breakdown of tonality, which was considered “inevitable” as chromaticism eroded tonic. But this view (dogma) focuses on the evolution of pitch relationships above every other element in the music, neglecting other modernist trends not involving pitch manipulations. (p. 76)
II. Burkholder’s View: “Brahms can be characterized as the most modern and indeed the most imitated of composers of the latter 19th century…whose approach to music has become most typical of later generations of composers.”
A. Modernism redefined: not primarily about “innovations” but with the relatinship of new music to past music, the music of the concert tradition. “Modern music” written by composers obsessed with the musical past and with their place in music history, seeking to emulate the “classical masters,” measuring the value of their own music by standards of the past. [76-77] The source of modernism lies not in increasing chromaticism… but in music’s changing social function. Concerts by time of Brahms became “museums,” rather than forums for new music.
B. New works for the concert hall were expected to perform same function as masterpieces already enshrined, i.e, each new work was intended as a “museum piece,” and had to meet three basic requirements: (1) must participate in tradition of serious art music; (2) must have lasting value, rewarding rehearings, study, and analysis, becoming loved as it becomes more familiar; and (3) must proclaim a distinct musical personality (that is speak in a unique voice, but not radically outside norms), which resulted in fragmentation of style into individual dialects.
C. Beginning in 19th century music appreciated for its own sake (apart from any rituals of church, court, or commerce), art for art’s sake.
D. Pieces in a concert did not need to share style, but needed to share status as enduring classics.
III. How this relates to Brahms
A. Brahms (b. 1833) matured just as the transformation of the concert hall into a cultural museum was in the final stages.
B. After meeting Liszt & Schumann in 1850s, he renounced the avant-garde “new German School” (associated with Liszt/Wagner) and, goaded and guided in part by Schumann, turned to emulating the classics.
C. Brahms had an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Western art music, i.e., he did his “homework!”
D. Brahms’s music pays homage to the past, not as mere imitations, but as models of ways to solving intrinsically musical problems. His interest was as a composer, not a musicologist, with historical musical problems, which he saw as basically the same as his.
E. His thorough knowledge of the past allowed him to recreate old forms and invest them with the same organic approach to form which Mozart and Bach had demonstrated. There is nothing academic about B’s music and it sounds like no other music, precisely because of the great wealth of his influences and his willingness to mix them freely, integrating procedures from vastly different traditions into his own new works.
F. Famous example of this creative synthesis is his Symphony No. 4 finale, the chaconne [78]
1. Bach, D minor chaconne for solo violin is most obvious model (see parallels, p. 78)
2. Beethoven Eroica Symphony finale is another model for Brahms. (Variations, etc.) 3. Other modes (more general) Mozart and Chopin, Schumann, and Couperin.
G. Finale (Sym 4) is “a prime example of a piece written for the concert hall museum.”
H. See other examples of B’s synthesis of two or more “alien styles”, p. 79
I. Brahms was radical in way “he faced head on the problems of writing for a concert audience familiar with the music of the past, the problem that has been the principal concern of serious composers sine his time. The requirements of composition had become paradoxical: composers sought to write new music that would find a place I the tradition of steadily aging immortal masterpieces, demanding of each piece that it visibly participate in that tradition while proclaiming its own distinctiveness.”
J. B’s solution was “dialectical, addressing not only the opposition of old and new musical styles and techniques, but also…the tension between emulation and originality.
1.“This kind of dialectic within music approaches a species of criticism, as if B were writing in his music a commentary on his own experience as a musician.”
2. “B’s music presents itself to us on two levels: for the naïve listener, as an independent musical work in abstract form, and for the connoisseur, as a gloss on the particular work, style, genre, or technique.”
3. “To experience B’s music fully, one must come to know as much about music as Brahms did—and that is no small task.”
K. “In its dialectical nature, in its role as criticism, and in its seeking not to displace the classical masters but to join them, B’s music has served as the most important model for composers of the past hundred years, challenged only by the influential avant-garde movement after WW II.” (in footnote 19, Burkholder talks about what might be called “post-modernism,” that is, those composers who rejected tradition and “the museum” of the concert hall to write completely different kinds of music: their music “celebrated sound itself in the present moment and rejected old teleological ideas of music as organic growth, sounding architecture, or emotive speech.”
L. “Modern composers have faced the same paradoxical requirements as did Brahms and have arrived at the same solution, achieving their originality through the intensification and transformation of ideas learned in their study of existing music.”
IV. Other Composer’s means of getting into the “museum” [“Each modern composer of distinction has taken a unique path, sharing with his peers only the nature of the problem and the model of B’s dialectical solution.” Examples include:
A. Mahler: Austrian symphonic tradition (from Haydn through Bruckner & Brahms), widening his net to include: “military music, bird song, folksong, and other kinds of music familiar to his audiences and with social or emotional significance.
B. Schoenberg: Germanic tradition from Bach to Reger, with his music being “truly new music which, being based on tradition, is destined to become tradition.”
C. Stravinsky: Neo-classicism (transplant reinterpretations of the past in modern terms, with the meaning of the music based largely on listener’s knowledge of style or work being glossed). Also Hindemith (Neo-baroque) and Orff (Neo-medieval)
D. Bartok: his mature music combines the elaborate art forms of fugue and sonata from the classical tradition with the rhythmic complexity, ornamentation, and dissonance of peasant music from southeastern Europe and Turkey. The synthesis of seemingly disparate traditions as folk and classical music makes clear the common dependence on motivic organization and orientation around a tonal center, and fundamental scales and intervals. Bartok’s respect for his sources helped establish the value and importance of east European folk music (in an analogous way that Brahms sponsorship of Eccard and Schuetz helped their cause).
V. The central dilemma of modern music
A. Each modern composer from Mahler to Rochberg, “has written music which focuses on the dialectics between old and new styles and between emulation and originality, music which takes music itself as its subject matter. In the process of developing his own musical language through the rapprochement of contemporary techniques with older material, each composer creates a kind of musical criticism presented in strictly musical terms, exposing hitherto unsuspected relationships between apparently unrelated musical traditions or ideas, or extending the contributions of past composers in new directions. The more familiar one is with the music used as models, the more exhilarating this criticism in music can be.” PROBLEM: most people do not know earlier models.
B. Brahms can be enjoyed on two levels: as commentary on the history of Western art music or as music of immediate appeal; but with few exceptions modern music has lost its ability to make an appeal to the naïve listener
C. Unlike the music we still think of as “modern,” despite its advancing age. Brahms’s music has attained both classic status and great popularity. Brahms recognized and solved yet a third dialectic in his composers (beyond the oppositions of the new with the old and of emulation with originality): “the tension between the present and the future—the requirement that a work demonstrate lasting value, rewarding frequent re-hearings, and becoming more loved as it becomes more familiar and yet at the same time have enough immediate appeal to move the listener to seek out a second hearing. It is on this paradox that most modern composer have foundered. Brahms, like Mozart before him, invested his music not only with hidden beauties form the connoisseur, but also with a strikingly beautiful and emotionally appealing surface…to orient the untutored listener.” Only a few composers since Brahms—notable Mahler and Debussy—have achieved the same synthesis of immediate and lasting appeal.
D. Brahms’s importance for the music of the past 100 years is this: He has provided the model for future generations of (1) what a composer is, (2) what a composer does, (3) why a composer does it, (4) what is of value in music, and (5) how a composer is to succeed. In this respect, the “music of the future” has belong not to Wagner but to Brahms. It is the change in the orientation of serious music, the change in the purpose of composition, which has been of greatest importance, rather than the changes within the language of music itself.
E. The new musical language developed by Wagner, Liszt, and their followers has had an impact on every kind of music from Muzak to jazz, yet what has determined the course of the music we call “modern” is the influence of Brahms. While other provided new musical tools Brahms helped establish the framework for using those tools, and his assumptions concerning what music is and does have been played out in succeeding generations.
I. Traditional View of Brahms and Modernism in music
A. Brahms was a conservative, prevailing view that he was fighting losing battle for classic musical values and forms in the face of growing nationalism and programmaticism.
B. Modern music generally viewed with respect to breakdown of tonality, which was considered “inevitable” as chromaticism eroded tonic. But this view (dogma) focuses on the evolution of pitch relationships above every other element in the music, neglecting other modernist trends not involving pitch manipulations. (p. 76)
II. Burkholder’s View: “Brahms can be characterized as the most modern and indeed the most imitated of composers of the latter 19th century…whose approach to music has become most typical of later generations of composers.”
A. Modernism redefined: not primarily about “innovations” but with the relatinship of new music to past music, the music of the concert tradition. “Modern music” written by composers obsessed with the musical past and with their place in music history, seeking to emulate the “classical masters,” measuring the value of their own music by standards of the past. [76-77] The source of modernism lies not in increasing chromaticism… but in music’s changing social function. Concerts by time of Brahms became “museums,” rather than forums for new music.
B. New works for the concert hall were expected to perform same function as masterpieces already enshrined, i.e, each new work was intended as a “museum piece,” and had to meet three basic requirements: (1) must participate in tradition of serious art music; (2) must have lasting value, rewarding rehearings, study, and analysis, becoming loved as it becomes more familiar; and (3) must proclaim a distinct musical personality (that is speak in a unique voice, but not radically outside norms), which resulted in fragmentation of style into individual dialects.
C. Beginning in 19th century music appreciated for its own sake (apart from any rituals of church, court, or commerce), art for art’s sake.
D. Pieces in a concert did not need to share style, but needed to share status as enduring classics.
III. How this relates to Brahms
A. Brahms (b. 1833) matured just as the transformation of the concert hall into a cultural museum was in the final stages.
B. After meeting Liszt & Schumann in 1850s, he renounced the avant-garde “new German School” (associated with Liszt/Wagner) and, goaded and guided in part by Schumann, turned to emulating the classics.
C. Brahms had an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of Western art music, i.e., he did his “homework!”
D. Brahms’s music pays homage to the past, not as mere imitations, but as models of ways to solving intrinsically musical problems. His interest was as a composer, not a musicologist, with historical musical problems, which he saw as basically the same as his.
E. His thorough knowledge of the past allowed him to recreate old forms and invest them with the same organic approach to form which Mozart and Bach had demonstrated. There is nothing academic about B’s music and it sounds like no other music, precisely because of the great wealth of his influences and his willingness to mix them freely, integrating procedures from vastly different traditions into his own new works.
F. Famous example of this creative synthesis is his Symphony No. 4 finale, the chaconne [78]
1. Bach, D minor chaconne for solo violin is most obvious model (see parallels, p. 78)
2. Beethoven Eroica Symphony finale is another model for Brahms. (Variations, etc.) 3. Other modes (more general) Mozart and Chopin, Schumann, and Couperin.
G. Finale (Sym 4) is “a prime example of a piece written for the concert hall museum.”
H. See other examples of B’s synthesis of two or more “alien styles”, p. 79
I. Brahms was radical in way “he faced head on the problems of writing for a concert audience familiar with the music of the past, the problem that has been the principal concern of serious composers sine his time. The requirements of composition had become paradoxical: composers sought to write new music that would find a place I the tradition of steadily aging immortal masterpieces, demanding of each piece that it visibly participate in that tradition while proclaiming its own distinctiveness.”
J. B’s solution was “dialectical, addressing not only the opposition of old and new musical styles and techniques, but also…the tension between emulation and originality.
1.“This kind of dialectic within music approaches a species of criticism, as if B were writing in his music a commentary on his own experience as a musician.”
2. “B’s music presents itself to us on two levels: for the naïve listener, as an independent musical work in abstract form, and for the connoisseur, as a gloss on the particular work, style, genre, or technique.”
3. “To experience B’s music fully, one must come to know as much about music as Brahms did—and that is no small task.”
K. “In its dialectical nature, in its role as criticism, and in its seeking not to displace the classical masters but to join them, B’s music has served as the most important model for composers of the past hundred years, challenged only by the influential avant-garde movement after WW II.” (in footnote 19, Burkholder talks about what might be called “post-modernism,” that is, those composers who rejected tradition and “the museum” of the concert hall to write completely different kinds of music: their music “celebrated sound itself in the present moment and rejected old teleological ideas of music as organic growth, sounding architecture, or emotive speech.”
L. “Modern composers have faced the same paradoxical requirements as did Brahms and have arrived at the same solution, achieving their originality through the intensification and transformation of ideas learned in their study of existing music.”
IV. Other Composer’s means of getting into the “museum” [“Each modern composer of distinction has taken a unique path, sharing with his peers only the nature of the problem and the model of B’s dialectical solution.” Examples include:
A. Mahler: Austrian symphonic tradition (from Haydn through Bruckner & Brahms), widening his net to include: “military music, bird song, folksong, and other kinds of music familiar to his audiences and with social or emotional significance.
B. Schoenberg: Germanic tradition from Bach to Reger, with his music being “truly new music which, being based on tradition, is destined to become tradition.”
C. Stravinsky: Neo-classicism (transplant reinterpretations of the past in modern terms, with the meaning of the music based largely on listener’s knowledge of style or work being glossed). Also Hindemith (Neo-baroque) and Orff (Neo-medieval)
D. Bartok: his mature music combines the elaborate art forms of fugue and sonata from the classical tradition with the rhythmic complexity, ornamentation, and dissonance of peasant music from southeastern Europe and Turkey. The synthesis of seemingly disparate traditions as folk and classical music makes clear the common dependence on motivic organization and orientation around a tonal center, and fundamental scales and intervals. Bartok’s respect for his sources helped establish the value and importance of east European folk music (in an analogous way that Brahms sponsorship of Eccard and Schuetz helped their cause).
V. The central dilemma of modern music
A. Each modern composer from Mahler to Rochberg, “has written music which focuses on the dialectics between old and new styles and between emulation and originality, music which takes music itself as its subject matter. In the process of developing his own musical language through the rapprochement of contemporary techniques with older material, each composer creates a kind of musical criticism presented in strictly musical terms, exposing hitherto unsuspected relationships between apparently unrelated musical traditions or ideas, or extending the contributions of past composers in new directions. The more familiar one is with the music used as models, the more exhilarating this criticism in music can be.” PROBLEM: most people do not know earlier models.
B. Brahms can be enjoyed on two levels: as commentary on the history of Western art music or as music of immediate appeal; but with few exceptions modern music has lost its ability to make an appeal to the naïve listener
C. Unlike the music we still think of as “modern,” despite its advancing age. Brahms’s music has attained both classic status and great popularity. Brahms recognized and solved yet a third dialectic in his composers (beyond the oppositions of the new with the old and of emulation with originality): “the tension between the present and the future—the requirement that a work demonstrate lasting value, rewarding frequent re-hearings, and becoming more loved as it becomes more familiar and yet at the same time have enough immediate appeal to move the listener to seek out a second hearing. It is on this paradox that most modern composer have foundered. Brahms, like Mozart before him, invested his music not only with hidden beauties form the connoisseur, but also with a strikingly beautiful and emotionally appealing surface…to orient the untutored listener.” Only a few composers since Brahms—notable Mahler and Debussy—have achieved the same synthesis of immediate and lasting appeal.
D. Brahms’s importance for the music of the past 100 years is this: He has provided the model for future generations of (1) what a composer is, (2) what a composer does, (3) why a composer does it, (4) what is of value in music, and (5) how a composer is to succeed. In this respect, the “music of the future” has belong not to Wagner but to Brahms. It is the change in the orientation of serious music, the change in the purpose of composition, which has been of greatest importance, rather than the changes within the language of music itself.
E. The new musical language developed by Wagner, Liszt, and their followers has had an impact on every kind of music from Muzak to jazz, yet what has determined the course of the music we call “modern” is the influence of Brahms. While other provided new musical tools Brahms helped establish the framework for using those tools, and his assumptions concerning what music is and does have been played out in succeeding generations.
Rise of the Classical Repertoire in 19th Cen (Erica's notes)
The Rise of the Classical Repertoire In 19th Century Orchestral concerts
By William Weber (From Peyser's The Orchestra)
Presented by Erica Rumbley (October 30, 2007)
*The Overarching Significance of 19th century orchestras is their building of a museumlike classical repertoire
Classical referring to “the performance of music of any previous period that forms part of a canon of great works”
Canon—“A body of works that are defined as the summit of achievement in an artistic field; studied and emulated by practitioners and honored in ritual and iconography
--Their concerts establish the importance of a pantheon of certain composers—Especially “Big Three”
*18th century beginnings
--Lots of operatic and sacred music included on concerts—different from today
--Older composers begin to form an early canon—connected with similar movements in literature
--This movement affects especially Paris; Berlin and Leipzig; Vienna; and England, which supported older music first with London’s Academy of Ancient Music and helped establish important social precedents for the 19th century through its annual subscription concert series and revival of some baroque music
*Early 19th Century
--Now all countries begin to focus on the same common body of ‘great composers’ (The ‘Big Three’—Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—Core is Austrian/German, but spreads to various countries, international standardization
--Music and music aesthetics become an important intellectual topic in their own right as music rises in cultural status, with “richer intellectual trappings”
--These changes are accompanied by changes in program format; in the 18th century, different genres of music, as well as instrumental and vocal music, were always alternated, keeping the audience entertained, and usually an overture opened the program.
As the 19th century approaches, however, the focus begins to move to single long works, usually symphonies, with less variety in overall programming. At the beginning of the century, most programs included 8 or 10 pieces of short or moderate lenth, with the only long compositions (oratorios or sacred) often presented in segments. Composers were not the focal point, and often their names were not included on the program.
Beethoven breaks this with his symphonies(The first example of this is the performance of Beethoven’s Eroica in 1807—opens 2nd half of concert, followed by only one aria) Many other compositions follow, by him and others
--More focus is placed on the composers themselves, with the romantic idea of genius of the individual leading to this focus
--Vocal music is still important, and programs are still intended to please a crowd, but changes have been made; many in the audience are still skeptical of the new canon idea and long instrumental works
*Evolution of the Repertoire—Three Periods
I) Mozart’s death (1791) to Beethoven’s death (1827)
--The ‘Big Three’ emerge as the greatest masters, with Beethoven as most important (He bridges different genres, while Mozart is known most for vocal and opera and Haydn for Symphonies
--Many other composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries are included, especially Handel, Gluck and Carl Maria von Weber
II) After Beethoven’s death (next 20 years)
--Only a vague sense of a canon surrounding big three, changes in this period, develop a self-conscious sense of the repertoire as a canon
--Classical Music becomes a “cause” defended militantly—a reaction against the commercialism of musical life at the time, with publishing and mass concerts giving rise to simplified editions of recent opera and virtuoso pieces. Now the orchestras stand outside the mainstream of public taste; more serious musicians use “classics” to combat salon music, which they thought degraded popular taste
--The term Classical is standardized across Europe to designate this specific canon of works
--Orchestral taste is conservative, rather than reactionary, with some new music still included.
--Up to 1850, the standard repertoire of today is being built, but some other works are still included; even now some see it leading in the wrong direction by rejecting new pieces
III) 1848 – 1870
--Orchestras and their classical repertoire become the center of musical life
--When musical life started again after the revolutions of 48-49, a major trend in public taste favored the Classical repertoire. The public is tired of the “razzle-dazzle” of merely virtuosic display, so the new generation of virtuosos begins to play concertos by Mozart and Beethoven
--Orchestras grow from private concert societies into national cultural institutions—probably spurred by revolutions, since the performance of oratorios served as a powerful ritual of social unity, leading to the national institutions. Urban growth also helped, with the establishment of large concert halls in major cities
--Many important changes; one was the growing promence of overtures, arias, and full scenes from operas of the 1820-1840s.
--Music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras is revived
--Bach was the main figure—Mendelssohn, St. Matthew’s Passion
--Sets off a revival of other early music
--Partly a return to the 18th century origins of the Classical repertoire, such as Handel
--Not played real frequently at concerts, but yet important because of its unusual nature and its part in fostering the growth of the study of music history
--The overall repertoire becomes mostly standardized (despite the variety from opera excerpts and Baroque revival). The enshrining of master composers throughout Europe leads to homogenization. During the 1830s, most orchestras honor many local composers, but by the 1870s, they are mostly playing music by the same core of dead masters.
--A crisis from the lack of acceptance for new music begins. At the beginning of the century, it was unusual for works by dead composer to occur more than occasionally on programs, by the 1870s none of the major orchestras gave more than a third of their annual repertoire to music of living composers, and the percentage was often smaller; this situation has led to today
--Wagnerians lead a bitter ideological attack against the orchestras of the 1850s for their focus on established masters and resistance to forward-looking works. (Yet Wagner owed a lot to orchestras for the diffusion of his music)
--Some dissemination of new music is made possible by newly organized concert series offered to a less affluent audience
--Euterpe in Leipzig since the early 1830s
--London’s Crystal Palace after it reopened in 1854
--Popular Concerts and Colonne Concerts in Paris (1860s-70s)
--These concerts give more attention to new music than elite orchestras, don’t exaggerate how far they went, but they did welcomd young composers and some avant-garde works by followers of Liszt and Wagner. Performing controversial pieces put the orchestras in the spotlight and helped them draw a public that was not intolerant of new music. They didn’t have a mass audience, with many middle-class listeners who were well educated in music. (Clerk with well-worn pocket score of Beethoven Symphonies)
*Four Important Cities
I) Leipzig
--The Gewandhaus Orchestra, which is largely dominated by the classical canon—its concerts in the 1780s were only 13 % works by dead composers, by 1870, they are 76% works by the deceased
--The competing Euterpe series is organized rather early, and features some newer composers, notably Liszt, Wagner, and their followers
--It is one of the most interesting musical cities in Europe, with much variety and richness of musical styles
II) London
--The Philharmonic Society of London is similar to the Gewandhaus in program makeup, but quicker to focus on a strict canon of works,
--The Society’s social base is not as affluent as in the other cities
--The New Philharmonic Society (1850s) is not too different in its programs, although oratorios by British composers are included here
III) Vienna
--The Vienna Philharmonic is not founded until 1842, much later than other cities began offering professional concert series
--It includes more new works (Brahms, Bruckner, etc)
--The lack of a cheaper series hinders further dissemination of new music, and this perhaps influences radical Viennese composers in the 20th century
IV) Paris
--The Conservatoire Orchestra (1828) is the most resistant of all to new music
--Rival popular concert series are very nationalistic
*Conclusion
--In the 19th century, great symphonic works were enshrined in the orchestras—the operas houses of Europe were slower to establish a canon of works. with instrumental music acquiring a central place in music taste
--The programs still differ from today in their inclusion of many diverse vocal works
--Diverse—operatic, oratorios, songs, and chamber works. The public was equally diverse
--Concerts would still seem a bit strange to us today
By William Weber (From Peyser's The Orchestra)
Presented by Erica Rumbley (October 30, 2007)
*The Overarching Significance of 19th century orchestras is their building of a museumlike classical repertoire
Classical referring to “the performance of music of any previous period that forms part of a canon of great works”
Canon—“A body of works that are defined as the summit of achievement in an artistic field; studied and emulated by practitioners and honored in ritual and iconography
--Their concerts establish the importance of a pantheon of certain composers—Especially “Big Three”
*18th century beginnings
--Lots of operatic and sacred music included on concerts—different from today
--Older composers begin to form an early canon—connected with similar movements in literature
--This movement affects especially Paris; Berlin and Leipzig; Vienna; and England, which supported older music first with London’s Academy of Ancient Music and helped establish important social precedents for the 19th century through its annual subscription concert series and revival of some baroque music
*Early 19th Century
--Now all countries begin to focus on the same common body of ‘great composers’ (The ‘Big Three’—Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—Core is Austrian/German, but spreads to various countries, international standardization
--Music and music aesthetics become an important intellectual topic in their own right as music rises in cultural status, with “richer intellectual trappings”
--These changes are accompanied by changes in program format; in the 18th century, different genres of music, as well as instrumental and vocal music, were always alternated, keeping the audience entertained, and usually an overture opened the program.
As the 19th century approaches, however, the focus begins to move to single long works, usually symphonies, with less variety in overall programming. At the beginning of the century, most programs included 8 or 10 pieces of short or moderate lenth, with the only long compositions (oratorios or sacred) often presented in segments. Composers were not the focal point, and often their names were not included on the program.
Beethoven breaks this with his symphonies(The first example of this is the performance of Beethoven’s Eroica in 1807—opens 2nd half of concert, followed by only one aria) Many other compositions follow, by him and others
--More focus is placed on the composers themselves, with the romantic idea of genius of the individual leading to this focus
--Vocal music is still important, and programs are still intended to please a crowd, but changes have been made; many in the audience are still skeptical of the new canon idea and long instrumental works
*Evolution of the Repertoire—Three Periods
I) Mozart’s death (1791) to Beethoven’s death (1827)
--The ‘Big Three’ emerge as the greatest masters, with Beethoven as most important (He bridges different genres, while Mozart is known most for vocal and opera and Haydn for Symphonies
--Many other composers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries are included, especially Handel, Gluck and Carl Maria von Weber
II) After Beethoven’s death (next 20 years)
--Only a vague sense of a canon surrounding big three, changes in this period, develop a self-conscious sense of the repertoire as a canon
--Classical Music becomes a “cause” defended militantly—a reaction against the commercialism of musical life at the time, with publishing and mass concerts giving rise to simplified editions of recent opera and virtuoso pieces. Now the orchestras stand outside the mainstream of public taste; more serious musicians use “classics” to combat salon music, which they thought degraded popular taste
--The term Classical is standardized across Europe to designate this specific canon of works
--Orchestral taste is conservative, rather than reactionary, with some new music still included.
--Up to 1850, the standard repertoire of today is being built, but some other works are still included; even now some see it leading in the wrong direction by rejecting new pieces
III) 1848 – 1870
--Orchestras and their classical repertoire become the center of musical life
--When musical life started again after the revolutions of 48-49, a major trend in public taste favored the Classical repertoire. The public is tired of the “razzle-dazzle” of merely virtuosic display, so the new generation of virtuosos begins to play concertos by Mozart and Beethoven
--Orchestras grow from private concert societies into national cultural institutions—probably spurred by revolutions, since the performance of oratorios served as a powerful ritual of social unity, leading to the national institutions. Urban growth also helped, with the establishment of large concert halls in major cities
--Many important changes; one was the growing promence of overtures, arias, and full scenes from operas of the 1820-1840s.
--Music from the Renaissance and Baroque eras is revived
--Bach was the main figure—Mendelssohn, St. Matthew’s Passion
--Sets off a revival of other early music
--Partly a return to the 18th century origins of the Classical repertoire, such as Handel
--Not played real frequently at concerts, but yet important because of its unusual nature and its part in fostering the growth of the study of music history
--The overall repertoire becomes mostly standardized (despite the variety from opera excerpts and Baroque revival). The enshrining of master composers throughout Europe leads to homogenization. During the 1830s, most orchestras honor many local composers, but by the 1870s, they are mostly playing music by the same core of dead masters.
--A crisis from the lack of acceptance for new music begins. At the beginning of the century, it was unusual for works by dead composer to occur more than occasionally on programs, by the 1870s none of the major orchestras gave more than a third of their annual repertoire to music of living composers, and the percentage was often smaller; this situation has led to today
--Wagnerians lead a bitter ideological attack against the orchestras of the 1850s for their focus on established masters and resistance to forward-looking works. (Yet Wagner owed a lot to orchestras for the diffusion of his music)
--Some dissemination of new music is made possible by newly organized concert series offered to a less affluent audience
--Euterpe in Leipzig since the early 1830s
--London’s Crystal Palace after it reopened in 1854
--Popular Concerts and Colonne Concerts in Paris (1860s-70s)
--These concerts give more attention to new music than elite orchestras, don’t exaggerate how far they went, but they did welcomd young composers and some avant-garde works by followers of Liszt and Wagner. Performing controversial pieces put the orchestras in the spotlight and helped them draw a public that was not intolerant of new music. They didn’t have a mass audience, with many middle-class listeners who were well educated in music. (Clerk with well-worn pocket score of Beethoven Symphonies)
*Four Important Cities
I) Leipzig
--The Gewandhaus Orchestra, which is largely dominated by the classical canon—its concerts in the 1780s were only 13 % works by dead composers, by 1870, they are 76% works by the deceased
--The competing Euterpe series is organized rather early, and features some newer composers, notably Liszt, Wagner, and their followers
--It is one of the most interesting musical cities in Europe, with much variety and richness of musical styles
II) London
--The Philharmonic Society of London is similar to the Gewandhaus in program makeup, but quicker to focus on a strict canon of works,
--The Society’s social base is not as affluent as in the other cities
--The New Philharmonic Society (1850s) is not too different in its programs, although oratorios by British composers are included here
III) Vienna
--The Vienna Philharmonic is not founded until 1842, much later than other cities began offering professional concert series
--It includes more new works (Brahms, Bruckner, etc)
--The lack of a cheaper series hinders further dissemination of new music, and this perhaps influences radical Viennese composers in the 20th century
IV) Paris
--The Conservatoire Orchestra (1828) is the most resistant of all to new music
--Rival popular concert series are very nationalistic
*Conclusion
--In the 19th century, great symphonic works were enshrined in the orchestras—the operas houses of Europe were slower to establish a canon of works. with instrumental music acquiring a central place in music taste
--The programs still differ from today in their inclusion of many diverse vocal works
--Diverse—operatic, oratorios, songs, and chamber works. The public was equally diverse
--Concerts would still seem a bit strange to us today
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