Ch. 16 Piano Music, Chamber Music, Song

Chapter 16 Piano Music, Chamber Music, Song A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-1 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas and String Quartets Piano sonatas, though widely admired, were repeatedly criticized for their technical difficulty String quartets reflect trend toward increasing technical difficulty A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-2 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Song Most contemporary performers and listeners preferred less demanding music The song for solo voice and piano was a popular genre in first half of 19th century A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-3 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Song German composers cultivated genre with much intensity German name for song: Lied (plural, Lieder) Lied found prominence due to: rise of German poetry growing availability of piano idealization of domesticity and family A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-4 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Song Songs generally fall into one of three categories: strophic – each verse (strophe) of a poem is set to the same music modified strophic – music varies from strophe to strophe but remains recognizably the same through-composed – no recognizable pattern of repetition song cycle – collection of songs ordered to convey at least outline of story or idea A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-5 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Music in the home. The private home was ideally suited for piano music and song. The grandmother prefers the warmth of the tile oven, but everyone else (including the dogs) gathers around the piano. A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-6 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Song Songs for voice and piano were popular in the U.S. Stephen Foster was most important 19th-century American songwriter (1826–1864) Foster associated with pre-Civil War South because of contribution to subgenre of minstrel song Minstrel songs typically performed by white performers in blackface Minstrel songs purported to represent African American slave life Foster’s songs usually portrayed subjects with compassion and dignity Foster also wrote parlor songs A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-7 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 African-American minstrels, ca. 1860s. A rare photograph of four African-American musicians from some time around the 1860s, playing the tambourine, violin, banjo and castanets. A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-8 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Song Song was known in France as the mélodie Russian composers often incorporated folklike elements into their songs A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-9 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 The Character Piece New genre associated almost exclusively with the piano Instrumental counterpart to song Relatively small dimension Portrays and explores mood of particular person, idea, situation, or emotion Brief, sectional, and simple in construction ABA, AAB, or ABB pattern Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-10 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 Highlighted performer’s ability to play works whose technical demands are far beyond capacities of average musicians Paganini (violin), Liszt (piano), Gottschalk (piano) A History of Music in Western Culture, 4e 16-11 © 2014 Education, Inc. By Mark Evan Bonds Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 The Virtuoso Showpiece