Listening Report 4
Late Romanticism
For the listening portion of the Romanticism Unit Exam, I will play excerpts
from
the Exam
Listening List below. For each excerpt you will:
-
Identify composer & title
-
Identify the genre (character piece? music drama? opera? orchestral Lied? symphonic
poem? symphony?)
-
Describe dramatic situation (what’s going on?) in any excerpts from an
opera, music drama, Lied, or program work
-
List two style features (heard in the excerpt) typical of the composer
-
Answer additional questions drawn from Listening Report and Study Questions below
To prepare for the exam listening, do the readings above and compile short lists of
style features for your own use—one for each major composer on the Exam
Listening List:
Verdi, Wagner, Musorgsky, Brahms, & Mahler. Use
these lists to help you identify these features by ear as you do your
Listening Report. As always, you really want to read the NAWM notes and
follow the score for every work from NAWM.
Each cluster of
works listed below
is accompanied by
a set of Study Questions
and, in some cases,
Listening Report
Questions (highlighted
in blue).
The Study Questions
are designed to help
you prepare for the
Romanticism Exam
and require no written
report; for the Listening
Report Questions,
you must provide
written answers to
be turned in with
this Encounter. For
the Listening Report
Questions, listen
as many times as
necessary to provide
complete answers
to each question.
Listening List
Verdi & Later Italian Opera
A) Verdi,
Aida CD set—RESERVE MCD V484/25
-
Giuseppe Verdi, Aida (Italian
grand opera)
-
Act IV, Scene 2: La fatal pietra
(duet and chorus)—CD2, tracks 12-13
-
Alternate Recording: Blackboard Assignments module—Encounter
Listening—Encounter 4—Verdi Aida
B) Puccini, Madama Butterfly CD set—Blackboard
RESERVE
- Giacomo Puccini, Madama Butterfly (opera)
- Act II: Un bel dì vedremo (aria)—For words and
music see Blackboard Assignments module: Encounter Listening: Encounter
4
- Alternate Recording: Encounter 4 RESERVE CD—Buehler
Library Reserve Desk
Listening
Report Questions
on A-B:
- 1. Compare
the excerpts by Verdi and Puccini. What makes them sound different?
Which one uses the orchestra more effectively? Which seems more dramatic? more
tragic? Explain.
Study Questions on A-B:
- a. Does the finale from Aida sound at all exotic or Egyptian?
Or does it just sound like Italian opera? What role
does the orchestra play in this scene? Which Verdi style features can you hear
most clearly in this excerpt? How is this music different from earlier Italian
opera? Choose a particular moment that you find effective and tell me about
it please.
- b. Does the Puccini example sound
at all exotic or Japanese? How does Puccini use the orchestra? Does this music
have an emotional impact? What if I told you that Cio-Cio-San’s American husband
actually does return—but with his new American bride?
Wagnerian Music Drama
C) Wagner, Tristan und Isolde DVD—RESERVE
VIDEO 782.1 T838
- Wagner, Tristan und Isolde (Music drama)
- a) Act I, Scene 5 (excerpt)—DVD1, track 7 (starting at 1:10:00) & 8
(to the end)
-
Follow NAWM 128 score as you listen!
-
Alternate Recording: NAWM 128—CD10, tracks 22-30
- b) Act III, Liebestod—DVD2, track 12
-
Alternate Recording: Blackboard Assignments module—Encounter
Listening—Encounter 4—Wagner Tristan und Isolde
Listening
Report Questions
on C:
- 2. Before you listen to the Tristan und Isolde excerpts, read the
NAWM 128 commentary and the Guide to Some Leitmotives
from Tristan Und Isolde below. Once you have familiarized yourself with these leitmotives, find them and circle them
in your NAWM score. As you listen to the two Tristan excerpts here, can you hear these leitmotives clearly?
Do the leitmotives help you
understand what’s going on or not? Explain.
- 3. How does this music drama compare with earlier German Romantic
opera (Weber)? Do the leitmotives make a difference? What about
Wagner’s
use of the orchestra? Explain. Why do you suppose Wagner calls this work a
music drama instead of an opera? Which Wagner style features do you hear most
clearly in these excerpts?
Study Questions on C:
- c. Tristan has just died as Isolde begins to sing the Liebestod.
What do you think is going on in this scene? Based on your reading of the words,
what is the meaning of her vision? What does the music itself add to your
understanding of her vision? What if I told you that Isolde also dies at
they
very
end
of
this
music drama?
Other Late Romantic Opera Traditions
D) NAWM 129—Georges Bizet, Carmen (opera)
- Act I, No. 10: Seguidilla & Duet—CD10, tracks 1-5
E) Modest Mussorgsky, Boris
Godunov DVD—RESERVE
VIDEO 782.1 B734
- Modest Musorgsky, Boris Godunov (opera)
- Coronation scene—DVD1 track 5
-
Follow NAWM 130 score as you listen!
-
Alternate Recording: NAWM 130—CD10, tracks 6-11
F) NAWM 131—Arthur Sullivan, The Pirates
of Penzance (operetta)
- When the foeman bares his steel—CD10, tracks
12-17
Listening
Report Questions
on D-F:
- 4. Which of these works sound closest to Verdi? Which sound closest to Wagner? Explain. Which one of the three sounds most unusual or most radical? Explain why.
Study Questions on D-F:
- d. Carmen was written for the Paris Opéra Comique theater,
not the famed Paris Opéra. Does this work conform to French
comic opera conventions in any way (as opposed to French grand opera)? Can
you explain this at all? Does Carmen sound
at all exotic or Spanish?
- e. What makes this Musorgsky opera a good example of Russian nationalism,
i.e. what Russian elements can you hear in this work? In what ways is this
a good example of grand opera? How does nationalism differ from the exoticism
of the Verdi, Puccini, & Bizet operas above? Which Musorgsky style features
can you hear most clearly in this excerpt?
- f. How does this Gilbert & Sullivan operetta compare
with the other opera excerpts above? Does this strike you as a good example
of British humor (think Peter Sellers or Monty Python)? What do you think
are the chief differences between opera and operetta? Does this scene poke
fun at serious opera in any way? Explain.
Late Romantic Orchestral Music
G) NAWM 132—Johannes Brahms, Symphony
No. 4 in E minor (Symphony)
- mvmt. iv (Passacaglia form)—CD10, tracks 18-24
-
Alternate Period-Instrument Recording: Blackboard
Assignments module—Encounter
Listening—Encounter 4—Brahms Symphony No. 4
H) Encounter 4 RESERVE CD
- Gustav Mahler, Rückert Lieder (song cycle)
-
No. 5: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (orchestral Lied)—track
3
-
Alternate Recording: Blackboard Assignments module—Encounter
Listening—Encounter 4—Mahler Ich bin der Welt
I) Gustav Mahler, Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8 DVD—RESERVE
VIDEO 784.184 S989m v.3
- Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 8, Symphony of a Thousand (symphony)
- mvmt. ii: Chorus mysticus (from Alles Vergängliche to
end)—DVD2 track 26
- Alternate Recording:Blackboard Assignments module—Encounter
Listening—Encounter 4—Mahler Symphony No. 8
Listening
Report Questions
on G-I:
- 5. Which Brahms style features do you hear most clearly in this movement?
What seems traditional, perhaps even Classical about this Brahms piece? What
seems
thoroughly
Romantic?
How
does
Brahms
sound
different
from
his
contemporaries (or from the other works on this listening list)? Any rhythmic
weirdness happening here? Where? Explain.
- 6. Mahler’s life and music present us with many contradictions, and these two Mahler works give us two extremes, moving from the Lied’s Buddha-like serenity (and self-imposed exile) to the symphony’s ecstatic embrace of humanity à la Beethoven’s Ninth. How does this music compare with Brahms’ 4th? Where do you think Mahler fits in the absolute vs. programme music controversy? Which do you find more persuasive: the
personal, inward-looking expression of the Mahler orchestral Lied or Symphony
No. 8’s
universal vision of redemption? Explain.
Questions on G-I:
- g. The Brahms symphony movement uses passacaglia form, an older Baroque
variation form! In the Baroque passacaglia, a short theme
(4 to 8 bars) repeats continuously, usually in the bass line. Brahms announces
his 8-measure theme in the winds and brass right at the beginning (E-F
sharp-G-A-A sharp-B-B-E—one
note per measure) and repeats it in each subsequent 8-measure group’sometimes
in the bass, sometimes in the melody, and often in an inner voice. (Hum along
if you like to find the theme more easily!) In the slow tempo middle section
(begins with a long flute solo), did you notice right away that the passacaglia
theme was still there, or did you have to look for it?
- h. Mahler composed Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekomment and Symphony
No. 5, which share much musical material, during this same period of personal
crisis and convalescence (Mahler fell seriously ill in 1901 and almost
died). He began setting the poem, but then put it aside to work on the Fifth
Symphony—but then, when preparing to leave
for Vienna at the end of the summer, he was overcome with the urge to finish
the song. He wrote about this song, “It is myself.” So
what do you find out about Mahler from listening to this song? Do you hear
alienation or serenity or both? What in the music makes you read it as you
do? Which Mahler style features do you hear most clearly in this Lied?
- i. Often cited as a prime example of Romantic excess, the sprawling second
(and final!) movement of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand sets
to music the final scene of Goethe’s Faust, Part II. We saw
Faust riding to hell at the end of Part I (thanks to Berlioz, Gounod, et
al.), but in Part II the purity of Marguerite’s love paves the way
for Faust’s
redemption. Published in 1832, Part II exerted a powerful influence on
several generations of Romantic composers, and redemption via a pure woman’s
sacrifice was a recurring plot device in Wagner operas as well—check
out Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung!
Which Mahler style features can you hear most clearly in his stirring setting
of Goethe’s
eloquent Chorus
mysticus?
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