![]() ![]() But let's back up to Schubert's early years. To the extent that Schubert was known at all in Vienna, and he didn't really become famous until after his death, he was known as the composer of Lieder. The high art song with piano accompaniment of the 19th century. The Germans call the 19th century art song, and we often do as well, we English speakers do as well, they called it a Lied, Lieder in the plural. Indeed, Schubert created the art song of classical music, the art song as we know it in classical music today. Anyway, although Schubert wrote in all genres of music, operas, religious music, chamber music, piano sonatas, and symphonies, he's known today firstly, as a composer of art songs, as we said, more than 600 of them. His diminutive size and glasses exempted him from military services, a boon to music history. ![]() Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven and Schubert, well they were all 5 feet 5 inches tall or less, and Schubert was the shortest of them all. And here's Schubert in his late 20s, one of the last portraits of him. Here's Schubert in his youth, wearing his iconic glasses. But composer Schubert was remarkably productive, producing nearly a thousand compositions and more than 600 songs in his short life of just 31 years, yes, 31 years. Roaming with friends and mentors in downtown Vienna as the situation required, and spending much of his evening pub crawling, as he called it, with his friends. So Schubert quit his day job, and although he gave music lessons from time to time, and had some small income from publishing his songs, for the most part, Schubert live a Bohemian existence, no steady income. So he tried his hand at grade school teaching in his father's school, but with no particular success. And so he was gradually eased out of the choir, and out of the choir school, and when on to earn an effective teaching certificate at a local college. At the age of 15, Schubert's voice broke, as he said, he croaked his last. The boys of which, their descendants at least, are still known today as the Vienna Boys Choir. When he was 11, young Schubert competed for, and won, a place as a boy soprano in the famous Imperial Court Chapel. ![]() He was the son of a school principal who encouraged the boy's obvious musical talent. Franz Schubert was born in Vienna in 1797. Do you speak the language of program music fluently? Join us and find out! Having learned our lesson, we’ll end with a little fun as we try to match themes extracted from various symphonies to the mental images that the composer had in mind. More accurately, we’ll follow the sequence of musical gestures he employs to re-create a fantastical tale of pursuit, destruction, damnation. After a quick auditory review of the workings of program music (we'll follow Vivaldi on a spring day), we'll watch Hector Berlioz go to hell. We’ll finish off the module by asking the question: How do we use musical sound to communicate? A look at program music (instrumental music that uses musical gestures to tell a story) will help us figure this out. ![]() With the music of the ever-lyrical Franz Schubert, we'll step into the parlor of an upper-middle class home, to experience his domestic chamber music and songs. In addition to the aristocracy and their royal palaces, a strong middle class arose in Europe during this period. Occurring roughly from 1820 to 1900, musical Romanticism saw an evolution of musical style as well as a change of venue (place) for musical performance. Romantic music, and indeed all romantic art, was known for its idealistic views on love and nature. The ultimate question: in what ways might his life of isolation and his hearing disability affected the nature (style) of the great music he created?As we bid aufwiedersehen to Beethoven, we move on to full-blown musical Romanticism. They paint a picture of a disheveled, wild-looking Beethoven, who lived among filth and clutter and was consumed by his work. We'll also consider Beethoven the man, as revealed through primary source accounts of his life at that time. 5, with that of his "Late" period, epitomized by his famous Ode to Joy. The point of focus here will be a comparison of the music of Beethoven's "Heroic" period, represented by his Symphony No. If you could put a soundtrack to the French Revolution, it would surely contain music from Beethoven's "Heroic" period, during which, he “brought sound to symphonies.” We’ll see how Beethoven’s incorporation of new instruments, as well as, his creation of a large orchestra, made his symphonies much louder and "sonically vivid" than those of his predecessors. ![]()
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