NAME: Amabelle Pamocol DATE: December 21, 2019

ESSAY. Numbers 1-2 are for chapter 26 and numbers 3-4 are for chapter 27. Typewritten only.

1) What kinds of melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and formal techniques and strategies are peculiar to
Romantic orchestral and chamber music? What adaptations of earlier conventions and
procedures, or advances beyond them, mark works in this repertoire as “Romantic”? Identify and
discuss representative examples of composers and their works to illustrate your points.

Answer: Romantic orchestral and chamber music have song-like melodies and dramatic contrasts
of dynamics and pitch. Composers sought to balance tradition and individuality, and some
leaning toward innovation, others toward emulating the past. They competed for performances,
recognition, sales with the masters of the past and with their contemporaries by introducing
something new and individual in genres and forms that were hallowed by tradition. Schubert’s
“unfinished Symphony” , after a short and mysterious introductory subject, the first movement
presents a soulful, and singable melody that is quite different. Its soaring extension, full of
anguish and longing was a also a departure. Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios in D minor Op. 49, and in
C Minor, both feature slow movements and emphasizes expressive melody.

2) How did literature and other arts affect the composition and reception of orchestral and chamber
music in the first half of the nineteenth century? Identify and discuss composers and works that
illustrate the range of extra musical influences on these genres.

Answer: Romantic orchestral and chamber muѕic idealѕ are expressing feelings sincerely and
projecting a distinctive personality. To illustrate that thought, in Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 in C
Major (1825), known as the “Great”, he blended his romantic Lyricism and Beethovenian drama
with an expanded classical form. Hector Berloiz’s “Symphony Fantastique” is another example.
He followed this precedent in his device of the “Ideé Fixe (a fixed idea or obsession) and used a
melody that represents the obsessive image of the hero’s beloved.

3)Identify, describe, and contrast the principal European opera styles in the early nineteenth
century. What are their performance conventions and requirements? What are their similarities
and differences with respect to subject matter, dramaturgy, formal conventions, and vocal and
orchestral styles? To illustrate your points, discuss a representative example of an opera from
each principal style that you identify.

Answer: Early in the nineteenth century, the balance of Italian opera remained focused on
beautiful singing or bel canto- a term that Rossini and others used only in retrospect in order to
contrast the Italian singing style of the eighteenth century to the early nineteenth centuries with
the heavier dramatic style. “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini in an example of this opera style.
In line with the continued role of Italian opera as vehicle for virtuoso singing, this structure also
provided singers with an opportunity to show a wide range of emotions and vocal effects. The
French Grand opera as this type called, was as much spectacle as music and consistent with the
fashion. Writers created librettos that focused on romantic love in the context of historical
conflicts and showed ballets, stage machinery, choruses, and crowd scenes like Meyerbeer’s “Les
Huguenots” a typical French grand opera in having five acts, an enormous cast, a ballet and
dramatic scenery and lighting effects. The subject was current of due to concerns about religious
freedom and the influence of the Catholic Church to the government.
3) Explain how European opera in the mid-nineteenth century was related to contemporary social,
economic, and political issues and circumstances. What role did opera serve in European society?
What conflicts and crises were explicitly or implicitly addressed in operas? How, in particular,
was opera connected to emerging ideas of nationhood and national identity? Discuss a variety of
operas that illustrate these relationships.

Answer: Opera served as elite entertainment and also as the source of music that was popular
with audiences of all class and professions. Composers followed national trends, even while they
developed new forms and approaches and borrowed ideas across national boundaries.
Nationalism which is both political and musical brought new themes into opera. Because of
opera, new opera theaters were erected all over Western Europe. Outside the opera house,
excerpts from opera cropped everywhere, comprising an important part of popular as well as elite
culture. Nationalism was addressed in operas. In the political realm was the attempt to unify a
group of people by creating a national identity through characteristics such as a common
language, shared culture, historical traditions, and National institutions and rituals. “Les
Huguenots” by Meyerbeer represents a new view of history, influenced by revolutions (1789 and
1830) that regarded competition between groups as principal engine driving events beyond the
control of individuals. It is also about religious freedom and the influence of the Catholic Church
to the government.