Music Quarter 3

• Romantic Period - 1820-1910
• During the romantic period, music is formal, expressive and composite.
• Music of the romantic period is based on the composer's emotions or feelings.
• The theme of romantic period's music is nationalism and patriotism.
• Composers of vocal music of the romantic period explores the feeling of grandiosity, intimacy, unpredictability, sadness, rapture, and longing.
• Romantic Opera - a story told by the composers through music while using the words of the librettist.
• Opera - a musical composition having all or most of its text set music.
• Libretto - the text of an opera. The librettist and the composer work closely together to tell the story.
• librettist - a person who writes the text of an opera or other long vocal work.
• Score - the book that the composer and the librettist put together.
• Recitative - declamatory singing used in the prose parts and dialogue of opera.
• Aria - an air or solo singing part that the public will remember best when leaving the opera house.
• Tenor - highest male voice (C3–B4)
• Baritone - the common male voice; lies between bass and tenor (A2 - A4)
• Bass - lowest male voice (D2–E4)
• countertenor -  male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types (G3–C6)
• Soprano - highest female voice (B3-C6)
• Mezzo soprano - strong middle voice deeper than a soprano (G3-A5)
• Alto - lowest female voice (F3-F5)
• Contralto - deepest female voice (E3-F5)
• Giuseppe Verdi - born in Parma, Italy on October 9, 1813
• Giuseppe studied in Busseto and later went to Milan.
• Giuseppe's first opera was Oberto which was performed in La Scala.
• La Scala - the most important opera house around Giuseppe's time
• Giuseppe's final opera ends with "All the world's a joke"
• Giuseppe's famous works are:

  Rigoletto (1851)

  La Traviata (1853)

  Aida (1870)

  Otello (1887)

  Falstaff (1893)
• Expressive vocal melody is the soul of a Verdi opera.
• Giuseppe wrote Aida for the opening of the Suez Canal.
• Giuseppe died in Milan, Italy on January 27, 1901 at the age of 87.
• Richard Wagner - introduced new ideas in harmony and in form, including extremes of chromaticism.
• Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany on May 22, 1813 and died in Venice, Italy on February 13, 1883 at the age of 69 due to a heart attack.
• Wagner was inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven.
• Wagner's famous works are:

  Tannhauser (1845)

  Die Walkure (1856)

  Tristan and Isolde (1859)

  Die Meistersinger (1867)

  Parsifal (1882)
• Franz Peter Schubert - considered as the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic composers.
• Schubert was born on the January 31, 1797 in Himmelpfortgrund, Austria and died in Vienna, Austria on the November 19, 1828 at the age of 31.
• songs of Schubert are called "lieder", the German word for song.
• Schubert's famous lieder:

  Gretchen am Spinnrade - 1814

  Erlkonig - 1815

  Ellens Gesang III (Ave Maria) - 1825

  Schwanenge sang (Swan Song) - 1828
• Schubert also wrote piano pieces, string quartets, operetta, and Symphony number 8 in B Minor.
• One of Schubert's compositions is Symphony no. 8 in B Minor (Unfinished Symphony)
• Georges Bizet - famous for his operas, he was born on October 25, 1838 in Paris, France and died on June 3, 1975 in Bougival, France at the age of 36.