MUSIC

• Vocal music


  One of the best tools for expressing one's feelings
• Romantic period

  • Basic quality is emotional subjectivity
  • Composers explore feelings of grandiosity, intimacy, unpredictability, sadness, rapture and longing
• Romantic vocal forms

  • Art song
  • Operas
• Art song


  Written for solo voice and piano, has inspiration from poetry
• Opera


  Musical composition having all or most of its text set to music with arias, recitative, choruses, duets, trios etc. sung to orchestral accompaniment
• Components of an opera

  • Libretto
  • Score
  • Recitative
  • Aria
  • Acts
  • Scenes
• Libretto


  The text of an opera
• Score


  Book that the composer and librettist put together with all the musical notes, words and ideas to help the performers tell the story
• Recitative


  Declamatory singing used in the prose and dialogue of opera
• Aria


  An air or solo singing part sung by a principal character
• Acts


  Main divisions of an opera
• Scenes


  The setting or place
• Lieder


  The proper name for Schubert's songs, the German word for songs
• Schubert's lieder

  • Had a powerful dramatic impact on the listeners
• Schubert was the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic one.
• Schubert's famous vocal music works were Gretchen am Spinrad, Erlkonig, Ellens Gesang III (translated as Ave Maria)
• Verdi's operas

  • Characters are ordinary people, not royalty
  • Operas have political overtones and are for middle class audience
  • Expressive vocal melody is the soul of a Verdi opera
• Verdi's famous operas include La traviata, Rigoletto, Aida, Otello, and Falstaff
• Wagner's operas


  • Introduced new ideas in harmony and form, including extremes of chromaticism
  • Explored the limits of the traditional tonal system
  • Developed a compositional style where the orchestra has equal dramatic importance as the singers
• Wagner was born in Leipzig, Germany on May 22, 1813 and died on February 13, 1883 at the age of 69
• Wagner's famous works include Tristan und Isolde, Die Walkure, Die Meistersinger, Tannhauser, and Parsifal
• Bizet's most famous opera is Carmen, which was initially poorly received but later became one of the most popular operas ever written
• Bizet was born on October 25, 1838 in Paris, France and died on June 3, 1875 at the age of 36
• La traviata


  A romantic tragedy opera by Verdi, based on the play La dame aux camélias by Alexandre Dumas
• La traviata is set in Paris, France during 1850 and is in four acts
• Madame Butterfly


  A famous opera by Puccini, with libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, based on a short story by John Luther Long
• Male singer voice types

  • Tenor (highest male voice)
  • Baritone (middle male voice)
  • Bass (lowest male voice)
• Female singer voice types

  • Soprano (highest female voice)
  • Coloratura (highest soprano voice)
  • Lyric (bright and full sound)
  • Dramatic (darker full sound)
  • Mezzo-soprano (most common female voice, strong middle voice tone)
  • Contralto (lowest female voice)
• Vocal techniques and terms

  • Acapella (one or more singers performing without instrumental accompaniment)
  • Cantabile (in a singing style)
  • Capo (head or the beginning)
  • Coda (closing section appended to a movement or song)
  • Dolce (sweetly)
  • Falsetto (a weaker and more airy voice usually in the higher pitch ranges)
  • Glissando (sliding quickly between two notes)
  • Passagio (parts of a singing voice word register transitions occur)
  • Rubato (slight speeding up or slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist)
  • Vibrato (rapidly repeated slight pitch variation during a sustained note to give a richer and more valid sound)
• Opera singer training

  • Sound or tone color
  • Bel canto technique (beautiful singing)
  • Endurance for long operas
  • Language (Italian, French, German, Russian)
  • Posture
  • Vocal range
• Sarsuwela


  Traditional theater genre that dominated the Philippine theater scene over 100 years, first introduced by Dario Cespedes, storyline commonly based on domestic issues that often exemplified a strong sense of Filipino nationalism and anguish against the country's foreign imperialists
• Famous Philippine sarsuwela writers

  • Benigno Zamora
  • Severino Reyes
  • Claudualdo del Mundo
• Dalagang Bukid


  Also known as Country Maiden, arguably the most popular sarsuwela in Tagalog
• Lea Salonga


  Won various international awards like the Oliver, Tony, Drama Desk and Theatre World Awards, received the Order of La Handula award from Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in recognition of her excellence in her craft and for using her talents to benefit Philippine society
• Giacomo Puccini


  born in a poor family on December 22, 1858. studied at Milan conservatory and stressed realism