Pre-1820s context
815 defeat of Napoleon.1820s situated after years of Napoleonic wars; often situated as period of political conservatism as a result. 1815 onwards as ‘Era of Restoration’
- 1814-1815 instability of rulers – monarchy restored when Napoleon exiled; then Napoleon’s ‘100’ days back in Paris; finally Waterloo and Louis XVIII restored.
- Napoleonic period creates sense of world-reconfiguring chaos, e.g. Portuguese Court fleeing to set up Rio as capital in Brazil.
- Also post-French Revolution (1789). Spectacle of deposition/killing of king and queen. Ensuing ‘reign of terror’.
- American War of Independence (1765-83)
- 1820s equally as period of trauma following decades of military activity, despite ‘new peace’.
Normal music history highlights pt.1
- Beethoven composing final works: dies in 1827. These works famous at the time for being difficult, indecipherable.
- Schubert trying to set himself up in Viennese context (as ‘new’ Beethoven) and bulk of his work composed in 1820s.
- Schubert and Beethoven’s late music seen as exploration of limits of musical expression; self-consciously writing ‘music about music’.
- Rossini most famous composer in the world in 1820s. Rossini ‘new Napoleon’ (Stendhal). Final operas written in 1820s, retires publicly after William Tell (1829).
Normal music history part 2
- Mendelssohn writing early works. Also putting on first modern performance of Matthew Passion.
- Berlioz, at conservatoire in Paris in 1820s. Era of strict oppositions/binaries – Berlioz strongly opinionated about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ works. Canon? Strong sense of Beethoven as ‘good’, Rossini as ‘bad’.
- Weber Der Freischütz most famous operatic work (besides Rossini) of decade.
Revolution effects
- Faster rate of change in 1820s: ‘everything becoming so different’ as signature phrase
- Revolution disrupted Western conceptions of historical continuity (Fritzche)
- Industrial revolution and political revolution linked in people’s minds
- Temporal experience of Napoleonic invasion of Italy – Napoleon as modernity
- Post-napoleon sentimentality – theatre become a problematic thing because it is a way of encouraging audiences to feel something together (which resonates with revolutionary ideas)
National melody stereotypes
- Italy seen as land of melody
- Germany often portrayed as land of harmony; but idea of German folk melody as ‘purer’ than Italian model and using this as a way of imprinting musical stamp on Europe:
- Views on French music (Rousseau, Letter on French Music): ‘the French do not have music’. ‘Neither a beat nor a melody’ etc. Harmony seen as ‘filler’.
Charles Rosen 4 bar unit
- 4 bar unit as basic structure is becoming fixed in 1820s
- Large scale structure now being determined by the 4-bar phrase as a solid building block.
- Interest comes when people use 4-bar phrases to make longer pattern which creates difference to other composers (e.g. a hypermetre) instead of people not using 4 bar phrases, because 4 bar phrase is so engrained.
- Musical style of 1820s, however, demonstrating tendency to have rhythms going across longer sections, not breaking up each phrase by each 4 bars: more fluid transition between phrases.
Schopenhauer
- The Will as permeating all life: life force.
- Cycles of desire and temporary satisfaction.
- Lots of 18th century aesthetic writers see music’s incapacity to represent as a flaw, but Schopenhauer argues this incapacity makes it the highest art form.
- Highest stage of objectification of the Will is strife of man – man desires, then is satisfied, then desires again. Failure to be satisfied = suffering. Therefore essence of melody is continual fluctuation which eventually returns to tonic – the fluctuations = varying desires of man. Melody as most important part of music.
Malibran and Sontag General
- Pitted against each other as rivals
- London concert 1829 sang together including Rossini duets
- Birth of ‘diva’ in relation to opera singers
- James Davies argues that they had to contend with social conventions of male critics who framed them in gendered terms
- Even their difference in voice was framed in gendered terms – ‘many-voicedness’ being feminised across Europe
Opposing musical categorisation of Sontag and Malibran
Malibran:
- Prepared cadenzas, facial expressions, gestures in a book beforehand
- Inserted improvisations at unconventional points
- Big range and power (would be a mezzo now) but had an upper extension ‘third octave’ which she showed off by alternating between dramatic expression and agile flourishes
- Lacked the class, naïveté and charm of Sontag
Sontag:
- Chromatic scales were her thing
- Lacked the volume and range of Malibran’s voice
Female singers and sex
- Florid womanly scenes useful to bourgeois project of strengthening absolute sexual oppositions between men and women
- Voices heard to be powerful sexual markers
- ‘diva’ used to blur distinctions between onstage presence of women and offstage – marking them as capricious, melodramatic
- Neither Malibran nor Sontag was permitted a life outside music
- Sense that they exist only in music – as diva. Became categorised according to strictly gendered ideas.
Sontag and body
- Classic commodity, London review that she is ‘everything the severest connoisseur could desire’ – food like
- Came to fame in era of first female shop assistants in Paris and London; and the gaze of the flaneur
- As well as display of goods, fixed pricing, seductive show of merchandise
- Also pornographic/libelous image:
o The Virgin’s Oath or the Fate of Sontag was banned but was a story about her being taken advantage of whilst sleeping and highlighted her passivity - Her body threatened to dissociate in sympathy with her voice
- Writers talked about her body parts as if they had no relation to her living person: lists describing her.
Malibran and body
- Seen as ‘wild’ in her activities
- Vocal parts mimicked this with her shifting between registers
- Acting highlighted this abundance – ‘frantic terror’ of her Desdemona (The Times)
- Dangerous sensuality of female voice.
Opera string quartet arrangements general
- Allowed publishers to capitalise on popularity of stage works and singers
- String quartet strong male genre
- Combined seemingly opposed genres and social settings
- Berlin: Schlesinger (publishing firm) produced mainly French and Italian works (in line with Friedrich Wilhelm III and Spontini)
- Info from LOTT
Opera string quartet Robert le Diable
- Strunz Robert le Diable (Meyerbeer)
- Omits recitative-filled scenes and lots of the choruses
- Instead created new bits of music rather than transcription
- Focus on instrumentally satisfying style – ignoring importance of dramatic role of scenes
- Fully adjusted to suit needs of consumers: masculine intellegtual rigor and formal balance
Opera string quartet Der Freischütz
- Henning
- Does not show same effort to domesticate it
- Respect for recent death of Weber
- No omissions, even accomp recitative – makes it difficult/less accessible
- Except Act III magic bullet scenes – complicated structure and also offensive plot (satanic ritual)
- Much less evidence of wanting to fit consumers – since the opera is German characters in everyday situation (except Wolf Glen scene which they cut)
- Therefore could be incorporated into everyday German life
