Period: Early 20th century
Title: Kindertotenlieder, No. 1, Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgehn
Composer: Gustov Mahler
Date: 1904
Genre: Orchestral Song Cycle
Style: Post-Romantic/Post-Wagnerism
Music Analysis:
-starts out more happy and ends with more dissonance
-scored for vocal bari/mezzo soprano solo and orchestra…continuous with no interruption
between five sections
-starts out and stays somewhat sparse
-whole orchestra comes in heavy as vocalist sings of the need to immerse oneself in eternal light
-counterpoint of Wagnerian chromaticism (flowing and continuous)
Historical Context:
ABOUT COMPOSER
-was not revered as composer, but more as a conductor
-“Bohemian in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans”
-stripped away “extra stuff” in operas to focus on music and poetry
ABOUT PIECE
-written by Friedrich Ruckert in grief after his children died of scarlet fever
-four years after Mahler composed this piece, he lost his daughter to scarlet fever
-“songs on the death of children”…sun continues to shine in the world
Period: Early 20th Century
Title: Salome (Final Scene)
Composer: Richard Strauss
Date: 1903-5
Genre: Opera
Style: Expressionist
Musical Analysis:
-experimenting with contrast and bi-tonality
-expressionist opera (based on distortion, musically and dramatically)
-oriental and Hebrew influences heard…
-exotic sounding cadences, harmonic extensions and extreme chromaticism…leading to bitonality
-through composed with use of leitmotifs
-Salome’s motive: dominates Jokanaan’s motive contrapuntally…use of tonality and
harmony to express her insanity
-reaches key of C# minor as she sings about her kissing his mouth…music appears diatonic as she triumphs over his virtue and orchestra builds
Historical Context:
-this was Salome’s last monologue before kissing the head
ABOUT PIECE
-had difficulty finding leading lady because it was too sexual/manipulative so women were afraid
to only be associated by this role
-premiered in Dresden but ran into censorship trouble…(led Strauss to turn to period comedy
after)
PLOT
-Salome, King Herod’s step-daughter, desires affections of John the Baptist(Jokanaan) who
is imprisoned by stepfather King Herod…
-Jokanaan rejects Salome…Salome then goes to Herod who DOES want her sexually and dances
the Dance of Seven Veils…which leaves her completely naked
-Herod promises her anything so she asks for Jokanaan’s head…he brings his head to Salome on
a silver platter and she kisses it in the darkness…Herod is repulsed and orders her death
ABOUT COMPOSER
-got musical background from dad who was a famous hornist (franz strauss)
-became assistant conductor of von Bulow
-became conductor of Meiningen Orchestra in 1885, but then left to travel Italjjsjy
Period: Late Romantic transition to 20th
Title: Sarabande from Pour le piano
Composer: Claude Debussy
Date: 1894 (revised in 1901)
Genre: Sarabande/Piano Work
Style: Impressionism
Musical Analysis:
-homophonic with rhythms moving together
-quartal harmony
-pentatonic motion
-parallel motion…sometimes pure parallel following 12 tone and sometimes diatonic parallel
-transitions don’t always lead somewhere specific
-tonic (C#) was treated with freedom
Historical Context:
-Debussy HATED the term impressionist
-visited Bayreuth…Javanese gamelan music became big influence
ABOUT PIECE
-composed as one of group of character pieces he called “images”
-revised version was placed as the second piece in the set
-later orchestrated by Ravel
Period: Late Romantic
Title: Sarabande No. 1
Composer: Erik Satie
Date: 1887
Genre: Sarabande/Piano Work
Style: Impressionism
Musical Analysis:
-first few bars of alternating progression of two major seventh chords
-simple style and repetitive construction
-relies on unresolved sevenths and ninths
-tritones and tritone subs
-cannot be classified as furniture music because of use of dynamics
Historical Context:
-friends found 12 identical gray velvet suits, collections of umbrellas and handkerchiefs, 4 pianos
with two of them piled onto each other
-provided himself with jobs writing music for religious sects and even formed his own church
-creator of furniture music…ambient music meant to be ignored