Music – French Revolution

1. Music – French Revolution

2. Rococo Art • Succeeded Baroque Art in Europe. • Was most popular in France, • associated with the reign of King Louis XV (1715-1774). • It is a light, elaborate and decorative style of art.Quintessentially Rococo artistean, Jean-Antoine Watteau

3. . Important French composers of the 1730s–50s: • François Couperin • Couperin was born in Paris. • taught by his father, who died when François was 10, • became the organist at the Chapelle Royale (Royal Chapel) with the title organiste du Roi, organist by appointment to the King

4. Couperin acknowledged his debt to the Italian composer Corelli • He blended the Italian and French styles of music

5. Influenced many….. • loved by J.S. Bach influenced who adopted the fingering system, including the use of the thumb, that Couperin set forth for playing the harpsichord. • Richard Strauss, as well as • Maurice Ravel who memorialized their composer with Le Tombeau de Couperin (A Memorial to Couperin). • Johannes Brahms's piano music was influenced by the keyboard music of Couperin.

6. Jean-Philippe Rameau • (September 25, 1683, Dijon – September 12, 1764) • important French composers and music theorists of the • Baroque era • leading French composer for the harpsichord alongside François Couperin.[2

7. Rameau replaced Jean-Baptiste Lullyas the dominant composer of French opera

8. The galant style: • a term from music and theater • which featured a return to classical simplicity after the complexity of the late Baroque era. This meant (in some implementations) simpler music, with less ornamentation, decreased use of polyphony (with increased importance on the melody),

9. CLASSICISM AND ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE • Christoph Willibald von Gluck brings Viennese culture to France

10. Gluck wrote: My father was a head forester in [Eisenberg] in Bohemia and he had brought me up to follow in his footsteps. At that time music was all the rage. Unfortunately, inflamed with a passion for this art, I soon made astounding progress and was able to play several instruments. My whole being became obsessed with music and I left all thoughts of a forester's life behind."

11. BASIC ELEMENTS OF MUSIC THEORY • A. Acoustical Properties of Music* • 1. Pitch* • 2. Duration* • 3. Volume (dynamics)* • 4. Timbre (tone color)* • B. Formal Properties of Music* • 1. Rhythm and meter* • 2. Melody* • 3. Harmony* • 4. Texture* • 5. Form* • a) Binary form (AB)* • b) Ternary form (ABA)* • C. Voices and Instruments* • 1. The four voice parts* • 2. Brass instruments* • 3. Woodwind instruments* • 4. Stringed instruments* • 5. Percussion instruments* • 6. The piano* • 20% • II. FRANCE BEFORE CLASSICISM • A. The Ancien Régime and the Enlightenment • 1. The Ancien Régime • 2. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: The cultural politics of the Ancien Régime* • 3. The Age of Enlightenment • a) Major philosophical principles relevant to art: rationality, symmetry • b) Voltaire, Rousseau • c) Assault on religious and monarchical institutions • B. Musical Definitions • 1. The concept of rococo and the end of the baroque period in France; art history: Jean-Antoine Watteau and the definition of “rococo” • 2. The galant style: a term from music and theater • 3. Musical symmetry • 4. Important French composers of the 1730s–50s: François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau • a) Keyboard music and dramatic images • b) The “galant style” in European music drama and instrumental music of the 1720s–40s • 5. LISTENING SELECTION: FRANÇOIS COUPERIN, “TIC-TOC-CHOC” FROM PIÈCES DE CLAVECIN, BOOK 3 • 15% • III. CLASSICISM AND ENLIGHTENMENT IN FRANCE • A. Historical Developments • 1. The Dauphin and Marie Antoinette • a) War, taxation, and a depleted treasury • b) Relationship to the bureaucracy and governing bodies • c) Corrupt institutions of the old culture: Le droit de seigneur (“the right of the master”) • 2. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: The career of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732–99)* • 3. The War for the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War • a) How monarchic/imperial families were holding onto power • 4. Influence of the American Revolution • B. Musical Developments • 1. Christoph Willibald von Gluck brings Viennese culture to France • a) From opera seria to reform opera in Vienna: Orfeo ed Eurydice and the preface to Alceste • b) From reform opera to reawakening and validation of the Rameau opera through Greek tragedy • 2. LISTENING SELECTION: GLUCK, “BRILLANT AUTEUR DE LA LUMIÈRE” FROM IPHIGÉNIE EN AULIDE • 3. Mozart, Da Ponte, and “le droit de seigneur”: The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni • a) From Beaumarchais to Mozart via the censors of Vienna • b) The demonic personality: Don Giovanni • 4. LISTENING SELECTION: MOZART, LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, ACT I: “COSA SENTO” • 5. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: Mozart’s career as an opera composer* • 6. LISTENING SELECTION: MOZART, DON GIOVANNI, ACT I: “LÀ CI DAREM LA MANO” • 7. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: Lorenzo da Ponte (1749–1838)* • 8. Instrumental music: the symphony • a) Sonata form in the 1770s–80s (the Viennese Classical era) • b) Composers in Vienna and Paris and the concept of a “common language” • 9. LISTENING SELECTION: JOSEPH HAYDN, SYMPHONY NO. 85, “LA REINE DE FRANCE,” FIRST MOVEMENT • 10. Haydn’s Paris symphonies • a) Dynamic interplay of personalities, the “Sturm und Drang” and the “galant” • b) Classical style and the Enlightenment • 11. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: The career of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)* • 20% • IV. MUSIC OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION • A. After the Bastille • 1. LISTENING SELECTION: ROUGET DE LISLE, “LA MARSEILLAISE” (ARR. BERLIOZ), VERSES 1–2 • B. The Reign of Terror • 1. The trial and execution of the king • 2. The Reign of Terror • 3. LISTENING SELECTION: ROUGET DE LISLE, “CHANT DU NEUF THERMIDOR” (ARR. BERLIOZ) • 4. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle (1760–1836)* • C. Counter-Reaction and War with Other European Powers • 1. LISTENING SELECTION: ÉTIENNE MÉHUL, “LE CHANT DU DÉPART” • D. Music of the French Revolutionary Era • 1. Luigi Cherubini: Lodoïska; political prisoners, and the “rescue opera” • 2. LISTENING SELECTION: FRANÇOIS JOSEPH GOSSEC, “HYMNE A LA STATUE DE LA LIBERTÉ” • 20% • V. MUSICAL RESPONSES TO FRANCE, THE REVOLUTION, AND NAPOLEON: THE ROMANTIC ERA AND BEYOND • A. From Enlightenment to Romanticism • 1. Philosophical differences • a) The Romantic (anti-)hero: Goethe's Faust, Shelley's Frankenstein • b) E. T. A. Hoffmann: the power of psychosis and the importance of Beethoven • 2. Napoleon and the power of culture • 3. LISTENING SELECTION: GASPARE SPONTINI: LA VESTALE, “MARCH OF THE PRIESTS” AND“THUNDERSTORM”/p> • B. Vienna: Napoleon and Beethoven • 1. Beethoven and Napoleon: the Third Symphony, From “Napoleon” to “Eroica” • 2. LISTENING SELECTION: BEETHOVEN, THIRD SYMPHONY (“EROICA”), SECOND MOVEMENT (OPENING) • 3. Beethoven and the French Revolution: Fidelio: the rescue opera updated • 4. LISTENING SELECTION: BEETHOVEN, FIDELIO, ACT II, “GOTT! WELCH’ DUNKEL HIER!” • C. Hector Berlioz and the Revolution(s) • 1. LISTENING SELECTION: BERLIOZ, SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE, 4TH MOVEMENT (“MARCH TO THE SCAFFOLD”) • 2. Incidental music for commemorating the revolution • 3. The “revolutionary” style and the Te Deum • D. Revolutionary France in the Musical Imagination of the Later Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries • 1. The theme of the French Revolution in 19th- and 20th-century opera: Giordano’s Andrea Chenier and Benjamin Britten’s Billy Budd • 2. Two twentieth-century responses to the French Revolution: Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues and Claude-Michel Schonberg’s Les Miserables • a) Commemoration of sacrifice: Poulenc’s humanitarianism • b) Commercialization and the late 20th-century “Broadway” musical • 3. LISTENING SELECTION: POULENC, DIALOGUES OF THE CARMELITES, FINAL SCENE (“SALVE REGINA”) • 4. INDEPENDENT RESEARCH TOPIC: Popularizing the French story in the international “Les Mis” phenomenon*