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Chapter 22: Romantic Music: Piano Music. The Piano. Improved by the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution Range extended to 88 keys Cast-iron frame Thicker, stronger strings Sustaining Pedal and Soft Pedal added Cross-stringing for a richer sound More expressive Home music making
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The Piano • Improved by the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution • Range extended to 88 keys • Cast-iron frame • Thicker, stronger strings • Sustaining Pedal and Soft Pedal added • Cross-stringing for a richer sound • More expressive • Home music making • Great virtuoso pianist/composers of the 19th-century • Technical fireworks: Rapid octaves, racing chromatic scales, thundering chords
Robert Schumann: Carnaval (1834) • Collection of 21 short piano pieces written while a student in Leipzig • “Carnivalesque goings-on:” Musically depicted colorful characters , including mardi gras characters, Clara, Chopin, and Paganini • Signs of bipolar disorder already evident here • “Eusebius” is meek and sensitive while “Florestan” is assertive, even fiery • Started the high-end music magazine Die neue Zeitschrift für Musik • Wrote both as Eusebius and Florestan
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) • “The Poet of the Piano” • Born in Warsaw, Poland • Physically slight and somewhat sickly • Introverted and hated performing in public • Made his career in Paris • Remained in Paris after Russia crushed Poland’s independence • Became a voice for Polish musical nationalism • Primarily composed for the piano • Many based on Polish folk dances • Use of Tempo Rubato
Nocturne in Eb major, Op. 9, No. 2 (1832) • Nocturne: “Night Piece” • Slow, dreamy genre of piano music popular in the 1820’s and 1830’s • Suggests moonlit rooms, romantic longing, and wistful melancholy • lyrical melody weaves around a regular accompaniment
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) • Flamboyant artistic personality • Lisztomania • Compositions demand great virtuosity • Established the modern piano recital • Played entire program from memory • Placed the piano parallel to the stage • Performed alone on stage • Etude: A short, one movement composition designed to improve a particular aspect of a performer’s technique • Liszt’s etudes were intended for virtuoso players, not students • Novel approach to musical form, harmonic progressions, and foreshadows musical practices of the 20th-century
Transcendental Etude No. 8 “Wilde Jagd” (1851) • Transcendental Etudes are Liszt’s most difficult pieces • Studies in storm and dread • “Wild Hunt” suggests a German Romantic scene of a nocturnal chase in a supernatural forest • A “musical Mont Everest”