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Reveries and Passions - Berlioz (CONTEXT (Romanticism (Orchestra -…

- - - - Brass - addition of tuba and cornet & wider range from introduction of valve system
        
        Valve system on cornet meant it could play chromatic notes not available on trumpets
      - Wind - new instruments: piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet & double bassoon
      - Percussion also expanded
      - Strings - more needed in order to maintain balance of sound across 4 sections
      - Piano - several improvements made
        
        more notes
        
        felt used to cover hammers not lead
        
        Frame made of metal not wood
        
        allowed greater tension on strings - longer and thicker
        
        rounder, richer tone & wider range in pitch, volume & tone
        
        full range of keyboard used
        
        rich and varied textures
        
        increased reliance on sustaining pedal
    - - popularity in Romantic period sparked by closer links between music, literature and painting
      - music which 'tells a story' or is descriptive
      - Three main types of programme music for orchestra
        
        Programme Symphony (our set work)
        
        A symphony with a 'programme/story'' for the listener to follow
        
        often has a motto theme or 'idee fixe' to bring unity to a lengthy work
        
        One of earliest examples - Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony
        
        broke away from 'abstract' approach to symphonies by Classical composers
        
        This did not use a 'programme' - Berlioz was one of the first composers to do this
        
        Concert Overture
        
        one movement programme piece for orchestra
        
        typically in sonata form
        
        WL - Beethoven's 'Coriolan Overture'
        
        Symphonic Poem
        
        invented by Liszt
        
        one movement programme piece for orchestra
        
        Lengthier and freer in form than a concert overture
        
        unity created through thematic transformation
        
        WL - Sains-Saens: Danse Macabre, Musorgsky: A night on the Bare Mountain, Dukas: The Sorcerer's Apprentice,
        Dvorak: The Water Goblin
  - - - meant he had to think orchestrally
      - original scoring
      - realised his writing could be difficult (bars 17-27: warns conductor about the bars, particularly the violin writing)
  - - - Berlioz was still optimistic about the outcome of the arts and his career
      - First performance was a success
    - - A young musician falls in love with a woman, who becomes a melody, "idee fixe", in his head.
        
        Autobiographical: probably represents Berlioz's infatuation with the actress Harriet Smithson
      - According to Berlioz, the movement depicts the musician's feelings for this woman:
        
        dreamy melancholy
        
        particularly intro
        
        aimless joy
        
        [i.e. brief depiction of "joy" that then breaks off?]
        
        delirious passion
        
        with moments of fury and jealousy
        
        returning tenderness, tears, and religious consolations
      - See Doc on Sharepoint for complete programme note.
  - - - Represent the beloved
      - Express the various moods identified in the programme
  - - - writing a plot which the symphony follows
      - chromaticism
      - shifting moods (tempi, rhythm, tonality etc.) of intro
        
        See this BBC discovering music podcast.
      - size of orchestra
    - - Based on sonata form
      - more conventional instrumentation
        
        cf. offstage oboe and 4 timpani players in movt.3
        
        (above BBC podcast)
- - - - around 4 times faster than intro
  - - - e.g. fast sextuplets from bar 17 = agitation, unease
      - e.g. semibreves at 'religiosamente'
      - 4 bar rest at end of exposition allows music to 'reset' for recapitulation
    - - unsettles metre to reflect 'uneasiness of spirit'
    - - middle of recapitulation has prominent off'-beat wind accompaniment
    - - bar 17
      - scalic and arpeggiaic quavers in strings after idee fixe - tension/'explosive love'
- - - - lasts around 1 minute
      - made to form a series of chords (often functioning as a G#)
  - - - unprepared & unresolved dominant 9th in bar 10
      - Berlioz breaks the 'rules' of harmony, following instinct - expected
- - - - A - First violins play melody (now lost) written by Berlioz. Based in Cm (one modulation to Gm then back to Cm) Cadences into C major at end
      - B - 'difficult passage'. Starts in C major but returns to C minor then to Eb
      - A' - melody from A now in Eb major. Full accompaniment & more complex (woodwind sextuplets)
    - - mostly over Ab pedal
  - - - highly flexible ground plan, plot-orientated
      - Exposition
        
        First subject in C
        
        Transitional section to G
        
        Second subject in G
        
        Optional repeat
      - Development
        
        very chromatic, but narrow tonally (mostly anchored in C-G tonality)
        
        unusual to emphasise tonic so far ahead of recapitulation
        
        Sequential development of idee fixe (first subject)
        
        rising sequence in lower strings (bars 166-178)
      - Recapitulation
        
        First subject rescored and played in G ( not C major)
        
        No bridge passage from exposition. Instead chromatic writing (bars 275 - 'deaths of despair') . Followed by ascending perfect cadences
        
        Second subject also in G (unconventional). This passage is not a repeat of the opening
      - Coda (as though starting from 329)
        
        Mostly in C
        
        its reestablishment is delayed (normally established in recap)
        
        Consciously (or otherwise) following Beethoven's long codas
        
        Symphonies 5 & 8
        
        ideas from earlier played
        
        opening based upon theme in expo bridge
        
        Bars 358 to religiosamente (except 439-450) based upon idee fixe development
        
        finale glimpses of idee fixe finish before religiosamente
        
        Religiosamente
        
        orchestra play as quietly as possible
        
        homorhythmic texture in semibreves
        
        Finishes w/ two plagal cadences