The Late 19th Century
In this section, we will briefly look at examples of three different genres from the late 19th century. First, we will check in with the symphony to see how late 19th-century composers approached it. Then, we will do the same with program music, building off of the Berlioz example from the lecture. Finally, we will continue with Romantic opera, moving on from Verdi and Wagner to discuss Italian opera of the late 19th century and the subgenre usually called verismo.
The Romantic Symphony
During the course of the 19th century, the symphony actually fell out of favor as a genre. While earlier Romantic composers had written symphonies, in the middle part of the century, the shadow of Beethoven’s influence in the genre caused many composers to seek other genres as outlets for composition to avoid comparison to Beethoven. Although Schubert, Robert Schumann, and others wrote symphonies in this early period, some, like Berlioz, turned to the programmatic symphony as a way to avoid Beethoven’s influence. Program music in the 19th century would continue to rise in popularity in this period as opposed to absolute music (music with no program or external narrative, purely instrumental, which does not reference anything outside itself).
Yet, later in the 19th century, the symphony experienced a resurgence in popularity. Composers like Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) and Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) worked extensively in the genre in the latter half of the 19th century. But, they too had to wrestle with the shadow of Beethoven in their own ways. In general in this period, symphonies in this period grew exceptionally large, both in terms of the size of the form and duration of the work, as well as the size of the forces required to perform it. Famously, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 has been nicknamed the “Symphony of a Thousand” because of the extremely large orchestra and multiple choirs with soloists that are required to perform it. This massive expansion of size and scope has been referred to as maximalism (the opposite of minimalism) by musicologist Richard Taruskin. This maximalization characterizes the late Romantic period in a wide variety of genres. See this photograph of the dress rehearsal for the premiere of Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand in Munich in 1910. As this is a rehearsal, there is no audience. All the people in the photograph are orchestral musicians or choir singers involved in the performance.
Following up on our discussion of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 in E minor (1885) will serve as an example of where the symphony went in the latter part of the 19th century.
Brahms Symphony No. 4
Brahms had dealt with comparisons to Beethoven in his Symphony No. 1, Op. 68 which premiered in 1876 although he had worked on it since at least 1854. With C minor as the overall key of this symphony, a comparison to Beethoven’s Fifth was inevitable. In fact, there are references to Beethoven’s symphonies in multiple places of this work. In the first movement, there is a reference to the central “fate” motive of Beethoven’s Fifth while in the fourth movement, there is a theme that bears a resemblance to the Ode to Joy theme from the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth. While there is no choir here, audiences at the time caught the reference immediately. Brahms supposedly remarked that “any ass can see that” when this resemblance was pointed out to him. If true, this comment suggests that he felt somewhat ambivalent about the connection to Beethoven. It was unavoidable and Beethoven was a major influence on him but he also wanted to distinguish himself as a symphonist in his own right.
Our example, however, is from Brahms’s last symphony and exemplifies his focus on neoclassicism, that is, a return to earlier conventions of musical style (particularly from the 18th century) within an otherwise Romantic musical style. Brahms was very interested in music history and collected scores from many earlier composers in the 18th century and even earlier. He studied and played this music at his piano quite frequently, so in addition to Beethoven, there is influence from earlier composers and a clear intent to incorporate older styles into his own music.
We will listen to the fourth movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, which is organized as a passacaglia, a Baroque form with variations over a repeating chord progression and bass line. In some ways, this movement also draws inspiration from the Classical theme and variations form, although the theme here is more of a harmonic progression of chords and a bass line rather than a melodic theme. In fact, Brahms borrows his “theme” from a piece by JS Bach, adapting a similarly repeating chord progression/bass line from the last movement of Bach’s cantata Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich BWV 150. Listen to Bach’s original below before we move on to Brahms. Pay close attention to the repeating accompaniment in the instruments rather than the choral singing.
J.S. Bach, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150, Ciacona performed by the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with John Eliot Gardiner conducting. [Listen on YouTube]
Brahms’s approach is much larger in scope, featuring the initial theme followed by 30 variations, a coda, and a final restatement of the opening theme. However, Brahms grouped the variations based on similar structures including similar harmony, dynamics, meter, etc. Because the passacaglia theme is quite short (only 8 measures), the variations go by fairly quickly.
Follow the form guide below and listen for the different variations. Compare this to the theme and variations forms we studied in previous weeks. Try to see if you can hear in what ways Brahms evokes Baroque or Classical styles and in what ways he remains grounded in a Romantic style of music.
Brahms, Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Movement 4 (1885)
Recording performed by Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Sergiu Celibidache. [Listen on YouTube]
Theme: 0:00-0:18 (passacaglia theme presented in first 8 measures, one chord per measure, only winds, no strings, triple meter)
Variations 1-11: 0:18-3:21 (same meter as theme, strings enter, E minor and at some points C major)
Variations 12-15: 3:21-6:56 (meter changes, still triple but each measure twice as long, E major and A major)
Variations 16-23: 6:56-8:33 (back to original meter and E minor/C major, variation 16 nearly exact repeat of theme with countermelody in strings
Variations 24-26: 8:33-9:20 (meter and keys stay the same, 24-26 very similar to 1-3)
Variations 27-30: 9:20-10:19 (meter and keys stay the same, no longer correspond to earlier variations)
Coda: 10:19-11:19 (moves through a number of keys, builds tension before reaching final cadences in E minor)
Late Romantic Program Music
As we have already seen with Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, Romantic composers turned to outside narratives or other references in order to provide meaning for listeners in their purely instrumental music. While this certainly happened with the genre of the program symphony, program music can be found in a wide variety of genres, from short solo piano pieces to large orchestral genres besides the symphony. In addition, the program may not always be a narrative story that the composer writes, as Berlioz did, but can draw from many other artistic sources, including literature, visual art, and folklore. The common thread is that the meaning of these purely instrumental pieces is primarily derived from reference to an outside source: a poem or play, a painting or picture, etc. They are intended to evoke a mental image of those sources, either to conjure memories of the narrative of the play or images of the painting.
Modest Mussorgsky
Program music was also quite common among Russian composers in this period. This was part of the growing nationalist movements across Europe, seeking national musical styles based on folk music or other musical styles native to those countries or ethnic groups. For instance, many Russian composers looked to Russian folk music and other native cultural styles for inspiration. One such composer was Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). His most famous work is a suite of piano character pieces called Pictures at an Exhibition. This work was inspired by a number of pictures (small paintings) created by Mussorgsky’s friend, the artist Victor Hartmann.
Each movement of the suite tries to musically evoke the image of the picture, while the Promenade sections are meant to represent the composer (or perhaps the listener) walking through an exhibit of these pictures, moving from one to the other. Some of the movements include melodies inspired by (though not directly quoting) Russian folk songs, in this nationalist style.
While originally written for piano solo, this work is typically known today in an orchestrated version made decades later by French composer Maurice Ravel (1875–1937).
We’ll listen first to the opening Promenade movement in the original piano version. Then we’ll listen to a few different movements from the Ravel orchestration. I’ve also included the images associated with each movement for you to look at while you listen.
Finally, one last word before we listen. The final movement of this work (and among our excerpts) is titled “The Great Gate of Kiev.” The picture (see below) is of a city gate that was designed but never constructed for Kiev (now called Kyiv) the capital city of Ukraine. At the time, Ukraine was a part of the Russian Empire. Due to the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began more than two years ago, it is important to address the history of this movement and its connection to events that are ongoing. The movement evokes the image of a nationalistic procession of military and religious figures (due to the two themes, one a march and the other a hymn, see below). Listening today, the image of a Russian military procession through Kyiv takes on a completely different and more dire meaning. In addition, the nationalist movement that inspired this piece is the same strain of nationalism that prompted the invasion today. So while we cannot blame Mussorgsky himself for this, we must also reckon with the fact that this music is not politically neutral today. This does not mean we cannot or should not listen to it, but it does change how we interpret and understand this music.
Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition (piano suite), 1874, Promenade I
Recording performed by Elisabeth Leonskaja. [Listen on YouTube]
Mussorgsky/Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestral suite), 1922
Recordings performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, directed by Carlo Maria Giulini. [Listen on YouTube]
- Promenade I (opening promenade theme, returns in later movements)
- Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks (image from design for a ballet, ABA form)
- The Catacombs (image of Hartmann himself examining the Paris catacombs, very slow with block chords and a funereal melody)
- The Great Gate of Kiev (Hartmann’s design for a gate in the Russian style, two themes: triumphant march based on Russian folk melodies and hymn theme, based on Russian Orthodox chant).
Late Romantic Opera
In the late 19th century, a new generation of composers developed a new style in Italian opera, somewhat related to a movement in literature called verismo. Essentially, verismo translates to something like “realism.” In opera, this meant realism both in the plots and characters—a greater focus on “real” people and “real” plots—as well as the musical dramaturgy, that is, how the music and drama work together. So, plots involved characters who could easily be real people living in the late 19th century; the old practice of setting operas a few centuries earlier in order to make comparison to contemporary society at least somewhat more subtle is gone. In addition, any separation of musical sections into something resembling arias, recitatives, and choruses is completely gone. Verdi had helped to move things in this direction, but at this point, with the influence of Wagner’s operas strongly felt, composers in Italian opera moved even further toward continuous music-drama and audience immersion.
The realism also sometimes involved more explicit depiction of sex and violence onstage. Opera had a long tradition of having these things happen offstage and then characters only talk about it onstage. Now, in verismo opera, people died onstage in front of the audience, often in unpleasant ways. Yet, audiences enjoyed this because the stories were believable and relevant. They seemed to relish being shocked by the explicit events depicted onstage.
Content warning: the example below contains depictions of murder and intimate partner violence.
Leoncavallo: Pagliacci
While the most well-known composer of verismo opera is Giacomo Puccini (1858–1924), our example is from a different composer, but is an excellent example of what verismo opera is like both musically and dramatically. There are two short operas by two different verismo composers that are traditionally paired together and performed consecutively in a sort of “double feature.” These are Cavalleria rusticana (1890) by Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945) and Pagliacci (1892) by Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919). This double-bill performance is colloquially called “Cav/Pag.” The plots of the two operas are quite different, but they both share the verismo focus on realistic characters and plots with plenty of violence. As an example, we’ll look at two short excerpts from Pagliacci.
The basic gist of this story is that it follows a clown named Canio (the Italian word for “clown” is pagliaccio). Canio is part of a troupe of comedic performers in the centuries-old Italian tradition of commedia dell’arte, a centuries-old tradition of improvised comedy that involved stock characters and recurring scenarios. The characters and their relationships mirror the stock characters that they perform as in an ironic twist, yet the ending of this opera is extremely tragic and dark. Canio is married to Nedda, who portrays the character, Columbina. She is having an affair with Silvio (who plays Arlecchino). Over the course of the short opera, Canio begins to suspect the affair and eventually catches them together, but he is not able to find out the identity of Nedda’s lover, who escapes. Canio threatens Nedda with a knife, demanding to know who her lover is. She refuses to name him, and Canio is talked down by other members of the troupe, who convince him that he will find out who the lover is during the performance of their play. See this image of renowned tenor Enrico Caruso (1873–1921) in costume as Canio.
Our first excerpt is the end of Act 1, where Canio is alone, putting on his clown makeup in preparation for the performance. Despite his sadness and anger, he tries to convince himself to laugh, as the clown.
Later, in Act 2, during the performance, Canio drops character (singing “No! Pagliaccio non son!”) and demands that Nedda (who is in character as Columbina) tell him who her lover is. Nedda, as Columbina, tries to improvise a little to continue the performance and remind Canio to play his part. Eventually, she, too, drops character and vows never to tell him the name. Silvio, hearing all this, moves toward the stage, but is too late to stop Canio from stabbing Nedda with the knife. She cries out for help from Silvio as she dies, and Silvio attacks Canio, who stabs him too. As the audience of the play (perhaps standing in for the audience of the opera as well in a sort of meta-performance) looks on in horror, one of the other actors says, “La commedia è finita!” (The comedy is finished), referring both to the play within the opera and the opera itself. Our second excerpt is this final moment of the opera.
Musically, we might call these two excerpts an aria (because one character is singing) and an ensemble (because multiple characters sing together), respectively, and in many ways they are distantly related to Classical opera buffa in these ways. However, these two excerpts are not musically set apart from the rest of the opera, but flow continuously from the preceding scenes. Note also the verismo style of singing in which the singers project loudly over the orchestra, and the melodies are not always the tuneful, lyrical melodies of Verdi or earlier Italian opera composers. The music is geared towards expressing the intense emotions of the characters and the plot, rather than memorable, beautiful tunes.
Here is the excerpt from a 1941 Met Opera’s production of Pagliacci, Giovanni Martinelli, tenor [Listen on YouTube], and for a slightly more modern recording of the excerpt, Luciano Pavorotti, tenor [Listen on YouTube]. And here is Enrico Caruso’s studio recording of the aria [Listen on YouTube].
Discussion Questions
- What conventions of the Classical symphony remain in the Brahms example? What ways is it different in terms of form, themes, style, or even meaning?
- What do you make of the Mussorgsky/Ravel orchestration? It represents the creative vision of two different composers in the same work. Do you prefer the orchestral version? Or do you think it works better as a solo piano work?
- In the Pagliacci excerpts, how do you feel about the continuous scenes with no breaks for recitative, aria, ensemble, etc.? Does it heighten the experience? Or do you prefer memorable tunes? You can consider the Verdi and Wagner examples from the lecture as well in this question if you wish.
