Visual and Performing Arts, Part 38
Question 1: Discuss the Nationalist Romantic composers.
Answer 1: Since composers from Italy and Germany dominated the world stage with their music, composers of other nationalities sought to make a name for themselves through the use of the sounds of their own peoples and cultures and by developing a personalized harmonic language and style of melody to fully define their music as not being Austro-Germanic. Mussorgsky used his own sense of harmony and composition to create the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibiton and the symphonic poem A Night on Bald Mountain. Antonin Dvorák of Bohemia wrote two sets of Slavonic Dances and his “New World” Symphony No. 9 in E minor. Jean Sibelius of Finland wrote symphonic poems such as Finlandia as a tribute to his county, while Peter Illyich Tchaivosky composed his 1812 Overture and The Nutcracker in honor of his Russia.
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Question 2: Identify Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky.
Answer 2: Considered to be Russia’s musical future, Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky relied heavily on the color and texture of the Romantic music style, since he did not feel he understood the concepts of the form as he should, regardless of how well his music was received. His nationalism and his love of extravagance in his music combined for the creation of 1812 Overture which was composed in 1880 to honor Russia’s defeat of Napolean. Tchaikovsky dealt with personal issues of mental instability and homosexuality and used his emotional instability to infuse his music. His Nutcracker Suite was and still is an incredibly popular holiday piece, while it and other works combine tragedy with the emotional crest of the music. His music greatly influenced later composers Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky.
Question 3: Discuss the composers and their works from the twentieth century period.
Answer 3: From 1900 on, composers of all nationalities were searching for a different kind of expression that would be new and exciting. Claude Debussy created the whole-tone scale after studying Eastern music, and Arnold Schoenberg worked with atypical harmonies created by using different tonal schemes. The Nationalist movement was still strong with Hungarians like Béla Bartók, who combined the newer tonal schemes with the more traditional folk song. Manipulation of rhythms was explored in addition to melodic schemes, and the modified symphony drew the attentions of Mahler and Dmitri Shostakovich. While many composers, such as Igor Stravinsky, worked with changing tonal structure and balance, , other composers such as Giacomo Puccini and Sergei Rachmaninoff sought to enhance the musical advancements madeby previous composers. The foreign-sounding tonal structures have waned in popularity since the 1960s.
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