Музыкальные жанры. Учебно-методические материалы по обучению чтению специальной литературы

programme-music and its genre was developed in the second half of the 20th century. Primarily concerned with illustrating the narrative thread which is its inspiration, the symphonic poem cannot be defined by any specific musical form. However, in order to establish a stronger dramatic cohesion, a symphonic poem can follow pre-existing formal structures (sonatas, themes and variations), or can be organized around very obvious leading motifs (leitmotivs) or ones endowed with a symbolic value. Furthermore the symphonic poem is indissociable from the full orchestra development whose possibilities it fully exploits.

Even though the symphonic poem did not appear until the middle of the 19th century with Liszt, we can partially recognize this genre in some symphonies by Haydn (Le Matin, Le Midi, Le Soir, around 1761) and Beethoven {Pastoral Symphony, 1808), as well as in Mendelssohn's overture The Hebrides (1830). But the principal precursor to the symphonic poem was Berlioz (1803-69) who, with his programme symphonies {Symphonie Fantastique, 1830; Harold en Italie, 1834; Romeo et Juliette,

1839) made use of orchestration for dramatic ends.

Franz Liszt (1811-86) was the first composer to have suggested the title of symphonic poem, and to have explicitly set out its principles. His works contain 13 symphonic poems (the first 12 written between 1849 and 1858, the 13th in 1882), whose means of illustrating an extra-musical subject generally goes beyond that of simple description, and approaches psychology with a very general symbolism. Of these 13 works of unequal value, the best known is The Preludes.

After Liszt, the composer who made the most of the symphonic poem and certainly brought it to its peak was Richard Strauss (1864—1949). But the genre appealed to many other musicians, in fact there were very few, from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, who did not attempt it. In France there were Camille Saint-Saёns (La danse macabre, 1874), Cesar Franck (Le Chasseur maudit, 1882), Paul

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Dukas (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, 1897) and above all Debussy, many of whose works can be included in the genre (such as La Mer, 1905). The Russian School is also well-represented with Moussorgsky (Night on the Bare Mountain, 1867), Borodin (In the Central-Asian Steppes, 1880), Rimski-Korsakov

(Scheherezade, 1888), Tchaikovsky (Manfred, 1885) and more recently, Scriabin (Poem of ecstasy, 1907; Prometheus, 1910). Finally, the symphonic poem resulted in several examples of national music, with Smetana's Czech cycle (Ma Vlast, 1874—9, including the famous Moldau) and a Nordic series by Sibelius

(Finlandia, 1900; Tapiola, 1926).

Few of the 20th-century composers expanded this genre which was almost indistinguishable from Romanticism. The two works by Schönberg which could be considered to belong to it belong to the very earliest of his productions (Transfigured Night, 1899; Pelleas et Melisande, 1903).

Answer the questions:

1.How many movements are there in a symphonic poem?

2.What is a symphonic poem determined by?

3.What was primarily the objective of a symphonic poem?

4.What helps a symphonic poem to establish a stronger dramatic cohesion?

5.In whose works can we partially recognize this genre?

6.Who suggested the title of a symphonic poem?

7.How many poems did Liszt compose?

8.Who brought symphonic poem to its peak?

9.Name the representatives of the Russian school who turned to this genre.

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Read and translate the text

Originally a simple sequence of sounds improvised on the flute or organ to test the instrument or to set the pitch for singers (the intonazione that was practised in Italy in the 15th century), the prelude made its first public appearance as a musical genre with the organ tablature pieces by Adam Ileborgh (1448).

From the 16th century it was used as an instrumental piece (generally taken from the writings for lute) to 'open' either a particular piece with which it integrated, or any piece written in the same key as its own — on condition that it kept to the same type of instrument — but from which it remains separated, serving ultimately as the introduction to another piece.

Having very probably originated in lutanist music, the unmeasured 'French' prelude became established in the 17th century as an extremely free piece which presented, on the basis of minimal notation, an improvisational tone (harpsichord pieces by L. Couperin, N. Lebegue, L. Marchand). It is not stylistically unlike the fantasia and the toccata which often substitutes for it as an introductory piece (Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565 by J. S. Bach).

The genre of prelude and fugue, which has a rigorous construction, developed with J. Pachelbel and D. Buxtehude before achieving a degree of perfection with J. S. Bach, for whom several preludes to the Well-Tempered Klavier, constructed on three themes, foreshadow the form of the classical sonata.

Almost entirely abandoned by the 18th-century composers who were promoting the gallant style (Telemann, J. C. Bach, etc), the duo of prelude and fugue reappeared in the 19th century as a kind of tribute to J.S.Bach: Mendelssohn's Preludes and fugues for organ opus 37, Fantasia and fugue for organ B.A.C.H. by Liszt, and Prelude, aria and finale for piano by Cesar Franck, etc.

But the 19th century was primarily the century which witnessed the birth of the piano prelude, a self-contained short piece (Preludes by Chopin, and Debussy). In this tradition of

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independent piano pieces we find, in the 20th century, Faure's nine Preludes opus 103, Rachmaninov's 24 Preludes opus 3, opus 23 and opus 32; Satie's four Preludes lasques pour un chien and Messiaen's eight Preludes.

As for the symphonic prelude (created in the 20th century), it is found in the form of a free composition, most often for full orchestra (Debussy's Prelude a l'apres-midi d'unfaune). It is also sometimes associated with the symphonic poem (Liszt's Preludes) or replaces the overture of an opera (Wagner's Prelude and death of Isolde)

Answer the questions:

1.When did a prelude appear?

2.Since when was it used as an instrumental piece?

3.What is a prelude often substituted by?

4.In the works of what composers did a prelude achieve perfection?

5.What musical form did several preludes to WTK foreshadow?

6.When and in what compositions did the duo of prelude and fugue reappear?

7.What do you know about a piano prelude?

8.Is a symphonic prelude a composition for full orchestra or a band?

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taken the structure of the sonata with a division into four movements.

When it appeared around 1760, the string quartet created a new musical category. Its 'invention' was due to the synthesis, brought about simultaneously by composers like Boccherini and Haydn, of various instrumental forms of Baroque music, put together bit by bit, around 1720. And the influence of the tighter contrapuntal four-part writing of the Italian sonata, concerto and sinfonia was particularly decisive. Furthermore, the progressive emancipation of string instruments from the midst of the nascent baroque orchestra and the development of a 'chamber' style, represented primarily by the Austrian divertimento for small solo ensemble, also played a role in the creation of the string quartet.

The importance of Joseph Haydn to the definition and evolution of the string quartet is considerable and stems not just from the fact that he was the first composer, with Boccherini, to have written them, but mainly from his being the first musician to have brought this new formation to a very high level. Of the 68 quartets he created, we must draw particular attention to four series, of six works each: opus 20 (1722) subtitled Sun Quartets, opus 33 (1781) called the Russian Quartets, opus 64 (1791), and, last but certainly not least, opus 76 (1799).

Despite Mozart's 23 works for the quartet, his role in terms of its development was less decisive. Nonetheless, some of his works certainly rivaled musically the greatest of Haydn's quartets. This is particularly true of the group, written between 1782 and 1785, of his Six Quartets dedicated to Haydn.

Beethoven's 16 string quartets constitute one of the greatest collections in musical history. After a first group of Six Quartets opus 18 (1801), still fairly similar to those by Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven brought the quartet to entirely new dimensions with the three following works: the Razumovsky Quartets opus 59 (1806), and Harp Quartet No. 10 opus 74, and the 11 th, opus 95 (1810). And finally, his last five quartets,

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composed between 1823 and 1826, carried the classical forms to their absolute limit.

Schubert's last two quartets, which were exact contemporaries of Beethoven's five 'peaks', Death and the Maiden (14th D.810; 1824) and the 15th D.887 (1826), are the only ones to have taken substantially different paths at that time.

After Beethoven and Schubert, and up until the beginning

Dvorak, Janacek, Franck, Faure, Debussy, Ravel.

In the 20th century, despite Darius Milhaud's 18 quartets, and the 15 by Dimitri Shostakovich, the composers who most renovated this form were Bartok, Charles Ives and the musicians of the Vienna School (Schönberg, Berg, Webern). More recently, from 1948 to the beginning of the 1980s, the quartet has been revived in the works of Pierre Boulez, Elliott Carter, Györgi

Ligeti, Andre Boucourechliev, Henri Dutilleux, Brian Ferneyhaugh and others.

Simultaneously with the string quartet, other types of four instrument formations were developed, usually for a solo instrument and a string trio. Mozart was one of the first composers to have written such a piece with, among others, three quartets for flute and strings and two quartets with piano. In the 19th century the most often exploited formation included a piano and string trio; principally by Schumann, Brahms and Faure.

Answer the following questions:

1.Define a string quartet.

2.The structure of what musical form did it take when it emerged?

3.Who invented a new musical category?

4.What influence was particularly decisive for this invention?

5.Whose role is very considerable for the definition and evolution of a string quartet?

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6.How many quartets did Haydn and Mozart compose?

7.To whom did Mozart dedicate his best quartets?

8.What can you say about Beethoven’s and Schubert’s string quartets?

9.Who else composed string quartets?

10.What other types of four instrument formations were developed simultaneously with the string quartet?

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