C.P.E. Bach

Berlin and Hamburg, Germany; 1750-1800 (1714-1788); keyboard works and symphonies; Symphony No. 3 in F major (characteristics of Sturm und Drang)

Chief representative of north German empfindsamer Stil and one of four principal composers active during last half of 18^th century. 

Ludwig van Beethoven

Vienna, Austria; 1800-1850 (1770-1827); symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas; Symphony No. 3 in Eb Major, op. 55 “Eroica”; Grosse Fuge for String Quartet, op. 133; Piano Sonata No. 29 in Bb major, op. 106 “Hammerklavier”

Vincenzo Bellin

Milan, Italy; 1800-1850 (1801-1835); bel canto opera; Norma 

Hector Berlioz

France; 1800-1850 (1803-1869); large orchestral works and song; Symphonie Fantastique (1830), Les nuits d’ete (song cycle, 1841), L’enfance du Christ (oratorio) or Les Troyens (opera)

Georges Bizet

France; (1838-1875); opera; Carmen (1875)

Johannes Brahms

Hamburg, Germany; 1850-1900 (1833-1897); symphonies, chamber music, song; Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Wiegenlied, op. 49 (song collection), Quintet for Clarinet and Strings in B minor

Anton Bruckner

Austria; 1850-1900 (1824-1896); symphonies and masses; Symphony No. 8 in C minor

Frederic Chopin

Paris, France; 1800-1850 (1810-1849); piano works; Concerto in E minor, op. 11; Sonata in Bb minor, op 35; op. 10 Etudes

Gaetano Donizetti

Italy; 1800-1850 (1797-1848); opera; L’elisir d’amore (“The Elixer of Love,” Milan, 1832)

Antonin Dvôrák

Czechoslovakia ;1850-1900 (1841-1904); symphonies and chamber music; Symphony No. 9 “From the New World”

Edward Elgar

England; 1850-1900 (1857-1934); orchestral music; Enigma Variations (1899)

Gabriel Fauré

France; 1850-1900 (1845-1924); chamber music, songs, piano music; Claire de lune (1887, song) and La bonne chanson (song cylce) 

Cesar Franck

Paris, France; 1850-1900 (1822-1890); keyboard music (esp. organ), chamber music, symphony; Les Beatitudes (oratorio)

Mikhail Glinka

Russia; 1800-1850 (1804-1857); opera; Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842, opera)

Franz Joseph Haydn

Vienna and Esterhazy and London; 1750-1800; symphony, chamber music; String Quartet Op. 33 No. 2 (“The Joke”), Symphony No. 94 in G major (“Surprise Symphony”), The Creation (oratorio)

Franz Liszt

 Paris, Weimar, and Rome; 1800-1850 (1811-1886); piano music, tone poem; Sonata in B minor (1853), Hamlet (tone poem), Faust Symphony, Hungarian Rhapsodies (nineteen, for piano)

Gustav Mahler

Austria; 1850-1900 (1860-1911); lieder and song cycle, orchestral song, symphony; Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth, 1908, orchestral song), Symphony No. 2 in C minor “Resurrection”, Das Knaben Wunderhorn (“The Youth’s Magic Horn”, song cycle)

Felix Mendelssohn

Germany; 1800-1850 (1809-1847); symphonies and orchestral works, chamber music; A Midsummer Night’s Dream (incidental music), Symphony No. 4 (“Italian,” 1833), Violin Concerto in E minor, op. 64, Songs without Words (piano music)

Giacomo Meyerbeer

France, 1800-1850 (1791-1864); grand opera; Les Huguenots (1836)

Modest Mussorgsky

Russia; 1850-1900 (1839-1881); opera, song cycles, orchestral works; Songs and Dances of Death (song cycle, 1875), Boris Gudunov (opera, premiered in 1874) and Pictures at an Exhibition (piano work later orchestrated by Ravel, 1874)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart-

Vienna, Austria; 1750-1800 (1756-1791); opera, symphony, string quartet; Symphony No. 41 in C Major, K. 551 (“Jupiter”), String Quartet In C, K. 465, ("Dissonance"), Il Don Giovanni

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Italy; 1750-1800 (1710-1736); opera; La serva padrona (The Maid as Mistress); early master of the intermezzo and one of the most original composers in the early Classic style, he also wrote important opera serie.  

Camille Saint Saëns

 Paris, France; 1850-1900 (1835-1921); symphonies, chamber music, sonatas; Symphony No. 3 in C minor (1886, “Organ Symphony”), Samson et Dalila (opera, 1877), Sonata No. 1 for ‘cello and piano in C minor (1872), The Carnival of the Animals (1886, chamber orchestra and two pianos)

Giovanni Battista Sammartini

 Italy; 1750-1800 (1700/1-1775); symphonies; Symphony in F major (1744); leading figure in the development of the Classical style

Franz Schubert

Austria; 1800-1850(1797-1828); lieder and song cycles, chamber music, symphonies; Winterreise (Winter’s Journey, 1827, song cycle), Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”), String Quartet in D minor (“Death and the Maiden”)

Robert Schumann

Germany; 1800-1850 (1810-1856); leider, chamber and piano music, symphonies; Symphony No. 1 in Bb (“Spring”), Carnaval (cycle of piano works), Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love,” song cycle)

Pitor Il’yich Tchaikovsky

Russia; 1850-1900 (1840-1893); opera, symphony, ballet; Symphony No. 6 in B minor (“Pathetique”), The Nutcracker (1892), The Queen of Spades (1890, opera with story of Pushkin)

Giuseppe Verdi

Italy; 1850-1900 (1812-1901); opera; La traviata (1853) and Otello (1887 first premiered)

Richard Wagner

Germany; 1850-1900 (1813-1883); opera/ musical drama; Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs; 4-opera cycle): Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), Die Walkure (The Valkyrie), Siegfried, and Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods); Parsifal (1882)

Carl Maria von Weber

Germany; 1800-1850 (1786-1826); opera; Die Freischutz (1823)

Hugo Wolf

Austria; 1850-1900 (1860-1903); lieder; 51 settings of Goethe poems; Kennest du das Land

Arioso

 It. “melodious”; (1) A recitative of the more melodious type.

(2) A short melodious passage at the beginning or end of an aria.

(3) A short air in an opera or oratorio.

In the 19th century the term is applied to a lyrical recitative, usually to be sung in strict time. Arioso passages that have the importance of an aria are especially common in Bellini's operas, for example ‘Teneri, teneri figli’ (Norma, 1831) and in Verdi.  [Oxfords]

bel canto

It. “beautiful singing”; The term ‘bel canto’ refers to the Italian vocal style of the 18th and early 19th centuries, the qualities of which include perfect legato production throughout the range, the use of a light tone in the higher registers and agile and flexible delivery. More narrowly, it is sometimes applied exclusively to Italian opera of the time of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. In either case, ‘bel canto’ is usually set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful and speech-inflected style associated with German opera and Wagner in particular.  [Groves]

cabaletta

a short operatic aria that intensifies the momentum of the drama.  Characteristics include persistent rhythm and a repeated vocal section with embellishments improvised by the soloist.  An example is “Just God whom I humbly worship” from Rossini’s The Italian Woman in Algiers.  [449 Stolba]

character pieces

A piece designed to convey a specific allusion, atmosphere, mood, or scene, such as pastoral serenity, agitation, or rustic ceremony, without the benefit of text, programme, or stage action.  Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is a character piece.  [Oxford Companion]

da Ponte

librettist for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte.

Divertimento

 A musical genre, prominent in the Classical period; denotes a work primarily designed for the entertainment of the listeners and the players.  [Groves]  Goes back to dance suites.

ouble exposition form

used in Classical era concertos; each theme has its own exposition.  Mozart “C Minor Piano Concerto”

Empfindsamer Stil

A musical aesthetic associated with north Germany during the middle of the 18th century, and embodied in what was called the ‘Empfindsamer Stil’. Its aims were to achieve an intimate, sensitive and subjective expression; gentle tears of melancholy were one of its most desired responses.  C.P.E. Bach was the chief representative in north Germany.  [Groves]

Fantasy

a composition evoking the style of free improvisation and therefore lacking standard length, form, or meter.  Mozart Fantasia in D minor.  

grand opera

19^th century French opera based on historical subject matter and emphasizing spectacular dramatic scenes.  It is sung throughout.  Solos may be interrupted by choral or ensemble interjections.  Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots is a grand opera.  [432, 479 Grout]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German poet, dramatist and novelist. One of the most important literary and cultural figures of his age, he was recognized during his lifetime for his accomplishments of almost universal breadth. However, it is his literary works that have most consistently sustained his reputation, and that also serve to demonstrate most clearly his many-faceted relationship to music. Arguably, Goethe's verse acted as a catalyst to the lied just as the poetry of Petrarch did to the 16th-century madrigal: the world of feeling and imagination unlocked by his poetry was explored and musically developed in many different directions.  With hindsight, it can be seen that Goethe's contribution to opera, for all its local importance, was historically less decisive and less productive than his contribution to the lied. His greatest legacy to music drama was undoubtedly Faust.

Eduard Hanslick

His Beauty in Music aligned him with the purist Leipzig school, represented by Mendelssohn , Schumann , and Brahms , against the Weimar school of Liszt and Wagner whose ‘music of the future’ had to comprise elements other than mus. His early admiration of Wagner changed to critical hostility with his review of Lohengrin in Vienna in 1858.  [Oxford Dictionary] t in Vienna. There he spent much of his spare time studying music and writing criticism, and from the mid-1840s contributed to several journals including the Wiener Allgemeine Musik-Zeitung, which published his highly favourable review of Wagner's Tannhäuser. In 1854 his treatise on aesthetics in music, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen, appeared, to great acclaim. From 1856 he held a series of posts at the University of Vienna, becoming professor of music history and aesthetics in 1870. A strong supporter of Brahms, he is perhaps best known (his early enthusiasm having cooled) as the leading critical opponent of Wagner of his time.  [Oxford Companion]

Heinrich Heine

 German prose writer, poet, and critic.  His writings on music are among the first to accord primacy of place to social issues.  His poetry was set by almost all the major composers of the 19^th century.  

incidental music

music written to accompany the action in a play.  Mendelssohn wrote incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

inverted pedal

 a pedal point (the device of holding on a bass note (usually Tonic or Dominant) through a passage including some chords of which it does not form a part) with the held note in an upper part.  An inverted pedal is used in the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 “The Clock.”

Köchel

Abbreviation for the standard thematic catalogue of the works of Mozart drawn up by the Austrian music historian Ludwig Köchel (1800–77) and published in Leipzig in 1862.  [Grov

Leitmotiv

 “leading motive;” musical theme or motive associated with a person, thing, emotion, or idea in a drama.  Wagner used motives that are short, concentrated, and intended to characterize their object at various levels of meaning, as in Tristan und Isolde,  

Libretto

literary text for a musical stage work.  [Grout]  The book or text of an opera or oratorio that is set to music.  Da Ponte wrote the libretti for Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte

Lied

German art song.  Franz Schubert is one of the most famous and best composers of lieder; for example, “Heidenroslein.”

Metastasio

Italian poet, librettist and moralist; aimed at opera reform.  His fame rests chiefly on his 27 opera seria librettos.  Standardized opera seria; secco recitative and da capo aria.  

opéra comique

 NOT Italian opera buffo; full-length French comic opera with spoken dialogue instead of recitative.  [Grout]  Bizet’s Carmen is the most famous opera comique, though it is a tragedy.  

opera seria

Late Baroque and early Classical opera sung in Italian.  The libretto, generally purged of all comic elements, is based on heroic stories from the mythology and history of ancient Greece and Rome.  Was standardized by Metastasio in late 1720s.  [346 Stolba]  The three acts consist almost unvaryingly of alternating recitatives and arias; recits. develop the action through dialogue, while each aria is a dramatic soliloquy in which a principal actor expresses feelings or reacts to the preceding scene.  Most arias are da capo.  [436-40 Grout]  Giovani Pergolesi’s La serva padrona (The Maid as Mistress) was an important early Classical opera seria.  

Singspiel

“sing-play;” spoken play interspersed with songs, choruses, and instrumental music.  18-19^th century German opera with dialogue.  [323-4, 445 Grout]  Mozart’s “The Abduction from the Seraglio” is a singspiel.  [Pedrillo, tenor, sings "Frisch zum kampfe" and has dialogue before it… it sort of acts as recitative without harmonic structure- Eric Perry]

Sturm und Drang

“Storm and Stress;” Term applied to period, roughly 1760 – 80 , in Ger. literature and mus. when emotionalism was at height. Specially applied to works comp. by Joseph Haydn at that time, particularly syms. (roughly nos. 40–59), and str. qts. These works are marked by new and audacious formal and harmonic features. Also used to describe much kbd. mus. by C. P. E. Bach.  [Oxford Dictionary]

In music, the term was first applied by H. C. Robbins Landon and Barry Brook, especially in the discussion of Haydn's symphonies, notably those of the early 1770s (mostly with numbers in the 40s). At about this date, symphonies in an intense, highly dramatic style and in the minor mode enjoyed a brief vogue: examples are Haydn's nos. 39, 44 and 45, J. C. Bach's op. 6 no. 6 and Mozart's no. 25.  The Sturm und Drang movement also affected opera, for example in the works of Traetta and Jommelli, with their vivid tone-painting in orchestral recitatives, and notably in the representation of Hades in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).  [Oxford Companion]