slavic harmony and disharmony. a czech abroad bedřich smetana (1824–84) – first important...
TRANSCRIPT
A Czech Abroad
• Bedřich Smetana (1824–84)– first important nationalist composer of Czech
lands– 1856: emigrated to Göteborg, Sweden– influence and contact with Liszt• Symphonic poems
– Richard III (1858)– Walensteins Lager (1859)– Macbeth (1859)
Bedřich Smetana
• Return to Prague in 1862• Braniboři v Čechách (The Brandenburgers in
Bohemia, 1862–63)• Má vlast (1872–1879)• Českost (“Czechness”)
Má vlast(My Fatherland)
• Cycle of six symphonic poems [Anthology 2-55]– Vyšehrad (The Castle on High, 1872–74)– Vltava (The Vltava River, 1874)– Šárka (1875)– From Bohemian Fields and Groves (1875)– Tábor (1878) – Blaík (1879)
The Fate of a Tune:From Folk Song to Anthem
• Vltava– main theme based on Swedish folk tune– tune has been readapted for other uses
Competing Reputations at Homeand Abroad
• Libuše and Má vlast– honored at home
• The Bartered Bride (1866)– popular abroad
Slavic Disharmony
• Russian music– group centering around Miliy
Alexeyevich Balakirev (1837–1910)• supported progressive aesthetic
– Anton Rubinstein (1829–94)• represented the purportedly
conservative faction
Slavic Disharmony
• Vladimir Stasov (1824–1906)– “the New Russian School”– moguchaya kuchka “Mighty Five” or “Mighty
Handful”• Balakirev• César Cui (1835–1918)• Alexander Borodin (1833–87)• Modest Musorgsky (1839–81)• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908)
Kuchka Music
• Balakirev, Overture on Russian Themes (1857–58)
• Balakirev, Sbornik russkikh narodnikh pesen (Anthology of Russian Folk Songs) (1866)– 40 arrangements of Russian folk songs– unique harmonizations
Modest Mussorgsky’s Realism
• Mussorgsky– Boris Godunov• realism• mimesis (“imitation of nature”)• set conversational prose
Art and Autocracy
• Russian autocratic state• Pushkin’s Boris Godunov (1825)– banned by censors until 1866
The Coronation Scene in Boris Godunov
• [Anthology 2-56]• Prologue, choral procession• Russian folk song• “Solemn peal of bells”• Static chord progression
Revising Boris Godunov
• Completed in 1869• Revised version in 1874• Reorchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov in 1896,
revised in 1908
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky(1840–1893)
• Part of the first graduating class of the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1866)
• Ballet– Swan Lake (1875–76)– The Sleeping Beauty (1889)– The Nutcracker (1892)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky(1840–1893)
• Opera– Eugene Onegin (1879) [Anthology 2-57]• based on a work by Pushkin• melodic sixths• bïtovoy romans (“household romances”)
Russian Symphonies
• Balakirev circle– Borodin, Second Symphony (1869–76)
• St. Petersburg and Moscow Conservatories– Tchaikovsky, 6 symphonies and the Manfred
Symphony