The Characteristic Symphony In The Age Of Haydn And Beethoven

Associated through descriptive texts with literature, politics, religion, and other subjects, 'characteristic' symphonies offer an opportunity to study instrumental music as it engages important social and political debates of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This first full-length study of the genre illuminates the relationship between symphonies and their aesthetic and social contexts by focussing on the musical representation of feeling, human physical movement, and the passage of time. The works discussed include Beethoven's Pastoral and Eroica Symphonies, Haydn's Seven Last Words of our Savior on the Cross, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf's symphonies on Ovid's Metamorphoses, and orchestral battle reenactments of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. A separate chapter details the aesthetic context within which characteristic symphonies were conceived, as well as their subsequent reception, and a series of appendixes summarises bibliographic information for over 225 relevant examples.

Characteristic symphonies have texts associating them with literature, politics, religion, and other aspects of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European culture. Examining both the music and its aesthetic and social contexts, this first full-length study of the genre demonstrates how symphonies constructed individual and collective identities through their subjects, representing emotion, human bodily movement, and the passage of time. Examples discussed include the Pastoral and Eroica symphonies of Beethoven and works by Haydn, Dittersdorf, and other composers of the era. An Appendix provides a thematic index of the entire repertory.

In late eighteenth-century Vienna and the surrounding Habsburg territories, over 50 minor-key symphonies by at least 11 composers were written. These include some of the best-known works of the symphonic repertoire, such as Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony and Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550. The driving energy, intense pathos and restlessness of these compositions demand close attention and participation from the listener, and pose urgent questions about meaning and interpretation. In response to these questions, The Viennese Minor-Key Symphony in the Age of Haydn and Mozart combines historical perspectives with recent developments in music analysis to shed new light on this distinctive part of the repertoire. Through an intertextual, analytical approach, author Matthew Riley treats the minor-key symphony as a subgenre of several strands, reconstructing the compositional world it occupied. His work enables signals to be understood, puts characteristic strategies in clear relief, and ultimately reveals the significance this music held for both composers and listeners of the time. Riley gives us a fresh picture of the familiar masterpieces of Haydn and Mozart, while also focusing on lesser known composers.

An introduction to the musical work and cultural world of Joseph Haydn.

Tempesta is a term coined in this book applying to music that exhibits agitated or violent characteristics in order to evoke terror and chaos, involving ideas like rapid scale passages, driving rhythmic figurations, strong accents, full textures, and robust instrumentation including prominent brass and timpani. Music of this type was used for storm scenes, which in operas of the 17th and 18th centuries are almost invariably of supernatural origin, and other frightening experiences such as pursuit, madness, and rage. This ‘stormy’ music formed the ingredients of a particular style in the later 18th century that scholars in recent decades have referred to as Sturm und Drang, implying a relationship to German literature which I believe is unhelpful and misleading. Haydn’s so-called Sturm und Drang symphonies exhibit characteristics that are no different to his depictions of storms in his operas and sacred music, and there is no evidence of Haydn suffering some kind of personal crisis, or even of him responding to the ‘spirit of the age’. He was simply exploring the expressive possibilities of the style for dramatic/rhetorical effect. Scholars have been dissatisfied with the term for some time, but no-one has previously suggested an alternative. The term tempesta therefore applies to all manifestations of this kind of music, a label that acknowledges the ‘stormy’ origins of the style, but which also recognizes that it functions as a counterpart to ombra. Tempesta contributed enormously to the continued popularity of operas on supernatural subjects, and quickly migrated towards sacred music and even instrumental music, where it became part of the topical discourse. The music does not merely represent the supernatural, it instills an emotional response in the listener. Awe and terror had already been identified as sources of the sublime, notably by Edmund Burke (predating the German literary Sturm und Drang), and the latter half of the century saw the rise of Gothic literature. The supernatural remained popular in theaters and opera houses, and special music that could produce an emotional response of such magnitude was a powerful tool in the composer’s expressive armory.

This volume gathers together a cross-section of essays and book chapters dealing with the ways in which musicians and their music have been pressed into the service of political, nationalist and racial ideologies. Arranged chronologically according to their subject matter, the selections cover Western and non-Western musics, as well as art and popular musics, from the eighteenth century to the present day. The introduction features detailed commentaries on sources beyond those included in the volume, and as such provides an invaluable and comprehensive reading list for researchers and educators alike. The volume brings together for the first time seminal articles written by leading scholars, and presents them in such a way as to contribute significantly to our understanding of the use and abuse of music for ideological ends.

Reveals how the culture and repertoire of the early Viennese ballroom permeated and intersected with other areas of musical life.