Page 194 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

LiSTeN TO . . . Example 11.4 online.
Example 11.4 > romantic longing expressed through prolonged dissonance
Violin
English Horn Cello Double Bass
Romantic Tempo: Rubato
In keeping with an age that glorified personal freedom and tolerated eccentric be- havior, tempo in Romantic music was cut loose from the constraints of a regular beat. The term coined for this was rubato (literally, “robbed”), an expression mark that the composer wrote into the score for the benefit of the performer. A performer playing tempo rubato “stole” some time here and gave it back there, moving faster or slower so as to create an intensely personal performance. This free approach to tempo was often reinforced by fluctuating dynamic levels—slowdowns (ritards) were executed with diminuendos, and accelerations with crescendos—as a way of explaining, even exaggerating, the flow of the music. Whatever excesses might result could be excused under the license of artistic freedom.
The Art Song
Popular song became all the rage during the nineteenth century, in America as well as Europe. In those days a music lover couldn’t download an MP3 or M4A or listen to a radio, but he or she could sing, and do so at home from sheet music. The popularity of domestic singing was fed in part by increased accessibility to the piano (see “Romantic Piano Music” later in this chapter). Mass production had lowered piano prices, allowing middle-class families to buy a modest, up- right instrument, put it in the parlor, and gather around it to sing. What ended in America with the beloved parlor songs of Stephen Foster (“My Old Kentucky Home,” “Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer”), however, had begun earlier in Eu- rope with a slightly more elevated genre: the art song. An art song is a song for solo voice and piano accompaniment, with high artistic aspirations. Because it was cultivated most intensely in German-speaking lands, it is also called the Lied (pronounced “leet”; pl., Lieder, German for “song”).
A song, of course, embodies two art forms: poetry (the lyrics) and music— never call a piece a “song” unless it has lyrics! In the early nineteenth century, publishers churned out odes, sonnets, ballads, and romances by the thousands. This was the great age of the Romantic poets: Wordsworth, Keats, Shelly, and
172 chapter eleven romanticism and romantic chamber music
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