Music of the Fin de Siècle Course: 1894-1905

Music. Learn, enjoy, appreciate.

During Part III of this series of four courses on Music in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we move into the new century, where political tensions remain high between the major powers, but for the moment everything continues much as it was before.

This is certainly true of the music of the period, where, although we encounter a spate of exciting new works, they are all recognisably related to what had come before. Here, Puccini and Richard Strauss assert themselves as the new masters: Puccini with a remarkable trifecta of operas, La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly; and Strauss with an outstanding series of symphonic ‘tone poems’, including Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, and A Hero’s Life. At the very end of our period, Strauss confirms his pre-eminence with his ground-breaking one-act opera, Salome.

The period also embraces the last years of three musical giants – Bruckner, who sadly fails to complete his great Ninth Symphony; Brahms, who finds solace in his late chamber music; and Dvorak, who composes his great cello concerto and his operatic masterpiece, Rusalka. Of course, there are new voices as well. Some, like Sibelius and Elgar, speak with a new, overtly nationalist tone, and others, like Debussy and Rachmaninov, find new ways to compose music which is recognisably French and Russian respectively.

Meanwhile, we keep track of Gustav Mahler, who takes the helm at the Vienna Court Opera in the late 1890s, only slowly returning to composition during his extended summer breaks. We also continue to follow the careers of the top conductors – Hans Richter and Toscanini in particular – and celebrate the growing number of star singers of the period, especially Enrico Caruso and Dame Nellie Melba.

Aims

The aims of this course are to:

• provide a broad overview of the major strands of European classical music as we move forward into the beginning of the twentieth century
• acknowledge the pre-eminence of Puccini as the new leading exponent of Italian opera, while observing the comparatively limited contributions made by Cilea, Giordano, and others to the genre
• confirm Richard Strauss as the new master of the German School, signalled by his outstanding series of orchestral ‘tone poems’ and the advent of his first operatic masterpiece, Salome, in 1905
• celebrate Dvorak’s last years, which culminate in the superb Cello Concerto and his operatic masterpiece, Rusalka, and also to note the advent of a significant newcomer, Leos Janacek, whose Jenufa premieres in the Moravian capital of Brno in 1904
• follow Mahler’s trajectory both as a conductor, which culminates in his successful bid to become the Director of the prestigious Vienna Court Opera, and as a part-time composer, where intermittent bursts of creative activity result in his Third, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies
• mark the arrival in the French School of the distinctive voice of Claude Debussy as first heard in the ravishing Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune, and then subsequently in his only opera Pelléas et Mélisande – composed throughout this period – which was followed by his three ‘symphonic sketches’ known as La Mer, which premiered in 1905
• engage with an exciting new voice in the Russian School, Sergei Rachmaninov, as he begins to make his mark, especially with his evocative and highly successful Piano Concerto No.2 in C minor
• discover new sound-worlds emanating from countries as diverse as Finland and England in works by Jean Sibelius and Edward Elgar, including the former’s Finlandia and first two symphonies, and the latter’s impressive ‘Enigma’ Variations, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, and the celebrated Pomp and Circumstance No.1, including the tune which would soon become known as ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.

Outcomes

By the end of this course, you should be able to:

• appreciate the contribution made by Giacomo Puccini to Italian opera after Verdi by his choosing to employ the tenets of the so-called verismo (realism) style in a variety of ways
• understand how Richard Strauss was able effortlessly to monopolise concert schedules by composing a series of highly successful symphonic tone poems; then matching this achievement with the sensationalist one-act Salome, signalling the beginning of his extraordinary operatic career
• follow Gustav Mahler’s dual progress as conductor and composer by observing how he successfully divided his time between running a great opera house, and making the most productive use of his long summer vacations by sketching vast symphonic works in the midst of the Austrian countryside
• recognise the wide-ranging impact that Claude Debussy’s radically sparse new musical style had on audiences used to the much fuller and grander styles of composition espoused by Camille Saint-Saëns, César Franck, and Jules Massenet
• understand how the overtly nationalist styles of Leos Janacek (Moravia), Jean Sibelius (Finland) and Edward Elgar (England) introduced new textures (typically including folk-oriented material) into the classical music culture of their respective countries
• appreciate how the vastly increased speed and comfort of rail travel in the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century contributed to a much stronger awareness and interaction between composers of different nationalities.

Content

• Brahms’s late pieces for keyboard, and Bruckner’s unfinished Ninth Symphony
• Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and the opera, Rusalka; and Janacek’s Jenufa
• Richard Strauss’s tone poems Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, and Ein Heldenleben, and his opera Salome
• Mahler at the Vienna Court Opera, and his Third, Fourth, and Fifth Symphonies
• Puccini’s La Bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly; and Giordano’s Andrea Chénier
• Debussy’s Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune, his opera Pelléas et Mélisande, and La Mer
• Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2
• Sibelius’s Finlandia, his first two symphonies, and the Violin Concerto
• Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius, and Pomp and Circumstance
• Hans Richter becoming conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, and a champion of the music of Edward Elgar
• The foundation of the London Symphony Orchestra in 1904, with the opening concert conducted by Richter

Intended audience

This course should appeal to a wide range of lovers of music of the late Romantic period.

Prerequisites

None

Delivery style

Lecture style, face-to-face, with musical excerpts played on CD.

Materials

A weekly worksheet with comprehensive synopses of material being presented.