Monday, April 11, 2011

+Romantic Period

Romantic Period
The Romantic Period evolved from the ideas of earlier musical periods like the classical period.  The Romantic Period doesn't have to be about love though that theme can be seen in the many pieces from the period. The Romantic Period is said to have been between 1800-1910. The Romantic Period tried to add emotional expression to describe real human feelings and deep truths. The composors of the Romantic  Period tried to fuse the large structural harmonic planning in the style of Haydn and Mozart. In the Romantic Period composors such as Beethoven and later Richard Wagner stretched the harmonic language with cords that were previouslly unused. Some composers analized music to poetry and it's rhapsodic and narrative structures while they created a more organized basis for the compasing and performing of concert music. The main charachteristics for the Romantic Period included a freedom in form and design, emphasis on lyrical songlik melodies, greater sense of ambiguity, denser textures, expansion of the orchestra, and a rich variety of musical pieces.Now let's take a look at the chronology of the Romantic Period

Early Romantic
Early Romantic music is said to have been between 1800-1850. Beethoven's First Symphony and especially his fourth piano sontana were all published in the early 19th century. It marked a new wave of music that would continue for at least a century. Beethoven's huge impact influenced and inspired composers in following generations. By the second decade of the 19th century the change to new sources of musical inspiration along with a more expressed harmony became a certain stylistic shift. A new generation of composeres emerged in post Napoleonic Europe. Among these composers were Beethoven, Ludwig Spohr, E.T.A. Hoffman n, Carl Maria Von Webber, and Frank Schubert. Early Romantic composers all born in the 19th century include Franz Listz, Feliz Mendelssohn, Frederic Chopin, and Hector Berlioz. The music of Robert Schumann continued the trend of romanticism.


Late Romantic
The Late Romantic Period is said to have taken place between 1850-1900. As the 19th century went into its second half many social, political, and economic changes were set in motion in the post Napoleonic period. Railways and the electric telegraph bound the European world ever close together. An increase in musical education brought a wider sophisticated audience and many composers used this to their advantage. These changes stretched the number of symphonies, concertos, and tone poems. During this period some composers invented styles and forms associated with their folk cultures. The approach that there were German and Italian Styles had long been established in writing on music, but in the late 19th century we saw a rise of a nationalist Russian style. Other styles that came out of the late 19th century included Czech, Finnish and French nationalist.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Amadeus: Fact vs Fiction

                                                      Amadeus : Fact vs Fiction
Amadeus was first a very fictionalized play on the lives of Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart and Antonio Salieri. It was inspired by the short play Mozart and Salieri written by Aleksanr Pushkin. Amadeus was written by Peter Shaffer. The play was so popular that they decided to create a film adaption.Directed by Milos Forman who is well known for  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Man on the Moon. On September 19th, 1984 the movie was released to very high reviews and won 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture. It also won 4 Golden Globes, 4 LAFCA Awards, 1 American Cinema Editors award, 1Casting Society of America award, 1 Director's Guild award and many  more. Many critics and audiences alike see Amadeus as one of the best movies of 1984., but there are some things that well they helped make a good movie, but they really didn't happened. When Shaffer wrote his play there were many things that were fictionalized. Here are many of the things in the movie that were far from reality. The movie's main theme is that Salieri was jealous of Mozart. So what is real and fake in the movie about Salieri. Well to start off Salieri's jealousy over Mozart. While it makes a good movie it is believed to be untrue in real life. Many accounts say that Salieri had a deep respect for Mozart and the two had a great relationship. The film also has Salieri confessing he killed Mozart by poisoning him. This is also fiction. Mozart actually died from a fever, but how did this idea start ? well it was a rumor that circulated Vienna in the 1820's. In 1825 his caretakers said that Salieri was senile but never spoke about killing Mozart. The film shows Mozart's father Leopold coming to vist Mozart and Stanze in Vienna in 1785. The film makes it look like the first time that Stanze and Leopold met. In fact they met two years before in 1783. A meeting that is said to not go very well. The film also makes Stanze look cold and naive, however she wasn't. Mozart loved his wife. Stanze also is rumored to have slept with one of Mozart's students and that Mozart's son Franz was actually not his son. This can be easily disproven as Franz had a genetic deformity which Mozart also had; a malformed left ear. As you can see biography movies don't always get the facts right, but it can still achieve critical sucess.