Music in the making; Choral music of the Romantic period

Music in the making. Produced by Millikan university under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. The Milliken School of Music presented Professor Wesley Snyder in the Milliken choir in a recorded consideration of romantic choral music of the 19th century. In this period there was a gradual blending of the musical and poetical which resulted in increased emotional appeal. Before commenting upon the subject at hand Professor Snyder would like you to listen to in the night by your Highness Brahms as sung by the Milliken choir Professor Schneider is conducting. God.

Is in the midst of a period in music when composers seem to be trying to outdo each other in sheer volume and complexity of their music. You harness Brahms was writing such simple and quiet music as the example you just heard. Not that he couldn't write loud or complex music. Indeed some of his scores are as intricate as any that it appeared up to his time. He simply had a different musical purpose in mind. Quite often he would take a folk song a simple song that had been handed down from generation to generation and harmonize it. The result was that he gave a harmonic richness and a greater depth of meaning to the song. One of the principal charms of the folk song is it's

simple unaffected melody. This is what Brahms keeps intact when he arranges one of them. But he adds to it the almost limitless limitless resources of harmony his craftsmanship was so great that he could harmonize a single melody in many different ways. Often he changed the harmonic progressions from verse to verse not only to give the song variety but to express more completely in music the meaning of the poor and the emotional quality of the example you have just heard was definitely enhanced by Brahms harmonic treatment. Now let us hear another of his arrangements. This one is known in translation as I'm going away. A tender song of farewell. The solo voice of the second verse is that of James Hill. The form of these songs is straw thick. That is the words of the different verses are set

to the same melody. Brahms respected the forms of the songs he treated as much as he did those of his larger works. The forms which have been established in the classical period he retain and enrich them by filling them with music of great emotional strength and appeal. Most of the folk song forms he chose were small two or three part forms. The next song you hear is in one of the smallest of the three part forms a phrase is stated and then repeated. Then there is a digression to the Dominant key for the next phrase. And finally a restatement of the first phrase again in the tonic. This feeling of rest followed by tension and then relaxation is characteristic of most of the music of the modern era. It is clearly and concisely set forth in how lovely is the me time sung now by the Milliken a capella choir with Mary Jo Callum's a soloist.

Another Romantic composer who like to use large forms and huge ensembles was Ecto

Barrios. Yet when he turned aside from the ease he could write music of matchless tenderness and beauty just as Brahms did. Unlike Brahms However he felt that if a preexisting form could not contain all of the emotional appeal he wished to Didn't doll it with. He was then about a band under the old form and create a new one. Beverly Hills is only in recent years come to be accepted as one of the most original musical minds of the 19th century in his works. There is variety almost as wide as that in Wagners. In France the country of his birth he was slower to gain recognition than in Germany. This was undoubtedly because of the fact that his music was championed by listed Weimar whose influence was tremendous among his works or operas symphonies can Tatas oratory rose and overtures in one of his own but one of his oratorios the childhood of Christ. He has written a chorus which for quiet restraint and

simple grace has seldom been equalled. This song by the shepherds who have learned that the infant Jesus must flee with his parents to into Egypt and who have come to bid him farewell. It is called that I must leave my lowly dwelling and we hear it as sung by the Millikan quiet. Week. Professor Snyder and the Millikan choir of raunchier recorded consideration of romantic

choral music of the 19th century. Music in the making was produced by Milliken university under a grant from the educational television and radio center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end E.B. tape network.