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 presents Professor Wesley Sneider 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 Snyder is conducting. 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 had 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 its 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 poem and the emotional quality of the example you have just heard was definitely enhanced by Brahms harmonic treatment. Not at us here another of his arrangements. This one is known in translation as I'm going away. The tender song of 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 fart 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 it is the May time sung by the Milliken acapella choir with Mary Jo Callum as a soloist.

It's getting worse. Another Romantic composer who like to use large forms and huge ensembles was Ecto

Barrios. Yet when he turned aside from the he could write music of matchless tenderness and beauty just as bronze 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 Bandon of the old form and create a new one. Berlioz 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 involvement 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 a list of Weimar whose influence was tremendous among his works. There are prose symphonies can tattles oratory oils and overtures in one of his overt one of his oratorios the childhood of Christ. He

has written a course which for quiet restraint and simple grace has seldom been equalled. It is sung by the shepherds who have learned that the infant Jesus must flee with his parents to enter into Egypt and who have come to bid him farewell. It is called the hour must leave the eyelid wailing and we hear it now as sung by the Millikan choir. Professor Snyder and the Milliken choir have brought your record of 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 Radio Center. This program is distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end E.B. Radio Network.