Music in the making; The art song

Music in the making. Produced by Milliken university under a grant from the Educational Television and Radio Center in cooperation with the National Association of educational broadcasters. School of Music presents chairman of the voice department and concert vocalist Hubert Norval in a recorded consideration of the art song musical illustrations will include the melody and my Brahms and Vaughan that is not lead by Schubert and here to take over at this point. His professor Norval. The art song as we know it today is a subject which the average layman knows nothing or very little about while the musician would like to learn something more about it. No doubt you will come under one of these headings so I hope that I will leave with you a clearer picture pertaining to the subject in mind namely the art song I

should dwell only on salient points. Music is sometimes classified as a universal language so it would be easy to wander off on tangents. Many musicians and devotees of the music consider chamber music the most abstract of all forms of absolute music. It has not a very good palette of orchestral color so characteristic of the symphony it has not the element of personality. Impossible to eliminate in a conductor or a solo performer. Therefore the emphasis is directed toward the musical experience created solely through the use the composer makes of his tools namely rhythm melody harmony and form. The type of music found in the art song which I shall discuss for the next few minutes is quite in contrast to this music. Let us apply this term to the type of song

peculiar to our Western Civilization usually designated by its German title the leader spelt capital L I E D. In the typical lead we have the vocal line the text and the instrumental or compliment each assuming a place of equal importance. This distinctive type was developed during the 19th century by such a man as Schubert on Voice of Brahms and others. Their songs have been used as models of songwriting ever since by composers in different countries and periods. We know that some kind of song always existed thousands of years before abstract instrumental music was ever dreamed of. We have man giving expression to his feelings through the combination of words and music. Primitive man associated his songs with the most fundamental facts of his existence such as religious songs

songs associated with tribal life love songs and many other types in the more civilized prototypes we have folk songs with which we are all familiar. Just as we have wandering minstrels today singing songs accompanied by string instruments. They were doing the 12th and 13th centuries roving singers who were as a rule of noble birth in France they were the troubadours and true as the bards and minstrels were England and the missing years of Germany. We realize that these songs of love these tales of chivalry or accounts of heroic deeds written and sung by these poets singers we're told so far as we know in single lined unaccompanied melody finally through a slow process of musical evolution through centuries musical technique was expanded in various directions.

The 19th century provided a fertile ground for the nurturing of forms like the art song the symphonic poem the music drama and other types of program music. Music with the program became the characteristic expression of the time composers wanted to express their strong feelings in a dramatic and subjective way. Men naturally write and sing of what fills their hearts and heads. So when songwriters in Germany and Austria the 19th century had at their disposal great poets like Hina Schiller and good at this distinctive type of music we are considering now was created just as opera had its cradle in Italy. The art song developed in these two countries Germany and Austria. The function of the accompaniment extends far beyond mere support of the voice. It is an integral part of the whole employing such devices of composition

as imitation and the developing of thematic material. If we compare the sum total of music with the sum total of literature we might find the art song occupying a place in the general scheme of music. Some thing like that of poetry and literature in the art song. We have different kinds of ideas and emotions expressed. We have for instance the narrative type of song that tells a story the love song or atmospheric song that expresses a mood. The dramatic type and others inform all these generally into two types. The first is a straw flick in which the melody is the same for each verse. This type is more closely related to the folk song and form. It is much simpler than the second general type. The company of this literally meaning composed through from

beginning to end without any formal repetition of sections. There is naturally much freedom and variation in the use of the two types. But all art songs belong to one or the other. We shall now hear a few examples of our songs. The first will be the melody and by Brown. This isn't a straw fix style. The second song will be from Schubert Vaughan that is not the lead. This

is home to style. This is awful.

It was.

Close. Professor Hubert recorded consideration of the art so musical illustrations from the pens of. 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 that work.