The concerto grosso

Hello, and welcome to today's Music lesson. I'm Ms. Mansell, and I'm gonna be your teacher today. Let's get started. Today's lesson outcome is: I can identify and describe the key musical features of the Romantic concerto and the ways that it differs from the Classical concerto. Let's look at some keywords for today's lesson. Chromatic: notes from outside the key. Chromatic movement often involves moving by semitones. Virtuosic: shows off a performer's technical skill. Rubato: when a performer slightly changes the tempo to add expression. Cadenza: a solo section in a concerto in which the soloist plays in a virtuosic manner. Today's lesson on the Romantic concerto is in two parts. Part one is key features of the Romantic concerto, and part two is analyzing a Romantic concerto. Let's get started with part one, key features of the Romantic concerto. In the Romantic period, which is around 1810 to 1900, the concerto mirrored many of the broader musical changes that were taking place. Composers such as Brahms and Tchaikovsky wrote many concertos that have remained popular ever since. What typical Romantic features can you hear in this concerto? Pause and have a listen to the clip. You could hear rich, chromatic harmony, very expressive rubato melodies, and you might have said it had an intense, emotional mood. You should have been able to hear a large orchestra, a thick texture, and complex orchestration and use of timbre. Concertos also became much longer than previously. Composers focused on creating music that expressed emotions. Many Romantic concertos are intensely emotional, through dramatic orchestration, complex harmony, and expressive melodies. Which of these clips do you think is from a Romantic concerto? Pause and have a listen to the three clips. Which one did you think? It was the third clip that's from a Romantic concerto. Expression in music is partly created by the harmony and key. Romantic music uses chromatic harmony, using notes from outside the key signature to create complex chords and more expressive harmony. Often, compositions modulate to distantly related keys. Compare these two examples. One uses chromatic notes, creating a more complex, dissonant harmony. Can you identify which one it is? Pause and listen to the examples. (rich Romantic music) (rich Romantic music) Did you work out which one had the more complex harmony? The first one was diatonic; the second was chromatic. Have a look at these scores. Which of these is chromatic? Is it A, B, or C? Well done if you got A. A is chromatic because you can see it uses additional chromatic notes, so that G-sharp is not in the key signature. The orchestra also expanded in the Romantic era to include more players, but also more varied instruments. These included additional percussion, for example, the xylophone, brass, so for example, the tuba, and woodwind, the piccolo for example. The range of solo instruments also increased to cover most brass, woodwind, and stringed instruments, as well as piano and organ. The Romantic orchestra gave composers the option to create dramatic, powerful music with a huge rage of timbres. In this concerto, the large orchestra creates an intense, dramatic beginning. Pause and have a listen. That was really dramatic, wasn't it? The texture in Romantic concertos is typically still melody and accompaniment. However, composers often use the orchestra in more complex ways, creating thicker textures than were typical in Classical concertos, and often with sudden changes in texture, creating dramatic effects. In this example, the solo instrument, which is the piano, plays the accompaniment, while the melody is played in unison by brass, then strings. Pause and have a listen. Here, the orchestra and piano create a very thick texture together, with countermelodies and dense chords. Have a listen to this example. Just as the texture and harmony became more complex, so too did the melodies. While Classical concertos use neat, balanced phrases, Romantic composers were more flexible with greater variety of phrase lengths. This allowed them to express emotions in different ways. Have a listen to this violin melody. The phrases are difficult to identify because they blend into a seamless melody. There was also much greater use of rubato, adding further expression to the music. This was both in solo sections and when the orchestra were playing. In this clip, can you pick out the rubato parts of the melody? Have a listen for the slight changes in tempo. As the complexity of concertos increased, levels of virtuosity also increased. Many Romantic concertos are technically difficult to play and require a very high skill level. This concerto demonstrates typical virtuosic playing, fast, impressive patterns and complex techniques. Have a listen. Cadenzas also featured in Romantic concertos, giving the soloist another opportunity to show off their technical skill. In this era, they were rarely improvised. So the key features of the Romantic concerto are a large orchestra with wide range of timbres, wide range of solo instruments, long compositions, usually in three movements, intense emotional expression, more complex chromatic harmony, creating dissonance, flexible phrasing and melodic shape, including rubato, mostly melody and accompaniment but often more complex, thick textures, very difficult, virtuosic solo parts, including cadenzas. Let's do a check for understanding. How was the Romantic orchestra different from the Classical orchestra? Choose two answers. So is it A, it was smaller, B, it was larger, C, it had greater variety of instruments, or D, it had smaller variety of instruments? Which two? Well done if you said B and C, the Romantic orchestra was larger and had a greater variety of instruments. How was phrasing in Romantic concertos different from Classical concertos? Is it A, the phrase lengths were more varied, B, phrase lengths were less varied, or C, phrases were repeated more? Well done if you said A, the phrase lengths were more varied. Which of these is a Romantic composer? Is it A, Mozart, B, Vivaldi, or C, Brahms? Well done if you said Brahms. Mozart is of course a Classical composer and Vivaldi from the Baroque period. So let's have a look at Task A. We want you to listen to each example and answer the questions. So for example 1, we want you to identify two ways that the soloist adds expression to the melody. How would you describe the harmony? Is this typical of a Romantic concerto? And what specific string technique does the soloist use multiple times? And then for example 2, describe the string accompaniment at the start. Describe the texture. What melodic device is used by woodwind and brass instruments? Which movement would you expect this to be taken from? Pause the lesson video and have a go at Task A. How did you get on? Let's have a look at some answers. So you could have said that the soloist adds expression to the melody through the use of rubato, the use of vibrato, or dramatic dynamics. Hope you got two of those. In terms of the harmony, it's chromatic harmony, which is typical of the Romantic concerto. And then the string technique the soloist was using was double-stopping. For example 2, you could have described the string accompaniment at the start as using sustained chords, arco, which if you remember means bowed, and piano dynamics. The woodwind and brass instruments were using imitation. And in terms of the texture, it was melody and accompaniment, with short countermelodies in the woodwind and brass. Which movement did you think it was taken from? Hopefully you got the second movement because it was slow. Let's move on to part 2 of our lesson, analyzing a Romantic concerto. Let's analyze this famous Romantic violin concerto by the German composer Max Bruch. The first movement opens with a dark, somber mood. What is the texture before the violin begins playing? Have a listen to the clip. It was a chordal homophonic texture. All the parts were moving at the same time. The soloist then has an expressive solo introduction with lots of rubato. What other techniques does the violinist use on the long notes to add expression? The violinist uses vibrato. After the introduction, the orchestra and soloist play together for the first time. The violinist introduces the main melody with a simple accompaniment. It uses chromatic notes, which makes it emotional and expressive. What string technique does the soloist use? And what string technique do the orchestral violins use? Have a listen to the clip. The soloist was using double-stopping, and the orchestral violins were using tremolo, which I always describe as shivering on one note. The music then modulates. What is the tonality in this section? Have a listen. Did you get major? There were some chromatic notes as well. The violin introduces the second main melody, interacting in various ways with the orchestra by playing the melody with orchestral countermelody, and you can have a listen to that, playing elaborate melodic lines while the orchestra play the melody, and you can hear that, and then playing sections of melody doubled with the orchestra. You'll want to listen out for the horns, then the clarinets. So have a listen to that. The next section is the development in sonata form. The violin plays in a virtuosic style, then the orchestra plays a tutti section. How would you describe the texture in this tutti section? Have a listen. You might have said something like: It's a thick melody and accompaniment texture with a melody mostly in the violins and some short countermelodies in woodwind, brass, and lower strings. Finally, we hear the recapitulation. Remember, that's the third part of sonata form. The homophonic texture and solo melody from the very start play again. Have a listen. The orchestra take over to finish the movement in a calm mood. This sets the mood for the beginning of the slow second movement. So have a listen to that. So let's recap. Typical features of a Romantic concerto include intense, emotional, and expressive moods, chromatic harmony, difficult, virtuosic playing, varied texture and use of the orchestra, a large orchestra with important roles for woodwind and brass, sonata form, so that's exposition, development, and recapitulation. Which of these Romantic concerto features does not help to make the music more expressive? Is it A, vibrato, B, chromatic harmony, C, dramatic changes in dynamics and texture, D, sonata form, and E, rubato. Which of those? What did you think? Well done if you got D, sonata form. While Romantic concertos are often in sonata form, it's not necessarily helping to make the music more expressive, but all of the other options are. So let's have a go at Task B. We want you to listen to the first section of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's famous "Violin Concerto." What features does it use that are typical of a Romantic concerto? Discuss at least two of texture, melody, harmony and tonality, or timbre. So let's pause the lesson video and have a go at Task B. How did you get on? Here's some examples of answers you might have given. So for texture, you might have said: This mostly has a typical texture for a Romantic concerto, which is melody and accompaniment. There is use of countermelodies, which is also common, and some sections with a thicker texture when the orchestra play together. For melody, you might have said something like: The melody is typical of Romantic concertos because it has long phrases of varied lengths. It's very expressive with use of rubato and vibrato, both of which are common. The violinist uses some virtuosic techniques, such as double-stopping, and fast runs, which are also typical. And then for harmony or tonality, the harmony is chromatic with dissonance, which is typical of the genre, using many notes from outside the key. It is in a major key that modulates into a distantly related major key. Modulations are common in Romantic concertos. For timbre, you might have said something like: The timbre of this piece is very typical of a Romantic concerto. It has a solo violin, that's a very common solo instrument in concertos, and it uses many typical techniques of the genre, such as vibrato and double-stopping. The orchestra is a typical Romantic orchestra, so it's large, with numerous woodwind and brass instruments playing an important role. The first violins still play the majority of melodies in the orchestra. So let's summarize today's lesson on the Romantic concerto. The Romantic concerto mirrored many typical features of Romantic music. These include more complex textures, chromatic harmony, a larger orchestra, and an emphasis on intense, expressive music. Many Romantic concertos are extremely difficult for soloists and are highly virtuosic. Bruch's "Violin Concerto" reflects many of these typical features. I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson.