CLCS 226 The Romantic Music and Its Literary Sources
The new musical genres of the Romantic era - the lied (song), the symphonic poem and the instrumental miniatures- embrace their literary origins and aim to express the full range of human emotion. Starting with Beethoven’s music on Schiller’s Ode to Joy, continuing with Schubert’s cycles of songs on Heine and Goethe, the poetic inspiration lead Liszt and Tchaikovsky, among others, to compose on works by of Byron and Lamartine. Music begins to be a story-teller and uses specific evocative techniques to enhance the literary content. When two composers write music on the same story (e.g. Scheherazade from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights), the diversity of the musical narration adds to the beauty of the text. Guided listening and text analysis will enable students to explore a wide variety of literature and learn to draw connections between text and music.