Character piece

A character piece , lyrical piece, or genre piece is a shorter piece of music, especially for the piano . It should express a mood that is usually described with a title. The title can describe the mood itself, such as longing ( Franz Liszt ) or the image or event that leads to this mood, such as Wilder Reiter , First Loss ( Robert Schumann ), The Mill in the Black Forest ( Richard Eilenberg ).

history

origin

Occasionally, musical allegories from the Baroque period are counted among the character pieces. The doctrine of affect combined moods with musical stylistic devices. Of course, these are still very general and symbolic equivalents, not the individual expression , as required since the end of the 18th century and made possible by the sound of the fortepiano .

A link between Baroque and Romanticism was musical sensitivity in the 18th century: Inspired by the Pièces de Clavecin of the French Clavecinists such as François Couperin or Jean-Philippe Rameau , the North German composer Christian Gottfried Krause recommended in his work On Musical Poetry (1753), To give a title to pieces of music. The baroque unity of affect , which also applied to the aria , and the principle of imitation of nature , as propagated by Charles Batteux , were still important at that time . Music was not yet considered an independent art.

Theoretical interest and educational needs around 1800

The music theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg and the composer Johann Friedrich Reichardt held similar views . In 1785 Christian Gottfried Körner wrote his essay on character representation in music .

The need for these musical works arose primarily from circles of enthusiasts, and less from professional musicians. So-called hand pieces , the forerunners of later (piano) etudes of the 19th century, were used for music lessons .

In 1784 Gottlieb Christian Füger published characteristic keyboard pieces depicting twelve affects . The character pieces by Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (“Six diverse Pieces pour le clavecin ou pianoforte”, 1778/79) no longer have a cyclical connection. The emancipation of the single movement was a motivation for composers to write character pieces. But only the beginning of romanticism created new conditions. During this time it was crucial that the piano sonata was no longer regarded as the representative genre of piano music. Rather, the principle of song-like, lyrical design became the new basis for the instrumental music of this epoch. The character piece with its poetic tendencies has now been brought to life.

Musical poetry in the 19th century

As one of the first representatives of the more modern character piece, Johann Wenzel Tomaschek from Prague wrote a total of ten albums with distinctive character pieces, mostly in three-part song form, from 1807 over the course of more than 30 years . The eclogues published since 1810/1811 were later followed by rhapsodies . The characteristic studies for the pianoforte (1836) by Ignaz Moscheles can still be understood as late variants of a baroque depiction of affect . They have headings like: "anger, contradiction, tenderness, fear".

Over time, the “handpieces” became more technically demanding studies . This is where the essential starting points for the works of later artists can be found, including Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Songs without Words , Seven Characteristic Pieces, Op. 7 (1827). These are dominated by their predecessors Ludwig Berger and Moscheles. Unlike Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert found his musical models mainly in vocal music.

With Robert Schumann , the poetic element is often confirmed by headlines (forest scenes, children's scenes , night pieces, fantasy pieces, album leaves ...) . The 18 Davidsbündlertänze op. 6 (1837) are only referred to as character pieces in the 2nd edition of 1850/51 .

Popularization and loss of prestige

With the popularization of the character piece in the popular music and the advent of the program symphony , symphonic poem and the music in the romantic ballet where all the actions on a larger scale and larger ensembles are presented musical, the character piece lost its importance. It was combined all the more often with the optical sensations of the time such as panorama and diorama or the image of life in popular theater. In return, the ideal of an absolute music was formed , which should be "purified" from extra-musical meanings.

In the succession of Schumann were artists such as Stephen Heller , Theodor Kirchner ( Neue Davidsbündlertänze op. 17, 1872, and character pieces op. 61, 1882) and Adolf Jensen . The character piece became more and more a kind of template. Later composers like Edvard Grieg developed their own style ( wedding day on Troldhaugen [Bryllupsdag på Troldhaugen] , 1897).

Variants in the 20th century

A French tradition of character play developed through Claude Debussy's impressionism ( Children's Corner , Estampes , Images ), which ranges from Maurice Ravel , Eric Satie to Olivier Messiaen .

From the end of the 19th century, works of salon music are also referred to as character pieces . The radio music of the 20th century used the character piece as a tourist souvenir ( An der Blaue Adria by Gerhard Winkler ) or a functional piece of music ( The cheerful alarm clock by Boris Mersson ). This gives the term a dazzling character and is often used disparagingly. In the character pieces of this era, a surprising musical effect is in the foreground. Examples of this are the Petersburg sleigh ride (there are recordings with cracking whips and barking dogs) and the Die Mühle im Schwarzwald (there are recordings with birdsong) by Richard Eilenberg , on a Persian market by Albert Ketèlbey ( the epitome of the oriental in circus music ) and brownies Guard parade by Kurt Noack .

Differentiation from program music

The program music is not always easy to distinguish from the character pieces . The musicologist Hugo Riemann considered “the delighted lingering of the composer with the individual effect” ( Handbuch der Musikgeschichte , 1913) to be a characteristic of the character piece. In contrast, program music describes an entire action. The difference between character and action in Aristotle's poetics is best used to distinguish it: program music describes a kind of drama or epic, while the character piece remains static and at most shows contrasts (so often in a middle section).

to form

The character piece is, unlike the movements of a sonata or suite , often on their own, such as Album Leaf , Pièce détachée or Moment musical . Several lyrical pieces sometimes combine to form cycles, for example with similar themes (such as Schumann 's children's scenes ). Dance, song and rondo forms serve as models; song forms in particular have been used since the Romantic era .

literature

• Wilibald Gurlitt , Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht (Ed.): Riemann Music Lexicon. Material part. 12th completely revised edition. Schotts Sons, Mainz 1967, p. 156 f.
• Jacob De Ruiter: The Concept of Character in Music. Studies on the German aesthetics of instrumental music 1740–1850 (= supplements to the archive for musicology . No. 29). Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-515-05156-2 (also: Berlin, Technical University, Phil. Dissertation, 1987).
• Bernhard R. Appel: character piece . In: Music in the past and present . 2nd, revised edition. Part 1. Factual part . Vol. 2 (1995), Col. 636-642.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.stretta-music.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/mueller_handstueck_3.pdf August Eberhard Müller (1767–1817): Light handpiece No. 3