Teacher's Guide Cambridge Pre-U MUSIC Available for teaching ...

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Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
It can be argued with some justification that Wagner’s influence spread more widely than that of any
other composer, affecting literature, painting, decorative arts, philosophy, psychology and politics in
addition to music. His own belief that he was creating a wholly new movement in the arts was widely
accepted in the decades following his death in 1883 and it was widely assumed that he had pointed
the way forward for composers who came after him.
Among the German composers who incorporated Wagnerian techniques into their own operas,
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854–1921) had worked at Bayreuth during the rehearsals for Parsifal
and taught Wagner’s son, Siegfried. His operas written before 1900 include Hänsel und Gretel
(1893), based on a story by the Grimm brothers, Die sieben Geislein (1895) and the first version of
Königskinder (1897). Only Hänsel und Gretel has remained in the regular repertoire.
Hugo Wolf (1860–1903) completed only one opera, Der Corregidor (1896), based on the novel El
sombrero de tres picos by the Spanish writer Pedro Antonio de Alarcon (1833–1891).
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) was the most significant German opera composer of the generation after
Wagner. Only one of his operas, however, dates from before 1900. This is Guntram (1894), for which
Strauss wrote his own libretto.
Siegfried Wagner (1869–1930) is remembered chiefly for his role as director of the Bayreuth Festival
from 1906 until his death. He was a prolific opera composer in his own right, however, and followed
his father’s lead in writing his own libretti. Most of his operas date from after 1900, with the exception
of Der Bärenhäuter (1899).
Operetta in German-speaking countries derived from some of the lighter works of Lortzing, as well
as from the international popularity of Offenbach. The most significant Viennese composer was
Johann Strauss II, with works such as Die Fledermaus (1874), Eine Nacht in Venedig (1883) and Der
Zigeunerbaron (1885).
(d) Russia and Eastern Europe
Glinka, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Smetana, Dvořák
Opera was often very significant in the establishment of national schools of composition. There
were several reasons for this. Operas could be based on stories dealing with local history or
folklore, libretti could be written in the vernacular language of the people (which had sometimes
been suppressed), characters could be dressed in traditional costume, traditional dances could be
incorporated into the action, and the music could make use of folk songs, or could be derived from
the melodic characteristics of folk music. All these features can be observed in operas from Russia
and Eastern Europe, although the nationalist elements in such works have often stood in the way of
their becoming well known outside their countries of origin, even when the composers concerned
have considerable historical importance.
Russia
Italian operas had been performed in Russia throughout the eighteenth century. A number of
Russian composers had been sent to study in Italy and had written operas with libretti in their native
language, but the style of these works remained essentially Italian in all significant respects. In the
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