As you listen to the music of the Romantic period, it won't escape your attention that the composers are up to their old tricks - as in the earlier periods where a composer would write a short-ish phrase of melody and develop it (like the subject of a fugue, or the 1st and 2nd subjects of a sonata) - except the whole agenda was different.
The Romantic composers were dealing with stories, emotional themes, heroes and villains... so their music had to paint a picture of those emotions and characters.
Enter: the Leitmotiv.
A Leitmotiv is essentially a musical signature - a melody or phrase that represents a character, an event or something else crucial to the story or stimulus, like an emotion.
It will feature in Romantic symphonies, tone poems and operas. It continues to feature in film music these days - a character will have their own "theme"...
take the example of big Darth Vader.
Listen to it. It's excellent.
As if you didn't already know what it sounded like, it's now fresh in your head.
The Darth Vader Leitmotiv actually shows up in the films before Darth Vader existed - when he was still good wee Anakin Skywalker - listen to this "Anakin's Theme" - and you'll hear a tinge of the Vader Leitmotiv at 2mins 10s onwards. Brilliant.
STAR WARS IS NOT ROMANTIC MUSIC. IT IS FILM MUSIC FROM THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURY.
So don't get confused. This is merely to show you the ways that a letimotiv can be used to tell a story through instrumental music, and it was BORN in the Romantic era.
The following video is a piece of music by Franz Liszt - a "Symphonic Poem" or "Tone Poem" called "Mazeppa".
As you listen to the music, read the story of Mazeppa. It's so entertaining actually!
The Story behind the music:
Ivan Mazepa is a rich lad from Poland, hanging about with rich ladies from posh, royal families. Then he gets caught "seducing" a Polish noble lady. Bad times for Mazepa. His punishment is to be stripped of his clothes, and tied to the back of a wild horse. The horse isn't impressed so it starts running, and belts off into the mountains. This, as you can imagine, is a bit wild and uncomfortable for big Ivan, and the weather isn't good.
He eventually, somewhere in the mountains, ends up free of the horse, and still naked as the day he was born. He's now in the Ukraine, the horse has been running for some distance.
In the area, a bunch of Russian cossacks (soldiers) are on an exercise. They see this guy, windswept and totally naked, in bad weather, up a mountain. They think this is incredible, and they anoint him an absolute hero.
...Mazeppa still appears on Ukrainian currency to this day...
So now, as you're listening to the piece, see if you can spot the Leitmotiv Liszt has used to represent Mazeppa.
You'll hear his leitmotiv for the first time at 1 minute and 11 seconds.
It's played by the Tenor and Bass Trombones. Notice the accents and the fortissimo dynamic marking. Enjoy listening for it, it's a cracker.
The Tenor trombone part is written in tenor clef - it starts on a D. The Bass trombone is good old bass clef. You'll know already, that it starts on a D ;)
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| Big Mazeppa's theme. |
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