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

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Cambridge Pre-U Teacher Guide
1843). Another unusual work that perhaps does not deserve its neglect is Schumann’s Paradise and
the Peri (1843). Dvoák’s The Spectre’s Bride (1885) was a huge success at its first performance in
Birmingham, and contains some thrilling music.
Mass settings designed for the concert hall have generally fared better and many such works are
still regularly performed and thus are more accessible. Well-known examples include those by
Beethoven, Schubert, Rossini and Bruckner; slightly less familiar are those by Cherubini, Saint-Saëns,
Gounod and Liszt. Dvoák’s characteristically Slavonic Mass in D was originally written for choir and
organ, but was orchestrated in a rather inflated manner at the insistence of his English publisher,
Novello; the original version was not published until as recently as 1988.
Settings of the Requiem Mass provided romantic composers with a rich source of dramatic imagery,
to which they responded with music that was often overtly theatrical. Famous examples include
Berlioz’s Grande Messe des morts (1837) with its novel use of off-stage brass bands, and works by
Verdi, Bruckner, Gounod, Liszt and Saint-Saëns. Cherubini composed two requiems, in C minor (with
a highly controversial tam-tam stroke at the start of the Dies irae) and in D minor (for male voices).
Less familiar examples include one by Schumann, written almost at the end of his life. The setting by
Fauré, specifically intended for liturgical use, is an altogether gentler and more peaceful work, while
Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (1868) is a setting of biblical texts rather than of the mass for the
dead.
Other liturgical texts were also set as concert works. Examples include the Stabat Mater (Rossini,
Dvoák, Liszt, Verdi) and the Te Deum (Berlioz, Verdi, Bruckner, Dvoák).
Smaller choral works were written by most of the composers already mentioned and are too
numerous to list in detail. The motets of Bruckner are especially noteworthy, while a specifically
English genre, the anthem, produced some fine works by composers such as Samuel Sebastian
Wesley (The Wilderness, 1832; Ascribe unto the Lord, c.1852), Parry and Stanford, among many
others. Secular part-songs, either accompanied or with piano accompaniment, were also popular,
though not often of great historical importance.
3 Song Cycles
A song cycle is a series of songs designed as a sequence to be performed in its entirety. In most
cases the poems tell some kind of story, or are linked by a common theme. The core repertoire, for
the purposes of this examination, includes:
• Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte (1816).
• Schubert Die schöne Müllerin (1823)
Winterreise (1827)
• Schumann Liederkreis, Op. 24 (1840)
Liederkreis, Op. 39 (1840)
Myrthen (1840)
Dichterliebe (1840)
Frauenliebe und -leben (1840)
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