Music of Austria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vienna has long been an important center of musical innovation. 18th and 19th century composers were drawn to the city due to the patronage of the Habsburgs, and made Vienna the European capital of classical music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Strauss II, among others, were associated with the city. During the Baroque period, Slavic and Hungarian folk forms influenced Austrian music. Vienna's status began its rise as a cultural center in the early 1500s, and was focused around instruments including the lute.
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[edit] Classical music
During the 18th century, the classical music era dominated European classical music, and the city of Vienna was an especially important city for musical innovation. Three composers arose, making lasting innovations: Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonic patterns, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's balance between melody and form, and Joseph Haydn's development of the string quartet and sonata.
The latter part of the 18th century saw the spread of piano, replacing the harpsichord. String ensembles and vocal music also spread, while the middle-class grew increasingly aware of music through the Enlightenment. In 1842, Otto Nicolai of the Imperial Opera House, announced the creation of what became the Vienna Philharmonic.
During this period, a division of music into popular compositions for entertainment and serious art music began. The line was initially not drawn so clearly, with most composers, like Franz Schubert, Johann Strauss and Joseph Lanner, writing for both fields. Of these, Strauss became the most popular composer of the era, and indeed, perhaps the first popular Austrian musician. Other serious composers included Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner.
Wagner's late romantic music was the single biggest influence on Austria's next major composer, Arnold Schönberg. His early compositions were Wagnerian, but he quickly abandoned the whole idea of major-minor tonality and began composing non-tonal compositions, beginning in 1908. This was controversial, and led composers like Hans Pfitzner and Richard Strauss to distance themselves from Schönberg, who did have followers, such as Anton von Webern and Alban Berg.
This division between tonal and non-tonal composers continued throughout the 20th century. Schönberg's followers included Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Egon Wellesz, Friedrich Cerha and Ernst Krenek, while more conservative composers include Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Gottfried von Einem, Franz Schmidt and Joseph Marx.
[edit] Ländler
The ländler is a folk dance in 3/4 time which was popular in Austria, south Germany and German Switzerland at the end of the 18th century.
It is a dance for couples which strongly features hopping and stamping. It was sometimes purely instrumental and sometimes had a vocal part, sometimes featuring yodelling.
When dance halls became popular in Europe in the 19th century, the ländler was made quicker and more elegant, and the men shed the hobnail boots which they wore to dance it. It is thought to have evolved into the waltz.
A number of classical composers wrote ländler including Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. In several of his symphonies Gustav Mahler replaced the scherzo with a ländler. The Carinthian folk tune quoted in Alban Berg's Violin Concerto is a ländler, and another features in Act II of his opera Wozzeck. The "German Dances" of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn also resemble ländler. Britten's Peter Grimes features a Ländler in the scene where a dance night is occurring in the Hall.
[edit] Yodel
- For more details on this topic, see Yodeling.
Yodeling is a type of throat singing which developed in the Alps. In Austria, it was called juchizn and featured the use of both nonlexical syllables and yells which were used to communicate across mountains. From Austria, it spread into Bavaria, Switzerland and elsewhere.
Yodels usually begin with a single voice melody, then joined by several more voices. The presence of an echo is vital to produce the correct sound.
[edit] Schrammelmusik
The most popular form of modern Austrian folk music is Viennese schrammelmusik, which is played with an accordion and a double-necked guitar. Modern performers include Roland Neuwirth, Karl Hodina and Edi Reiser.
Schrammelmusik arose as a mixture of rural Austrian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Moravian and Bavarian immigrants crowded the slums of Vienna. At the time, waltzes and ländlers mixed with the music of the immigrants absorbing sounds from all over central and eastern Europe and the Balkans. The name Schrammelmusik comes from two of the most popular and influential performers in Schrammelmusik's history, brothers Johann and Josef Schrammel. The Schrammels formed a trio called along with bass guitarist Anton Strohmayer and helped bring the music to the middle- and upper-class Viennese, as well as people from surrounding areas. With the addition of a clarinetist, George Dänzer, they formed the Schrammel-Quartett, and Schrammelmusik's form settled on a quartet.
Neuwirth is a younger performer who has incorporated foreign influences, most especially the blues, to some criticism from purists.
[edit] Alpine New Wave
Alpunk (Alpine punk) is a genre of punk rock from the Alpine regions of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Alpunk fuses the chaotic, energetic rhythms of punk music to the accordion-based folk music which the region is famous for.
Though there has been little popular fame, the Austrian band Attwenger had had some minor success with albums such as most and song. The former features drum beats from a drum machine and rapping in the Austrian dialect of German, while the latter has much longer pieces of up to 15 minutes' length.
Another group performing in a similar vein is Extremschrammeln, who perform original songs in both German and English over slightly more traditional music. Big hits include "Der Weg Ist Weit Nach Floridsdorf" ("It's a Long Way to Floridsdorf") and "Fantastisch Elastisch" ("Fantastic Elastic").
The world famous comedian, Alf Poier, has also dabbled in AlPunk. He has had moderate success with classic songs such as "Tui Tui Tat", "Weil Der Mensch Zählt" and "Flieger". However, Mr Poier has also branched out into a broader range of music including Pseudo-Frictionless Owl Rock. This involves dressing up in elaborate clothes and using birdcages to capture the audiences' imagination. However many anti-austrian activists believe that this brand of Owl Rock encourages violence among young people. Alf Poier however disagrees...and is quoted to have saying "The people know, but they do not understand".
[edit] See also
| Music of Central Europe |
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Austria - Czech Republic - Germany - Hungary - Liechtenstein - Poland - Slovakia - Slovenia - Switzerland |
[edit] External links
- Schrammel-Quartett (from www.aeiou.at)
- Austria information - Includes Austrian music, culture and food
[edit] References
- Wagner, Christopher. "The Alpunk Phenomenon". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 7-12. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
- Wagner, Christopher. "Soul Music of Old Vienna". 2000. In Broughton, Simon and Ellingham, Mark with McConnachie, James and Duane, Orla (Ed.), World Music, Vol. 1: Africa, Europe and the Middle East, pp 13-15. Rough Guides Ltd, Penguin Books. ISBN 1-85828-636-0
