3.4. Exponents of romanticism in german music active words and word combinations

1. affectation показная любовь, аффектация

2. afford [q'fLd] быть в состоянии, позволить себе

3. appropriate [qp'rouprIIt] подходящий, соответствующий,

присущий

4. captivate ['kxptiveit] пленять, очаровывать, увлекать

5. contain [kqn'teIn] содержать в себе, вмещать

6. demand [di'ma:nd] требование, запрос, потребность

7. deputy ['depjuti] депутат; заместитель, помощник

8. devil ['devil] дьявол, черт, бес

9. enchant [In'tSa:nt] очаровывать, околдовывать

10. exponent [iks'pounent] представитель /теории, направления/

11. frequent ['fri:kwqnt] частый, часто повторяемый

12. giddiness ['gIdInIs] головокружение

13. gift подарок, дар; способность, дарование

14. hark слушать

15. humble [hAmbl] скромный; простой, бедный

16. ill-luck несчастье, неудача

17. lament [lq'ment] горестное стенание; элегия, жалобная

песнь

18. landmark поворотный пункт, веха

19. lark жаворонок

20. light on неожиданно натолкнуться, напасть

21. male мужской

22. mislay [mis'leI] положить не на место, потерять

23. promote [prq'mout] способствовать, помогать,

поддерживать

24. recover [ri'kAvq] обретать снова, возвращать себе,

получать обратно

25. respond отвечать, реагировать, соответствовать

26. shabby жалкий, ничтожный, низкий, подлый

27. sketch рисовать эскизы, делать наброски

28. strike awe [... L] внушать благоговейный страх,

благоговение

29. swan [swOn] лебедь

30. take to one’s bed заболеть, слечь

Before you read the text

1. Practise aloud.

move – movement, develop – development, hear – hearer, affect – affectation, impress – impression, connect – connection, love – lover, publish – publisher, accept – acceptance; necessary – necessity, peasant – peasantry, great – greatness, human – humanity, city – citizen, chorus – chorister, friend – friendship; revolution – revolutionary, comfort – comfortable, remark – remarkable, Vienna – Viennese, Austria – Austrian, love – lovely, exception – exceptional, common – uncommon, happy – unhappy; natural – naturally, frequent – frequently, genuine – genuinely, perfect – perfectly, comparative – comparatively

2. Pronounce correctly.

class (classes), exponent, excursion, master, metropolis, pianoforte, seminary, career, history, poetry, category (categories), mass, quartet, overture, cycle, story (stories), atmosphere, octet, trio, chance, attack, tуphus; rеvolutionary, impressive, pompous, official, minor, major, popular, tragic, symphonic, collective; cultivate, act, train, publish, depress

3. Read the sentences and translate them paying special attention to the italicized words.

1. Minstrels mean originally the professional musicians of the Middle Ages. 2. Necessity is the mother of invention. 3. The townfolk liked Schubert's songs very much. 4. The peasantry was less revolutionary than the citizens. 5. The great minds of world science enjoyed Beethoven's “Appassionata”. 6. The music in the house engaged my attention. 7. The finale of the opera is majestic. 8. Schubert's father taught the children from a suburb of Vienna, Liechtental. 9. He was glad to be admitted to play in the school orchestra. 10. Rich people liked Schubert's songs, but did not favour the author. 11. Schubert's “Winter Journey” is the counterpart to his “Fair Maid of the Mill”. 12. Schubert set “ErI-Koenig” by Goethe to music. 13. The little tragedy “Mozart and Saliery” is a fancy created by the genius of great Pushkin. 14. Schubert experienced unhappy love. 15. The sincerest friendship connected Goethe and Schiller. 16. She sang so beautifully that after the performance she received an offer to sing in La Scala. 17. He suffered from misunderstanding. 18. After the failure of the opera the composer felt greatly depressed. l9. Let us discuss this problem afterwards. 20. Towards the end of November he returned home.

6. Look through text A and tell a few words about it contents.

7. Read text A carefully.

TEXT A

FRANZ SCHUBERT

The revolutionary movement at the end of the 18th century promoted the development of culture. Many members of the middle classes grew very rich, enjoyed greater comfort and felt necessity to cultivate their minds. Naturally the arts responded to these new demands, music among them. The music of simple people appeared, but of townfolk, not of peasantry.

The great exponent of that kind of music is Franz Schubert. His greatness can be as impressive as any composer's, but he is never majestic, much less pompous: his work does not strike awe into the hearer, but engages his affectation. The chief impression it leaves is one of comfortable humanity of a world of humble citizens who enjoy the simple pleasures of life, including frequent excursions into the country.

Franz Schubert was born in a suburb of Vienna on January 31st 1797. (It is remarkable, by the way, that he is the only born Viennese among the masters who made the Austrian capital the world's musical metropolis for more than a century and a half: Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Bruckner, Brahms, Wolf). The composer's father was an official schoolmaster. The family was genuinely musical. The father played the cello. Franz showed uncommon gifts at the age of about six. He perfectly played the violin, viola and pianoforte. At the age of eleven he was admitted to the seminary which trained choristers. Soon he acted as deputy conductor. At thirteen he began to sketch various compositions. His first song “Hagar's Lament” followed in the spring of 1811. This is a landmark not only in his career, but in musical history, for songs set to German poetry had never yet formed one of the main categories of a great composer's work.

The first Symphony was finished in October 18l3 and an opera “The Devil’s Pleasaunce” as well as a Mass the following year.

Franz Schubert composed approximatelly 1250 works in all. A comparatively large number of songs was published in his lifetime. They were also frequently performed, and so were his quartets for male voices, a form of music then much favoured in Vienna. One of the great successes was the music to Helmine von Chezy's “Rosamunde”, produced at the Vien Theater in December 1823. The overture and other pieces enchanted all Vienna, but were afterwards mislaid and not recovered until Sir George Grove and Sullivan lighted on them in 1867. To the same year belongs the cycle of songs “The Fair Maid of Mill”, which was to be followed by its counterpart “The Winter Journey” four years later. Both contain some of Schubert's finest songs and both are connected stories of unhappy love, but set in the very different atmospheres of summer and winter. Between these two masterworks came others of different kinds: the captivating Octet and the lovely A Minor String Quartet in 1824, the songs from Walter Scott's “Lady of the Lake” in 1825 and the В flat major piano Trio and Shakespeare songs “Hark, hark, the lark” and “Who is Silvia?” in 1826.

It is more than likely that the popular fancies about Schubert's exceptional ill-luck in love have something to do with his two song-cycles about heartbroken lovers; but great artists have the imagination to understand many things they may not have actually experienced at their best or worst. As if to prove that, between the composition of the two parts of the tragic “Winter Journey” Schubert made a very happy summer trip in 1827, visiting the Pachler family at Graz, where he found the sincerest friendship. He was to go again, the following summer, but found he could not afford it, though a change would have done him good. Publishers now began to ask for his music, but made very shabby offers, and such works as the great C major Symphony and the E flat major Mass of 1828 could not even be offered to them with any chance of acceptance, towards the end of October 1828 he suffered from attacks of giddiness. On the 14th of November he took to his bed, greatly depressed. Soon afterwards he developed typhus and died on November 19th. In January 1829, had he lived, he would have been only thirty-two years of age. He had never heard his two greatest symphonic masterpieces, nor any of the last songs, which were published later under the collective and appropriate title of “Swan Song”.

Proper Names

Franz Schubert ['frxnts 'SHbq:t]

“Hagar’s Lament” ['hxgqz lq'ment] – «Жалоба Агари»

“The Devil’s Pleasaunce” [... 'plezqns] – «Увеселительный замок сатаны»

Helmine von Chezy [hel'minq fOn'tsezI]

Rosamunde ['rOzqmqnd]

George Grove ['dZLdZ 'grouv]

Arthur Sullivan ['a:Tq 'sAlivqn]

Walter Scott ['wLltq 'skOt]

Graz [gra:ts]