It's all about the classical music composers and their works from the last 400 years and much more about music. Hier erfahren Sie alles über die klassischen Komponisten und ihre Meisterwerke der letzten vierhundert Jahre und vieles mehr über Klassische Musik.
Music has the power to tug at the heartstrings, and evoking emotion is the main purpose of music – whether it’s joy or sadness, excitement or meditation. A certain melody or line of a song, a falling phrase, the delayed gratification of a resolved harmony – all these factors make music interesting, exciting, calming, pleasurable and moving.
Tears and chills – or “tingles” – on hearing music are a physiological response which activates the parasympathetic nervous system, as well as the reward-related brain regions of the brain. Studies have shown that around 25% of the population experience this reaction to music. But it’s much more than a pure physiological response. Classical music in particular steers a mysterious path through our senses, triggering unexpected and powerful emotional responses, which sometimes result in tears – and not just tears of sadness.
Tears flow spontaneously in response to a release of tension, perhaps at the end of a particularly engrossing performance. Certain pieces of music can remind us of past events, experiences and people, triggering memories and associated emotions. At other times, we may feel tearfully awestruck in the face of the greatness or sheer beauty of the music.
This last response has a name – Stendhal Syndrome – and while the syndrome is more commonly associated with art, it can be applied equally to the powerful emotional reaction which music provokes.
A psychosomatic disorder, Stendhal Syndrome, or hyperkulturemia, causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, sweating, disorientation, fainting, tears and confusion when someone is looking at artwork (or hearing a piece of music) with which he or she connects emotionally on a profound level. The phenomenon, also called ‘Florence Syndrome’, is named after the French author Marie-Henri Beyle , who wrote under the pen-name of ‘Stendhal’. While visiting the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, he became overcome with emotion and noted his reactions:
“I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty … I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations … Everything spoke so vividly to my soul.”
While there is some debate as to whether the syndrome actually exists, there is no doubt that music (and art and literature) can have a very profound effect on our emotional responses.
Certain pieces are well-known tear-jerkers, including:
Police broke up a concert in Moscow which featured music by the Ukrainian composer, Valentin Silvestrov.
A concert in Moscow by Russian pianist, Alexei Lubimov, and Russian soprano, Yana Ivanilova, was broken up by police last night.
The performance, titled ‘Songs against the times’, featured works by Franz Schubert, and Ukrainian composer, Valentin Silvestrov.
Police arrived at the Moscow cultural centre, DK Rassvet, to break up the concert. Almost every member of the audience had their phones out to record the unfolding situation as police entered the room. The policemen walked onstage to stand next to Luminov as he played the piano, and told him to stop.
However, Lubimov, who was playing the final bars of Schubert’s Impromptu No.2 Op.90, defied the authorities’ wishes and continued playing.
As he played the final chords, the 77-year-old pianist was met with loud cheers and a standing ovation from the crowd, who had stayed seated as the police tried to usher them out prior to the end of the musician’s performance.
Authorities were allegedly called to the concert venue following an anonymous tip-off of a bomb threat. However, unofficial reports suggest that the programming of the concert may be the real reason authorities arrived to break up the recital.
Lubimov is a good friend of Ukrainian composer, Silvestrov, who recently became a refugee, fleeing to Berlin after the invasion of Ukraine.
Silvestrov’s music has echoed around the world since the war broke out, in particular his composition, ‘Prayer for Ukraine’ which has become a symbol of solidarity performed by multiple internationally renowned orchestras and choirs. This work was one of the centrepieces of the Metropolitan Opera’s benefit concert for Ukraine last month.
During the course of his musical career, Silvestrov’s music was periodically banned by the former Soviet Union for “being too modern”. The composer also stood up to the former communist state by walking out of a composers meeting to protest the Soviet Union invasion of Czechoslovakia, during the late 1960s.
According to various posts on social media, a member of the audience may have actually alerted the police to come and shut down the concert after a composition by Silvestrov was performed.
While this may be the case, what happened at the concert after the audience turned their cameras off is still currently unknown. What we do know, is the bravery it took for Lubimov to not only programme Silvestrov, but to finish performing his music in defiance of the Russian authorities.
We break down the classical music heard in the new Batman film, and the voices behind the soundtrack...
The first sound audiences hear when sitting down to watch DC’s new big screen comic book offering, The Batman, is the opening of Schubert’s Ave Maria.
The track, performed by Tiffin Boys’ Choir, a world-renowned school choir from London, UK, can be heard accompanying someone’s heavy breathing as the first scene of the film plays out after an unusually silent film credits opening.
Ave Maria is heard three more times in the film, and Schubert’s melody is continuously weaved into the soundtrack in a twisted villainous arrangement.
But why this piece of music, what’s its significance to the story line, and what themes does the song represent? We take a closer look at this musical prayer and the other music featured in the new Batman film.
Warning: Spoilers ahead...
What is the meaning behind ‘Ave Maria’ in The Batman?
Robert Pattinson stars as the title role in The Batman alongside actor and musician Paul Dano, who portrays the film’s main villain, the Riddler. Director, Matt Reeves, wrote the part of the Riddler for the new Batman film with Dano in mind to play the part.
In the comic books, the Riddler is depicted as one of the most notorious criminal masterminds in Gotham City, and is most associated with his obsession with riddles, puzzles, and death traps, which assert his intelligence over both Batman, and the police force.
In this new film, one puzzle the audience has to solve is the association of Schubert’s Ave Maria with this character.
The villain’s main theme is even a twisted minor key version of Schubert’s melody, giving the song even more play-time than its already three-time film appearance.
The theme uses the first six-note pattern of Schubert’s melody, but instead of rising to the major third on the fourth note of the phrase, the Riddler’s theme only rises to the minor third, creating an uneasy sonic atmosphere, before a falling semitone leads us back to the phrase’s starting note.
The unedited version of Schubert’s Ave Maria is heard three times in The Batman.
Firstly in the opening scene, while the Riddler watches his first victim, Mayor Don Mitchell Jr., and his family through a window. Secondly, in archive footage found in the city’s old orphanage, the song is performed by a children’s choir while Batman’s father (Thomas Wayne) gives an electoral speech. Finally, the song is sung by the Riddler himself while locked up in Arkham State Hospital.
While it’s not uncommon for film villains to sing their own themes (see Die Hard), the Riddler’s reason for singing this song is more one of vengeance, a theme that weaves through The Batman.
The Riddler reveals that he was an orphan in his ‘face off’ with Batman in Arkham State Hospital, and thanks to pinboard footage we see during an earlier scene, we can place the Riddler as a child in the children’s choir that sings Ave Maria.
This piece of music is subsequently suggested to be very important to the Riddler’s character, as it was the song he and his peers at the orphanage sang the day soon-to-be mayor, Thomas Wayne, announced the ‘renewal fund’; a billion pound investment into the city, part of which would go to the orphanage.
Wayne however, was murdered a week later, meaning the money promised to the orphanage from the renewal fund was never invested, and the orphaned children had to continue living in squalor while the criminals and corrupt police in the city profited.
What does Ave Maria represent in The Batman?
The Riddler’s children’s choir sings Ave Maria to Schubert’s melody, one of the Latin prayer’s most common modern-day settings. The lyrics for Ave Maria (Hail Mary in English), revere Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, in the Christian religion.
Schubert’s melody and the Latin prayer text is a popular choice for funerals, making the repetitive appearance of the song throughout the film an eerie one.
The song is also visually associated with death throughout the film, with the first time it plays preempting the death of Mayor Don Mitchell Jr., and the second time preempting the death of Thomas Wayne.
Batman (aka Bruce Wayne) attends the Mayor’s funeral. Picture: Warner Bros. Pictures
There are various settings of the Latin prayer, and it is poignant that the music team chose the Schubert melody for the film, due to the original lyrics associated with this music.
Although today, the Schubert melody is most commonly sung with the Latin prayer lyrics, the German composer originally wrote the tune as part of a setting of seven songs from Walter Scott's popular epic poem The Lady of the Lake.
This melody was from song number six, Ellens dritter Gesang (Ellen’s third song), and the original German lyrics were actually a call to the Virgin Mary for help.
Schubert’s lyrics plead, “Thou canst hear though from the wild; Thou canst save amid despair. Safe may we sleep beneath thy care, Though banish'd, outcast and reviled.”
In Arkham State Hospital, the Riddler recounts in the orphanage, 30 children would sleep in one room, and every winter a baby would die because it was so cold, and the institution was unable to properly care for the infants.
The despair and wish for safety during sleep in Schubert’s lyrics are echoed by the Riddler in his description of his childhood, and perhaps explain why this melody was chosen to soundtrack his character.
What other classical music is heard in The Batman?
The Tiffin Boys’ Choir also perform Henry Purcell’s Dido’s Lament (When I am laid), a song about preparing for death, which is heard during the funeral of Mayor Don Mitchell Jr. As well as appearing on the soundtrack, the choir appear on screen in white chorister robes during the scene.
The school choir have lent their voices to multiple other Hollywood films before including The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) and Dumbo (2019).
Another famous choral piece is heard as Batman races back to his penthouse to save his butler, Alfred, played by Andy Serkis, from a bomb threat.
In a dramatic scene, where the action unfolds under the crescendoing soundtrack, the piece playing is Fauré’s Requiem (Requiem Op. 48 7. In Paradisum (I)). Yet again, this is another classical piece of music often played at funerals, and has the viewer concerned that Alfred will die due to the death-associated music playing.
Although Alfred ends up surviving, it is an intensely emotional scene, and pulls at the viewers heartstrings as the huge orchestral and choral melody blocks out all other sound and makes you think you’re about to witness a main character death.
Earlier in the film, we also hear Alfred listening to classical music as he works on trying to break one of the Riddler’s cyphers. As he decodes, the music playing is the second movement of Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto No. 5.
Who wrote the music in The Batman?
Away from the featured classical music (and the Nirvana track Something in the Way) the score for the film was composed by Michael Giacchino.
Giacchino told Collider in 2020 that he felt “total freedom to do whatever [he wanted]” when it came to music for the film.
It was clear that director, and Giacchino’s friend, Matt Reeves trusted the composer with the task, as the two have worked on multiple films together such as Cloverfield (2008), Let Me In (2010), and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014).
Giacchino’s mostly minimalistic score, uses mainly strings and brass to emphasise the plot’s overarching theme of vengeance.
Like the Riddler’s theme, The Batman’s theme also centres in on a short phrase. The Batman’s theme is made up of a four-beat phrase, with just two notes, and is a repetitive and somewhat unusually simple theme for the composer.
However, Giacchino’s score uses dynamics and texture to create a theme out of this limited phrase. The music lifts from a mysterious, low four-note pattern to an unstoppable orchestral force incorporating brass and percussion to illustrate the power of the film’s hero.
Arguably the most developed theme, melody-wise, comes in the form of the second protagonist of the film, Catwoman. Her theme is a slinky syncopated smooth shared strings and solo piano melody. The lounge piano style music reflects Catwoman’s job as a hostess at a criminal club, while the stealthy strings illustrate her cat-like tendencies.
The soundtrack was released on 25 February 2022, just over a week before the film, and fans across multiple platforms, from the music alone, were already declaring the movie to be a “masterpiece”, and that this was Giacchino’s best score yet.
With the composer’s award-winning track record, critics are already suggesting The Batman could be on the cards for an Oscars nomination for Best Original Score in 2023.
On 19 November 1828, Franz Schubert died at the age of 31 in his brother’s flat in Vienna. He had been seriously ill for some time, with the primary symptoms of syphilis presenting themselves as early as December 1822. Premonitions of death consistently haunted Schubert following his diagnosis, and he wrote to a close friend, “I feel myself to be the most unhappy and wretched creature in the world. Imagine a man whose health will never be right again, a man whose most brilliant hopes have perished, to whom love and friendship have nothing to offer but pain, whose enthusiasm for all things beautiful is gone, and I ask you, is he not a miserable, unhappy being? Each night, on retiring to bed, I hope I may not wake again, and each morning but recalls yesterday’s grief.” His physical and mental health oscillated between hope and despair, and Schubert took to bed with a fever on 5 November. Suffering from tertiary syphilis and the effects of highly toxic mercury treatment, Schubert passed away at 3pm on 19 November. His final and horribly painful days in November 1828 included bouts of delirium, ceaseless singing, and moments of great lucidity when he was working on his compositions. Astonishingly, with the period between the spring and autumn of 1828, Schubert composed his last major compositions for solo piano, the sonatas D 958, 959 and 960.
Portrait of Schubert by 3D Sculptor Hadi Karimi
Schubert’s three last sonatas are “cyclically interconnected by diverse structural, harmonic and melodic elements tying together all movements in each sonata, as well as the three sonatas, respectively; consequently, they are often regarded as a trilogy. By including specific allusions to his earlier compositions, Schubert appears to have crafted three highly personal and autobiographical works. Scholars and researchers have even suggested that the sonatas follow specific psychological narratives. In musical and structural terms, all three sonatas share a common dramatic arc, “making considerable use of cyclic motives and tonal relationships, and weave specific musical ideas into the developing narrative.” Each sonata unfolds in four movements, with the exposition of the opening movements exploring two or three thematic and tonal areas. Themes are irregularly constructed and digress into far-flung harmonic regions. Development sections violently plunge the listener into new tonal areas, and a new theme based “on a melodic fragment is presented over recurrent rhythmic figuration, and then developed, undergoing successive transformations.” The opening movements of all three sonatas resolve all internal conflicts and conclude in quiet peacefulness.”
Schubert at the Piano – Gustav Klimt (1899)
The slow movements of all three sonatas are cast in tonally remote keys, and feature two contrasting sections in key and character. In his third movements, Schubert references dances, including “playful figurations for the right hand and abrupt changes in register.” The themes of Schubert’s Finale movements are characterized by “long passages of melody accompanied by relentless flowing rhythms.” Structural and musical similarities aside, the last Schubert sonatas illustrate powerfully emotional states with the music weaving in and out of dreams and memories. Given the proximity of these sonatas to Schubert’s death, they have been read against a background of a psychological or biographical narrative.
Schubert’s death mask
It has been suggested that the sonatas “portray a protagonist going through successive stages of alienation, banishment, exile, and eventual homecoming, or self-assertion. Discrete tonalities or tonal strata, appearing in complete musical segregation from one another at the beginning of each sonata, suggest contrasting psychological states, such as reality and dream, home and exile, etc.; these conflicts are further deepened in the ensuing slow movements. Once these contrasts are resolved at the finale by intensive musical integration and the gradual transition from one tonality to the next, a sense of reconciliation, of acceptance and homecoming, is invoked.” It is entirely plausible that the sonatas do convey Schubert’s feelings of loneliness and alienation, and that the process of composition became a kind of psychological therapy. And if you are looking for a depressing postscript, the sonatas D 958, 959 and 960 were not even published until ten years after Schubert’s death, and they were greatly neglected in the 19th century.
Franz Schubert is primarily known for his piano sonatas and chamber music, and deservedly so. Yet his most famous single work is a symphony. Well, a partial symphony anyway: his “Unfinished Symphony.”
Schubert isn’t the only composer to leave a symphony unfinished. Symphonies are complicated, long form pieces after all. A few other examples of unfinished symphonies include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 10, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 10. Even Schubert has others unfinished symphonies, Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 10.
Even so, when people talk about the “Unfinished Symphony” without further clarification, they only mean one symphony: Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor (D.759). Having this unofficial title for the work is helpful since it’s also sometimes listed as Schubert’s seventh symphony. Most refer to it as his eighth symphony to avoid confusion (ha!) with Schubert’s other unfinished Symphony No. 7. This other symphony was unfinished, but more complete than the Unfinished Symphony in that this other composition had parts of all four movements sketched out by Schubert. In contrast, the Unfinished Symphony has only two complete movements, a scherzo of a third comprised of only 30 bars of full orchestration and 112 bars in short score, and nothing of a fourth movement.
Composed in 1822 – premiered in 1865
Schubert composed what we have of the Unfinished Symphony in 1822, when he was just 25 years old. He was awarded an honorary diploma from the Graz Music Society in 1823. As a thank you, he dedicated the piece to the society and sent the two completed movements to Anselm Hüttenbrenner, Schubert’s good friend and member of the society. For some reason, Schubert’s good friend held on to the pages and never told anyone about them until 42 years later in 1865.
Hüttenbrenner gave the work to friend and conductor Johann von Herbeck. The first two movements, all that Schubert had given Hüttenbrenner, were premiered on December 7, 1865 in a concert given by the Society of Music Friends in Vienna. Herbeck decided to “finish” the work and followed the two movements with Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 in D major. While closing the work with the third symphony never took, the public immediately appreciated what existed of the Unfinished Symphony. The two movements were first published in 1867.
The scherzo was discovered among Schubert’s papers after his early death just five years after he shared the first two movements with Hüttenbrenner.
Theories behind the “unfinishing”
So this all begs the question: Why is the symphony unfinished?
The short answer is that no one knows, but of course there are many theories.
The infamously absent-minded composer was badly organized so he did finish it (mostly), he just never put the paperwork together. Under this theory, it’s believed that another work by Schubert was originally composed as the fourth movement. The work was used as incidental music he wrote for a play; an Entr’acte piece, also in B minor, that’s similar in style and instrumentation as the Unfinished. This theory is also passively supported by the fact there’s evidence that pages were ripped out of the manuscript Schubert gave Hüttenbrenner.
Schubert was preoccupied. In 1822, he was also composing what he considered his most complicated work to perform, the Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 (D.760), a four-movement solo piano composition also known as the Wanderer Fantasy. This was year he contracted syphilis, which would eventually kill him in 1828.
Musically, there was nowhere else to take the first two movements. The Unfinished Symphony is considered by many to be the first Romantic symphony because of its dramatic development and lyrical melodies. It’s unusual in that both movements are written in triple meter. The first movement is in ¾ time and the second movement is in 3/8 time. Even the scherzo of the third movement is written in ¾ time. This rare meter composition for a symphony coupled with what many feel is the scherzo’s poor quality, especially when compared with the sheer paired perfection of the first two movements, have led some to conclude Schubert simply had nothing more to add. He quit while he was ahead.
Another theory, related to Schubert’s absent-mindedness, is that he simply forgot about it. He sent what he’d completed of the composition to his friend and then moved on to another work. In his correspondence and writings, we see Schubert regularly discuss other symphonies he wrote, but never the Unfinished.
Making news in the 21st century
Since Schubert’s early death, there have been numerous attempts by composers to finish his Unfinished Symphony. On the 100th anniversary of his death in 1928, Columbia Records even held a worldwide contest for the best composition finishing it.
However, a recent discovery may change everything we know about this work. A six-page fragment of a musical score, written in Schubert’s hand, was found in 2017 in the attic of house undergoing renovations. The house, in Vienna, is near the Schubert Museum, which is housed in Schubert’s final home.
The fragment, which has been verified by Schubert scholars, fills out the third movement orchestration, ending it in D major, the relative major of the work’s home key of B minor.
We may find that the Unfinished is more accurately called the “Yet Undiscovered.”
Born on January 31, 1797, in Himmelpfortgrund,
Austria, Franz Peter Schubert, the son of a schoolmaster, received a
thorough musical education and won a scholarship to boarding school.
Although he was never rich, the composer's work gained recognition and
popularity, noted for bridging classical and romantic composition. He
died in 1828 in Vienna, Austria.
Quotes
"A mind that is too easy hides a heart that is too heavy."
Born on January 31, 1797, in Himmelpfortgrund, Austria, Franz
Peter Schubert demonstrated an early gift for music. As a child, his
talents included an ability to play the piano, violin and organ. He was
also an excellent singer.
Franz was the fourth surviving son of Franz Theodor Schubert, a
schoolmaster, and his wife, Elisabeth, a homemaker. His family
cultivated Schubert's love of music. His father and older brother,
Ignaz, both instructed Schubert early in his musical life.
Eventually, Schubert enrolled at the Stadtkonvikt, which trained
young vocalists so they could one day sing at the chapel of the Imperial
Court, and in 1808 he earned a scholarship that awarded him a spot in
the court's chapel choir. His educators at the Stadtkonvikt included
Wenzel Ruzicka, the imperial court organist, and, later, the esteemed
composer Antonio Salieri,
who lauded Schubert as a musical genius.
Schubert played the violin in
the students' orchestra, was quickly promoted to leader, and conducted
in Ruzicka's absence. He also attended choir practice and, with his
fellow pupils, practiced chamber music and piano playing.
In 1812, however, Schubert's voice broke, forcing him to leave the
college, though he did continue his instruction with Antonio Salieri for
three more years. In 1814, under pressure from his family, Schubert
enrolled at a teacher's training college in Vienna and took a job as an
assistant at his father's school.
Schubert worked as a schoolmaster for the next four years.
But he also continued to compose music. In fact, between 1813 and 1815,
Schubert proved to be a prolific songwriter. By 1814, the young composer
had written a number of piano pieces, and had produced string quartets,
a symphony, and a three-act opera.
Over the next year, his output included two additional symphonies and
two of his first Lieds, "Gretchen am Spinnrade" and "Erlkönig."
Schubert is, in fact, largely credited with creating the German Lied.
Boosted by a wealth of late 18th-century lyric poetry and the
development of the piano, Schubert tapped the poetry of giants like Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, showing the world the possibility of representing their works in musical form.
In 1818, Schubert, who had not only found a welcome audience for his
music but had grown tired of teaching, left education to pursue music
full-time. His decision was sparked in part by the first public
performance of one of his works, the "Italian Overture in C Major," on
March 1, 1818, in Vienna.
The decision to leave school teaching seems to have ushered in a new
wave of creativity in the young composer. That summer he completed a
string of material, including piano duets "Variations on a French Song
in E minor" and the "Sonata in B Flat Major," as well as several dances
and songs.
Franz Schubert is considered the last of the classical composers and one of the first romantic ones. Schubert's music is notable for its melody and harmony.
Composer Franz Schubert received a thorough musical education and won a scholarship to boarding school. Although he was never rich, the composer's work gained recognition and popularity, noted for bridging classical and romantic composition. He died in 1828 in Vienna, Austria.
Franz Peter Schubert demonstrated an early gift for music. As a child, his talents included an ability to play the piano, violin and organ. He was also an excellent singer.
Franz was the fourth surviving son of Franz Theodor Schubert, a schoolmaster, and his wife, Elisabeth, a homemaker. His family cultivated Schubert's love of music. His father and older brother, Ignaz, both instructed Schubert early in his musical life.
Eventually, Schubert enrolled at the Stadtkonvikt, which trained young vocalists so they could one day sing at the chapel of the Imperial Court, and in 1808 he earned a scholarship that awarded him a spot in the court's chapel choir. His educators at the Stadtkonvikt included Wenzel Ruzicka, the imperial court organist, and, later, the esteemed composer Antonio Salieri, who lauded Schubert as a musical genius. Schubert played the violin in the students' orchestra, was quickly promoted to leader, and conducted in Ruzicka's absence. He also attended choir practice and, with his fellow pupils, practiced chamber music and piano playing.
In 1812, however, Schubert's voice broke, forcing him to leave the college, though he did continue his instruction with Antonio Salieri for three more years. In 1814, under pressure from his family, Schubert enrolled at a teacher's training college in Vienna and took a job as an assistant at his father's school.
Schubert worked as a schoolmaster for the next four years. But he also continued to compose music. In fact, between 1813 and 1815, Schubert proved to be a prolific songwriter. By 1814, the young composer had written a number of piano pieces, and had produced string quartets, a symphony, and a three-act opera.
Music has the power to tug at the heartstrings, and evoking emotion is the main purpose of music – whether it’s joy or sadness, excitement or meditation. A certain melody or line of a song, a falling phrase, the delayed gratification of a resolved harmony – all these factors make music interesting, exciting, calming, pleasurable and moving.
