Tag Archives: Romanticism

Arachnophonia: Romantic Arias

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Editor’s note: Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.

All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.

Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student manager Esther (class of 2025) and features a CD collection of opera arias sung by tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Thanks, Esther!

Romantic Arias

Romantic Arias Jonas Kaufmann cd cover

If you frequent the music library, you may remember the question we had on our whiteboard last semester: do you listen to music when studying? If you do, this CD is something you should definitely check out.

Side note: the whiteboard questions are open for anyone to answer!

This CD is a collection of arias, or long accompanied songs for soloists, from a variety of romantic composers. The romantic era in music can usually be characterized by the introduction of chromatic harmonies and new chord progressions that “break” the rules of classical composition. They do not necessarily rely on resolving a melody or having a constant tempo throughout the piece. Romantic composers saw music as a medium to express human emotion and experience; it was seen as a way of communication.

Sung by my favorite tenor, this CD contains arias sung in Italian, French, and German. Jonas Kaufmann is a German operatic tenor noted for his versatility. You may remember seeing him as Don José in Carmen, but I personally became a fan after watching him in Massenet’s Werther. Check out this CD along with the CD players we have available for use in the library for your next study session!

Tenor Jonas Kaufmann

Parsons Playlists: Tchaikovsky

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Welcome back to Parsons Playlists! Today’s playlist is curated by Music Library student assistant Eli (class of 2024) and features music by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Tchaikovsky was unquestionably one of the greatest composers to walk the Earth. Even those who turn up their nose at ‘boring’ classical music can find something in Tchaikovsky’s massive repertoire. Here is a sampling of some of his less mainstream (but still masterpiece) works.

Portrait of composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Symphony No. 5 in E Minor, Op. 64: II. Andante cantabile

Marche slave, Op. 31, TH 45

Symphony No. 4 in F Minor, Op. 36: I. Andante sostenuto

Eugene Onegin (Lyrical scenes in three acts), Act 1: Introduction

Symphony No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 13 “Winter Dreams”: I. Allegro tranquillo

Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 “Pathétique”: I. Adagio

Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70, TH 118: I. Allegro con spirito

Here is a link to the whole playlist on YouTube: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU94rco57ZeyRH7Dyv29EsxGtmHRWgzCP

Arachnophonia: David Popper “40 Studies: High School of Cello Playing, opus 73”

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Editor’s note: Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.

All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.

Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student manager Brianna (class of 2023) and features a collection of studies for cello by Austrian composer David Popper (1843-1913. Thanks, Brianna!

David Popper
40 Studies: High School of Cello Playing, op. 73

David Popper, composer (1843-1913)

David Popper, composer (1843-1913)

I, like most young cellists, have a love-hate relationship with David Popper. Popper was a prominent composer of Romantic-era cello solo music in the 19th century. He wrote four concertos, although his most played solo piece is probably “Tarantella.” What some may not know is that in addition to these concert solo pieces, he wrote a book of etudes dedicated to strengthening cello technique – 40 Studies: High School of Cello Playing. As the description might give away, the music in this book is not meant for performance in a recital or concert series. These etudes focus on playing in different positions, frequent shifting, bow control, and much more, meaning some of them sound very strange and complicated to listeners. Some musicians consider mastery of these etudes (among other things) a hallmark of a professional cellist.

While playing through such a book may sound like every aspiring young cellist’s dream, many of them are harder to play than they appear on paper. Then, considering the book has 40 separate etudes each averaging about two pages, you can only imagine how much time and dedication mastering each and every one might take. It’s a wonderful resource – if you have the patience to spend countless hours on them.

Since I was first assigned an etude out of this book, I have struggled and fumbled my way through roughly a quarter of the 40 available to me until I ended up with something I was happy with. I can’t say that I got as much joy out of this type of practice as I have on recent solo pieces I have rehearsed, but I also must admit that playing through the etudes strengthened my playing more than I could have imagined. Thumb position used to be a region of the cello I never thought I would be able to wander into confidently, but after playing Etude No. 1 and 5, I feel stronger and enjoy going high on the instrument. If you are a cellist and don’t have a copy of this book in your library, consider picking up a copy from the Music Library!