Between the Barlines

Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today, we are going to continue talking about serialism, but we are going to address some other composers who latched on to Schoenberg’s new 12-tone technique. These composers did not only that, but also expanded this technique to crazy levels. We call this, total serialism. Some composers who embraced this were Milton Babbitt, Pierre Boulez, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. We will also talk about Luciano Berio in this episode.

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Music mentioned in this podcast:

...

Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are going to speak about another composer who was particularly influential in this post-tonal timeframe that we are going through - and that was Olivier Messiaen. I know I said in the last episode we would be chatting more about serialist composers and extensions of serialism, but I think it is important that we discuss Messiaen, as many of those composers studied with him.

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Music mentioned in this episode:

Quatuor pour la fin du Temps (Quartet for the...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today we have a fun episode where we are going to explore all about the composer Igor Stravinsky. I also have a special guest joining me, because I am currently in Toledo, OH where I just saw Donizetti’s Elixir of Love. Please welcome Rick Hale to the podcast!

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Music mentioned in the podcast:

Rite of Spring

Firebird

Petrushka

The Rake's Progress

Pulcinella

Re...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we move on to another genre of music that was developing in the 20th century; this was Neoclassicism. We are going to chat about specific traits of neoclassical music as well as composers who pioneered and shaped this style in today’s episode.

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are going to chat about the other two composers from the Second Viennese School in more depth; these composers are Alban Berg and Anton Webern. We know that Arnold Schoenberg was also a part of this group of composers, so if you want to learn more about him, I suggest you listen to the last two episodes! Berg and Webern were some of his first students who got to see serialism and 12-tone technique from its inception.

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Music mentioned in...

Welcome to Between the Barlines! It’s MUSIC THEORY FRIDAY! This is the first one we’ve had in a while, but I really wanted to talk about the topic we have on the docket today more in-depth. This topic is dodecaphony or the 12-tone technique. Our basic definition for this is a compositional system where all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are treated equally.

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Link to analysis of Dallapiccola piece: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HFhyGzp2qQ1QlbaFuZNxneACAZpLnADa/view?usp=share_link

Music mentioned/play...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we have another episode about a fascinating composer who was responsible for yet again changing the history of music; this composer is Arnold Schoenberg. We will learn about his compositional style, techniques, and music in today’s episode.

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Music mentioned in today's podcast:

Vier Lieder, Op. 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zR3niG27Xyw

Serenade, Op. 24: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG6wiQnp6pQ

Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16, No. 3 "Fa...

Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! Today we are finally moving on from Modernism and will be chatting about the avant-garde. In the years prior to WW1, we were seeing a change from modernism into what we call the avant-garde. This was basically any composer who was really straying from convention.

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I cannot wait to finally finish up our chat about modernism today! Today, we’re diving into how British composers responded to modernism, why it sounded different from its European counterparts, and how it reshaped the nation’s musical identity.

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! We have only two more short episodes talking about modernism; today we will speak about Eastern European Modernism, and next time we will talk about modernism happening in Britain. We have two very important composers to chat about today: Leoš Janáček and Jean Sibelius.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I hope you are enjoying season 6 so far! If I haven’t mentioned this before, the 20th century is going to split into 2 seasons; it is way too dense to just have 20 episodes and stop talking about it. Today, we are going to talk about modernism in the US and also address the nationalist movement that it brought. Today’s episode is going to be a little bit shorter because we’ve also chatted about some of these composers and features in our very first modernism episode, which was episode 3.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are exploring Spanish nationalism - which was essentially their modernism movement. In the early 20th century, Spain was creating its own modern musical identity. Spanish modernism is tradition meeting innovation: think of ancient folk sounds colliding with impressionism, neoclassicism, and the avant-garde.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we’ll explore what French modernism is, why it emerged, and how Debussy and Ravel each forged unique yet complementary paths into modern music.

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Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! Today, we’re diving into the bold and sometimes controversial world of Richard Strauss. He was a composer who pushed late Romantic music to its expressive limits while standing on the threshold of modernism. Strauss was a master of orchestral color, psychological drama, and sonic spectacle, and his music spans three major genres: tone poems, opera, and art song.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we talking about one of the most memorable composers in history: Gustav Mahler. Check out below for links to the music I mentioned in today's podcast! Most of these recordings are conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

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Music mentioned in this podcast:

Des Knaben Wunderhorn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXVDmBmk1ss

Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi6ZjkXFlcU

Symphony No. 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA7BPdZ...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I have a very fun episode planned for us today where we will take a hiatus from talking about strict classical music and explore the formation of jazz.

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Welcome to Between the Barlines! We learned in our first episode a little about modernism, but to refresh your memory about this term, MODERNISM in music is less a style than a mindset. Composers questioned traditionalism in tonality, form, rhythm, and timbre. Romantic emotional excess gave way to experimentation and abstraction. Key modernist traits include:

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Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! I am excited to talk about today’s episode topic because I feel like it is especially pertinent to the music being created in the USA during this part of the century. As we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA this year, I want to draw your attention to something I mentioned last season; that is, if you think about it, our country was really shaped by foreigners in many senses of the word “shape.” It wasn’t until about the 20th century where America embodied nationalism and created their own voice...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Happy New Year! This season, we are exploring the 20th century up until 1950. Today, we will talk about Modernism and technology's impact on music during the 20th century.

Welcome back to Between the Barlines. We’ve made it to the last episode of season 5! Thanks for joining me this season. I’m excited about next season, because we will be exploring the first half of the 20th century. This is also where our musical history becomes extremely dense - I’m going to split the 20th century into at least 2 seasons, so be on the lookout! Today, we are going to chat about the transition from the 19th century into the 20th century to wrap up the season.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are going to continue our chat about nationalism, but this time we will be focusing on American nationalism in the late 19th century.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we’re going to speak about England in the 19th century. As you may have noticed, we really haven’t spoken too much about this country in our episodes since maybe the renaissance era. I think that is especially poignant in today’s episode because we can finally understand why - it took a while, but eventually England was able to find its own national voice, much like other countries that we’ve spoken about at the end of the 19th century. This is the topic of the English Musical Renaissance.

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we turn our attention to 19th-century Russia, which at this time was a country bursting with folk traditions, vast landscapes, and an identity that hadn’t yet found its place on the classical stage. That is until five composers decided to change everything. They called themselves The Mighty Handful. We know them today as The Mighty Five: Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Alexander Borodin.

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Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today, we have a very interesting discussion about hybrid styles. You might be wondering what this means, and I think it actually revolves around one question: What happens when composers merge national traditions, older musical forms, and new harmonic languages all at once? Composers mentioned as hybrid composers: Franck, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Chausson, D'Indy, Dvořák, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, and Borodin.

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Music mentioned in this podcast:

Franck Symphony in D mino...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today we finally stop talk about opera and switch gears to speak strictly about what was happening in the late 19th century in Germany. Some of our most popular and renowned composers are coming from this time frame, like Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Wolf, and Strauss.

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Music mentioned in this episode:

Brahms Symphonies 1-4

Brahms Violin Concerto

Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem

Brahms Violin Sonatas 1-3

Brahms Clarinet Sonatas 1 & 2

Wolf Mörike L...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today, we’re discussing the changes happening in the late 19th century. This was the era of French lyricism, Italian verismo, and the beginnings of Russian opera. By the 1870s and 1880s, audiences wanted something new. The grandeur of earlier Romantic opera was there, but people yearned for realism and emotional immediacy. The result was an operatic world more intimate, visceral, and recognizably human than ever before.

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Operas mentioned in this episode:

Gounod...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! We are almost done with our episodes addressing opera in the 19th century. Today’s episode is one that I have been looking forward to the most, because as of last year, Giacomo Puccini broke into my top five favorite composers, specifically because of his operas Tosca and Madama Butterfly that we did at Pittsburgh Opera. I’m really excited to talk to you about him today and encourage you to take a listen to some of the operas listed in the episode notes for an extended treat. In this episode, we will also...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! We are going to continue our chat on 19th century opera today with another innovator of opera, Giuseppe Verdi. Or as we refer to him sometimes in the opera world - Mean Joe Green!! Throughout Verdi’s lifetime, he wrote 28 operas, all of which continued the innovations that we saw at the beginning of the century with bel canto singing. Today we will see what these traits and innovations were as well as touch on many of his operas.

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Operas mentioned in th...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am excited again to continue our chat about 19th century opera, with today’s focus being on the works of Richard Wagner. We will learn that Wagner wasn’t just a composer; he was a dramatist, philosopher, and provocateur whose ideas reshaped what opera could be. His music is monumental and his legacy is deeply complicated. TW: discussing antisemitism, Hitler, Third Reich.

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Operas mentioned in this episode:

The Flying Dutchman

Tannhäuser

Lohengrin

Der R...

Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today, we are going to continue our chat about 19th century opera by taking a closer look at the Bel Canto era of singing and operatic composition. We will be diving deeper into the works of the main three bel canto composers: Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gaetano Donizetti.

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Operas mentioned in this episode:

Rossini - The Barber of Seville

Rossini - La Cenerentola

Rossini - Guillaume Tell

Bellini...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Opera became more than entertainment during this time; it became a mirror of political upheaval, national identity, and human passion. From the grandeur of Italian bel canto to the sweeping psychological landscapes of Wagner, 19th-century opera redefined what it meant to tell stories through music.

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Operas mentioned in this episode:

Rossini -The Barber of Seville

Bellini - Norma,

Donizetti - Lucia di Lammermoor

Verdi - Nabucco

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we’re exploring programmatic music—music that tells a story, paints a picture, or captures an emotion beyond the notes on the page.

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Music used and mentioned in this episode:

Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique idée fixe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTWbh4ffwGY

Smetana - Má vlast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl0-Pdo0vi8

Strauss - Don Juan: https://youtu.be/XG4uBRBMdzY?si=qGI8lya-loOJm5Bd

Strauss - Till E...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! We have somewhat of a baseline episode today; what I mean by that is we are going to touch on a few composers and what they did for orchestral and chamber music in the 19th century. These are composers like Berlioz, Liszt, Brahms, Wagner and more. Let’s get started!

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Music mentioned in this episode:

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IqnVCc-Yqo

Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique: https://ww...

Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! I am very very excited to introduce today’s episode to you because it is all about choral music! This is a genre that is very near and dear to my heart, and this repertoire coupled with renaissance choral music is some of my favorite to study AND sing! When most of us think of the Romantic period, we imagine the piano works of Chopin or the symphonies of Tchaikovsky. But alongside those grand orchestral gestures, the human voice became one of the most powerful vessels of Romantic emotion.

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Welcome Back to Between the Barlines! Today, we’re diving into the dazzling world of Franz Liszt, who was a superstar pianist, composer, and one of the most transformative figures in all of classical music. From virtuosic piano showpieces to profound symphonic poems, Liszt’s influence echoes far beyond his own century.

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Music mentioned in this episode:

Transcendental Études: https://youtu.be/1O4h0AapdbQ?si=lwkUEV4PoUK90Qop

Paganini Études: https://youtu.be/eQrPEKrECOM?si=vGjnSnZlZBuofgES

Grandes études de concert: https://youtu.b...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are going to speak about Fryderyk Chopin, a virtuoso performer, composer, and pianist. Let’s get started!

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Music mentioned in this podcast:

Piano Concerto in e minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_x_QY1P5c

Piano Concerto in f minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3r4EgwLqMM

Nocturne in c-sharp minor, Op. posth.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_ST3hzMsVE

Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am very excited about today’s episode, because we will be learning about two of my favorite 19th century German composers! These two people are Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel.

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Music mentioned in this episode:

C. Schumann - Piano Concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xol1DKul984

C. Schumann - Piano Trio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JyeWA1ZD8g

C. Schumann - Sechs Lieder, Op. 13: https://www.yo...

Welcome to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! Today, we are going to talk about piano music in the 19th century. I will also mention some important composers, but we have some time this season to talk more in depth about these composers, so I will only be mentioning key points in this episode.

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Music mentioned in this episode:

R. Schumann - Carnaval, op. 9: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_KszUWZ3Ac

C. Schumann...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! I am your host, Dr. Maeve Berry! As promised really for the last 2 episodes, I would be extremely remiss if I didn’t speak about poetry, and specifically German poetry, from the 19th century. Many of the texts of famous German lieder from this time are due to the very important figures, of which we are about to chat about. The great poets of the German Romantic movement inspired composers like Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms to create songs that gave music to emotion, language, and imagination in a way the world had ne...

Welcome back to Between the Barlines! Today, we are going to discover all that Franz Schubert has to offer! From songs to larger works like symphonies and masses, it really all does start from his innate ability to compose song-like melodies.

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Music mentioned in this podcast:

Schwanengesang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym2O4hixvLE

Symphony No. 8 – The “Unfinished”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tisvEpblig

Symphony No. 9 – The “Great” C Major: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip06DEeY_U8