Can anybody tell me if Strophic form can be classed as a stylistic characteristic of Viennese Classical Muisic?

Thanks!

No idea... What is it?

as I remember it, strophic means based on a "verse" pattern, like for instance in a song.

Hammerklavier, I'm not sure - I think of it more in relations to eg a Schubert song rather than typical in a broader sense. Memories of o level music here - strophic / durchkomponiert. Sorry - not much help !

In my studies with the OU, I don't recall the strophic form being part of the Viennese school. In fact, I don't think it was mentioned much until we studied the English folk songs.

As "strophic" means that the music stays the same throughout, I wouldn't have thought this would fit in with the modulations and key changes asociated with the Viennese school...

Not 100% sure though. I'll get back if I find out a bit more!

Are you doing a music course Hammerklavier? The only possible link I can think of to Viennese Classical Music is that the composers of the classical style - Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert all wrote songs or Lied (used in part of my MA) and I think all used strophic form where the music is repeated in each verse. They tried to vary each verse with different feelings, emotion, word-painting etc. I think the composer Wolf was important in using through-composed song form.

I think I've seen you at Chets Summer School - congratulations on your Grade 8 - a fantastic result (you put it on a thread somewhere). Not sure if I'm going this year or not - haven't decided yet but I hope to go to the EPTA conference in July.

All the best

BB

Thanks for all the replies so far! Yes...I am coming to the end of my one year course of study at the Kodaly Institute in Hungary.

The reason for my question is that I am writing an essay for my methodology class which has partly been based around teaching the Viennes classical stlye of music. I have so many notes and remember that strophic form was mentioned in the context of a Schubert song. I cannot recall exactly what was said about it but I think it has something to do with a song returning to a particular musical idea for example a chorus at the end of each verse.

I need to include it in my essay if it is a feature of the Viennese style.

Thanks for the replies so far and yes BusyBee, you will have seen me at Chets and will do so this year as well if you go!

As far as I know strophic simply means "in verses" - like in a hymn. Each verse follows the same linguistic pattern - that is has the same number of lines, the same number of stresses within each line and the same rhyming pattern. The term is really a literary term rather than a musical one, but of course if the words are set to music, the music has to follow their pattern. My rather old edition of the Concise Oxford dictionary
talks about lines recited during Greek dancing but the idea of "exactly corresponding in metre" is evidently important.

My Harrap French / English Dictionary translates "strophe" as "stanza" - which simly means "verse".

I assume you've heard the story about Dudley Moore and Kodaly?

For those the haven't, and don't know, Kodaly is apparently pronounced Cod-Eye.

The story goes that DM telephoned a music shop asking them to search for a particular song. The following week he phoned to ask if they had obtained it and a rather sniffy assistant hautily informed him that, so far as they had been able to ascertain, there was no such thing as Kodaly's Buttock's Pressing Song.

Surprised though he was, DM thought for a few seconds before realising the mistake: "No, no" he said, and then spelt it out word by word with great care "it's called Could - I - But - Express - In - Song"!

Just a thought ... could you be meaning rondo form? - in rondo form, a specific musical idea keeps coming round - sometimes in leider, but one very clear example is Rondo Alla Turca! Could be ABACADA etc. Hope that helps, and sorry if it doesn't!

Yes, I've heard this one before!!!

As others have already said, strophic form is where there are a number of verses and the music repeats more or less the same for each verse, e.g. Schubert's "Heidenroeslein". Yes, it occurs in the Viennese classical style because there are many song settings there, but it is not a particular characteristic as you will find it everywhere else over a long historical period. Rondo is something else.

I might have completely missed the train of thought on this one but wasn't Schubert predominantly a romantic as opposed to a classical composer?

My understanding of Lieder song was it only really became popular in the Romantic period particularly with the Nationalist composers and wasn't particularly associated with Classicists. Strophic form is associated with Lieder but it also comes up in quite a few other forms of music. In combination with various other features i think it could probably be classed as one of the characteristics of the period but only in certain forms.

Sorry yes - Schubert is of course a Romantic composer, and arguably the greatest composer of Lied. However, Mozart did write some verse songs, for example, 'Das Veilchen' (The Violet), as an early development of Lied. Apparently, Beethoven is said to have invented the song cycle.
Having checked my course work I think Haydn wrote some arrangments of English songs. I should have checked more thoroughly before sending my first post !

The above info is from the old OU course A314 Units 11-14 The Background to the Classical Era, (pp95-102) if anyone is interested in researching further.