MUS 101: Introduction to Music: 6-The Romantic Period (ca 1800-1900)

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist; his music is amongst the most performed of the classical repertoire and he is one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music. His works span the transition between the classical and romantic eras in classical music. His career has conventionally been divided into early, middle, and late periods. The "early" period in which he forged his craft, is typically seen to last until 1802. His "middle" period, (sometimes characterised as "heroic") shows an individual development from the "classical" styles of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, covers the years 1802 to 1812, during which he increasingly suffered from deafness. In the "late" period from 1812 to his death in 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression.

Beethoven was born in Bonn. His musical talent was obvious at an early age, and he was initially harshly and intensively taught by his father Johann van Beethoven. He was later taught by the composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe, under whose tuition he published his first work, a set of keyboard variations, in 1783. He found relief from a dysfunctional home life with the family of Helene von Breuning, whose children he loved, befriended and taught piano. At age 21, he moved to Vienna which subsequently became his base, and studied composition with Haydn. Beethoven then gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist.   (Wikipedia)

His works are primarily instrumental, piano, string quartets, and symphonies, but he also wrote one opera, ""Fidelio," one Catholic Mass, as well other vocal music. 

Beethoven continued the symphonic format taught to him Haydn and others, but extended its scope.  Let's first look at the famous first movement his Fifth Symphony in C Minor.  As is customary, it is in sonata allegro form.  Unlike the earlier Classical Era masters, he does not use balanced, symmetrical melodies, but instead uses the famous motive (small idea) of three short notes and a long note as a building-block throughout the movement, interweaving it with another theme later on.

The following video by conductor Gerard Schwartz discusses this.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7spdFe7_M_c

Now listen to the whole movement with graphic illustration of the parts. The sections occur at the following time marks:

• Exposition: 00:00
• Repeat of exposition: 1:33
• Development: 2:58
• Recapitulation: 4:17
• Coda: 5:54

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRgXUFnfKIY

Another notable piece, whose main theme is constantly quoted, is the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. It is unusual in that it uses chorus and solo interwoven with the orchestra.  Here a video with graphic view of the parts and translation of the text by the German poet Friedrich Schiller, known as the "Ode to Joy." 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljGMhDSSGFU

The lied (/liːd, liːt/, plural lieder /ˈliːdər/  German for "song") is a term in the German vernacular to describe setting poetry to classical music. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf or Richard Strauss. Among English speakers, however, "lied" is often used interchangeably with "art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love (Anon. 2014). (Wikipedia). 

Many of these songs , usually for piano and solo voice, targeted the home music market, with most of them being of varying degrees of difficulty.

Franz Peter Schubert (German: [ˈfʁant͡s ˈpeːtɐ ˈʃuːbɐt]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the ”Great” Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera Fierrabras (D. 796), the incidental music to the play Rosamunde (D. 797), and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911). (Wikipedia)

I wish to examine Schubert's "ErlKönig" (The Elf King), based on a poem by Goethe.  The collecting of fairytales, mythology, folk music, and folklore supplied material for the Romantics.  In this poem, the Elf King wants to steal the child--a common theme in Nordic and Celtic mythology.  Goethe had talked with a farmer who told him a hair-raising tale of seeing a father galloping with a screaming child on horseback--the child had been poisoned, and the father was seeking help.  Goether combined that image with the Erlköning tale to create a 4-minute miniature horror tale.  The continuous triple pattern in the piano simulates the horse's galloping--word painting. There are four characters in this song, all sung by the lone singer:

• The Narrator--middle vocal range
• The Father-lower vocal range
• The Boy-higher vocal range, and tense
• The Erl King-higher vocal range, smooth and enticing

All these elements of word painting combine in this drama.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZzIb_qqw2w

The German power couple of Robert Schumann  (1810 – 1856) and Clara Wieck Schumann (1819 –1896) were highly productive and influential composers and performers. Here are the songs they wrote for each other as weddindg presents in 1840.

Clara's  "Liebst du um Schoenheit" (if you love for beauty) is a  modified strophic form, like Erlkönig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KleocjaCuKI

This was Robert's wedding present to Clara--"Widmung"  (Dedication), sung here by the late, great German baritone, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NAu1mS2QsQ

You will note that the words are repeated at the end, but are not given exactly in the text here.

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy  (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music and chamber music. His best-known works include his overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, his mature Violin Concerto, and his String Octet. The melody for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is also his. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.

A grandson of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn was born into a prominent Jewish family. He was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptised as a Reformed Christian. Felix was recognised early as a musical prodigy, but his parents were cautious and did not seek to capitalise on his talent.  His older sister Fanny Mendelssohn Henzl  (1805-1847)  was also a child prodigy, pianist, and composer, analogous to the Mozart siblings.

Mendelssohn enjoyed early success in Germany, and revived interest in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, notably with his performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. He became well received in his travels throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist; his ten visits to Britain – during which many of his major works were premiered – form an important part of his adult career. His essentially conservative musical tastes set him apart from more adventurous musical contemporaries such as Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Charles-Valentin Alkan and Hector Berlioz. The Leipzig Conservatory, which he founded, became a bastion of this anti-radical outlook. After a long period of relative denigration due to changing musical tastes and antisemitism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, his creative originality has been re-evaluated. He is now among the most popular composers of the Romantic era. (Wikipedia).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEkcP8lZvZA

Wikipedia's summary of the piece is as follows:

The Overture in E major, Op. 21, was written by Mendelssohn at 17 years and 6 months old (it was finished on 6 August 1826).^[1] Contemporary music scholar George Grove called it "the greatest marvel of early maturity that the world has ever seen in music".^[2] It was written as a concert overture, not associated with any performance of the play. ....

While a romantic piece in atmosphere, the Overture incorporates many classical elements, being cast in sonata form and shaped by regular phrasings and harmonic transitions. The piece is also noted for its striking instrumental effects, such as the emulation of scampering 'fairy feet' at the beginning and the braying of Bottom as an ass ....

The overture begins with four chords in the winds. Following the first theme in the parallel minor (E minor) representing the dancing fairies, a transition (the royal music of the court of Athens) leads to a second theme, that of the lovers. This is followed by the braying of Bottom with the "hee-hawing" being evoked by the strings. A final group of themes, reminiscent of craftsmen and hunting calls, brings the exposition to a close. The fairies dominate most of the development section, while the Lover's theme is played in a minor key. The recapitulation begins with the same opening four chords in the winds, followed by the Fairies theme and the other section in the second theme, including Bottom's braying. The fairies return, and ultimately have the final word in the coda, just as in Shakespeare's play. The overture ends once again with the same opening four chords by the winds.

Louis-Hector Berlioz ^{[n 1]} (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer. His output includes orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy, choral pieces including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ, his three operas Benvenuto Cellini, Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict, and works of hybrid genres such as the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust.

The elder son of a provincial doctor, Berlioz was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession. His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with the conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize, the Prix de Rome, in 1830 but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire. Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence.

At the age of twenty-two Berlioz fell in love with the Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, and he pursued her obsessively until she finally accepted him seven years later. Their marriage was happy at first but eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique, in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout.  (Wikipedia)

Symphonie fantastique (Fantastic Symphony) is unusual, both for being a program piece, and because it has five movements rather the the usual four.

"Rêveries – Passions" (Reveries – Passions) – C minor/C major

Each movement depicts an episode in the protagonist's life that is described by Berlioz in the program notes to the 1845 score.^[4] These program notes are quoted in each section below.

 I. "Rêveries – Passions"  (Dreams-Passions)

he author imagines that a young musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer^[a] has called the vagueness of passions (vague des passions [fr]), sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her. By a strange anomaly, the beloved image never presents itself to the artist's mind without being associated with a musical idea, in which he recognizes a certain quality of passion, but endowed with the nobility and shyness which he credits to the object of his love.

This melodic image and its model keep haunting him ceaselessly like a double idée fixe. This explains the constant recurrence in all the movements of the symphony of the melody which launches the first allegro. The transitions from this state of dreamy melancholy, interrupted by occasional upsurges of aimless joy, to delirious passion, with its outbursts of fury and jealousy, its returns of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations – all this forms the subject of the first movement.

II. "Un bal" (A Ball)

he artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in life, in the tumult of a festive party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beautiful sights of nature, yet everywhere, whether in town or in the countryside, the beloved image keeps haunting him and throws his spirit into confusion.

III. "Scène aux champs"  (Scene in the Country)

ne evening in the countryside he hears two shepherds in the distance dialoguing with their ranz des vaches; this pastoral duet, the setting, the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind, some causes for hope that he has recently conceived, all conspire to restore to his heart an unaccustomed feeling of calm and to give to his thoughts a happier colouring. He broods on his loneliness, and hopes that soon he will no longer be on his own... But what if she betrayed him!... This mingled hope and fear, these ideas of happiness, disturbed by dark premonitions, form the subject of the adagio. At the end one of the shepherds resumes his ranz des vaches; the other one no longer answers. Distant sound of thunder... solitude... silence.

IV. "Marche au supplice"

Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four bars of the idée fixe reappear like a final thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow

V. "Songe d'une nuit du sabbat" (Vision of a Witches' Sabbath" 

He sees himself at a witches' sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath ... Roar of delight at her arrival ... She joins the diabolical orgy ... The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies Irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies Irae.

Here is a blow-by-blow description of the 5th movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVUAR8Nk8xQ

Frédéric François Chopin (1810 –1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation." (Wikipedia)

Poland had lost its independence in the early 19th century, carved up between Russia, Prussia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  One of manifestation of Polish identity that Chopin championed was the introduction of the Polish national dance, the mazurka into the concert repertoire

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2vfnA_1pjk

Chopin introduced rhythmic flexibility, called tempo rubato (robbed time) in which the musician speeds up and slow down to give speech-like expressiveness to the music.  Here is one of his famous mazurkas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1YFubxfXb0

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 –1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works. He spent most of his working career outside of the United States.

Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to an Ashkenazi Jewish businessman from London (Edward Gottschalk) and a French Creole mother (Aimée Marie Bruslé).^[2] He had six brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings by his father's biracial mistress.^[3] His family lived for a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in the Vieux Carré. Louis later moved in with relatives at 518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sally had both been born in Saint-Domingue (known later as Haiti). He was therefore exposed to a variety of musical traditions, and played the piano from an early age. He was soon recognized as a prodigy by the New Orleans bourgeois establishment, making his informal public debut in 1840 at the new St. Charles Hotel.

Only two years later, at the age of 13, Gottschalk left the United States and sailed to Europe, as he and his father realized a classical training was required to fulfill his musical ambitions. The Paris Conservatoire, however, rejected his application without hearing him, on the grounds of his nationality; Pierre Zimmerman, head of the piano faculty, commented that "America is a country of steam engines". Gottschalk eventually gained access to the musical establishment through family friends but the importance of early compositions like Bamboula (Danse Des Nègres) and La Savane cannot be understated as they established him as a genuinely American composer, and not a mere copycat of the European written tradition, a major artistic statement as they carried a legacy of slave music in a romantic music context, and as such they were also precursors of jazz. They still stand as the first musical examples of American creole musical culture, a mix of African-American and European traditions. After a concert at the Salle Pleyel, Frédéric Chopin remarked: "Give me your hand, my child; I predict that you will become the king of pianists." Franz Liszt and Charles-Valentin Alkan, too, recognised Gottschalk's extreme talent.

After Gottschalk returned to the United States in 1853, he traveled extensively; a sojourn in Cuba during 1854 was the beginning of a series of trips to Central and South America.^[5] Gottschalk also traveled to Puerto Rico after his Havana debut and at the start of his West Indian period. He was quite taken with the music he heard on the island, so much so that he composed a work, probably in 1857, entitled Souvenir de Porto Rico; Marche des gibaros, Op. 31 (RO250). "Gibaros" refers to the jíbaros, or Puerto Rican peasantry, and is an antiquated way of writing this name. The theme of the composition is a march tune which may be based on a Puerto Rican folk song form. (Wikipedia)  That folk song form is similar to the modern pachanga.   In part it is a theme and variations that allowed Gottschalk to show off his piano virtuosity--he was a showman!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVRdi2MArXs

Gottschalk was composing during a period in American history that saw the rise of popular music and theater.  Songs were 

debuted and spread through popular theater, and were market to middle-class consumers via sheet music to perform at home. Minstrel shows featured highly racist parodies of African Americans, with white performers often wearing blackface. The first great popular song writer in the US was Stephen Foster, who romanticized Southern plantation life. In his famos song, "The Camptown Races," he uses Afro-American dialect for comic purposes--highly racist fare for white audiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdZliSDhgXY

In Gottschalks piece "The Banjo," the plucking technique of the 5-string banjo is imitiated, with the Foster tune quoted at the end.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-h939MhHI

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian opera composer. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, and developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, whose works significantly influenced him.

In his early operas, Verdi demonstrated a sympathy with the Risorgimento movement which sought the unification of Italy. He also participated briefly as an elected politician. The chorus "Va, pensiero" from his early opera Nabucco (1842), and similar choruses in later operas, were much in the spirit of the unification movement, and the composer himself became esteemed as a representative of these ideals. An intensely private person, Verdi, however, did not seek to ingratiate himself with popular movements and as he became professionally successful was able to reduce his operatic workload and sought to establish himself as a landowner in his native region. He surprised the musical world by returning, after his success with the opera Aida (1871), with three late masterpieces: his Requiem (1874), and the operas Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893).

His operas remain extremely popular, especially the three peaks of his 'middle period': Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata, and the 2013 bicentenary of his birth was widely celebrated in broadcasts and performances.

Nationalism in the operas

Historians have debated how political Verdi's operas were. In particular, the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves (known as Va, pensiero) from the third act of the opera Nabucco was used an anthem for Italian patriots, who were seeking to unify their country and free it from foreign control in the years up to 1861 (the chorus's theme of exiles singing about their homeland, and its lines such as O mia patria, si bella e perduta / "O my country, so lovely and so lost" were thought to have resonated with many Italians).^[188] Beginning in Naples in 1859 and spreading throughout Italy, the slogan "Viva VERDI" was used as an acronym for Viva Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia (Long live Victor Emmanuel King of Italy), referring to Victor Emmanuel I.

La traviata (The Fallen Woman) is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La Dame aux camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils. The opera was originally titled Violetta, after the main character. It was first performed on 6 March 1853 at La Fenice opera house in Venice.

Act 1

The salon in Violetta's house

 

Scene 1: Party (attrib. Carl d'Unker)

Violetta Valéry, a famed courtesan, throws a lavish party at her Paris salon to celebrate her recovery from an illness. Gastone, a viscount, has brought with him a friend, Alfredo Germont, a young bourgeois from a provincial family who has long adored Violetta from afar. While walking to the salon, Gastone tells Violetta that Alfredo loves her, and that while she was ill, he came to her house every day. Alfredo joins them, admitting the truth of Gastone's remarks.

Baron Douphol, Violetta's current lover, waits nearby to escort her to the salon; once there, the Baron is asked to give a toast, but refuses, and the crowd turns to Alfredo, who agrees to sing a brindisi – a drinking song (Alfredo, Violetta, chorus: Libiamo ne' lieti calici – "Let's drink from the joyful cups").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZvgmpiQCcI

This is the beginning of an argument between Violetta and Alfredo.  He believes in true love, whereas she is, unknown to others, dying of tuberculosis. In the drinking song, the lines are drawn, and they continue later as Violetta angonizes whether to get involved or not. In the aria "Sempre libera." (Always free) she shows virtuosic abandon. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1C8_oyx0K4

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (/ˈvɑːɡnər/ VAHG-nər, German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]  22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung).

His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.

Here is the prelude to Tristan und Isolde.   Note the first chord and how it shifts in unexpected, unconventional ways (you only have to listen to the first few minutes to get the idea). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-qoaioG2UA

Racism and antisemitism

Wagner's hostile writings on Jews, including Jewishness in Music, corresponded to some existing trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century;^[246] however, despite his very public views on these themes, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters.^[247] There have been frequent suggestions that antisemitic stereotypes are represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of Alberich and Mime in the Ring, Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, and Klingsor in Parsifal are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not identified as such in the librettos of these operas.^{[248][n 21]} The topic of Wagner and the Jews is further complicated by allegations, which may have been credited by Wagner, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer.^[249]

Some biographers have noted that Wagner in his final years developed interest in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, notably Gobineau's belief that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races.^[250] According to Robert Gutman, this theme is reflected in the opera Parsifal.^[251] Other biographers (such as Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877;^[252] but he displayed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880.^[253]

 Music Drama and the Use of Leitmotiv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tDP-K1dQ-M (Starting at time mark 5:38)

In this example from the final act of Die Walküre (The Valkyries), Wotan (Odin in Norse) must condemn his daughter Brunhild, one of the Valkyries, maidens who take the souls of fallen warriors to Valhalla, because she has tried to save a warrior, Sigmund, but nevertheless failed.  He was going to put her into an enchanted sleep and let any make wake her.  Brunhilde begs him to make it harder to reach her, and so guarantee a true hero. Wotan says he will put enchanted fire around the stone on which she will sleep.  Only a man brave enough to brave the fire (incidentally carring the sword of fate)  can pass through those fires. 

Wotan then takes his spear, represented by a descending leitmotiv in the low brass, and calls upon Loge (Loki) ,who is also a god of fire,  to surround the sleeping Brunhilde.  We hear the fire motiv, with the tinkling high sound of flute and glockenspiel (metal barred xylophone).  This then becomes quieter, as the gentle magic sleep motiv plays in the strings.  Wotan sings the hero/sword motiv, stating the courage needed to pass the fire.  He turns away, and the act and opera end with the fire and sleep motives going.