Kinderkuchen History

What is this?

2007-12-01T07:38:00.000-08:00

This is something I wrote while studying for my orals in the 1970's. It isn't a book--it's a conceptual framework. To be of any particular use to you you will need to fill in the framework with the details from your own musical experience.

The concept is that music falls into styles, and these styles have a beginning, a middle and an end. The end may trail off for centuries, but a style is at its end when it no longer continues to evolve and is replaced by newer styles.

The styles fall into only somewhat arbitrary chronological periods. I don't take credit for inventing the style periods--that goes to Dr. Hans Tischler. I only take credit for the actual words--most of them anyway. The chapters through Beethoven are based in part on notes from Dr. Tischler's classes.

Because it was written thirty years ago, a chapter is missing, and I find that I am too old and lazy to write it. Some of the musical examples are not coming over. I will try to fix later. Contents are covered by copyright. Click on the November arrow to see an index.

1950 – 1975 Boulez and Stockhausen

2007-11-10T12:28:00.001-08:00

1950-53 Korean War

1953 Death of Stalin

1963 Kennedy assassinated

1965-73 U.S. War in Vietnam

1974 Nixon resigns

As the musical avant garde advanced, many composers refused to follow, and the gap separating traditionalists and experimenters widened.

Conservatives

Opera

Twentieth-century tonality flourished in the opera. Most conservative were the neo-romantic operas of Menotti, The Consul (1950), Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951) and The Saint of Bleeker Street (1954) and Samuel Barber (1910-1981), Vanessa (1958) and Anthony and Cleopatra (1966). Neo-classic operas included Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress (1951), Hindemith's Harmonie der Welt (1951) and Poulenc's important Les dialogues des Carmlites (1955). Other tonal operas were Douglas Moore's (1893-1969) The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956), Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage (1955) and Britten's Billy Budd (1951), Turn of the Screw (1954), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1961) and Death in Venice (1973), the next to the last with an important role for countertenor.

Choral music

Choral music included Britten's War Requiem (1962), Hindemith's Madrigals (1958) and Mass (1963), Poulenc's Gloria (1959) and Stravinsky's Mass (1951).

Symphony

Shostakovich's masterpiece was Symphony No. 10 (1953). His symphonies continued in a more propagandistic vein until No. 15 (1971). Others were Tippett's No. 2 (1957) and No. 3 (1970).

Serialists

Serialism split into two camps: (1) traditional serialists (including the converts from neo-classicism, Stravinsky, Copland and Sessions) who used Schoenberg's system and (2) pan-serialists who, following Webern's example, broadened the concept of nonperiodicity to include all aspects of composition.

Choral Music

Twelve-tone choral works were Stravinsky's Canticum Sacrum (1956), Threni (1958) and Requiem Canticles (1966) and Dallapiccola's Canti di liberazione (1955).

Vocal

Other vocal works included Dallapiccola's Goethe Lieder (1953), Stravinsky's dance-drama The Flood (1961-2), his cantata Abraham and Isaac (1962) and Roger Sessions' (1896-1985) opera Montezuma (1947-62).

Instrumental

Instrumental works included Sessions' Violin Sonata (1953) and symphonies 3-8, and Copland's Piano Quartet (1950) and Connotations for Orchestra (1962).

Pan-Serialism

Messiaen's experiments with rhythm gradually led to Mode de valeurs et d'intensit (1949) for piano which established scales of pitch, duration, loudness and attack, but was not twelve-tone. A burst of interest in total control followed, including Pierre Boulez' (1925- ) Structures I (1951) for two pianos and Karlheinz Stockhausen's (1928- ) Kreuzspiel (1951) for oboe, bass clarinet, piano and percussion and Punkte (1952) for orchestra. The effect of pan-serial works is one of discontinuous points of sound. The masterwork is Le Marteau sans maitre (1954, revised 1957) containing songs for contralto and instrumental movements in a more relaxed style by Boulez.

Avant-Garde

Electronic Music

In Paris in 1948 Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) began musique concrète which consisted of recorded natural sounds altered electronically (echo, etc.) and arranged on a multi-track tape. The chief work was Symphony for One Man (1949) by Schaeffer and Pierre Henry (1927- ). Varèse's Déserts (1953) for winds, percussion and electronic sounds and Poème électronique (1958) for the Brussels World Fair were classics of the form. Stockhausen contributed Telemusik (1966) made up of national anthems.

The electronic studio in Cologne (from 1951) concerned itself with electronically generated sounds, as in Stockhausen's Studie I (1953). His Gesang der Jünglinge (1956) used both types of material, as did Visage (1961) by Luciano Berio (1925-2003) in Milan and Philomel (1964) by Milton Babbitt (1916- ) at Columbia University.

Working independently of the Europeans, Babbitt developed his own system of pan-serialism in Three Compositions for Piano (1948). When the first RCA synthesizer was installed at Columbia in 1959, he used it to achieve complete control of his system, as in Ensemble for Synthesizer (1962-4). Moog came in 1964.

Aleatory Music (from Alea, Latin for dice)

Chance or indeterminacy in musical composition was introduced in Cage's Music of Changes (1951) for piano, where decisions were made by coin tossing operations from the I Ching. Imaginary Landscape 4 (1951) was a precisely composed piece for twelve ordinary radios; Music for Piano 21 (1952) made notes of paper imperfections; and Yannis Xenakis' (1922-2001) Metastasis (1953-4) created patterns from mathematical probability theory. The extreme was reached in Cage's 4'33" (1954) where the composer provided only a time frame for whatever occurred in the environment.

Post-Serialism

From the mid 50's composers moved away from the absolute control of pan-serialism to grant performers certain controlled choices and away from concern for non-periodicity to interest in color and density. Stockhausen's Klavierstücke XI (1956) allowed the pianist to choose the order of the composed bits. Earle Brown's (1926-2002) Twenty-Five Pages Pli selon pli (1953) may be played by from one to 25 pianos in any order. Boulez' (1960) for soprano and orchestra included small scale choices. The use of graphic notation, Brown's December 1952, Cage's Fontana Mix (1958) and Stockhausen's Zyklus (1959), left their ultimate interpretation to the performer.

Stockhausen serialized indeterminacy with a scale of control ranging from complete control to extreme variability in Momente (1958) where he also serialized the comprehensibility of the text. New colors included choral whispering, babbling and talking as well as clapping, banging and foot-shuffling. Sound for dramatic effect, including quarter tones, tone clusters, chant and choral sound effects, was characteristic of the Polish school led by Krzysztof Penderecki (1933- ), especially Psalms of David (1958), St. Luke Passion (1967) and his opera Die Teufel von Loudun (1969)

1930 – 1950 Webern and Neo-Classicism

2007-11-10T12:26:00.001-08:00

1933 Roosevelt and Hitler took office

1936 Spanish Civil War; La Jeune France (Messiaen, Jolivet, Daniel-Lesur, Baudrier)

1939-45 World War II

Neo-Classicists

While the neo-classic movement began with imitations of 18^th century works, in its mature phase it stood for cool objectivity and formal balance. The new dissonance, rhythmic freedom and vivid orchestral techniques were utilized in a more integrated, conservative style. Emphasis rather than chord function created a new tonality.

Symphony

Vaughan-Williams continued his series of symphonies with No. 4 (1935), No. 5 (1943), No. 6 (1948), Sinfonia Antarctica (1953), No. 8 (1956) and No. 9 (1957). The ideals of socialist realism were shown in symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75). The best of his first nine was No. 5 (1937) which achieved lasting fame; also No. 6 (1939). No. 7 "Leningrad" (1941) was exploited for war-time propaganda. Stravinsky composed symphonies without development in Symphony in C (1940) and Symphony in Three Movements (1945). Americans who wrote symphonies were Roy Harris (1898-1990), Walter Piston (1894-1976) and Aaron Copland (1900-1990).

Orchestral music

Orchestral music also included Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1937), Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis (1944) and Prokofiev's Leutenant Kije (1934).

Chamber Music

Bartok's quartets ended with No. 5 (1934) and No. 6 (1939) which used parallel quarter tones.

Concerto

Concertos provided an entry to the concert hall for Bartok in his Second Piano (1938), Violin (1938), Third Piano (1945) and Two Piano (1938) Concertos, Stravinsky's Violin (1931), Dumbarton Oaks (1938), Ebony (1945) and Basle (1946) Concertos.

A modern concept is the concerto for orchestra, an attempt to revive the concerto grosso, including Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (1944) and Concerto for Double String Orchestra (1939) by Michael Tippett (1905-1998).

Ballet

Ballet shifted to America in Copland's Billy the Kid (1938), Rodeo (1943) and Appalachian Spring (1945) and Russia in Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet (1940) and Cinderella (1945).

Piano

A monument of neo-classicism was Hindemith's Ludus tonalis 1943), a set of twelve fugues. Bartok's Mikrokosmos (1926-37) was six graded volumes for pedagogical use.

Opera

(1) An American school was established in the 30's with Emperor Jones (1933) by Louis Gruenberg (1884-1964), Howard Hanson's (1896-1981) Merry Mount (1934), Virgil Thomson's (1896-1989) Four Saints in Three Acts (1934) and Mother of us all (1947) and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1935). Amelia Goes to the Ball (1937) and The Medium (1946) by Gian Carlo Menotti (1911- ) were in a neo-romantic style.

(2) English opera continued with Vaughan-Williams' Riders to the Sea (1937) and Benjamin Britten's (1913-76) Peter Grimes (1945).

(3) Russian opera featured Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (1934).

(4) German neo-classic operas were Hindemith's Mathis der Maler (1938), also arranged as a symphony, and Carl Orff's (1895-1982) Der Mond (1939), Die Kluge (1943) and Antigone (1949).

Choral Music

Often in a simpler idiom, choral music included Stravinsky's important Symphony of Psalms (1930), Bartok's Cantata Profana (1930), Orff's Carmina Burana (1936), Britten's Ceremony of Carols (1942) and Ernest Bloch's (1880-1959) Hebrew Sacred Service (1934). Poulenc turned to liturgical music in his Mass (1937), Motets (1939) and Salve Regina (1941).

Song

English songs included Britten's Serenade (1943) and Holy Sonnets of John Donne (1945).

French song included Poulenc's Banalités (1940) and C (1943), the orchestral song cycle Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (1932) by Ravel and Oliver Messiaen's (1908-1992) Poèmes pour Mi (1936).

Serialists

Orchestra

Though he adoped twelve-tone technique in 1924, in his Symphony for small Orchestra, Op. 21 (1928) Anton Webern entered a new era of control. His style

(a) held rigidly to the twelve-tone system without exception,

(b) favored symmetrical rows,

(c) used the discontinuous instrumentation of Klangfarbenmelodie, emphasized with equally discontinuous dynamics and articulation, as a basic style element to clarify motives and set them off from their context (see his orchestration of a fugue from Bach's Musical Offering, 1935),

(d) used irregular rhythms, and

(e) canon and strict symmetrical forms.

Other works were his Variations for Orchestra, Op. 30 (1940) and Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra (1927-8).

Concerto

Concertos included Schoenberg's Violin (1936), Piano (1942), Berg Violin (1935) and Webern Concerto, Op. 24 (1934).

Chamber Music

Both Webern, Op. 28 (1938), and Schoenberg, 4^th Quartet (1936), composed serial string quartets.

Opera

Important operas were Schoenberg's one-act Von Heute auf Morgen (1930) and Moses und Aron (2 acts composed 1930-2, produced 1954) which was based entirely on one row and used Sprechstimme for Moses; Berg's Lulu (Acts I & II 1937, Act III 1979) which was unfinished at his death (Act III was suppressed by his widow); Ernst Krenek's (1900-1991) Karl V (1933). The Italian Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-75) in Il Prigioniero (1950) adapted Italian lyricism to expressionist style.

Choral works

Choral music included Webern's Das Augelicht (1935), Cantata 1 (1940) and Cantata 2 (1943).

Avant-Garde

Quarter tones reached a climax of development in The Mothers (1931), an opera by Alois Hába (1893-1972).

Electronic instruments

The electronic instruments thérémin from c. 1920, ondes Martenot from 1928 and trautonium from 1930, all named for their inventors, originally produced one fluctuating pitch controlled by hand movements or strings. Ondes had an alternate keyboard with fixed pitches. Hindemith, Milhaud, Varèse, (Equatorial B, 1934), Jolivet, R. Strauss, Messiaen and his pupil Pierre Boulez (1925- ) all composed for one or more of these instruments.

Percussion

Percussion was combined with ondes in the quasi-gamelan orchestra of Messiaen's Turangalila-symphonie (1948) which also showed his rhythmic experiments, begun in Quartet for the End of Time (1941) for violin, clarinet, cello and piano. From c. 1943 John Cage's (1912-1992) pieces for prepared piano created a one man percussion ensemble.

1910 – 1930 Stravinsky and Schoenberg

2007-11-10T12:24:00.001-08:00

1915-18     World War I
1917         Russian Revolution
1918         Jazz heard in Paris
1920         Les Six (Tailleferro, Durey, Auric, Milhaud, Honneger, Poulenc, sponsor Cocteau)
1924         Stalin to power in Russia

This generation must be divided into two parts:

(1) the first decade of experimentation, including the atonal phase of expressionism and Stravinsky's early successes, and

(2) the second decade in which order was re-emphasized in the twelve-tone system of Schoenberg and the neo-classicism of Stravinsky.

Experimentation

Ballet

The Ballet Russe (1909-29) of Sergei Diaghilev opened in Paris with Dances from Prince Igor by Borodin and quickly became an important showcase for all types of modern music, especially works by Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). In his Le Sacred du printemps (1913) rhythm, emphasized with dissonant polychords, replaced modulation as the primary means of musical expression. Other early ballets by Stravinsky were Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911) and L'Histoire du Soldat (1918). Satie's shockingly commonplace Parade (1917) provided a memorable scandal.

Ives

Charles Ives (1874-1954) composing in America experimented with polytonality, atonality and polyrhythm in his A Symphony: Holidays (1913) and Three Places in New England (1914). He published his 114 Songs in 1922, lumping together experimental and conservative pieces. He stopped composing in the early 1920's.

Piano

A new percussive use of the piano was heard in Bela Bartok's (1881-1945) complex, driving rhythms and dissonant polychords of Allegro barbaro (1911). Tone clusters, played by the forearm, were introduced in 1912 by Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Ives used a board in his Concord Sonata (1915); he tuned two pianos a quarter-tone apart in 1923.

Expressionist atonal phase

The atonal phase of expressionism lasted from c. 1907 to 1922. In an attempt to reach the extremes of emotional expression, c. 1907 Schoenberg in Vienna began to write music characterized by

(a) no tonal center,

(b) extreme dissonance indication extreme emotional expression,

(d) an absence of development resulting in very short movements,

(e) Sprechstimme, melodic speech used only by Schoenberg, and

(f) a new orchestration, Klangfarbenmelodie, in which tone color varied as often as pitch and rhythm.

Atonality was anticipated in Schoenberg's string sextet Verklärte Nacht (1899). His important atonal works included the piano pieces Op. 11 (1908), the Second String Quartet (1907) with soprano, the song cycle Das Buch der hängenden Gärten (1908) and the most important work of his middle period, Pierrot Lunaire (1912), a song cycle for instruments and Sprechstimme. Atonal works of Anton Webern (1883-1945) were Six Bagatelles for String Quartet (1913) and Five Pieces for Orchestra (1913).

Expressionist Opera

Extreme emotion characterized Schoenberg's monodrama Erwartung (1909) and Alban Berg's (1885-1935) more popular Wozzeck (1925).

Consolidation

Neo-classicism

Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) is considered the spiritual father of neo-classicism, especially in his essay Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music (1907) and his open letter New Classicism (1920) and the Bachian Fantasia (1910) for piano.

Neo-classicism is considered to begin with the ballet Pulcinella (1920) by Stravinsky, a parodistic re-orchestration of pieces attributed to Pergolesi, but Sergei Prokofiev's (1891-1953) Classical Symphony (1918), a Mozart parody, and Ravel's Le tombeau de Couperin (1914-17) for piano anticipated the movement. After the loss of tonality and modulation as the goal of composition, composers turned to music of the eighteenth century for models.

Chamber music

Important in establishing neo-classicism were Stravinsky's Octet for Winds (1923) and Paul Hindemith's (1895-1963) Kammermusik, OP. 36 (1924-5) and String Quartet No. 4 (1922). Rhythmic dynamism characterized the early quartets of Bartok, No. 1 (1908), No. 2 (1917). He experimented with odd sonorities, harmonics, col legno and glissandi in combination in No. 3 (1927) and No. 4 (1928).

Neoclassical Opera

Neoclassical opera was established with Stravinsky's Mavra (1922), styled an opera buffa. Others were Darius Milhaud's (1892-1974) Les Euménides (1924) and other operas, Hindemith's Cardillac (1926) and Neues vom Tage (1929), Prokofiev's Love of Three Oranges (1921), Kurt Weill's (1900-50) Three Penny Opera (1928) and the opera-oratorios King David (1923) by Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) and Oedipus Rex (1927) by Stravinsky.

Percussion Ensemble

Both romantic and impressionist orchestration were attacked by Luigi Russolo (1885-1947) and the Futurists in their 1914 concert using 19 noisemakers. George Antheil's (1900-59) Ballet Mécanique (1926) used eight pianos, eight xylophones and assorted noisemakers. Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) experimented with sonority in all his works, especially Amérique (1921) with two sirens and 21 percussion, Hyperprism (1923), Intégales (1925) and the all percussion Ionisation (1931).

Expressionist Twelve-Tone Phase

Expressionist Twelve-Tone Phase (1923-45) added to the earlier style the use of (g) serialism, or twelve-tone row (dodecaphony), a fixed series of all twelve chromatic tones used as a basis for compositions. As long as the intervals of the original row (O) remained the same, the composer could transpose a pitch to any octave, invert the series (I), reverse (R) or both (RI) and transpose all four of these to any other starting pitch. The purposes of the system were to ensure that all the semi-tones were used equally throughout a composition to avoid establishing any one of them as a tonic while setting up a characteristic harmonic idiom for a piece through fixed tonal relationships. The intervals chosen for the row significantly determined the degree of dissonance in a resulting composition. The row could but didn't necessarily provide thematic material.

The twelve-tone system was introduced in the last movement of Schoenberg's Five Piano Pieces, OP. 23 (1923) and used throughout his Serenade, Op. 24 (1923) for instruments and bass voice, and Piano suite, Op. 25 (1925). Berg's Lyric Suite (1926) for string quartet was a romantic adaptation of the system.

Conservatives

Neo-romantic Opera

Puccini continued with La Fanciulla del West (1910), Trittico (1918) and Turandot (1926).

The later operas of Richard Strauss, on librettos by Hugo von Hofmansthal, retreated to an older style reminiscent of Johann Strauss, including Der Rosenkavalier (1911) and Ariadne auf Naxos (1912). His last opera in this style was Capriccio (1942).

Czech Nationalist Opera

A 1916 performance in Prague of Jenufa (1903) by Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) revived the Czech nationalist school. Folk elements and Moravian speech inflections in recitative were features of his style; also The Makropulos Case (1925).

English Opera

English opera used folk-like material in Hugh the Drover (1928) and Sir John in Love (1929) by Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958).

Song

Vocal chamber music was a hallmark of modernism. For solo voice and instrumental ensemble (no standard arrangement), important works were Vaughan-Williams' On Wenlock Edge (1909), Francis Poulenc's (1899-1063) Le Bestiaire (1919), Ravel's Chansons madécasses (1926) and Hindemith's Die junge Magd (1922). Das Marienleben (1923) by Hindemith, a conventional cycle with piano, was completely revised and reissued in 1948.

Choral Music

Choral music by the nationalists included Zoltan Kodaly's (1882-1867) Psalmus hungaricus (1923), Gustav Holst's (1874-1934) Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda (1908-12) and Vaughan-Williams' Mass in G minor (1922).

Ballet

All branches of the musical world provided scores for Diaghilev's Ballet Russe, including the impressionist ballets Jeux (1914) by Debussy, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé (1912) and Manuel de Falla's (1876-1946) El Amor Brujo (1915) and Three-Cornered Hat (1919). Richard Strauss composed Josephslegende (1914), and Milhaud introduced jazz rhythms and harmonies in his La Création du Monde (1923). Ravel's Bolero (1928) and Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin (1926) were introduced by other companies.

Symphonic Poem

Impressionist symphonic poem repertoire continued in Promethius (1911) by Scriabin, Nights in the Garden of Spain (1916) by de Falla and Fountains of Rome (1917) and Pines of Rome (1924) by Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936).

Symphony

Vaughan-Williams was influenced by his study of native English melodies in works which were diatonic, though not strictly tonal, including A London Symphony (1914) and Pastoral Symphony (1921); also Holst's suite The Planets (1916).

Concerto

Important piano concertos were Bartok's No. 1 (1926) and Prokofiev's No. 2 (1914) and No. 3 (1917).

American Jazz

Blues

Blues consisted of a slow lament in major with flatted thirds and sevenths for expression and progressions of dominant seventh chords. Important were W.C. Handy's (1873-1958) Memphis Blues (1909) and St. Louis Blues (1914) and the pianist Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton (1885-1941).

Jazz

From New Orleans jazz style combined the rhythm of ragtime with the flatted thirds and harmony of blues and played it on an instrumental ensemble or jazz band. George Gershwin (1898-1937) brought jazz to the concert hall; Rhapsody in Blue (1924).

1890 – 1910 Strauss and Debussy

2007-11-10T12:22:00.001-08:00

1898         Spanish-American War
1899         Boer War
1901-1910     Edward VII, King of England

Style polarized around Wagner (neo-romantics, including Strauss, Mahler, Wolf, Scriabin, and the nationalists: Sibelius in Finland, Elgar in England, Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korsakov in Russia, et.al.) and Debussy (impressionists, including Ravel, Roussel, Delius, Loeffler and Dukas).

Impressionists

The first big break with German Romanticism came in the works of Claude Debussy (1862-1918) whose harmonic idiom included

(a) unprepared and unresolved dissonances,

(b) frequent use of pedal point and ostinato,

(d) pentatonic and whole-tone scales, and

(e) avoidance of the leading tone.

These devices served to blur tonality and to emphasize chordal color over harmonic function in deliberate contrast to neo-romantic style.

Orchestral Music

Impressionistic style included

(a) emphasis on woodwinds, muted brass and harp,

(b) wordless choruses (Debussy's Nocturnes, 1899, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, 1912, Roussel's Evocations, 1912),

(d) vague, irregular rhythm and

(e) descriptive titles.

The major works were

(1) symphonic poems, Debussy's Prelude à l'apres-midi d'un faune (1894) and the more realistic Sorcerer's Apprentice (1897) of Paul Dukas (1865-1835),

(2) groups of symphonic poems, Debussy's La Mer (1905) and Images pour orchestre (1906), and

(3) suites, Maurice Ravel's (1875-1837) Rapsodie espagnol (1907).

French Opera

Pelléas et Mélisande (1902) by Debussy set a symbolist play by Maeterlinck to uniquely suitable impressionist music with extended orchestral interludes and recitative which imitated French speech patterns. Other operas were the realistic Louise (1900) by Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956), Thais (1894) by Massenet, and Revel's L'Heure espagnole (1910).

French Song

Impressionism was represented by Debussy's Fete galantes (1892, 1904), Chanson de Bilitis (1897), Ravel's Histoire Naturelles (1906) and his orchestral song cycle Shéhérazade (1903). Faure's important cycles in an older style were La Bonne Chanson (1892-3) and La Chanson d'Eve (1907).

Chamber Music

Both Debussy, (1893) and Ravel (1903) wrote string quartets.

Piano Music

Descriptive titles which set a mood were important in Debussy's Estampes (1903), Images I (1905), II (1907) and Preludes I (1910) and II (1913), and Ravel's Jeux d'eau (1901) and Miroirs (1905). Eric Satie's (1866-1925) Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear (1903) and Dried-up Embryos (1913) ridiculed these impressionist titles.

Neo-Romantics

Expression through tonality and modulation, begun by Haydn, reached its final phase in works characterized by extremes of chromaticism and free modulation, enormous orchestras, emotional realism and the long surging line.

Symphonic Poem

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) used both philosophical programs, Tod und Verklärung (1889) and Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), and descriptive programs, Don Juan (1899), Till Eulenspiegel (1895), Don Quixote (1897), Ein Heldenleben (1898), Sinfonia Domestica (1903) and Alpensymphonie (1915). His strongest feature was the virtuosic use of the orchestra.

Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) also composed a number of symphonic poems based on the Finnish national epic, Finlandia (1899).

Symphony

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) also excelled at virtuosic orchestration in his ten symphonies, including No. 2 "Resurrection" (1895), No. 4 (1901) and No. 8 "of a Thousand" (1910). He typically included orchestral songs (Nos. 2, 3, and 4), augmented his often huge orchestra with chorus (Nos. 2, 3, and 8), used folk-like melodies and varied the number of movements. Early programs were later suppressed. Sibelius' most important symphonies were No. 2 (1902) and No. 4 (1911).

Orchestral Variations

Unlike Brahms, orchestral variations in this generation did not retain the structure in each variation. These were Vincent D'Indy's (1851-1931) Istar Variations (1896) and Edward Elgar's (1857-1934) Enigma Variations (1899).

Piano music

The limits of romantic piano idiom were reached in the ten sonatas of Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) and the preludes, Op. 3, No. 2 (1892), Op. 23 (1904) and Op. 32 (1910), and Piano Concertos No. 2 (1901) and No. 3 (1909) of Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943).

Orchestral Song Cycle

Closely related to his symphonies in style and structure were Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883-84), Kindertotenlieder (1902) and Das Lied von der Erde (1908) for tenor and contralto.

Lied

The new generation began composing songs in the 1880's and included Mahler, Strauss (composing 1882-1901), and Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) who published his songs in volumes by a single poet: Mörike (1888), Eichendorff (1888), Goethe (1889), Spanisches Liederbuch (1890), Italienische Liederbuch (1891, '96) and Michaelangelo (1897).

German Opera

Wagnerian principles of continuous music and use of leitmotives were found in the dissonant and dramatically violent Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909) by Strauss.

Italian Opera

Verismo was the operatic version of literary realism, shown in the use of naturalistic recitative, the disappearance of coloratura and commonplace, often violent subject matter. The operas were Cavalleria rusticana (1890) by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), I Pagliacci (1892) by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1858-1919), and Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900) and Madame Butterfly (1904) by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924).

Russian Opera

Russian opera continued in Sadko (1897) and Le Coq d'or (1909) by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Choral Music

Important choral works were Elgar's oratorio Dream of Gerontius (1900) and Guerrelieder (1901), a cantata by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951).

American Jazz

Ragtime for piano by Scott Joplin (1868-1917) flourished c. 1897-1910 with an upbeat tempo and syncopated right hand, including "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899) and his opera Treemonisha (one performance in 1915).

1870 – 1890 Brahms and Tchaikovsky

2007-11-10T12:18:00.001-08:00

1870 Franco-Prussian War

1871-1940 French Third Republic

1888-1918 Kaiser Wilhelm II, Germany

Vocal Music

Italian Opera

Operas of Verdi's old age, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1892), had his best librettos, by Arrigo Boito (1842-1918) who also wrote the librettos for Amilcare Ponchielli's (1834-86) La Gioconda (1876) and his own Mefistofele (1868).

French Opera

The division into grand opera (recitative) and opèra-comique (spoken dialogue) eventually served only to identify the two main Paris opera houses. The first use of literary realism in opera was in Carmen (1875) by Georges Bizet (1828-75). Other sentimental operas were Samson and Delilah (1877) by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921), The Tales of Hoffman (1881) by Offenbach, and Herodiade (1881), Manon (1884) and Werther (1892) by Jules Massenet (1842-1912).

German Opera and Operetta

Wagner's music dramas concluded with Parsifal (1882). The most successful Wagnerian imitation was the fairy tale opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921).

The waltz and polka were featured in the operettas of Johann Strauss the Younger (1825-99), including Die Fledermaus (1874) and Der Zigeunerbaron (1885).

English Operetta

The operettas of Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) with librettos by Sir William Gilbert emphasized political satire, including Trial by Jury (1875), H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1880), The Mikado (1885) and The Gondoliers (1889).

Choral Music

Liturgical works with solos, chorus and orchestra were Bruckner's Te Deum (1884), Gounod's St. Cecilia Mass (1885) and the contrasting Requiem Masses of Verdi and Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924).

Verdi's Requiem (1874) was a choral opera with typically operatic arias and orchestration and a bombastic "Dies Irae". Fauré's Requiem (1887) omitted the "Dies Irae" entirely, added the graveside prayer at the end and generally emphasized quiet comfort.

Oratorios were César Franck's (1822-90) Beatitudes (1879) and Gounod's Redemption (1882). Brahms continued the romantic cantata in his Rhapsody (1870) for alto and male chorus, Schicksalslied (1871) and Nänie (1881).

Lied

Brahms composed Lieder throughout his career, beginning with "Liebestreu" (1853) and ending with Vier ernste Gesänge (1896) on texts from the Bible.

French Song

Henri Duparc (1848-1933) composed his sixteen songs, called mélodies, in 1868-77. Others were Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Massenet and Ernest Chausson (1855-99).

Nationalism

Nationalism arose as a response to German dominance and consisted of emphasis on national elements such as

(a) folk melodies,

(b) ethnic dance rhythms, and

The important early schools were Russia which began with Glinka [1830 generation] and followed with "The Five," Borodin, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev and Mussorgsky; Czechoslovakia which began with Smetana [1850] and continued half-heartedly with Dvořák; and Norway with Grieg.

Russian Opera

The important nationalist operas were Boris Godunov (1874) by Modeste Mussorgsky (1839-81) and Prince Igor (1890) by Alexander Borodin (1833-87). Both operas were arranged by Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) and were composed on subjects from Russian history. More in the European mainstream were Eugen Onegin (1879) and Pique Dame (1890) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93).

Modal cadence from Mussorgsky's Boris

Nationalist Songs

In Russia "The Five," including César Cui (1835-1918), Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) and especially Mussorgsky, composed songs in Russian style, including Mussorgsky's Nursery (1872) and Songs and Dances of Death (1875). The songs of Anton Rubinstein (1829-94) and Tchaikovsky were closer in style to German Lieder.

Norway Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) composed songs in German, Danish and Norwegian, including Haugtussa (1896-8), and

in Czechoslovakia were Antonin Dvořák's (1841-1904) Gypsy Songs (1880) and Biblical Songs (1894).

Instrumental Music

Formal development from 1600-1900

Piano

All of Brahms' late piano works were single movements called "Capriccio," "Intermezzo," Rhapsody," etc. Character pieces with titles in Norwegian were by Grieg. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) was a set of character pieces with a connecting "Promenade."

Chamber Music

Brahms' mature works for strings alone or with piano in classic form were the finest examples in the romantic repertoire, including 3 string quartets, 2 viola quintets, 3 violin sonatas, 2 piano trios and a piano quartet. Late works with clarinet were 2 sonatas, a trio and a clarinet quintet.

From 1878 Dvořák was under Brahms' influence, including his 8 string quartets and the Dumky Trio (1891). He included folk forms in the inner movements. Franck composed a string quartet, a violin sonata and a piano quintet. Smetana composed an unusual program quartet, From My Life (1876).

Concerto

Three standards of the modern repertoire were the piano concertos of Grieg, Op. 16 in A minor (1868), Tchaikovsky, No 1 in Bb minor (1875), and Brahms, No. 2 in Bb major (1878-81). There was a new peak of interest in concertos for strings, and the best examples, all in three movements, were the violin concertos of Tchaikovsky (1878) and Brahms (1878), Dvořák's Cello Concerto and the Double Concerto (1887) for violin and cello by Brahms.

Symphonic Poem

The nationalists preferred the descriptive symphonic poem, as in Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain (1867), Borodin's In Central Asia (1880), Balakirev's Russia (18876) and Smetana's Ma Vlast (1874-79). Saint-Saëns also composed Phaeton (1873) and Danse Macabre (1874).

Suite

The nationalists also revived the orchestral suite in Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite (1875) and Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade (1888).

Brahms returned repeatedly to older forms, reviving the concert overture in Academic Festival Overture (1880) and Tragic Overture (1881) and orchestral variations in Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1873). The form of Brahms' variations maintained the structure of the theme while varying the other aspects and concluded with a long passacaglia adapted from the theme. Tchaikovsky's orchestral piece, The Year 1812 (1880) is called an overture.

Symphony

Far from following "the music of the future," the successors of Liszt and Wagner composed real symphonies, generally without programs, descriptive titles or cyclic treatment. The symphonies of Brahms No. 1 in C minor (1876), No. 2 in D major (1877), No. 3 in F major (1884) and No. 4 in E minor (1885), were classical in form and motivic development and romantic in harmonic idiom and orchestration. He altered the classic form only in the third movement which was generally slower than a true scherzo and in the Finale to No. 4 where he used a chaconne bass. Brahms was noted for his use of counterpoint and rhythmic subtlety.

Bruckner composed nine symphonies from 1866 to his death in 1896, all with log first and last movements in loose sonata-allegro form with three themes and important scherzos, often with Ländler trios. He was noted for heavy, Wagnerian orchestration and a preference for minor keys.

Tchaikovsky's important late symphonies were also in minor keys: No. 4 in F minor (1877), No. 5 in E minor (1888) and No. 6 "Pathétique" in B minor (1893). His strongest features were melody and rhythm. Franck's symphony in D minor (1888) was cyclical but without a program. Dvořák's most important symphony was No. 9, "From the New World" (1893).

Ballet

Tchaikovsky's strengths in rhythm and melody made him perfectly suited to the ballet, which became once again an important medium in Swan Lake (1876), Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Nutcracker (1892).

1850 – 1870 Liszt and Wagner

2007-11-10T12:14:00.001-08:00

1848-52 French Second Republic

1852-70 Napoleon III

1861-65 American Civil War

This is the generation of Verdi and Brahms, not just Liszt and Wagner. Liszt introduces the symphonic poem and Wagner the music drama.

Vocal Music

Music Drama

The logical extreme of the program symphony, traits of Wagner's late operas were

(a) his own librettos on medieval German myths (first used in Dutchman),

(b) continuous music through continual modulation and avoidance of perfect cadences,

(d) thick romantic orchestration,

(e) a system of themes, called leitmotifs, connected to persons, objects or ideas in the drama (also first in Dutchman), and

(f) equal importance of visual and dramatic arts in the Gesamtkunstwerk.

Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850) were still number operas. Though he began composing the Ring in 1853, Tristan und Isolde (1865) was the first music drama to be produced, followed by Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868). The four operas of Der Ring des Nibelungen, 1. Das Rheingold (1869), 2. Die Walküre (1870), 3. Siegfried, and 4. Die Götterdämmerung were produced together in Bayreuth in 1876.

Italian Opera

Italian opera was dominated by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) who capitalized on the strengths of Grand Opera in melodramatic plots, popular melodies and effective vocal display pieces. His mature operas began with Rigoletto (1851) and included Il Trovatore (1853), La Traviata (1853), Un Ballo in Maschera (1859), Don Carlos (1867) and Aida (1871).

French Opera

Grand Opera continued in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine (1865). Popular sentimental operas were Mignon (1866) by Ambroise Thomas (1811-96) and Faust (1859) and Roméo et Juliette (1867) by Charles Gounod (1818-93). Berlioz' Béatrice et Bénédict (1862) and Les Troyens (Part II 1863, Part I 1890) failed to establish him as an opera composer.

Opéra Bouffe

Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) created the prototype for the operetta in his Orpheus in the Underworld (1858) and La Belle Hélène (1864).

Czech Opera

The Bartered Bride (1866) by Bedrich Smetana (1824-84) began the second nationalist school in Czechoslovakia.

Oratorio

The most important oratorios were Berlioz' L'Enfance du Christ (1854) and Franz Liszt's (1811-86) Christus (1856) and Legend of St. Elizabeth (1857-62). Ein deutsches Requiem (1868) by Johannes Brahms (1833-97) can also be considered an oratorio.

Liturgical Music

Orchestral masses were Mass in D minor (1864), Mass in E minor (1866) and Mass in F minor (1867) by Anton Bruckner (1824-96), and Liszt's Festival Mass (1855). Berlioz' Te Deum (1855) was in his massive style.

Lied

Lieder were by Liszt, Peter Cornelius (1824-74), Adolf Jensen (1837-79), Robert Franz (1815-92) and Brahms, especially his Magelone (1861) cycle. Wagner's cycle, Wesendonck Lieder (1857-8), was composed in both piano and orchestral versions.

Instrumental Music

Piano

Brahms added to the tradition of Schumann an intensive study of Beethoven and Bach. His earliest piano compositions included three sonatas: Op. 1 (1853), Op. 2 (1853) and Op. 5 (1854). Of the classical forms, he preferred the variation, including Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel (1862) and Variations on a Theme by Paganini (1863). He retained only the structural outline in his character variations. His early piano pieces also included four Ballades (1854).

Liszt began as a virtuoso and developed piano technique in his compositions, including the character pieces in Années de pèlerinage (1850, '67-77), imitations of gypsy music in Hungarian Rhapsodies (1856), and dance rhythms in Mephisto Waltz (1859). His most important etudes were Etudes d'execution transcendante (1852). Throughout his career, 1831-85, Liszt wrote transcriptions for piano of such works as Beethoven's symphonies, Bach's organ works, Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, and Schubert's songs, and composed fantasias on operas by Bellini, Meyerbeer, Verdi and Wagner. They are rarely played today.

Chamber Music

Brahms carried on the German tradition in his early chamber works, including a piano trio, two piano quartets, a piano quintet, and two string sextets.

Concerto

Brahms and Liszt represented opposite extremes of romantic style with Brahms' No. 1 in D minor (1861) in the traditional form and Liszt's No. 1 (1849) in a cyclic, singles-movement form.

Symphonic Poem

The twelve symphonic poems of Liszt were descendants of the concert overture; in fact, five of them, including Tasso (1849), Les Preludes (1848) and Hamlet (1858), were composed as overtures to plays or musical works. In the case of Les Preludes the obligatory program, a poem by Lamartine, was fitted to the already existing music. Influenced by Berlioz' program symphonies, the titles and poems referred to and suggested literary content for the music, but did not determine its structure, which derived from the sonata form. Other examples were Mazeppa (1851) an Die Ideale (1857).

Symphony

Liszt's Faust Symphony (1854) consisted of three character pieces on Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles with a finale for tenor and male chorus on Goethe's Chorus mysticus. The same themes appeared in all movements.

Orchestra

Wagner's orchestra benefited from the newly improved woodwinds with the Böhm key system and the recently perfected valve horns and valve trumpets first used in Halévy's La Juive (1835). Wagner's standard orchestra was three of each woodwind (with the third player doubling on piccolo, English horn, bass clarinet or double bassoon), four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, harp and strings. For the Ring he added another flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet and trombone along with four more horns which doubled on Wagner tubas, another pair of timpani and other percussion, six harps and augmented strings.

1830 – 1850 Romantics

2007-11-10T12:13:00.001-08:00

1830 July Revolution, Charles X abdicated, France

1830-48 Louis Philippe, France

1837-1901 Queen Victoria, England

1848-49 Revolution

Romanticism in music followed two divergent paths: (1) toward the miniature forms of Lied and character piece for piano as established by Schubert and represented by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin, and (2) toward the spectacular and grandiose in opera and symphony as established by Beethoven and represented by Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner.

Vocal Music

Grand Opera

Grand opera began with Daniel Auber's (1782-1871) Le Muette de Portici (1828) in which a dumb girl leaped into the erupting Vesuvius. Rossini's last opera, William Tell (1929), was an attempt to imitate this popular new style characterized by

(a) obligatory spectacular scenes,

(b) death, not happy endings, in librettos by Scribe,

(d) extended ornate arias,

(e) chorus and ballet, and

(f) a new heavier type of dramatic tenor as the featured hero.

Other opera were Giacomo Meyerbeer's (1791-1864) Robert le Diable (1831), Les Huguenots (1836) and Le Prophète (1849), and Jacques Halévy's (1799-1862) La Juive (1835).

Italian Opera

Orchestral accompaniment used throughout the opera broke down the distinction between recitative and aria, resulting in long formally flexible sections in Vincenzo Bellini's (1801-35) Norma (1831), La Sonnambula (1831) and I Puritani (1835) and Gaetano Donizetti's (1797-1848) Lucia di Lammermore (1835).

German opera

Sentimental light operas were Hans Heiling (1833) by Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861), Zar und Zimmerman (1837) by Albert Lortzing (1801-51) and Martha (1847) by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-83). Richard Wagner's (1813-83) Rienzi (1840) was a grand opera, and Der fliegende Holländer (1842) was in the Weber tradition.

Russian Opera

Russian opera was established by Michael Glinka (1804-57) in A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Russlan and Lyudmilla (1842), the first realization of nationalism in music.

Oratorio

Influenced by Bach and Handel, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) composed the sentimental oratorios St. Paul (1836) and Elijah (1846). Also considered a secular oratorio is The Damnation of Faust (1846) by Hector Berlioz (1803-69).

Choral Music

Secular cantatas were Mendelssohn's Erste Walpurgisnacht (1832) and Robert Schumann's (1803-56) Paradise and the Peri (1843) and Scenes from Goethe's "Faust" (1844-53). Important liturgical music were Rossini's Stabat Mater (1832) and the huge Requiem (1837) of Berlioz.

Lied

Though Mendelssohn was also important, Schumann was the outstanding Lieder composer, especially in the song cycles Dichterliebe (1840) and Frauenliebe und Leben (1840).

French Song

The first French song cycle was Berlioz Les Nuits d'Été (1841). It became the first orchestral song cycle when he orchestrated it in 1856.

Instrumental Music

Piano

Sonata form almost disappeared and was replaced by collections of unrelated single movements in a completely idiomatic piano style. Though most of the titles are not authentic, Mendelssohn's Songs without Words (1829-45) contained 48 song-like pieces. Schumann added his own titles in Papillons (1830-31), Carnival (1835) and Kinderscenen (1838).

Frédéric Chopin (1810-49) also preferred short forms, as in Nocturnes (1830-46), Impromptu (1834-43) and 24 Preludes, Op. 28 (1839) in all the major and minor keys. He established romantic piano idiom through use of

(a) tempo rubato,

(b) chromaticism,

(d) creative use of the damper pedal, and

(e) melodies from dance or song in

(f) a completely homophonic texture.

Preferred dances were waltz (19), polonaise (13) and mazurka (51). Longer single-movement forms were the ballade (4 examples) and scherzo (4 examples). He also composed sets of etudes: Op. 10 (1829-32) and Op. 25 (1832-36). Schumann also composed etudes, including Etudes symphoniques (1834).

Chamber Music

The string quartet was still preferred by Schumann with three and Mendelssohn with seven examples, but both men composed other important works for combinations of strings alone or with piano.

Concerto

In the classical form with written out cadenzas, concertos showed the romantic piano idiom in Schumann's concerto (1845), Chopin's Op. 11 (1830) and Op. 21 (1829) and Mendelssohn's Op 25 (1831) and Op. 40 (1837). Mendelssohn also composed a Violin Concerto (1844).

Symphony

The clearest change from the Viennese classic tradition came in the Symphonie fantastique (1830) of Berlioz, which showed all the features of romanticism:

(a) tempo rubato,

(b) frequent tempo changes,

(d) a new mastery of orchestral color,

(e) the idée fixe, a unifying motive used in all five movements,

(f) transformation as opposed to development of theme (melodies were of such distinctive character they resisted development, and

(g) the use of a complete descriptive program.

Formally, it was still a normal symphony with two scherzo movements, but with a new thematic unity. His Harold in Italy (1834) was a viola concerto while Romeo and Juliet (1840) used chorus and vocal soloists.

The symphonies of Schumann and Mendelssohn used descriptive titles, as in Schumann's No. 1 "Spring" (1841) and No. 3 "Rhenish" (1850) and Mendelssohn's No. 3 Scotch" (1842), No. 4 "Italian" (1833) and No. 5 "Reformation" (1832), but maintained the basic form of the classic symphony without either thematic or programmatic unity.

Overture

While Beethoven's overtures and Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) were written to precede theatrical performances, Mendelssohn's Hebrides (1832) and Berlioz' Roman Carnival (1844) were character pieces in modified sonata-allegro form composed for concert use.

1803 – 1830 Beethoven and Schubert

2007-11-10T12:08:00.001-08:00

1803 Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
1804-14 Napoleon, Emperor of France
1814-24 Louis XVIII, France
1815 Waterloo
1824-30 Charles X

This generation must be subdivided: 1803-15 was Beethoven's second style period and time of greatest influence, including symphonies 3-8 and Fidelio, and 1815-27 was his third style period in which he revived the art of counterpoint, including the Ninth Symphony, Missa solemnis and "Grosse Fuge" for string quartet. Schubert composing in the second half of the period led the transition to Romanticism. Rossini and Weber's operas also fell into the second half of the period.

Vocal Music

Italian Opera

The last generation of the Neapolitan tradition, led by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), composed the last important roles for castrati and last used recitative secco. This is the last generation of opera seria. Rossini began to write out the important virtuosic ornamentation in his 38 operas composed from 1810 to 1829, including the serious operas Tancredi (1813) and Otello (1816), and the comic operas L'Italiana in Algeri (1813), La Cenerentola (1817), and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816).

French Opera

Heroic operas in the tradition of Gluck continued with La Vestale (1807) by Gasparo Spontini (1774-1851) and Joseph (1807) by Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817).

German Opera

Beethoven's Fidelio (1808) was strongly influenced by the revolutionary French operas of Cherubini. Transitional works were Undine (1813) by E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822) and Faust (1816) by Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859) The model for German Romantic opera was established with Der Freischütz (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826). Less successful were his Euryanthe (1823) and Oberon (1826). Some common features were (a) sonata-allegro overture, (b) spoken dialogue, including melodrama in Fidelio Freischütz, (c) chorus, (d) dramatic arias and (e) important orchestral accompaniment.

Lied

Though the simple strophic style of the Second Berlin Song School prevailed in the early period, the through-composed Romantic Lied was established with Franz Schubert's (1797-1828) "Gretchen am Spinnrad" (1814). His over 600 songs included the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827) on texts by Wilhelm Müller. Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte (1816) is considered the first song cycle. Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was most successful in songs in the ballade form.

Mass

Symphonic masses in the form established by Haydn were Beethoven's Mass in C (1810) and Schubert's 6 masses. Beethoven regarded his Missa solemnis (1822), a huge choral symphony in five movements, as his greatest work.

Instrumental

Piano

The four classes of romantic piano pieces were established in this generation.

Beethoven brought the full force of symphonic style to the piano sonata. Though retaining the basic classical structure, he experimented with expressive content and thematic development in Op. 53 "Waldstein" (1804) and Op. 57 "Appassionata" (1804). From the late period came the last five of his 32 sonatas, including Op. 106 "Hammerklavier" (1818). Schubert composed 22 sonatas which emphasized theme over development.

Sets of variations were composed both as sonata movements and as individual pieces, including both as sonata movements and as individual pieces, including 21 sets by Beethoven who transformed them into0 character pieces with only a motivic relationship to the theme, especially Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 (1823).

Short single movements called character pieces led the transition to romantic piano style, including Beethoven's Bagatelles Op. 119 (1823) and Op. 126 (1825), Weber's Momento capriccioso (1808) and Schubert's Moments musicals (1828), Impromptus (1827) and Klavierstücke (1828).

The 100 etudes of Muzio Clementi's Gradus ad Parnassum (1817-26) set the example for later sets.

Concerto

Greater importance of the orchestra balanced more virtuosic solo writing in Beethoven's No. 4 (1805-6) and No. 5 "Emperor" (1809) Piano Concertos and his Violin Concerto (1806). Violin technique advanced in the First Violin Concerto (1820) of Niccolò Paganini (1784-1840).

Overture

Beethoven's "Cariolan" (1807) and "Egmont" (1810) were overtures for plays. Fidelio had four overtures composed at different times: Leonore I (1805), Leonore II (1805), Leonore III (1806) and Fidelio (1814).

Chamber Music

Beethoven's 16 string quartets, including Rasoumovsky Quartets, Op. 59 (1807), were increasingly contrapuntal, climaxing in the "Grosse Fuge" Op. 133 (1825). Schubert's quartets, including No. 14 "Death and the Maiden" (1826) were homophonic.

The piano trio was composed nine times by Beethoven, including No. 7, Op. 97 "Archduke" (1811). Two examples were by Schubert.

Most important of Beethoven's ten violin sonatas was No. 9, Op. 47 "Kreutzer" (1803); also five cello sonatas.

Other chamber combinations by Schubert included the Cello Quintet in C (1828) and the "Forellen" Quintet, Op. 114 (1819) for violin, viola, cello, bass and piano.

Symphony

Still the dominant form, the symphony reached its peak in Beethoven's No. 3 in Eb "Eroica" (1803), No. 4 in Bb (1806), No. 5 in C minor (1808), No. 6 in F "Pastoral" in five movements, often considered the first program symphony (1808), No. 7 in A (1812), No. 8 in F (1812), No. 9 in D minor "Choral," with Schiller's Ode to Joy set for chorus and vocal quartet in the last movement (1823), Traits were:

(a) variation movements (3, 5, 7),

(b) scherzo replaced the minuet,

(d) lengthened cadences, a cliché of the generation, e.g. the last 40 measures of the finale of No. 5,

(e) orchestral recitative (especially No. 9),

(f) expanded winds (3, 5, 6, 9),

(g) mastery of the relationship of theme and tonality, and

(h) great emotional intensity.

Schubert's included No. 5 in Bb (1816), No. 8 "Unfinished" (1822) and No. 9 in C "The Great" (1828)

1780 – 1803 Haydn and Mozart

2007-11-10T12:01:00.002-08:00

1780 Death of Maria Theresa, Austria
1781 Mozart moved to Vienna
1786 Death of Frederick the Great, Prussia
1789 French Revolution

This was the generation of Mozart's maturity, Haydn's late style and Beethoven's first style period.

Vocal Music

Opera seria

The mature operas of Mozart followed the established forms of his day and included two opera seria, Idomeneo (1781), considered his best in this form, and La Clemenza di Tito (1791) on a libretto by Metastasio.

Opera seria	Opera buffa	Opéra-comique & Singspiel	Reform opera
Secco and accompagnato recitative	Secco recitative	Spoken dialogue (melodrama)	Orchestral recitative
Arioso, da capo arias, ornamentation	Flexible arias	Popular songs	Flexible arias, less ornamentation
Little chorus or ensemble	Ensemble finales	Singspiel: ensembles and choruses	chorus
No ballet	No ballet	No ballet	Ballet

Opera buffa

Mozart composed his best operas in this form on librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838): Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), considered a dramma giocoso (including elements of both seria and buffa), and Cosi fan tutte (1790). Elements of his style included characterization through music, even in the complex ensemble finales, and elaborate orchestration which made the orchestra equal in importance to the voices. Other important opera buffe were Giovanni Paisiello's (1740-1816) Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1782), on the same libretto as Rossini's famous opera (Mozart's Figaro may be considered a sequel), and Il Matrimonio segreto (1792) by Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801).

Mozart cadence

Singspiel

This was the third type of opera composed by Mozart, including Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1782), Der Schauspieldirektor (1786), and Die Zauberflöte (1791). Except for the use of spoken dialogue, Mozart's style resembled his opera buffa. Other popular examples were Doktor und Apotheker (1786) by Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-99) and Der Dorfbarbier (1796) by Johann Schenk (1753-1836).

French Opera

Operas in French continued in the heroic style of Gluck, including Piccinni's Atys (1780) and Didon (1783), Luigi Cherubini's (1760-1842) Lodoiska (1791), Médée (1797) which used melodrama, Les Deux Journées (1800), an early rescue opera, and Antonio Salieri's (1750-1825) Les Danaïdes
(1784). The first rescue opera was Richard Coeur de Lion (1784) by Gretry.

Oratorio

Influenced by Handel after trips to England in 191-2 and 1794-6, Haydn composed the important oratorios The Creation (1798) and The Seasons (1800) on texts translated into German by Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1737-1803). He used simpler arias than Handel, but added a symphonic overture and descriptive orchestral passages. At this time Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed his Christus am Ölberg (1800).

Mass

In a new form, these were symphonic masses with contrapuntal choruses and a quartet of soloists integrated into the choral movements. Examples were Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass (1798), Missa in tempore belli (1796) and Harmoniemesse (1799); also Mozart's Requiem (1791).

Second Berlin Song School

Influenced by Goethe and Klopstock, an important early collection was Lieder im Volkston (1782) by J.A.P. Schulz (1747-1800). The composers, including Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814) and Carl Zelter (1758-1832), self-consciously imitated folk style in strophic songs with subordinate accompaniment. A new form was the ballade, usually through-composed songs on narrative poems by Johann Zumsteeg (1760-1802).

Instrumental Music

Sonata Form

Most instrumental genres were built on the mature sonata form.

Sonata-allegro (Tonic)

Exposition Development Recapitulation

||: A ........B.........:|| A....... B...............A........B........Coda

Tonic - domanant Various keys Tonic – Tonic - Tonic

Adagio or andante (subdominant or relative major)

Song form ABA

Modified sonata-allegro

Variations AA'A''A''' etc.

Minuet and trio

Minuet...........Trio............ Minuet

||: A :||: BA :||: C :||: DC :|| ABA

allegro finale (Tonic)

rondo ABACA or ABACABA

variations

sonata-allegro

Increasingly, two contrasting themes became associated with the two key areas of the sonata-allegro exposition, and the real development of these themes occurred in the development section. The minuet in a somewhat faster tempo became the standard third movement in symphonies and string quartets and appeared occasionally in piano sonatas.

Keyboard

The piano had become the preferred instrument.

The sonata was not yet the serious dramatic form found in the classic symphony but was increasingly influenced by the sonata form. Haydn composed 52 keyboard sonatas, Mozart 21. Influential in the development of piano technique and style were the early sonatas of Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), Op. 13 (1785). The first fifteen sonatas of Beethoven belong to this period, including the Pathétique Sonata, Op. 13 (1799) and Moonlight Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 (1892).

Mozart composed 17 sets of variations.

A fantasia was a sectional improvisatory work, as in Mozart's Fantasia in C minor, K.475 (1785).

Concerto

There was greater equality between the keyboard and orchestra, fuller orchestration, and cadenzas sometimes appeared in all three movements. Mozart's 17 Vienna Concertos were in modified sonata form, including No. 21 in C major, K.467 (1785), and Beethoven's No. 1 (1797), No. 2 (1795), and No. 3 (1800).

Chamber music

Traits of the mature classical string quartet were

greater equality of parts with a new kind of classical counterpoint,

four movement sonata form, and

true development sections.

Haydn's mature style was established in Op. 33 (1781); of his 83 quartets, the Emperor Quartet, Op. 76, No. 3 in C major (1799) was an important example. Others were Mozart's Six Haydn Quartets (1785, he composed 26) and Beethoven's Op. 18 (1798-1800).

Mozart composed significant chamber works for other combinations of instruments, including the G minor viola quintet, K.516 (1787), the clarinet quintet, K.581 (1789), piano trios, violin sonatas and piano quartets. (A quintet is named for the instrument added to a string quartet. A piano trio includes piano, violin and cello.)

Divertimento

Mozart's most important example was Eine kleine Nachtmusik (1787).

Opera Overture

Mozart's opera overtures were usually in first movement sonata-allegro form.

Symphony

The mature classical symphony (a) omitted the continuo part, (b) was in four movement sonata form with some slow introductions, especially in Haydn, (c) included variation movements in Haydn, and (d) used an orchestra composed of five-part strings, woodwinds in pairs, including flutes, oboes, and bassoons with clarinets occasionally, two natural horns, optional trumpets and two timpani. Examples were Mozart's No. 39 in Eb, No. 40 in G minor and No. 41 "Jupiter" in C, all from 1788, Haydn's Paris Symphonies, Nos. 82-87 (1785-87) and his London Symphonies, Nos. 93-104 (1792-95), including No. 94 "Surprise" (1792) and No. 104 "London" (1795), and Beethoven's No. 1 in C (1800) and No. 2 in D (1802).

Theory

Historisch-biographisches Lexicon der Tonkuenstler in two volumes (1790, '92) by Ernst Ludwig Gerber was an early biographical dictionary of musicians.

1760 – 1780 Reform Opera

2007-11-10T11:55:00.001-08:00

1756-73 Seven Years War, Prussia & England vs Austria & France

1760-1820 George III, England

1774-92 Louis XVI, France

1776 American Revolution

This is the generation of Gluck's reform opera, first in Vienna, then in Paris. It is also the generation of Mozart's youth and Haydn's formal development of what became of the classical symphony. Bach's children and the later Mannheimers are also prominent.

Vocal Music

Reform opera

No longer guaranteed success in opera seria, Gluck composing in Vienna, wrote the dramatic ballet Don Juan (1761) which was greatly influenced by Jean-Georges Noverre's (1727-1810) treatise Lettre sur la danse (1760) emphasizing mime and gesture. Then with Ranieri de' Calzabigi (1714-95), librettist, he composed Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), the first reform opera. His reforms included

(a) important use of chorus and ballet,

(b) flexible aria forms from opera buffa,

(d) decreased use of vocal ornamentation and cadenzas, and

(e) a return to Greek myth plots.

Other Italian operas with Calzabigi were Alceste (1767) and Paride ed Elena (1769). When the latter was not successful, Gluck moved to Paris where he achieved success in French with Iphegenie en Aulide (1774), Armide (1777) and Iphegenie en Tauride (1779). He adapted Orphée et Euridice (1774) by changing Orfeo from an alto castrato to a tenor, and Alceste (1776).

Opera seria

The stagnant condition of opera seria is well illustrated in the repeated settings of Metastasio's libretti: his Poro or Alessandro nell'Indie was composed by Porpora, Hasse and Handel in 1731, Gluck in 1764, Johann Christian Bach (1735-82) in 1762, Antonio Sacchini (1730-86) in 1763, Piccinni in 1774 and Cimarosa in 1781.

Opéra-comique

With librettos by Charles Simon Favart (1710-92), it used spoken dialogue, simple ariettes and no ensembles or choruses. Examples were Recontre imprévue (1764) by Gluck, Tom Jones (1765) by F. A. Danican Philidor (1726-95), Le Déserteur (1769) by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729-1817) and Zemire et Azor (1769) by André Ernest Gretry (1742-1813).

Singspiel

Modeled after the opéra-comique, it included some ensembles and choruses. Examples were Die Jagd (1770) by Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804) and Bastien und Bastienne (1768) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91).

Melodrama

First used in Rousseau's Pygmalion (1762), it consisted of spoken dialogue with orchestral background. Other examples were Ariadne auf Naxos (1775) and Medea (1778) by Georg Benda (1722-95) and Mozart's unfinished Zaide (1779).

Mass

The early masses of Mozart and Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) were the cantata-mass type with florid arias in separate sections. Examples were Haydn's St. Cecilia Mass (1772) and Mozart's C minor, K.139 (1772), C major, K.167 (1773) and C minor, K.427 (1782).

Instrumental

Sonata form

Though there was still a great deal of formal variety, the sonata form became established in this generation.

(1) The early first movement sonata-allegro was conceived primarily in harmonic terms: Part I began in the tonic key, modulated to the dominant or relative major and closed in the new key (exposition). Part II began with harmonic digressions leading back to the tonic key (development) and then repeated Part I, all in the tonic key (recapitulation).

(2) A middle slow movement was standard, and

(3) a final movement in fast tempo was usually in rondo form.

A minuet with trio was optional.

Keyboard

The new importance of crescendo and diminuendo as seen in the Mannheim symphonies hastened the change from harpsichord to piano.

(1) Sonatas, not yet in sonata-allegro form, became increasingly expressive in the style of the German Sturm und Drang in works by J.C. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Haydn Nos. 1-39, Mozart Nos. 1-15 and Johann Eckard (1735-1809).

(2) Accompanied sonatas in which a violin or flute doubled the upper keyboard voice were composed by Johann Christoph Schobert (1730?-67) and Mozart.

(3) Fantasias with an improvisational, unmetered recitative-like character were composed by C.P.E. Bach.

Concerto

In three movements, they included an important improvised cadenza for the soloist at the end of the first movement. Mozart's 3 Piano Concertos (1776) and Eb Piano Concerto (1777) were modeled on J.C. Bach; also 3 Violin Concertos (1775).

Chamber Music

Smaller string ensembles were first to dispense with basso continuo.

(1) String quartet, two violins, viola and cello, was the ensemble preferred by Haydn who used the sonata form increasingly with a minuet as a second or third movement: Op. 9 (1769), Op. 17 (1771), Op. 20 (1772), also Mozart's K.168-73 (1772).

(2) String quintet with an added cello and widely varied formal structure was the preferred ensemble of Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) who also composed about 100 quartets.

(3) Haydn also composed a large number of trios for baryton (a large viol with sympathetic strings), viola and cello.

Divertimento

Also called "cassation," "serenade," or "nocturne," divertimentos usually included dances and marches in addition to sonata movements, as in Mozart's Haffner Serenade (1776).

Symphony

Composed by Johann Christian Bach and the later Mannheimers, Christian Cannabich (1731-98) and Karl Stamitz (1745-1801), development toward the mature classic symphony took place mainly in the early symphonies of Haydn: No. 1 (1759), No. 26 (1765), No. 49 (1768) and No. 45 (1772). He experimented with form and style, becoming increasingly serious and intense.

In Paris the sinfonia concertante, a symphony with solo instruments, was popular: J.C. Bach and Mozart's K.299 (1778) and K.364 (1779).

Theory

Histories of music by Gerbert (1774), Hawkins (1776), Burney (1776-89) and Martini (1757-81) were written.

1740 – 1760 Rococo

2007-11-10T11:52:00.001-08:00

1715-74 Louis XV, France

1740-80 Maria Theresa, Austria

1740-86 Frederick the Great, Prussia

1743-78 Carl Theodore, elector of the Palatinate, Mannheim

This is Bach's old age, and the period of his son C.P.E. Bach. It is the period of the greatest influence for the Mannheim symphony. This is Handel's oratorio period, when all types of comic operas replaced the public's interest in serious opera. In this period Gluck was a standard Italian opera composer.

The transition from baroque to classic style, begun in the style galant of Couperin, consisted of

(a) the sudden collapse and disappearance of the German polyphonic style,

(b) a more gradual shift of popular interest away from opera to the new symphony and within opera from the international opera seria to the national comic opera genres and

Vocal Music

Opera seria

Opera seria was still predominant in Italy by Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), Johann Adolf Hasse, "Il Sassone" (1699-1783), and Niccolo Jommelli (1713-74). Important in Berlin was Carl Heinrich Graun's (1703/4-59) Montezuma (1755), and in Vienna Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87) wrote 19 operas on librettos by Metastasio.

Opera buffa

Sophisticated librettos by Carlo Goldoni (1707-93) represented contemporary figures in realistic situations with natural voices, therefore, there were

(a) very few castrati,

(b) bass soloists in

(d) flexible arias and

(e) important ensemble finales.

Works were Il Filisofo di campagna (1754) by Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85), La Buona figliuola (1760) by Niccolo Piccinni (1728-1800), and Gluck's Il Tigrane (1743).

Opéra-comique

The enormous popular success of Pergolesi's La serva padrona in Paris in 1752 set off the War of the Buffons between supporters of comic opera and defenders of the grand opera. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) composed Le Devin du village (1752) as a model opéra-comique.

Singspiel

Coffey's English ballad opera The Devil to Pay was sung in Germany in 1743 and then reset by J.C. Standfuss in 1752 as Der Teufel ist los, the first Singspiel.

First Berlin Song School

Songs in style galant, originally piano pieces, were first introduced in Singende Muse an der Pleisse (1736-45) by Sperontes, a pseudonym for Johann Scholze (1705-50). Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773), Graun and Carl Phillipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88), all at the court of Frederick the Great in Berlin, composed fifty collections of simple strophic Lieder between 1753 and 1763.

Oratorio

When his opera ventures failed, Handel turned to oratorio in English, beginning with Israel in Egypt (1737), and including Messiah (1742), Samson (1743), Judas Maccabeus (1746), Solomon (1749), Jephtha (1752), and Triumph of Time and Truth (1757). He used fewer da capo arias, varied the degree of difficulty in order to use English singers, and adapted English choral polyphony to his own Italianate style. Graun's Der Tod Jesu (1755) was a pale rival.

Instrumental Music

J.S. Bach, the past master, composed the Goldberg Variations (1742) for harpsichord, Musikalische Opfer (1747) for instruments, and Die Kunst der Fuge (1749) as virtuosic demonstrations of his contrapuntal skill.

Keyboard sonata

In the same year as his father's Goldberg Variations C.P.E. Bach composed his Op. 1, Prussian Sonatas (1742), and in 1744 his Op. 2, Württemberg Sonatas. Some features were

(a) three movement form (fast-slow-fast),

(b) non-contrapuntal texture with less important bass, and

(c) expression through contrasts in dynamics, unusual harmonic changes and recitative-like sections within a single movement (Empfindsamer Stil).

His essay, Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen (1753-62) discussed keyboard technique and ornamentation.

Other composers were Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-84), Giovanni Platti (1690-1763), Giambattista Martini (1706-84) and Domenico Alberti (c.1710–c.1740) who is credited with establishing the Alberti bass consisting of broken chord patterns.

Keyboard Concertos

Keyboard concertos were also composed by C.P.E. Bach in conservative form with three connected movements.

Violin sonata and concerto

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770) composed sonatas and about 200 concertos, including Op. 1, violin concertos (1734). He used rococo figuration but maintained the unity of Affect characteristic of the baroque. An important treatise on violin playing was Leopold Mozart's (1719-87) Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule (1756).

Symphony

The Italian overture moved to the concert hall in the works of G.B. Sammartini (1700/1-75) whose first symphony dated from 1734. His most important contribution to symphonic form was the addition of a clearly defined second key. Other important early symphonists were the Viennese masters Georg Matthias Monn (1717-50) and Georg Christoph Wagenseil (1715-77).

From 1745 Johann Stamitz (1717-57) led the orchestra in Mannheim and composed symphonies for it. Under his direction it became the leading orchestra in Europe. Features of the Mannheim style were

(a) emphasis on the violins in a homophonic texture,

(b) dynamic effects such as extended crescendos and unexpected fortes,

(d) general rests (Generalpausen),

(e) virtuosic orchestral ensemble and

(f) four movement form with minuet.

Other composers of the older generation were Ignaz Holzbauer (1711-83) and Franz Xaver Richter (1709-89).

Theory

The third of the trio of essays on instrumental technique was Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (1752) on flute playing by Quantz.

Encyclopédie (1751-65) edited by Diderot was designed as a source of universal knowledge and included music.

1715 – 1740 Bach and Handel

2007-11-10T11:51:00.001-08:00

1715-74 Reign of Louis XV

1740 Reigns of Frederick the Great, Prussia, and Maria Theresa, Austria, began

This generation was the last of the Baroque and the beginning of the Rococo. Represented by Bach, Handel, Rameau and Vivaldi, this was the last generation of the cantata, concerto grosso, trio sonata and organ counterpoint. Represented by Pergolesi and Couperin, this was the first generation of the opera seria of Zeno and Metastasio, rococo style opera buffa and keyboard music.

Vocal Music

Neapolitan Opera

"Reform" librettos rigidly excluding all comic elements from the serious opera (opera seria) were written by the Viennese court poets: 1718-30 Apostolo Zeno (1668-1750) and from 1730, Pietro Trapassi, called Metastasio (1698-1782). Traits were:

(a) three acts,

(b) alternation of active text (recitative) and passive text (aria),

(d) da capo arias in various types whose form and number were rigidly controlled.

Griselda (1721) by A. Scarlatti was on a libretto by Zeno. Some settings of Metastasio's 27 librettos were Artaserse (1730) by Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730) and Olimpiade (1735) by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-36).

Poro (1731) and Ezio (1732) by George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) were on librettos by Metastasio. Handel wrote 40 operas for London between 1711 and 1741, including Rinaldo (1711), Ottone (1723), Giulio Cesare (1724), Rodelinda (1725), Admeto (1727), Orlando (1733), Alcina (1735, Serse (1738) and Deidamia (1741). Handel contributed the free formed dramatic scene to the rigid opera seria structure: the mad scene from Orlando.

Operas in the Venetian style were still composed by Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) and Antonio Lotti (1667-1740).

Opera buffa

The most famous comic opera, in two acts to fit between the three acts of an opera seria, was La serva padrona (1733) by Pergolesi

Cantata

Cantata was composed by Caldara, Pergolesi and Handel, who wrote about 100 examples, 28 with instruments.

Ballad Opera

Ballad opera began with The Beggar's Opera (1728), text by John Gay, arranged by Pepusch, and parodied upper class values by portraying low life characters in familiar ballad tunes and spoken dialog.

French Opera

The three types were

(1) Tragedie lyrique by Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) with strong tonal orientation and advanced orchestration, in Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), Castor et Pollux (1737) and Dardanu (1739);

(2) Opéra-ballet, as in Les Indes Galantes (1735) by Rameau; and

(3) Opéra-comique, which began with Télémaque (1715) by Le Sage, a parody of an opera of the same name.

Catholic church music

Church music maintained the division into prima and seconda prattica. In baroque style were Leçons de tenébres (1714), continuo songs by François Couperin, Messe Santa Cecilia (1720) by A. Scarlatti and Stabat Mater (1736) by Pergolesi.

German Opera

Still composed by Keiser and Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Pimpinone (1725), texts became increasingly vulgar until the Hamburg Opera closed in 1738.

Lutheran Cantata

About 200 church cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) are extant of a reputed 300 examples, including about 14 solo cantatas and two for chorus alone. In a variety of forms, the most common (1) began with a concertato chorus often built on a chorale cantus firmus, (2) had a middle section of recitatives and arias with occasionally, another chorus based on a chorale, and (3) ended with a simple four-part chorale. Sometimes all sections were based on the same chorale in chorale variations, as in Catata 4, Christ lag in Totesbanden (1724). Bach's form of da capo aria usually repeated only the ritornello. Though some of Bach's cantatas date from his Weimar period (1708-17), the vast majority were from the Leipzig period (1723-50). Telemann also composed 12 complete cycles of cantatas.

Passion

Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747) interpolated meditations into the passion narrative in the manner of Neumeister; Handel set the Brockes' Passion in 1717. Bach's passions also contained meditative texts, fewer in the earlier St. John Passion (1723), more in his St. Matthew Passion (1729).

Choral

Other choral music of Bach included the Christmas Oratorio (1723, a set of 6 cantatas), Magnificat in D (1723), secular cantatas, 6 unaccompanied motets, 4 Lutheran masses (Kyrie and Gloria) and the great Mass in B minor (1733-38).

Instrumental Music

Keyboard

Bach while in Arnstadt (1703-07), Mühlhausen (1708) and Cöthen (1717-23) concentrated on instrumental music. Important keyboard forms were

(1) prelude and fugue, including the Well-tempered Clavier I (1718-22) and II (c.1740), each with 24 pairs in all the major and minor keys, Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (1720) and Prelude and Fugue in Eb major (1730), and

(2) chorale prelude, including Orgelbüchlein (c.1717) and Clavierübung III (1739). His works for organ often included up to two voices for pedal and long passages using pedal point.

The reigh of Louis XV (1715-74) brought the artificial and ornate style galant, especially in the harpsichord (3) suites of François Couperin (1668-1733), Pièces de Clavecin
(1713-30). Called ordres, they were collections of dances and character pieces in the same or related keys with expressive and dense figuration. His treatise on harpsichord technique was L'Art de toucher le clavecin (1716).

Solo			Trio Sonata	Concerto Grosso	Bach solo
Solo		Violin Sonata	Trio Sonata	Concerto Grosso		Solo Concerto
Continuo	Suite	Violin Sonata	Trio Sonata	Concerto Grosso		Solo Concerto
Orchestra	Suite			Concerto Grosso		Solo Concerto

Late Baroque instrumental music

Suites were also composed by Rameau (1724-31), Handel (1720-33) and J.S. Bach, whose six English suites (1718-22), six French suites (1718-22), six partitas (c.1735) and French overture were all in the conservative ACSG+ form.

Pre-classic style also advanced in the (4) sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Essercizi per Gravicembalo (1738), etude-like single movement works in binary form. He composed over 500 examples.

Violin sonata

Increasingly homophonic texture and regular phrases characterized the violin sonatas of Giovanni Battista Somis (1686-1763) and Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762), both students of Corelli. Geminiani's treatise was The Art of playing the Violin (1731). Others were by Francesco Veracini (1690- c.1750), Handel, Vivaldi, Jean-Marie Leclair (1697-1764) and J.S. Bach.

Solo Instrument

J.S. Bach composed six sonatas and partitas for violin alone (1718-22), six suites for cello alone (1718-22) and a sonata for solo flute. The string pieces created the illusion of counterpoint through the use of multiple stops.

Trio Sonata

Trio sonatas were by Couperin, including Apothéose de Lulli (1725), Le Parnasse (1725) and Les Nations (1726). They were also composed for strings or other treble instruments by Telemann, Pergolesi, Handel and Bach.

Orchestral suite

Handel's Water Music (c.1717) and Fireworks Music (1749) and Bach's four Ouvertures were suites for orchestra.

Concerto

About 2/3 of the 450 concertos of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) were solo concertos, most commonly violin, but also oboe, flute, cello or bassoon, including Op. 3, L'estro Armonico (1709) and Op. 8, The Seasons (1725), a set of four program concertos. Both solo concertos and concerti grossi were in the three movement form of Torelli. Solo figuration was more closely related to the tutti theme which was enlarged and emphasized.

Other concertos were Geminiani, Handel's organ concertos (1738, '40, '61) and Op. 6, concerti grossi (1739), Bach's violin concertos in A minor and E major (1717-23), concerto for two violins in D minor (1717-23), D minor concerto for clavier 1729-36) and the six Brandenberg Concertos (1721):

1. F, 2 horns, 3 oboes, bassoon, violino piccolo (str & cont.)

2. F, trumpet, flute, (recorder), oboe, violin (str & cont.)

3. G, 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 celli and continuo (no soloists)

4. G, violin, 2 recorders (str & cont.)

5. D, flute, violin, harpsichord (str & cont.)

6. Bb, 2 viole da braccio, 2 viole da gamba, cello, continuo (no soloists)

1, 2, 4 and 5 are concerti grossi. Bach's formal structure and solo-tutti contrast were influenced by Vivaldi; the use of winds was typically German.

Theory

Stile antico counterpoint was taught in Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) by Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741). Rameau discussed his theory of chord inversion in Traité de l'harmonie (1722). Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) wrote Grosse Generalbass Schule (1731) on figured bass playing and Der vollkommene Capellmeister.

1695 – 1715 Neapolitan Opera

2007-11-10T11:47:00.001-08:00

1695 Death of Purcell

1702-14 Queen Anne, England

1709 Piano invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655-1731)

1715 Death of Louis XIV, France

Vocal Music

Neapolitan Opera

Said to have begun with Francesco Provenzale (d.1704), the style was brought to international attention by Allesandro Scarlatti (1660-1725). Trained in Venetian style, he gradually adopted the fashion of Naples, characterized by:

(a) Italian Overture,

(b) secco (with continuo only) and accompagnato (with orchestra, for tense dramatic situations) recitative,

(c) aria forms: arioso (between aria and recitative accompagnato), siciliana (melancholy 6/8 or 12/8) and the grand da capo aria,

(d) clearly established tonality in recitative and aria,

(e) frequent use of the Neapolitan sixth chord,

(f) downward fourth cadence in recitative, and

(g) vocal virtuosity in the singing of improvised ornaments, especially by castrati.

Operas by Scarlatti were Eraclea (1700), Mitridate (1707), Tigrane (1715) and Telemaco (1718).

Da capo Aria

"From the top," the da capo aria consisted of a large A section, usually with Motto beginning, a contrasting B section in a related key and a complete repeat of A, altered by extemporized ornaments.

Serenata

Midway between cantata and opera, serenatas were written for special occasions (royal birthdays in Vienna) by Stradella, A Scarlatti, Handel and Mozart.

Cantata

Standardized as a sequence of two, or sometimes three, da capo arias connected by recitative, cantatas were composed for voice and continuo, some with obbligato instruments by A. Scarlatti.

Opéra-ballet

After Lully the divertissement sections (dances, entr'actes, non-plot elements) increased in importance, producing a mixed form of ballet and opera called opéra-ballet. Examples were L'Europe galante (1697) and Les fêtes vénitiennes (1710) by André Campra (1660-1744).

German Opera

The Hamburg opera achieved its greatest distinction in the operas of Reinhard Keiser (1674-1739) who wrote 126 operas between 1696 and 1734. Rage arias, da capo arias, strophic and free arias, arietta, unison accompaniment and important instrumental writing were features of the style. An example was Croesus (1710). Between 1705 and '06 Handel composed four operas for Hamburg, including Almira (1705).

Lutheran Cantata

In 1700 Erdmann Neumeister (1671-1756) of Hamburg introduced a new kind of Pietist poetry for musical setting, which he called "cantata." With the traditional Bible verses and chorale texts, subjective meditations were added for use as recitatives and arias. His texts were published in 1717. Composers of these texts were Johann Phillip Krieger (1649-1725), Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722) and Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow (1663-1712). Between 1712 and '14 J.S. Bach began using these texts.

Instrumental Music

In the late baroque instrumental forms consisted primarily of unified monothematic movements (preludes, fugues, dance movements, sonata movements) within stereotyped larger forms with variety created by contrasting movements of different character. The sectional, discontinuous forms of the early baroque (toccata with fugal sections, canzona and ricercar) gradually disappeared.

Keyboard

Prelude and fugue were no longer sectional forms. A homogeneous free prelude was followed by a thematically unified fugue with clear tonic-dominant relationships. Collections were Anmuthige Clavierübung (1699) by J.P. Krieger and Ariadne musica (1715) by J.K.F. Fischer (1650-1746), which demonstrated the progress of equal temperament by including preludes and fugues in 19 different keys arranged in ascending order; also, Prelude and Fugue in D major by J.S. Bach.

Suite, called partita (actually Parthie was the term used) or overture in Germany, was arranged in the classic order: Allemande-Courante-Sarabande-Gigue with optional dances by J.P. Krieger and Pachelbel.

The sonata da chiesa was first transferred to the keyboard by Kuhnau in his Clavierübung II (1692) and Frische Clavierfrüchte (1696). Sonatas with programs were his Musikaische Vorstellung einer Biblischer Historien (1700).

Concerto Grosso

The form of the concerto grosso was further developed by Giuseppe Torelli (c.1650-1709), Op. 5 (1692) and Op. 8 (1708), who composed in three movements (fast-slow-fast) with allegros in rondo form and greater solo-tutti contrast. He also developed the solo concerto.

Orchestral suite

A French overture and dances in no standard arrangement were composed by J.K.F. Fischer, Journal de Printemps (1695), and Georg Muffat, Florilegium (1695, '98).

Italian Overture

Called sinfonia, the Italian overture was standardized by A. Scarlatti in three movements: first a fast canzona the second slow, short and chordal and the third fast and dance-like.

Theory

The first history of music in Italian was Historia musica (1695) by Giovanni Andrea Bontempi. The first history of music in French was Histoire de la musique (1715) written by three men: begun by Abbé Bourdelot, continued by Pierre Bonnet, his nephew and completed and published by Jacques Bonnet, his brother. (The book is called Bourdelot-Bonnet.) A French dictionary of music was Dictionnaire de musique (1703) by Sebastian de Brossard.

1670 – 1695 Tragedie lyrique

2007-11-10T11:01:00.001-08:00

1672 Louis XIV assumed power; death of Schütz

1689-94 William and Mary, England

1695 Death of Purcell

This is Lully's opera period and the period of Purcell, Corelli, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Biber and the next generation of Venetian opera composers. It is the first generation of equal importance of instrumental music, the concerto grosso and tonality.

Vocal Music

Venetian opera

Venetian opera had become international in scope, as in La Forza dell'Amor paterno (1678) by Alessandro Stradella (c.1645-82), Giustino (1683) by Lagrenzi, La Gerusalem liberata (1687) by Carlo Pallavicino (1630-88) and Enrico ditto il Leone (1689) by Agostino Steffani (1654-1728).

Cantata

Composed by all of the above plus M.A. Sartorio (c.1620-85) and Domenico Gabrielli (c.1650-90) and in France by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1624-1704), cantatas were the experimental form of the period.

Tragedie lyrique

The first opera in French was Pastorale (1659) by Robert Cambert (c.1628-77) on a text by Abbé Perrin. A vogue was established with Pomone (1671) by Cambert, and quickly adopted by Lully with Cadmus et Hermione (1673). His operas were characterized by

(a) large ballets and choruses,

(b) a new recitative style with frequent meter changes,

(d) French Overture, and

(e) short simple arias in aabb form.

His librettist was Jean-Philippe Quinault. Other Lully operas were Alceste (1674), Persée (1682), Amadis (1684), Roland (1685) and Armide (1686).

Oratorio

A pupil of Carissimi, Charpentier brought the oratorio to France. An example was Le Reniement de St. Pierre.

English dramatic music

Though operas in English were composed, Venus and Adonis (1684-85) by John Blow (1647-1708) and Dido and Aeneas (1689) by Henry Purcell (1658-96), more important from the English view was incidental music written for plays: Purcell's Dioclesian (1690), King Arthur (1691), The Fairy Queen (1692), The Tempest (1695) and Indian Queen (1695).

English songs, odes, anthems

Purcell also composed

(1) songs on ostinato basses, rondo forms and da capo arias which were collected in Orpheus Britannicus (1698),

(2) odes in several movements for chorus, soloists and orchestra, composed for large celebrations, and

(3) anthems. The distinction between full and verse anthem persisted, with the more popular verse anthem, in a distinctly baroque multi-movement form.

German opera

In 1678 Johann Theile's (1646-1724) Adam und Eva opened the Hamburg opera house.

Lutheran church music

The Abendmusiken, begun in Lübeck in 1673 by Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637-1707), were public concerts during Advent and included chorale variations, arias, dialogues and organ and orchestral music. A pre-cantata form of Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) came in the usual arrangement: motet, aria, chorale.

Instrumental Music

Organ

Forms composed by Buxtehude were

(1) toccata, suggesting improvisation and including contrasting fugal sections, also Pachelbel,

(2) fugue, a long section in a toccata, also Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703) or by Pachelbel as an independent piece, either serious as a ricercar or lively as a canzona,

(3) chorale fantasia, a fragmented chorale melody treated with free ornamentation and counterpoint, also Jan Reinken (1625-1722),

(4) chorale prelude, a short introduction to chorale singing which usually treated the melody as a soprano cantus firmus, also Pachelbel, and

(5) passacaglia or chaconne, which used a repeating bass melody or repeating chord progression, also Georg Muffat (1653-1704) and Purcell.

Corelli

Music for string ensemble reached its first peak in the works of Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713):

Op. 1 (1681), 12 trio sonatas da chiesa,

Op. 2 (1685), 11 trio sonatas da camera and a chaconne,

Op. 3 (1689), 12 trio sonatas da chiesa,

Op. 4 (1695), 12 trio sonatas da camera,

Op. 5 (1700), 6 violin sonatas da chiesa, 5 da camera and the Follia variations,

Op. 6 (1714), 12 concerti grossi.

Corelli's sonata da chiesa was in four movements (slow-fast-slow-fast) and his sonata da camera was a prelude with two or three of the standard suite movements with gavotte in no special order. A characteristic cadence is called the Corelli clash.

Trio Sonata

Trio sonata	\|--------- violin
	\|--------- violin
	\|--------- continuo (keyboard and cello)

The trio sonata was always a quartet which in the Bologna school consisted of two violins, cello and keyboard (harpsichord or organ). Corelli used chain suspensions and diatonic sequence to create a continuous tonality. The two equal violins crossed frequently.

Violin Sonata

The Mystery sonatas (c.1675) of Heinrich Biber (1644-1704) used scordatura (unusual tunings) to allow for unusual multiple stops in a contrapuntal texture.

Corelli's violin sonatas made important use of double and triple stops, fast runs, arpeggios, cadenzas and movements in moto perpetuo.

Concerto Grosso

The concerto grosso of Corelli was a trio sonata (concertino) that played continuously, alternately as a solo group and augmented by a larger orchestra (ripieno). These works, probably written in the 1680's, show little difference between solo and tutti sections. Sinfonia (c.1680) by Stradella first showed the concerto grosso principle.

Theory

Historische Beschreibung der edlen Sing und Klingkunst (1690) by Wolfgang Caspar Printz was the first history of music.

1640 – 1670 Venetian Opera

2007-11-10T10:59:00.001-08:00

1642 Death of Richelieu

1648 Peace of Westphalia, end of 30 Year War

1649-72 English Republic

1643-72 Regency of Cardinal Mazarin, reign of Louis XIV, France

This is the generation of the beginning of Venetian opera, Lully's ballet period, the era of Carissimi and the maturity of Schütz. This is the first generation of the classic suite, trio sonata and French overture.

Vocal Music

Bel canto

Bel canto, "Beautiful singing," smooth melodic arias in triple meter over simplified harmonies, separated from recitative, dominated opera oratorio and cantata.

Venetian Opera

The first public opera house, Teatro San Cassiano, opened in Venice in 1637. Style traits were

(a) separation of recitative and aria,

(b) use of instrumental ritornelli,

(d) bel canto, and

(e) elaborate stage machinery necessary for the miraculous plot conclusions, "deus ex machine."

The bel canto aria was fully established in Didone (1641) by Francesco Cavalli (1602-76), also Giasone (1649) and Ercole Amante (1662).

Early examples of this school were the final operas of Monteverdi: Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria (1641) and La Incoronazione di Poppea (1642). Marc Antonio Cesti (1623-69) composed La Dori (1661) and Il Pomo d'Oro (1667), a festival opera for Vienna.

Cantata

Recitatives alternated with ostinato arias for one, two or three soloists with continuo in bel canto style, by Luigi Rossi, Cavalli, Carissimi and Cesti. One for was the Divisen or Motto aria, in which a short motive was first sung, repeated in the instruments, then sung again.

Oratorio

Bel canto enriched the oratorio latino in the works of Giacomo Carissimi (1605-74), Judicium Salamonis, Jonas and his masterpiece Jephtha (1650). Oratorio was distinguished from opera in the use of the testo or narrator.

Ballet

Ballet de cour consisted of an optional number of entrées (scenes) danced and pantomimed with explanatory recitatives, accompanied by airs de cour with lute, choral ensembles and instrumental music. Professionals played the music while the nobility performed the dances and pantomimes. From 1650 they had coherent plots. An example was Ballet de la Nuit (1653) by Jean de Cambefort (1605-61) and Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87).

Lully and Moliére collaborated to create comédie-ballet. The first example was Le Marriage forcé (1664), also Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670).

German Opera

The first surviving German opera was Seelewig (1644) by Staden.

Masque

During the English Commonwealth (1649-60) masques were written in continuous music: Cupid and Death (1653) by Matthew Locke (c.1630-77) and Christopher Gibbons (1615-76), and Siege of Rhodes (1656, text by Davenant) by Locke, Lawes and Captain Cooke (d.1672).

Lutheran church music

Italian style continued in Schütz' Symphoniae sacrae II (1647), for 1-3 voices, two violins and continuo, and III (1650) which returned to the grand style after the 30 Year War in works for solo voices, chorus and full instrumental ensemble. Geistliche Chormusik (1648) returned to stile antico.

Gospel dialogues were found in Musicalische Andachten (1638-52) and Gespraeche über die Evangelia (1655) by Andreas Hammerschmidt (1612-75). Franz Tunder (1614-67) continued concertato chorale.

Historia

Schütz' German oratorios made extensive use of monody. Die Sieben Worte (1645) had opening and closing concertato choruses, recitative and choral narration and the voice of Jesu surrounded by a halo of strings; also the Christmas Oratorio (1664).

Passion

Unique in Baroque music were the unaccompanied passions of Schütz on Biblical texts with recitative-like solos and choral turba (crowd): St. Matthew (1661), Lt. Luke and St. John Passions.

Lied

Continuo songs with bel canto influence were Arien (1638-76) by Heinrich Albert (1604-51) and Neue Arien (1667-76) by Adam Krieger (1634-1666).

Instrumental Music

Lute

In France Denis Gaultier (1603-72) wrote suites in style brisé, a free-voiced broken chord texture; collections were Pieces de luth (1669) and La Rhetorique des Dieux (c. 1655). A form of miniature eulogy was the tombeau.

Keyboard

In Germany Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-67) established the classic form of the suite for harpsichord:

(1) allemande, moderately fast 4/4,

(2) courante, moderate 3/2 or 6/4 hemiola,

(3) gigue, quick 6/8 with dotted rhythms, and

(4) sarabande, slow 3/2 without upbeat.

Other dances or a prelude were added. Later publications reversed the order of the gigue and saraband. He also composed toccatas, ricercars and variation canzonas for organ after Frescobaldi. In France Jacques de Chambonnieres (1601-71) and Louis Couperin (d.1661) developed the suite.

Sonata da chiesa

Sections of the ensemble canzona became longer and increasingly independent, until in the works of Marco Uccellini (c.1605-80) and Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-90) these sections became separate movements.

In 1657 the Bologna school was established by M. Cazzati (1620-77) and included Corelli, Torelli and Giovanni Battista Vitali (c. 1644-92) whose Op. 2 (1667) established the three movement (fast-slow-fast) form for the sonata da chiesa or church sonata. The Bologna school adapted the bel canto style to the violin.

Sonata da camera

Descended from the ensemble and harpsichord suite, the term sonata da camera, chamber sonata, was first used by Johann Rosenmüller (c.1620-84) about 1667. Both types of sonatas were for one, two or three violins with continuo.

French overture

Derived from Venetian opera, the French overture first appeared in Lully's ballet Alcindiane (1658); a slow, pompous introduction in dotted rhythm was followed by an imitative allegro, sometimes concluding in an adagio retard.

1620 – 1640 Roman Opera

2007-11-10T10:57:00.001-08:00

1618 30 year war began

1620 Mayflower at Cape Cod

1624-42 Cardinal Richelieu in power in France

This is the generation of Frescobaldi, Schütz, Schein and Scheidt. It is also the era of the Roman style of opera.

Vocal Music

Roman Opera

Dramatic presentations in monodic style were popular in Rome in these decades; those that were staged are considered operas the others oratorios. Important operas were La Catena d'Adone (1626) by Virgilio Mazzocchi (1597-1646), Erminia sul Giordano (1633) by Michel Angelo Rossi, Il Sant'Alessio (1632) by Steffano Landi (c,1590-c.1655), and Il Palazzo Incanto (1642) by Luigi Rossi (1598-1653). They were all performed by all male casts with many castrati (male altos and sopranos) in elaborate productions with important choruses and comic scenes called intermezzi. Cardinal Rospigliosi, librettist, established a tradition of independent comic operas; Chi soffre, speri (1639) by Mazzocchi and Marco Marazzoli (d.1662) was the first, also Dal male il bene (1653) by Marazzoli and Antonio Abbatini (c.1595-1680).

Oratorio

With monodic solos and madrigal-like choruses Giovanni Francesco Anerio's (1567-1620) Teatro Armonico Spirituale (1619) was an early oratorio latino (in Latin prose). Querimonio de S. Maria Maddelena (1640) by Mazzocchi was an oratorio volgare (in Italian verse).

Aria and cantata

The first use of the name "cantata" was Alessandro Grandi's Cantade et arie a voce sola (1620). Cantata evolved (c.1630) to mean arias with strophic basses (long melody) or ostinato basses (short melody) interspersed with recitative sections. Some collections were Frescobaldi's Arie musicali (1630) and Monteverdi's Scherzi musicali (1632).

Monteverdi's madrigals continued in Book VIII (1638), titled Madrigali guerrieri et amarosi, which contained solos, duets and trios with continuo, five-voiced madrigals, two semi-dramatic ballets and Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda. First performed in Venice in 1624, this was a setting of a section of Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata describing a duel between a crusader knight (tenor) and a pagan woman (soprano) with narrator (tenor), which attempted to portray combat through musical description in a style called stile concitato, including early dramatic use of the string tremolo.

Chaconne:

major:

minor:

Folia:

Romanesca:

Masque

Descended from the ballet de cour, this English dramatic entertainment with recitatives, ayres and dances had little dramatic continuity: Henry Lawes' (1596-1662) Comus (1634, text by Milton) was an outstanding example.

German Opera

The first German opera, Heinrich Schütz' (1585-1672) Daphne (1627), is lost.

Lutheran Church Music

A common practice was to apply continuo to the chorale melody, as in Opella nova (1618) by Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630).

Schütz, the German master of Italian style, did not use chorale melodies in his church compositions. Trained in Venice (1609-12), his Psalmen Davids (1610) were in the grand polychoric style of G. Gabrieli. Other early works were the a cappella Latin motets a 4 of Cantiones sacrae (1625) with a later added continuo part, and the archaic Auferstehungs Historie (1623) or Easter Oratorio.

Symphonie sacrae I (1629), in Latin for 1 to 4 voices with instruments and continuo, showed the stylistic advances of Schütz' second trip to Italy in 1628, including new specified instrumentation, recurring instrumental ritornelli and more skilled use of monody. The Kleine geistliche Konzerte (1636-39), in German for one or more soloists with continuo, reflected the reduced circumstances of the Dresden court during the 30 Year War.

Instrumental Music

Organ

Collections by Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) were Toccate e Partite (1627) and Fiori Musicali (1635). Forms were:

(1) toccata, developed to an improvisatory, rhapsodic form in free tempo rubato,

(2) partita, a variation form using the repeating bass melodies (see aria and cantata),

(3) ricercar (or fantasia), serious, contrapuntal with tempo rubato at the cadences, and

(4) canzona. When contrasting sections used a single theme, it was a variation canzona.

He was most important in the development of the toccata and partita.

A student of Sweelinck, the German Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), Tablatura nova (1625), composed chorale variations and chorale preludes.

Violin sonata

Important idiomatic writing for the violin (with continuo) was by Carlo Farina (c.1600-1640) and Biagio Marini (c.1595-1665), La Gardana (1617), using double-stops, trills, tremolos, pizzicato and harmonics.

Ensemble canzona

A lively contrapuntal beginning with contrasting unrelated sections characterized the canzonas of Tarquinio Merula (b.c.1600). The Roman opera overture was usually a canzona. A related English form was the fancy by William Lawes (1602-45) and John Jenkins (1592-1678).

Suite

In Germany each composer had his own set of standard dances. Schein's Banchetto musicale (1617) used the order: Pavana, Galliarde, Courante, Allemanda, Tripla.

Theory

Harmonie universelle (1636) by Marin Mersenne described instruments and experiments on the properties of sound.

1595 – 1620 Le Nuove Musiche

2007-11-10T10:48:00.002-08:00

1594 Death of Palestrina and Lasso

1603 Death of Elizabeth I, England

1610-43 Louis XIII, France

1618 Beginning of 30 Year War

In Italy this is the beginning of the Baroque: the first generation of opera, oratorio, basso continuo, aria, recitative, as well as designated instrumentation and dynamics. It is also the last generation of the English Renaissance.

Baroque Style

The three mainstreams of baroque style:

Accompanied melody, begun by Monteverdi and the Florentines, emphasized the outer voices through the use of continuo accompaniment of treble solos, especially in aria and recitative.

Concerto style (or concertato style), begun by Giovanni Gabrieli and descended from the Venetian polychoral style, emphasized contrasting effects such as contrasts in tempo, dynamics or instrumentation, especially in works for instrumental ensemble. In the early baroque this resulted in a new discontinuity within traditional forms.

Polyphonic style, begun by Sweelinck, maintained the equal-voiced, imitative counterpoint of the Renaissance. What had previously been a universal style became chiefly associated with religious music for organ or choir.

Vocal music

Florentine camerata

A group of Florentines, patron Giovanni de Bardi (1534-1612), spokesman Vincenzo Galilei (treatise: Dialogo della musica antica e moderna, 1581), poet Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621) and musicians Jacopo Peri (1561-1633), Giulio Caccini (c.1546-1618) and Emilio de Cavalieri (c.1550-1602), together condemned the Flemish polyphonic style and created a new recitative-like melody imitative of Italian dramatic speech with continuo accompaniment, called monody or stile rapprasentativo. The camerata was charged by the Medici family with the task of recreating ancient Greek drama, known to be sung throughout. The style was senza misura (without a regular rhythm).

Monody	\|---text-- voice
	\|---------- continuo with chords ad lib/

Florentine opera

The camerata's attempts to recreate Greek drama produced Daphne (1597) by Peri, now lost, Euridice (1600) by Peri and Euridice (1602) by Caccini. These early operas were mainly recitative with occasional songs or choruses at the ends of scenes.

Early operas produced in Mantua were Claudio Monteverdi's (1567-1643) Orfeo (1607), considered the outstanding example of monodic opera, his Ariana (1608), now lost, and Daphne (1608) by Marco Gagliano (c.1575-1642).

This example is by Caccini.

Oratorio

Also considered a sacred opera as well as an oratorio, La rappresentazione di anima et di corpo (1600) by Cavallieri in monodic style was elaborately produced in Rome.

Aria

Le Nuove Musiche (1602) by Caccini with its important introduction on ornamentation was a collection of songs in monodic style. Caccini's "aria" was a strophic song, while longer discontinuous and rhapsodic through-composed monodies were called madrigals. One strophic aria had a varied melody, an early example of a strophic bass aria. Another collection was Peri's Varie Musiche (1609).

Madrigal

Disintegration began as early as 1580 with Luca Marenzio's (1553-99) extravagant word painting. Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1611) used extreme dramatic contrast and tortuous chromatic passages. Monteverdi's madrigal books I (1587), II (1590), III (1592) and IV (1603) were a cappella polyphonic; books V (16-5) and VI (1603) were more soloistic with basso continuo; book VII (1619) was in monodic style.

Madrigal comedy

Quasi-dramatic groups of madrigals were considered forerunners of opera: L'Amfiparnaso (1597) by Orazio Vecchi (c.1550-1605).

Seconda prattica

Seconda prattica, "second practice," was Monteverdi's term for the stile moderno or modern style in church music. Lodovico Viadana (c. 1564-1645) used baso continuo in his Cento concerti ecclesiastici (1602). Monteverdi's Vespers (1610) was an entire service in modern style using recitative, aria, chorus and instruments with continuo.

Giovanni Gabrieli (1557-1612) further developed the Venetian polychoric style using up to five choruses and various bodies of instruments which emphasized contrasting sonorities. Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) was his student.

Prima prattica

Also called stile antico, prima prattica referred to the polyphonic style of Palestrina continued by the Roman school, including Felice Anerio (c.1564-1614), Francesco Soriano (1549-1621) and G.B. Nanino (c.1550-1623).

English School

Isolated from developments in Italy, English composers of the Elizabethan golden age continued a national Renaissance style.

English madrigal

Italian madrigals in English were introduced in Music transalpine (1588), the same year as Byrd's first collection. The triumphs of Oriana (1601) collected English madrigals by 24 composers, including Thomas Morley (1557-1603) and Thomas Weelkes (c.1575-1623). The English imitated the Italian madrigal, canzonetta and balletto styles. Other composers were John Wilbye (1574-1628), finest of the English madrigalists, and Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625).

Ayre

Accompanied lute songs by John Dowland (1563-1626), from 1597, were uniformly lyrical and published in alternate three-voiced settings; also Thomas Campian (1567-1620), Robert Jones (fl. 1597 - 1617) and Philip Rosseter (c.1575-1623).

Consort songs

Solo songs or duets with accompaniment by a consort of viols (a consort was a set of matched instruments) were composed by Byrd and Gibbons.

Anthem

Though both used psalm texts, the English

(1) full anthem was like a syllabic, squared off polyphonic motet while the

(2) verse anthem, invented by Byrd, alternated solo and choral sections with instrumental accompaniment (no continuo) by Thomas Tomkins (c.1571-1656) and Gibbons.

Instrumental Music

Virginalists

Over 600 pieces for harpsichord survive in such collections as My Lady Nevell's Booke (1591) by Byrd, Parthenia (1612 or 13) by John Bull (1563-1628), Byrd and Gibbons, and Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (c. 1621) by all the active composers of the school.

Forms include madrigal transcriptions, dances, descriptive pieces, contrapuntal fantasias, preludes, In nominees and the important figural variations in three types:

(1) variations on popular tunes or dances,

(2) hexachord variations on the six notes of the hexachord, and

(3) ostinato bass variations.

Organ

The Dutchman Jan Pieters Sweelinck (1562-1621) composed 12 sets of variations on songs and dances in the English style, 24 chorale variations which treated the chorale as a cantus firmus, thirteen toccatas, six toccata-like echo fantasias and thirteen fantasias, typically monothematic fugue-like works with characteristic rhapsodic passages. Jean Titelouze (1563-1633) was a conservative French composer of liturgical music.

Lute

John Dowland.

Ensemble canzona

Sacrae symphoniae (1597) by G. Gabrieli contained canzonas and sonatas in polychoric contrasting sonorities, including the first examples of designated instrumentation and indicated dynamics.

Theory

Basso continuo, also called thorough-bass and figured bass, was a bass melody with figures indicating the middle voices and "realized" by a keyboard instrument and a bass melodic instrument such as a cello. Del sonare sopra il basso (1607) by Agostino Agazzari (1578-1608) was an early treatise on playing from a basso continuo.

Other important treatises were: Morley's A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practical Musicke (1597), a general manual; Girolamo Diruta's (b.1550) Il Transilvano (1593, 1609) on ornamentation for the keyboard; Michael Praetorius' (1571-1621) Syntagma musicum (1615, '18, '19) an encyclopedia of music.

1560 – 1595 Palestrina and Lasso

2007-11-10T10:42:00.001-08:00

1558-1603 Elizabeth I, England

1562-98 Religious conflicts in France

1588 English defeat of the Spanish Armada

1594 Death of Palestrina and Lasso

Vocal Music

Mass

The Council of Trent (1545-1563), which also banned tropes and most sequences, in the spirit of the Counter Reformation criticized the secular spirit of church music such as the use of secular cantus firmus and the chanson mass. In response the serious, cool style of the Roman school arose. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1524-94) wrote 105 mass cycles using all the established techniques of composition, including 52 parody masses and 35 paraphrase masses. Traits of his style were:

(a) modal melody with little use of chromaticism,

(b) rigid control of dissonance,

(d) cool, controlled expression,

(e) limited rhythmic variety, and

(f) alternation of imitative and chordal textures.

An example was Missa Papae Marcelli. Other composers were Orlando di Lasso (1532-94) with 53 masses, Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611), the Spaniard, with 20 masses and Jacobus de Kerle (1532-1591).

Motet

Five-voice texture with homophonic sections and imitative sections was the prevailing style. Palestrina was cool; Lasso showed impulsive expression. Jacob Handl (1550-91) fused Netherlands and Venetian style. Others were Giovanni Maria Nanino (c.1545-1607), Philippe de Monte (1521-1903), Marc' Antonio Ingegneri (c. 1545-92, Monteverdi's teacher at Cremona) and Victoria.

Magnificat, Passion, Lamentations

These are by Lasso and Palestrina.

Oratorio

The Congregazione dell'Oratorio founded by Filippo Neri (1515-95) had services of a popular character, including laude, composed by Giovanni Animuccia (c.1500-71) and Palestrina. "Dialogue laude" in which three or four groups of singers took the roles of God, the soul, heaven, etc. were forerunners of the oratorio.

Madrigal

The classic madrigal after the style established by de Rore was composed to modern poetry by Philippe de Monte, Giaches de Wert (1535-96), Lasso and Palestrina, who preferred spiritual madrigals. Collections were Le Gioie (1589) and Il Trionfo di dori (1592).

Canzonetta and balletto

From c. 1580 canzonetta and balletto were important lighter homophonic forms, clearly in major and minor with "fa-la-la" refrains by Giacomo Gastoldi (d. 1622).

Protestant church music

Tunes of the Geneva Psalter were set polyphonically by Claude Goudimel (c.1505-72) in 1564 and later by Claude Le Jeune (1528-1600). A German collection in this style was Fünfzig geistliche Lieder und Psalmen (1586) by Lucas Osiander (1523-1604). In England William Byrd (1543-1623) composed both protestant and catholic music.

Chanson

The three styles were:

(1) Parisian chanson included short points of imitation as composed by Lasso, Le Jeune and William Costeley (1531-1606);

(2) Air de cour was strophic, completely homophonic and had an irregular rhythm, and

(3) Vers mesurée, from 1567, was an academic exercise which matched long syllables to half notes and short syllables to quarter notes, by Jacques Mauduit (1557-1627) and Le Jeune.

Lied

The Lied was like the madrigal, by Lasso.

Instrumental Music

Organ

Improvised ornamentation was an important feature of the Venetian school which maintained leadership.

(1) Toccata, with early free compositions by Andrea Gabrieli (c. 1520-86), was established by Claudio Merulo (1533-1604) as free idiomatic sections alternating with fugal sections: T-F-T or T-F-T-F-T.

(2) Ricercar, one to three themes were given slow, serious contrapuntal treatment by A. Gabrieli and Merulo.

(3) Fantasia was a free mixture of imitation and figuration by A. Gabrieli.

(4) Canzona, A. Gabrieli and Merulo.

English Virginalists

Mulliner Book (c.1560) compiled by Thomas Mulliner, included works for virginal, organ and lute, including an In nomine, similar to a ricercar on a c.f. by Taverner.

Ensemble canzona

Lively and strongly rhythmical contrapuntal sections, opening, were by A. Gabrieli and Maschera.

Dance music

For lute, keyboard or ensemble, it was especially important in France: Circe or Ballet comique de la Reine (1581) was the first ballet de cour, a dramatic entertainment which included airs de cour. Orchesograhie (1589) by Thoinot-Arbeau (1519-1595) was a manual on French dances. A common dance type was the branle.

Notation

De Rore's Madrigali (1577) led a gradual return to score arrangement. At the end of the century bar lines and round note heads gradually became common, and ligatures and triple mensuration (the division of a note into three of the next smaller value) died out.

1525 – 1560 Willaert and Gombert

2007-11-10T10:40:00.001-08:00

1527 Willaert to Venice

1534 England broke with Rome

1545-63 Council of Trent—Counter Reformation

1553-58 Reign of Catholic Queen Mary, England

Vocal Music

Mass

This generation preferred the parody technique: there were no new developments. Composers were Nicolas Gombert (c. 1490-1556), Jacob Clement ("Clemens non Papa", c. 1510-c. 1556), and the Spaniard Cristóbal de Morales (c. 1500-53).

Motet

The style of pervading imitation introduced by Josquin was firmly established by Gombert. His motet was four or five equal voices in a uniform texture, careful dissonance and short imitative sections. Other composers were Clemens non Papa and Ludwig Senfl (c. 1490-1543) who completed the Choralis Constantinus of Isaac.

Adrian Willaert (c.1490-1562) used the two organs and various lofts in St. Marks, Venice, to develop an antiphonal motet using divided chorus, cori spezzati, in a simple chordal texture.

Madrigal

De Rore madrigal	\|------------ Superius
	\|------------------------ \
	\|------------ Altus \
	------------------------- Quinta Vox (with superius or tenor)
	\|-------------------------/
	\|------------ Tenor
	\|------------ Bassus

The madrigal was a through-composed Flemish interpretation of Italian poetry. The first collection was Madrigali de diversi musici (1530) by Philippe Verdelot (d.c. 1550) and the Italian Costanzo Festa (c.1490-1545) in a style reminiscent of the frottola. The Flemish influence with its refinement and counterpoint was especially strong in the madrigals of Jacob Arcadelt (c. 1505-c.1560) and Willaert.

Cipriano de Rore (1516-65) established the classic style from 1542 with his five-part contrapuntal texture with looser connections between phrases, careful declamation and expressive text painting in serious settings of Petrarch.

Villanella

The villanella, or villanesca, was a popular Neapolitan parody in the popular sense) of the madrigal; called "clownish music," it deliberately used parallel fifths.

Chanson

There were three styles:

(1) Netherlands chanson composed by Jean Richafort (c. 1480-1548), Thomas Crecquillon (d. 1557), Willaert and Gombert;

(2) Parisian chanson (published in Paris by Pierre Attaignant (1528-49) in quick dupl. meter ( opening) and homophonic texture, by Richafort, Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1490-1562), Clement Janequin (c.1485-c. 1560) and Pierre Certon (c. 1510-72); and

(3) Program chanson with much text painting by Janequin.

English church music

Catholic to 1534, protestant 1534-53, catholic again 1553-58, then finally protestant from 1558, English composers preferred the Latin motets masses and Magnificats of the Roman practice, but some English anthems were also composed. The leading composer was John Taverner (c. 1495-1545); others were Christopher Tye (c. 1500-73), Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-85) and Robert White (c. 1530-74).

Calvinist Psalters

A Calvinist psalter in Holland was Souterliedekins (1540); in France was Geneva Psalter (1562), tunes by Louis Bourgeois.

Lied

The finest Renaissance Lieder were found in the accompanied songs of Ludwig Senfl, written in motet style with the melody still in the tenor.

Meistersinger

Hans Sachs (1494-1576) was from this era .

Spanish lute song

More properly vihuela (a guitar tuned like a lute) songs, they were traditional transcriptions and new songs by Luis Milan (c. 1500-1561) and Luis de Narvaez.

Instrumental Music

Organ

The development of new forms for the organ centered in Venice.

(1) Canzona, Italian for "chanson," they were originally chanson transcriptions by Marco Antonio Cavazzoni (c. 1490-1570) in 1523. More contrapuntal examples by Girolamo Cavazzoni (b.c. 1525) in 1543 had a lively tempo and opening rhythm.

(2) Ricercar, early non-imitative examples were by M.A. Cavazzoni in 1523. It was established by G. Cavazzoni in 1543 as a serious composition in pervading imitation with a small number of themes. The first monothematic ricercar was by Jacques Buus (d. 1565). A related form was the tiento by the Spanish organist Antonio de Cabezon (1510-66).

(3) Verset, short pieces replaced alternate sung psalm verses, by G. Cavazzoni and Cabezon

(4) English organ hymns were by John Redford (c. 1485-1547).

Diferencias

Diferencias was a Spanish variation form with migrating c.f. for keyboard or lute by Cabezon.

Lute ricercar

Italian type ricercari were composed by Francesco Canova da Milano (1497-1543), called "Il divino." A German lute composer was Hans Neusidler (c. 1508-1563).

Ensemble ricercar

The ensemble ricercar was like a French motet, by Willaert, Buus and others.

Dance pairs

A slow duple and fast triple dance were commonly paired; as in the French pavane-galliard, German Tanz-Nachtanz and Italian basadanza-saltarello.

Theory

Henricus Glareanus (1488-1563) Dodecachordon (1547) added modes nine through twelve on A and C. Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-90) Le institutioni harmoniche (1558) discussed major and minor triads and renumbered Glareanus' modes.