History of the Classical Period of Music

the term "classical period" is generally used to refer to the post-baroque & pre-romantic era of music composed between 1750 and 1830, which covers the development of the classical symphony and concerto
music of this period was generally of an orderly nature, with qualities of clarity & balance, and emphasising formal beauty rather than emotional expression
new instruments:
- pianoforte:
  - earliest keyboard with loud & soft - Cristofori's gravicem-balo col piano e forte (c1698-1700)
  - Silbermann 1st made Cristofori-styled instruments in 1726 and improved them
  - upright piano 1st made in 1800 and perfected in 1829 and the iron frame introduced
neopolitan opera style (Italian style eg Handel)
- featuring bel canto often sung by eunuchs until Napoleon banned castration of singers
- opera seria (serious opera)
- opera buffa (comic opera eg. Mozart "Don Giovanni")
  - serious comedy opera (Mozart "The Marriage of Figaro" 1786)
music styles:
- dance:
  - French rococo or style galant (courtly style using short trills usually on harpsichord)
  - English country dance popular in Elizabethan courts but displaced by waltz & quadrille
  - quadrille:
    - type of square dance in France becomes fashionable 1745
    - popular in court of Napoleon I in early 19thC
    - music selected from popular tunes, operatic arias & sometimes sacred works
  - minuet in France becomes fashionable 1751
  - waltz in Vienna becomes fashionable 1773
  - bolero in Spain 1780
- symphony:
  - in 17th-18thC, a sinfonia was initially a short instrumental piece which we would now regard as an overture to an opera
  - in 18thC it became a large scale orchestral composition, usually in 4 movements, usually containing an opening allegro, followed by a slow movement, then a minuet or scherzo, and finally another allegro or rondo
  - early composers were Sammartini. Wagenseil, Gossec, J.C & C.P.E. Bach, Boyce & especially the composers of the Mannheim School, Stamitz, Cannabich, Richter and others
  - successively improved by Hadyn, Mozart and then Beethoven
  - then embellished by the Romantic era composers
- sonata:
  - originated in 16thC, when it meant anything not sung but played
  - in baroque times, had developed into instrumental piece of 3-6 movements, like a suite, and had 2 forms:
    - sonata da camera (chamber sonata)
    - sonata da chiesa (church sonata)
  - keyboard solo sonatas developed in 18thC by Salvatore, Kuhnau, D. Scarlatti & C.P.E. Bach
  - further developed by the Viennese Classical composers (usually in 3 movements as allegro-andante-allegro), Hadyn, Mozart and then Beethoven introduced the minuet & scherzo as the 3rd movement, replacing the allegro
- concerto:
- string quartet:
  - 1st developed in early 18thC with A.Scarlatti, Tartini
  - flowered with compositions by Hadyn, Mozart and then Beethoven & Schubert
- Viennese classical school: Haydn (1732–1809), Mozart (1756-91), and Beethoven (1770-1827)

Haydn (1732–1809):
- often regarded as the 'father' of the symphony (erroneously) and of the string quartet, but also wrote some treasurable vocal music
- 1st to write string trios for violin, viola & cello (baroque trios were 2 violins and a cello)
- including oratorios, masses, operas as well as 450 arrangements of British folk songs
- some of his works are part of the German music era "Sturm und Drang" (Storm and Stress) in 1760-80 which was characterised by peak of emotionalism, marked by new & audacious formal and harmonic features
  - symphonies nos 40-59 & string quartets
  - also C.P.E. Bach's compositions
Mozart (1756-91):
- the natural superiority of the music he wrote changed the course of the symphony, piano concerto, string quartet, sonata and much more.
- the brilliance and gaiety on the surface of his music contrasts with the underlying vein of melancholy, giving it an ambivalence which is fascinating & provocative (eg. Cosi fan tutte)
- compositions include:
  - operas:
    - Don Giovanni (1787)
    - Cosi fan tutte (1789)
  - symphonies:
  - misc:
    - Eine Klein Nachtmusik (1787)
  - concertos:
  - church music:
    - Requiem Mass (1791)
  - quartets, quintets:
  - solo piano:
    - minuets, rondos, gigue
  - songs
Beethoven (1770-1827):
- a virtuoso pianist/composer who radically transformed every music form he worked on:
  - he emancipated & democratized music
  - his mastery of structure & of key relationships was the basis on the revolution in the handling of the sonata form
  - developed the symphony to its fullest as a repository for a composer's most important ideas
  - expanded the coda from a formal conclusion to a climactic splendour
  - transformed the minuet into the tempestuous, exultant scherzo
  - 1st to use 'motto themes' as a consistent formal device
  - in his slow movements, expressed a mystical exaltation which even Mozart had never approached
  - extended string quartets and piano sonatas to a vastly increased technical & expressive degree
- discovered he was going deaf in 1798, which gradually worsened, and by 1819 he could no longer understand spoken voice
- music composed includes:
  - symphonies:
    - No.2 Eroica (1805) -initially dedicated to Napoleon, but detracted when found Napoleon became Emperor
    - No.5 (1808)
    - No.6 Pastoral (1808)
    - No.9 Choral (1824)
  - concertos
  - orchestrals
  - piano sonatas
    - Moonlight sonata
  - other piano incl. bagatelles, Rondo a capriccio
  - chamber music
  - choral
Schubert (1797-1828):
- wrote over 600 songs as well as operas, stage music, symphonies, church music, chamber music, and piano sonatas, all of which, even the happiest, had a tinge of sadness, especially his later works when he was increasingly ill.
- Unfinished Symphony
- torchbearer at Beethoven's funeral

The early Classical Period: Opera, Sonata, Symphony

The Enlightenment

Reading Assignment:

Descartes (on reserves)
Voltaire (on reserves)
Critically and carefully read the opening discussion on the Enlightenment by Palisca and Grout (1996:439-451)

Cosmopolitan age
"International" (European) culture
Vienna, Austria, as the new center of European culture in the 18th century
Humanitarianism
Expanding middle class
Public concerts as the new media of music patronage
Music publishing: new musical magazines, reviews, criticism
First "general" (meaning, European) histories of music with systematic approach
New Musical Taste

The Early Classical Period

Explanation of the term "classical":

well-balanced
ymmetrical
formally perfected
structurally in equilibrium
simple
serious
free from excesses and exuberent ornamentations
referring to ancient Greek (and sometimes even ancient Roman!) culture, civilization, and the arts

The Classical Period is sometimes also called:

the Rococo
Classicism
the Galant Style, in France
the Empfindsam Style, in Germany (see below)

In its traditional understanding, the term usually refers to the period in which Haydn and Mozart, and even early Beethoven, made their music
New harmonic language -- tonality and functional harmony
New melodic periodicity
Emotionaal contrasts
- New and much bigger sound owing to the development of orchestra and big musical forms, especially the symphony
I. Opera
- The term opera buffa stands for the 18th century comic opera in Italy, also known as the:
- six or more characters, often speaking/singing in a dialect
- rapid recitatives, accompanied on the keyboard only
- arias, often in da capo form, were short and tuneful
- Composers:
- a type of the 18th century Italian opera based on serious subjects and librettos, without any comic situations
- cultivated all over Europe in a manner that was not much distinguishable from a country to a country
- new emphasis on the aria:
- the librettos of the opera seria were usually those of the Italian poet Pietro Metastasio
- three-act operas
- alternating recitatives and arias
- occasional duets
- the orchestra assumed more important role especially in recitativo obligato, and as carrier of dramatic development, not just an accompaniment
- Although German, who lived in Dresden, Hasse spent many years in Italy, married the celebrated Italian soprano Faustina Bordoni, and composed operas widely accepted as Italian
- 1760-1800: roughly a period of the emergence and flurishing of comic opera
- contrary to the 'international style' of opera seria, comic opera carried more culture specific features of the local country in which it was practiced
- the older term, opera buffa was replaced by the new and more acceptable one:
- Librettist:
- Composers in Italy:
- Composers in France:
- Composers in England:
- 1750s: abuses in opera seria and the ever increasing demands of opera singer for more coloraturas (see above) were cut short by the reform of opera
- A new attempt was made to bring opera into harmony, in which the drama and music would be in equilibrium, like in French tragédie lyrique
- This reformist movement in opera was led by:
- Synthesized French and Italian operatic genres
- Reformer of opera
- Operas:
- 1752: the Querelle des bouffons, 'the quarrel of the bouffons, the comic actors'

II. Sonata and Symphony

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

son of Alessandro Scarlatti
left italy in the early 1720s and lived in Portugal and then in Madrid, Spain, for the rest of his life
Scarlatti published his sonatas for harpsichord in a collection called Essercizi, 'Excercizes'
Scarlatti's sonata:

binary pattern -- two movements or sections, each repeated
the first section ends on the dominant or relative major key
the second section modulates and finally returns to the tonic
the closing part of the first section is repeated as the closing part of the second section, but in the tonic key
Scarlatti's sonata form became the model for the eighteenth century sonatas

Music Example -- Scarlatti's Sonata (NRAWM II, CD7:26-27 [CD3:7-8])

Sonata in D Major, K. 119 for harpsichord by Domenico Scarlatti

1. The Classical Sonata Form

The form of the first movement either of the sonata form itself, or of the symphony, or the trio, or of the string quartet, from the late 18th and the early 19th century
The Sonata Form consists of three sections:

Exposition

Two themes

The first theme is understood as 'dramatic' and is stated in the tonic key
The second theme is understood as 'lyric', in the dominant key, or in the relative key if the movement is in a minor key

The Bridge, conneting to the Development section, and usually ending on the dominant

Development

further motivic work on thematic material from the exposition, with modulations to related or remote keys

Recapitulation

The restatement of Exposition, but with all material in the tonic key
Recapitulation may end with a coda

2. Early Classical Symphony Form

1700: The Italian opera overture, often called sinfonia, as well as the intermezzos, have become independent pieces and performed as concerts
in their structure, they resembled the late Baroque concertos and trio sonatas
The standard three movements of the symphony, like in Torelli's concerto grossos:

Presto or Allegro -- fast
Andante -- slow
Allegro assai -- fast

Music Example -- Symphony (NRAWM II, CD7:28-30)
- - Empfindsamer Stil, the 'sentimental style', a style among the German composers in the mid 18th century, usually expressed in their keyboard pieces
  - This style may be likened to its French pendant, the galant style
  - Features:
  - Outstanding protagonists of this style were the two of sons-musicians of J.S. Bach:
  - unlike his father, Johann Sebastian, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed musical forms that will mark the history of European music in the second half of the 18th century:
  - Two sets of keyboard sonatas:
  - These sonatas were written for clavichord, not harpsichord, because of the necessity to create dynamic contrasts as the new empfindsam style required
  - By the mid-18th century, a new keyboard instrument, pianoforte -- a forrunner of the 19th century grand piano -- replaced the clavichord and harpsichord, so C.P.E. Bach's keyabord sonatas may be understood as being intended for this new medium of musical expresion, the piano

The Enlightenment

Reading Assignment:

The Early Classical Period

I. Opera

1. Opera buffa -- Early Italian Comic Opera

2. Opera seria -- 'Serious' Opera in Italy and Austria-Germany

Librettis: Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782)

Composer: Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783)

3. Comic Opera: Italy, France, England

The Reform of Opera

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)

Querelle des bouffons

II. Sonata and Symphony

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

1. The Classical Sonata Form

2. Early Classical Symphony Form

The Empfindsam Style

Sturm und Drang

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)

The Mannheim Symphony and Johann Stamitz (1717-1757)

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782)