Donald Grout "A History of Western Music"
Chapter 13: Sources of the Classic Style
I. The Enlightenment
A. Enlightenment ideals
1. 18th c. revolt against supernatural religion of the church in favor of natural
religion and practical morality
2. Advocated common sense, empirical psychology, applied science and sociology
3. Freedom for the individual, equal rights and universal education
4. Secular, skeptical, empirical, practical, liberal, equalitarian and progressive
B. Aspects of 18th c. life
1. 18th c. as a cosmopolitan age (national differences were minimized)
a. German kings ruled England, Sweden and Poland
b. Spanish king ruled Naples
c. French duke in Tuscany
2. Internationalization of politics, thought and art
3. Age of the "enlightened despots" (humanitarian rulers)
a. Frederick the Great of Prussia
b. Catherine the Great of Russia
c. Joseph II of Austria
d. Louis XVI of France
4. Freemasonry
a. Religious movement tha advocated universal human brotherhood
5. Rise of Middle class influence
a. Popularization of art and learning
b. New markets for artists and writers
1. This affects subject matter
2. Presentation
c. Public concerts
1. Concert Spirituel
a. Paris public concert series from 1725
2. Gewandhaus concerts
a. Begun by J.A. Hiller in Leipzig in 1763
b. Similar concerts organizations founded at Vienna in 1771,
Berlin in 1790
3. Concert societies had flourished in London since 1672
d. Music printing
1. Collections published for amateurs
2. Periodical publish a large amount of music
3. Music journalism and criticism grows out of this development
6. Enlightenment as a prosaic age
a. Prose valued over poetry
b. As rational thought valued over emotional
C. 18th Century Musical Ideal
1. Characteristics
a. language should be universal
b. "naturalism": should be free of needless technical complications
c. Should be pleasing to any normally sensitive listener
II. Instrumental Music: Sonata, Symphony and Concerto
A. Terminology in the Early Classic Period
1. 1720-1750 often called the Rococo period
a. Terminology is problematic
b. Couperin's character pieces display some of the ornamental extravagence
of art and architecture
2. Galant style
a. Another term for the less contrapuntal style of the early-mid 18th c.
b. Emphasis on short-breathed melody made up of repeated motives
c. Harmony rhythm is less intense
d. Composers writing in the "galant" style
1. Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730)
2. Pergolesi
3. Hasse
4. Keyboard music of Galuppi
5. Chamber music of Sammartini
3. Empfindsamkeit
a. Another term for music of the mid-18th c.
b. literally means "sentimentality" or "sensibility"
c. Expressed through surprising turns of harmony, chromaticism, and
rhapsodic melody
d. Often found in slow movements of the period
e. Composers writing in this style:
1. late concertos of Vivaldi
2. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater
3. In combination with the galant style in C.P.E. Bach's keyboard
sonatas
B. New Concepts of Melody and Harmony
1. Melodic style
a. linear syntax which contrasts sharply with the thorough-bass style of
Bach
1. Bach would announce a musical idea, spin it out through
sequential
repetition
2. Baroque melodies lacked periodicity in their melodies
b. Classical style uses antecedent-consequent phrase structure
1. Use of distinct 2, 3 or 4 bar phrases
c. Harmonic rhythm is slower
1. Melodic activity occurs over slow moving conventional
harmonies
2. Harmonic changes occur on strong accents announced by barlines
d. Bass is subordinated to the melody
1. Alberti Bass
a. Named for Italian composer Domenico Alberti (1710-
1740)
b. Repeated arpeggiations based on the underlying harmony
c. Used frequently by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven
C. Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)
1. Chief Italian keyboard composer of the 18th century
2. Background
a. Son of Alessandro Scarlatti
b. Essercizi
1. First collection of harpsichord sonatas
2. Published in 1738
c. 1720: enters the service of the king of Portugal
d. 1729: moves to Madrid where he remains for the rest of his life
(composes most of his 555 sonatas there)
3. Sonatas
a. Formal elements
1. All his Sonatas are organized by means of tonal relationships into
standard binary patter used for dance pieces
a. 2 sections, each repeated
b. 1st section closes on the dominant or relative major
c. 2nd section modulates further and returns to the tonic
b. Movement schemes
1. Post-1745 Sonatas are arranged in pairs (2 mov't sonatas)
2. 2 mov't sonatas are always in the same key (although one is
sometimes in major and the other in minor)
a. Alberti also wrote 2-mov't sonatas
c. Scarlatti's music was not well-known outside of Spain and Portugal
D. The Classic Sonata
1. Formal elements
a. 3 or 4 movements (occasionally 2) of contrasting mood and tempo
b. Heinrich Cristoph Koch (1749-1816)
1. wrote an Introductory Essay on Composition (1787)
a. Decribes the form of the first movement
b. Now known as sonata form, sonata-allegro form or first-
mov't form
c. 1830s definition of sonata form
1. Saw it as a ternary form consisting of
a. Exposition: first theme on tonic, secondary (often more
lyrical) theme on the dominant or relative major and a
closing (often cadential) theme on the tonic or dominant
b. Development: modulations and variations of the opening
themes
c. Recapitulation: material of the exposition is restated in the
original order in the tonic key
d. Coda: concluding section
E. Early Classic Symphonies and Chamber Music
1. Background
a. Keyboard sonatas and orchestral compositions of similar form from the
18th c. were influenced by the opera overture (sinfonia)
b. Sinfonia
1. By 1700 assumed a 3-mov't structure (fast-slow-fast)
a. Usually an Allegro, short Andante and finale with a dance-
like rhythmn (minuet or gigue)
2. Sinfonias gradually became independent pieces for concert perf.
3. By 1730 Italian composers commonly wrote concert symphonies
(sinfonia using the general opera overture outline)
a. Early symphonies also rely on late Baroque concerto and
Trio Sonata regarding issues of texture, melodic
treatment, structure
c. Sammartini (1701-1775)
1. Italian composer in Milan
2. Symphony in F major (ca.1744)
a. An early example of the 18th c. symphony
b. The work is scored for 2 violins, viola, and bass and is in
three mov't (Presto, Andante and Allegro assai)
3. Other early Italian opera composers
a. Rinaldo di Capua (1710-1780)
b. Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785)
c. Niccolo Jommelli (1714-1774)
d. Composers in Germany, Austria and France follow the lead of the
Italians
e. From 1740, Symphony gradually replaces the concerto as the leading
form of concerted instrumental music
2. Empfindsamer Stil (expressive style)
a. Wilehelm Friedemann (1710-1784)
b. Johann Schobert (1720-1767)
F. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
1. Background
a. Son of J.S. Bach
b. Served Frederick the Great in Berlin from 1740-1768
c. later becomes the music director of 5 principal churches in Hamburg
2. Compositional output
a. Oratorios
b. Songs
c. Symphonies
d. Chamber music
e. Most important works are for clavier
1. 1742: publishes set of six sonatas (Prussian Sonatas)
2. 1744: publishes another set of six (the Wurttemberg Sonatas)
3. Bach's favorite instrument is the clavichord (allows for dynamic
shadings)
a. Clavichord enjoyed renewed popularity in Germany
during the mid-18th century before it was supplanted by
the pianoforte
4. Bach's last 5 sets of sonatas (1780s) were written for the
pianoforte
3. Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments (1753-1762)
a. Important source on ornamentation written by CPE Bach
b. like Quantz's contemporaneous flute treatise, it reveals much
about the musical thought and practice of the period
4. Empfindsamkeit techniques in CPE Bach (and contemporaries)
a. Elements of surprise are exploited
1. Abrupt shifts of harmony
2. Strange modulations
3. Unusual turns of melody (ornamentation)
4. Suspenseful pauses
5. Changes of texture
6. Sudden sforzando accents
b. Emphasis on subjectivity and emotion
c. Style reaches its peak during the 1760s and 1770s
d. Sturm und Drang (storm and stress)
1. German literary mov't of the same period
2. Similar aesthetic goals
G. German Symphonic Composers
1. Principal centers of symphonic composition after 1740
a. Mannheim
b. Vienna
c. Berlin
2. Johann Stamitz (1717-1757)
a. leading composer of the "Mannheim school"
b. Mannheim orchestra introduced new musical techniques soon imitated
throughout Europe
1. Use of broader dynamic range (pianissimo to fortissimo)
2. Use of crescendo
3. Graduated dynamics
a. Previously terraced dynamics were used
b. Graduated dynamics used "gradual" changes
c. Terraced dymanics used abrupt steps in dynamic character
(discontinuous)
c. Stamitz was one of the first composers to introduce a contrasting
theme in the dominant section of a movement
3. Vienna
a. Georg Matthias Monn (1717-1750)
b. Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-1774)
c. Michael Haydn (1737-1806)
d. Viennese traits
1. Pleasing lyricism
2. Humor
3. Contrasting theme groups in sonata movements
4. Berlin
a. Johann Gottlieb Graun (1703-1771)
b. CPE Bach
c. Berlin style
1. Conservative
2. Held to a 3-movement structure for the symphony
3. Avoided sharp thematic contrasts within a movement
4. Initiated technique of thematic development
5. Enriched symphonic texture with contrapuntal elements
H. Johann Christian Bach's Concertos
1. Background
a. J.C. Bach (1735-1782)
b. youngest son of J.S. Bach
c. Studied in Italy with Martini (1706-1784) in Bologna
d. 1760: organist at Milan
e. 1762: moves to London
1. His 40 keyboard concertos are immensely popular in England
2. Opus 7 (1770) bears the title: Sei concerti per il cembalo o piano e
forte
a. Bach is one of the first to adopt the pianoforte for
public performance
f. Mozart meets Bach in 1764-65
2. Compositional output
a. Symphonies
b. Chamber music
c. Keyboard music
d. Operas
3. Formal scheme of Bach's solo concertos
a. Retains the Baroque ritornello structure but adds the contrasting thematic
and harmonic elements of the sonata
b. Form: P=Primary theme, T=Transition, S=Secondary Theme, K=Closing section
[EXPOSITION]
Orchestra Solo
P Transitional K Closing P Transitional S K Closing Short
Tutti Tutti Tutti Tutti Cad.
Tonic Dominant
[DEVELOPMENT] [RECAPITULATION]
Solo w/Orchestra P Transitional (S) K Cadenza Closing
using exposition Tutti Tutti
or new material
Foreign Keys Tonic
I. Orchestral Music in France
1. Paris becomes an important center of composition and publication toward the
mid-18th c.
2. Important foreign composers
a. Austrians
1. Wagenseil
2. Ignaz Holzbauer (1711-1783)
b. Sammartini
c. Stamitz
d. Anton Filtz
e. Francois-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)
1. Belgian who went to Paris in 1751
2. Publ. his first symphonies in 1754
3. One of the most popular composers of the revolutionary period
and one of the first directors of the Paris Conservatory
4. March lugubre
a. Among Gossec's works for public ceremonies of the new
French Republic
b. This piece may have influenced Beethoven's 3rd Sym. 2nd
mov't
3. Symphonie concertante
a. A symphonic work employing two or more solo instruments in addition to
the regular orchestra
b. Composers of this genre
1. Joseph Boulogne Saint-Georges (1739-1799)
2. Giovanni Giuseppe Cambini (1746-1825)
J. The Symphony Orchestra
1. 1775-1800: the basso continuo rapidly disappears
2. By 1800 the harpsichord has been discarded from the orchestral texture
3. Composition of the mid-century Mannheim orchestra
a. 20 violins
b. 4 violas, 4 cellos, 4 basses
c. 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons
d. 4 horns, 1 trumpet
e. 2 kettledrums
4. Haydn's orchestra from 1760-1785
a. 12-16 strings
b. Flute
c. 2 oboes
d. 2 bassoons
e. 2 horns
f. Harpsichord
g. Trumpet and drums occasionally added
K. Chamber Music
1. Types of chamber music in the 1770s and 1780s
a. Sonata for clavier and violin (violin usually in subsidiary role)
b. String quartet
2. Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805)
a. Important composer of chamber music
b. worked chiefly at Madrid
c. Compositional output
1. 140 string quintets
2. 100 string quartets
3. 65 string trios
3. Viennese Serenade
a. Designed primarily for outdoor, informal occasions
b. like the viennese divertimento, this was an intermediate form
between the Baroque orchestral suite and the symphony
c. Consisted of 5 or more mevements, many of them in dance rhythms
d. Instrumentation
1. Sometimes written for wind instruments alone
2. Also written for strings alone
3. Sometimes instruments were used in combination
e. Historically important since they allowed composers to experiment with
orchestration and ensemble scoring (without basso continuo)
1. Elimination of basso continuo was essential to the rise of the
string quartet
4. Quartet composers prior to Haydn
a. Franz Xaver Richter (1709-1789)
1. Opus 5
a. Published in London in 1768
b. Collection of 6 quartets
III. Opera, Song, and Church Music
A. Background
1. Along with sonata and symphony, new genres and styles were emerging
2. French tragedie lyrique was resistant to change in this period
3. Italian opera was changing during this period
a. Italian opera eventually dominates the stages of Europe in the
18th c.
b. Aimed to be clear, simple, rational, faithful and pleasing to
the audience
1. Eventually criticized as being too artificial
B. Italian Opera Seria
1. Pietro Metastasio (1698-1782)
a. Italian poet who standardized opera seria
b. Characteristics of the genre
1. Presentation of a conflict of human passion in an action based
story from an ancient Greek or Latin author
2. Made use of the conventional cast of two pairs of lovers and
subordinate personages
3. Often utlized a popular stock character of 18th c. opera, the
"magnanimous tyrant"
4. Action introduces a number of varied scenes
a. Pastoral or martial episodes
b. Solemn ceremonies
5. Three acts
a. Alternating arias and recitatives
b. Occasional duets
c. Few ensembles or choruses
6. Instrumental music
a. Primarily accompanies the singers
b. Obbligato recit. reserved for the most dramatic moments
2. The Aria
a. Da Capo Aria
1. Most popular form in the early 18th c.
b. Decline of operatic writing
1. Concentration upon the aria as almost the only significant musical
ingredient in opera gave way to abuses
2. Alternation of recit and arias came to be treated to rigidly
3. Singers demanded virtuousic arias and embellishments
4. Il teatro alla moda (The Fashionable Theater)
a. 1720 opera publ. anonymously
b. Opera was by Benedetto Marcello
c. Parody of empty Italian virtuosity
c. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
1. Important composer of opera serie (as well as comic intermezzos)
d. Other composers of opera seria
1. late Handel
a. Alcina
b. Serse
2. Giovanni Bononcini
3. Karl Heinrich Graun (1704-1759)
4. Domingo Terradellas (1713-1751)
5. Nicola Porpora (1686-1768)
6. Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783)
a.director of music and opera at the court of the elector of
Saxony in Dresden
b. Majority of his 80 operas use librettos by Metastasio
c. Most popular opera composer in Europe mid-century
C. Beginnings of Opera Reform
1. Attempt to reform opera involved the following:
a. Renewed emphasis on the dramatic qualities
b. less emphasis on "rigid" structural conventions
c. Move away from the coloratura and virtuosic elements
d. Modification of the da capo aria
1. Form becomes more flexible to serve drama
2. Renders progression of action more realistic
e. Greater use of obbligato recitative
f. More dramatic use of the orchestra
g. Reappearance of the chorus
2. Two important figures of early reform
a. Niccolo Jommelli
b. Tommaso Traetta (1727-1779)
1. Both are Italian composers who worked at courts where French
taste dominated
2. Jommelli at Stuttgart and Traetta at Parma
3. Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)
a. Achieved a synthesis of French and Italian opera
b. Personal history
1. Born in Bohemia
2. Studied under Sammartini in Italy
3. Visited London and toured Germany as the conductor of an opera
troupe
4. Became court composer to the emperor at Vienna
5. Triumphed in Paris under the patronage of Marie Antoinette
c. Operas
1. Began writing in the traditional Italian style
2. was strongly influenced by the 1750s reform movement
3. Collaborated with poet Raniero Calzabigi (1714-1795)
a. Orfeo ed Euridice (1762)
b. Alceste (1767)
c. Both operas produce at Vienna
d. Dedication in Alceste remarks upon Gluck's resolve to
remove the abuses that had deformed Italian opera
1. Music would once again serve the poetry
2. Overture would be made integral part of opera
3. Contrast between aria and recit. reduced
4. Gluck restored important dramatic function to the chorus
a. Jommelli began using final choruses in his Viennese
operas of the early 1750s
5. Iphigenie en Aulide
a. Gluck's masterpiece
b. Produced at Paris in 1774
c. The opera scene in Paris
1. War of the Buffonists (1752)
2. Gluck sought to prove that excellent music could
be written in French
3. Gluck revises Orfeo and Alceste (providing both
with French texts)
d. Based on the Racine tragedy
d. Composers influenced by Gluck
1. Niccolo Piccinni (1728-1800)
a. Gluck's rival in Paris
2. Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842)
3. Gasparo Spontini (1774-1851)
4. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869
D. Comic Opera
1. Definition
a. works that are lighter in style than "serious" opera
b. They present familiar scenes and characters rather than heroic or
mythological material
c. Represents an artistic revolt against opera seria
2. Characteristics
a. librettos are always in the national tongue
b. Music tends to accentuate the national musical idiom
3. Significance
a. Comic opera grew steadily in importance after 1760
b. Towards the end of the century, features of comic opera are absorbed into
mainstream composition
c. Historical importance
1. Responded to the universal demand for naturalness in the latter
half of the 18th c.
2. Principal early channel of the movement toward musical
nationalism which became prominent in the Romantic period
4. Italy
a. Intermezzo
1. Originally short comic musical interludes between the acts of a
serious opera
2. Pergolesi
a. Important early composer of intermezzo
b. La serva padrona
1. Text by Federico
2. written to be performed with Pergolesi's
Il prigioner superbo in 1733
3. The performance set off the "War of the Buffonists"
4. written for bass and soprano (3rd char. is mute)
b. Other composers
1. Nicola Logroscino (1698-1765)
2. Baldassare Galuppi
c. Ensemble finale
1. Logroscino and Galuppi develop this feature
2. For the ending all characters are gradually brought onto the stage
while the actions continues with growing animation until it
reaches a climax in which every singer takes part
d. Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793)
1. Dramatist
2. Mid-century refinement of the comic opera libretto
a. Plots of a serious, sentimental or pathetic character
began to appear (alongside traditional comic ones)
b. Dramma giocoso (replaced older opera buffa designation)
1. A nontragic drama
2. Example: Piccinni's La buona figliuola (1760)
5. France
a. Opera comique
1. French version of light opera
2. Began around 1710 as a lowly form of popular entertainment
3. Until the middle of the century it relied on popular tunes for its
music
4. Uses spoken dialogue rather than recitative
5. Prinicpal composers
a. Andre Danican Philidor (1726-1795)
b. Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (1729-1817)
c. Andre Ernest Modeste Gretry (1741-1813)
1. Richard Coeur de Lion
a. Forerunner to the turn of the century
"rescue" opera
b. Le Devin du village
1. 1752 opera by Rousseau
2. Rousseau, only a decade earliers, had opposed French music
6. England
a. Ballad opera
1. The Beggar's Opera
a. Brought the genre to prominence
b. 1728 satire of Italian opera
2. Popularity in the 1730s seen as repudiation of Italian opera
b. Thomas Augustine Arne
1. Only notable English composer of English opera in the 17th c.
7. Germany
a. Singspiel
1. Genre arising from the mid-18th c.
2. Early Singspiels were adaptations of English ballad operas
3. librettists soon made arrangements of French comic operas
b. Principal composers of the 18th c. singspiel
1. Johann Adam Hiller (1728-1804)
a. Based in Leipzig
2. Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
a. Viennese composer
b. Viennese style was lighter, farcical subjects and popular
idioms were used
E. The Lied
1. Die singende Muse an der Pleisse (The Muse of Song on the Pleiss)
a. First important collection of lieder publ. in Leipzig in 1736
b. Songs in this collection were parodies (i.e. new texts written
to extant music)
2. Principal song center of the period was Berlin
a. Berlin composers
1. J.J. Quantz (1697-1773)
2. K.H. Graun
3. CPE Bach
b. Berlin lied style
1. Composers favored strophic form
2. Melodies were in natural, expressive folk-style
3. Setting was usually syllabic
4. Simple accompaniment
5. little ornamentation
c. leading Berlin lied composers
1. Johann Abraham Peter Schulz (1747-1800)
2. Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1752-1814)
a. wrote 700 lieder
b. Many settings of Goethe
d. Publishing boom
1. Over 750 collections published from 1750-1800
Outline compiled and edited by David Papandrew.
Based on Grout/Palisca 'A History of Western Music' (4th Ed.)
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