The Baroque expressive effects of chromatic harmonies established in the major-minor key system with very brief expansions to other keys would evolve into Classical opera's favoring of diatonic harmonies expanding on the tonic-dominant scale which became the basis for classical opera's large scale form. Early baroque masters like Claudio Monteverdi wrote operas based on mythology and Roman history and English composer Henry Purcell wrote Dido and Aeneas, based on The Aeneid, a Roman epic by Vigil. These large-scale musicals combined acting, poetry, scenery and costumes accompanied by singing and instrumental music characterized by regular rhythms and continuous melodic expansion to evoke the emotions of the listener. The emotions of the Baroque revolved around a
Claudio Monteverdi Claudio Monteverdi was born on May 15, 1567, in Cremona Italy, Monteverdi was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance and the Early Baroque, and is known as the first great composer of the operas. Monteverdi is often view as a composer of the Renaissance and of the Baroque, there is a similar pattern in that is continuous that is often viewed through his work in both styles. Monteverdi often was known as a dramatic composer, while bringing a tremendous meaning from the text he set that often turned each of his pieces into a believable musical and also produced a dramatic statement. It was an early age when Monteverdi’s career began, he then published his first pieces, and this was based on as a collection of three-voice motets, at the age of fifteen. It was by 1591, when he went to Mantua as a musician for the Gonzaga court, by then he had already published books of “spiritual madrigals” in 1583, then another canzonettas in 1584, by 1587 and 1590 he published his first two books of “madrigals.” It was in Mantua he continued writing madrigals, and then in 1607 he produced his first work in the new genre of opera, the setting was of Orfeo.
Jackson 1 Milton Jackson 1 June 2009 MUS 24B Spirit of the Past: Felix Mendelssohn’s Elijah & Its Romantic Take on the Oratorio Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah is a great example of a composer paying homage to his predecessors while illustrating one’s own style as a musician. While Mendelssohn uses the “spirit” of Handel’s previous oratorios, however, with distinct and certain stylistic elements, the musical and easily analyzed setting of the story of Elijah, and the extension of performance contributions present-day conductors have added, Mendelssohn has made Elijah an oratorio that harps on its laurels of the past yet stands all on its own. Prior to writing Elijah, in 1836 Mendelssohn had just finished writing his oratorio St. Paul, as some regard has his finest work. St. Paul was written in 1834 for the Lower Rhine Music Festival in Düsseldorf in 1836, premiering on May 22nd. Mendelssohn was only 27 years old at the time of the premiere.
Before 1790, no pedal markings existed. Clementi used it a little in the late 1790’s. He was one of the first composers to compose for the new developments on the piano. In 1800 the una corda was invented which Beethoven and Thalburg made great use of. Pedalling only really developed at the beginning of the 19th century and was used by Chopin and Liszt.
It appeared late in what scholars define as the first period of Beethoven's career, just a year or two before the crisis brought about by his gradual loss of hearing. By the mid-1790s, Beethoven had tried most of the important instrumental genres, save for symphony and string quartet. Those were the pieces in which his teacher Haydn had made his greatest mark and enjoyed his most significant successes. When Beethoven did come forward with his first symphonies, he built on the achievements of Haydn and Mozart while not hiding his debt to them. Contemporaries reacted to the work of Beethoven by using the word "masterpiece" repeatedly and praising its "originality."
Traditional and Innovative Aspects of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra Movement 1 Bartók had several precursors in composers who also had written works entitled Concerto for Orchestra [Hindemith (Frankfurt 1925), Petrassi (Rome 1933-34), and his colleague Kodály (Chicago 1941)], so that while it was decidedly a twentieth century species, his was not the very first to emerge; while still ‘modern’, there was more than a brief bit of history behind it, as I hope to show. Straightaway let me note that in terms of instrumentation, the scoring would argue a Romantic symphony: the ‘serious’ brass in the forms of trombones and tuba as well as the regular trumpets, together with the triple sets of woodwind, provide the kind of orchestral punch associated with some late nineteenth century compositions, for example, by Wagner; however, this impression is immediately dispelled once the orchestra strikes up: if we have to use a label, it might be termed Neo-classical. In keeping with the traditional symphony, it is a large, powerful opus, with the traditionally-structured five movements, although with Bartók’s individual stamp. Additionally, as the composer himself notes, ‘the first and fifth movements are written in a more or less regular sonata form,’ immediately showing a major Classical influence. One innovative aspect, commented on by Bartók in his programme note for the first performance, was the way he saw the whole orchestra as generating a constantly changing concertino drawn from the various orchestral sections, so that while the brass, for instance, may have the spotlight for a period, there is no individual virtuosic part, and the rest of the orchestra plays the ripieno part; thus, it is novel, yet reaches back in time to the concerto grosso of Baroque times, as do the canon and fugato sections of the development which I will look at later.
“Mozart was a child prodigy in the making” (Wolfgang 1). By the mid-18th century, faith had become a reason for power. It determined authority over social and religious status. “During the Age of Enlightment, musicians had difficulties finding places for work and ended up as court musicians” (Music 151). A court musician is an individual that plays for hire.
Following this change, in the twelfth century the Parisian monk Adam of Saint Victor introduced the practice of deriving music from popular songs, creating music that more closely resembles the traditional Christmas carols we know today. In the thirteenth century, the Christmas carol evolved into something even closer to the traditional popular Christmas songs. These songs were made in the native languages of French, German, and especially Italian, instead of the original Latin that
In 1501, Venetian printer Ottaviano Petrucci introduced to the music world the first collection of polyphonic compositions from moveable type. The book, entitled Odhecaton (Greek for one hundred songs) contained songs, sacred and secular, representing the compositional and more specifically contrapuntal masters of the time including Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin des Prez, and many of their esteemed colleagues. One composer’s work, however, was not included within any of Petrucci’s publications despite the fact that the previously named composers would have considered him a mentor in his field. Guillaume Dufay was indeed a leading light for composers during the 15th and 16th sixteenth centuries and whose life marked the beginning of the Renaissance period. So why was Dufay’s music seemingly ignored by many of his close successors?
Although now we call it Rondo form, it started off in the Baroque Period, the ritornello form. In Latin, this word means “ to return”, that indicates the return to the main theme “A”. So, the Baroque period rondo pattern is ABAC-ADA. Let’s see some possible patterns that you can find in the Classical Periods, including: ABA, ABACA, ABACAB’A. Their number of themes can vary from piece to piece, these kinds of elements or themes are sometimes to make more attractive and more interesting in order to provide harmony, melody, rhythm... Rondo form began to be very common since the Classical Era, before that period it can be found in the last movement of a sonata, symphony, concertos.