Objectives
- Explain how the Classical period (1750-1825) characteristics of order, objectivity, and harmonious proportion relate to the music characteristics of the period.
- Summarize how the American Revolution (1775-83) and the French Revolution (1789-99) profoundly changed political systems and social order.
- Classify the large-scale musical forms in which the Classical masters composed.
- Explain music making in the context of the royal court and the patronage system.
- Define form and absolute music, and relate these concepts to one another.
- Differentiate between the main musical forms of the Clasical-era by summarizing the development of the symphony, sonata, string quartet, and the concerto.
- Define and analyze the symphony, sonata, string quartet, and concerto forms in the context of the Classical period.
- Describe the impact of the major Classical composers Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven.
- Discuss the impact of Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas.
- Compare and contrast the two types of Italian opera: opera buffa and opera seria.
The Early Classical Period (1750 - 1820)
Music Characteristics
Almost every stylistic change in music has occurred as a reaction against prevailing trends of the time. In the first half of the 18th century, the existing trend was toward a highly ornate and emotional musical style, prone to grand gestures. The first reaction against the baroque style occurred in France, where the rococo style originated. The preference for the melodic, homophonic style of Handel over the complex polyphony of Bach.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
-
"Messiah: All we like sheep"
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
-
"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: I. Chorus"
In his theoretical treaties, Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) had already tried to lay the groundwork for a more ordered approach to music. In their smaller keyboard suites, or ordres, both he and Couperin (1668-1733) opted not to use the larger gestures common to concerto or sonata. In short, as they entered the Classical period, composers and audiences preferred a style that featured a single, beautiful, simple melody with a basic harmonic background, whether in the ornate style of Couperin, or the stately style of Handel.
Several features are common to most music of the Classical period. They are:
- Use of clearly defined forms.
- Diatonic harmony that avoids tension or dissonance.
- Clear, lyrical melodic lines that on occasion may also be long and expansive.
In summary, Classical composers strove to achieve clarity, poise, and beauty in their music. Within these boundaries, the greatest composers of the age wrote music that was as bold, daring, and emotional as any that had been composed before. Once again, music mirrored the dichotomy of the times.
“The first reaction against the baroque style occurred in France, where the rococo style originated...”
The Early Classical Period
In many ways, the chronology of the Baroque and Classical periods overlaps. While Bach and Handel were creating the greatest masterpieces of Baroque music, Couperin and Rameau were writing the earliest works of the French rococo, a precursor to Classicism. And though it would be quite some time before the mature works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven defined Classical style, the seeds of change already existed. A group of musicians based in a small German city on the Rhineland, including a few sons of famous composers, plus the work of a French and an Italian opera composer, were the main contributors to these changes.
Sons of Famous Composers
Johann Sebastian Bach had twenty children, not all of which survived past infancy. However, continuing a family trend begun several generations earlier, several of his sons became important composers in their own right. The three sons we will discuss here are Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), and the youngest, Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782).
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the oldest of the Bach children, was a talented organist and composer whose works alternate between a conservative Baroque style, and the emfindsamer Stil (“sensitive style”)—the German equivalent of the French rococo—of which his younger brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel was the foremost exponent. His Sinfonia in F is a good example of the early 18th century sinfonia, the Italian opera overture that was occasionally performed separately in concert. The three movements of the Sinfonia were commonly organized as fast-slow-fast, the order of movements that became the basis for the Classical symphony.
Composer: Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
-
"Sinfonia in F"
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, was arguably Bach's most influential son, and indeed one of the most important composers of his generation. His career was spent in the courts and churches of Berlin and Hamburg, where he was regarded as a leading figure in the city's musical society and was able to profit from opportunities that his father never had. His is mostly known for developing the sonata form, and for a prolific output of keyboard sonatas, of which he wrote over 200; concertos (over 50); violin, cello, and flute sonatas; and religious music.
C.P.E. Bach also wrote influential symphonies. These include a set of six symphonies for strings commissioned by Baron Gottfried van Swieten, Austrian ambassador to Berlin in 1770, and an influential patron to both Mozart and Haydn. The novel treatment of the instruments is immediately apparent in the opening movement of the Sinfonia in D Major, Wq.183/1, H. 663, marked Allegro di molto, where wind instruments have considerable independence. The principal subject is innovative in its metrical use of a repeated note in increasingly short notes. This symphony reflects the prevailing Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) mood of the day, with its heightened emotions. The slow movement (Largo) is a characteristic expression of empfindsamkeit or empfindsamer stil, the "sensitive style" of musical composition intended to express true and natural feelings, that influenced all the arts of the period. This Symphony in D ends with a dashing finale marked Presto.
Composer: 0
-
"opening movement of the Sinfonia in D Major"
Composer: 0
-
"dashing finale "
Composer: Anton Webern
-
"Langsamer Satz (Slow Movement)"
Central to C.P.E. Bach's output are his keyboard works (sonatas, fantasias, rondos, etc.). In particular, his sonatas depart from the Baroque sonata style and can therefore be seen as a bridge between the Baroque solo sonata and the classical sonatas of Haydn and Mozart. The slow movement of the Sonata Wq. 70 has the ornate quality and dynamic contrasts associated with the empfindsamer Stil of Mozart's piano fantasies and sonatas. C.P.E. Bach also wrote the most important 18th-century German-language treatise on keyboard playing titled Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments) (1753–62), in which he advices performers to adopt the same emotional state as they wish to arouse in listeners, and warns against unnecessary mannerisms and exaggerations.
Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
-
"Keyboard Sonata in A major: II. Andante con tenerezza"
Johann Christian Bach, sometimes referred to as the "London Bach," is considered a lesser composer than his brothers, but nevertheless enjoyed a long and fruitful career in England, where he settled in 1761. His concertos for keyboard and orchestra in the galant style—the elegant, rather superficial style popular in the 18th century, not only in music but also in literature and the visual arts—created quite a stir. The young Mozart was so impressed by Johann Christian's concertos that he converted three of them into piano sonatas when he visited London with his father in 1764-5.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Alessandro Scarlatti's son, is also a significant member of this group of transitional composers. His 550 single-movement sonatas, beginning with the first published in 1738, foreshadow sonata form and are one of the most significant collections of keyboard works of the period, or for that matter, of any historical period. His Sonata in C, K.132, performed here on piano, illustrates the mixture of Baroque ornamentation and Classical clarity that is a hallmark of his style.
Composer: Johann Christian Bach
-
"Sonata in C, K.132"
A Word About Catalog and Opus Numbers
You may have noticed that some works have odd abbreviations after them: op., Wq., K., No., etc. They all refer to some method of cataloguing a composer's works. Let's look at the most common ways of doing this:
Opus numbers: The word ‘opus' comes from the Italian opera meaning “work.” The abbreviation of Opus is Op. This is the Op. number that follows the title of a piece, as in J.C. Bach's Sinfonia, Op.3, No. 1. Opus numbers are usually given to a work by the composer or the publisher, and usually refer to the order in which they were published. If the published work was a set of smaller pieces (like Bach's Sinfonia), then the separate smaller works within the set are listed as Op. 3, No. 1, Op. 3, No. 2 and so on.
Composer: Johann Christian Bach
-
"Sinfonia, Op.3, No.1"
Individual Catalogs: Composers or their publishers do not always catalogue compositions neatly. Musicologists, therefore, often go back and try to piece together the history of a composer's output. For some composers, Beethoven for instance, an adequate amount of opus numbers were kept in a reasonable order that the opus catalogue is sufficient. (Any of Beethoven's works that weren't given an opus number by him are labeled WoO: Without Opus).
But the work of composers such as Mozart and Schubert, who wrote a great deal of music without keeping track of publication dates, has been catalogued using the abbreviation of the name of the musicologist who cataloged it. For instance, Mozart's works are given a K number, after Ludwig von Köchel, the Austrian mineralogist, botanist, and musicologist who first cataloged his works. (There have been many revisions to the system since Köchel's death, but the K. XXX numbering system still remains). Schubert's music is given a D number for Otto Deutsche.
By and large, opus catalogues are far from accurate. Schubert's music was such a mess when he died that no one knows for sure how many symphonies he actually wrote; therefore, no one knows for certain which one to call No. 8. Some works are so well known that they don't need labels, like Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik or Beethoven's Eroica. But if you want to find a particular CD for one of, say, Haydn's symphonies, find out as much information as you can about it. He wrote over 100, so every bit of information helps!
“The work of composers such as Mozart and Schubert, who wrote a great deal of music without keeping track of publication dates, has been catalogued using the abbreviation of the name of the musicologist who cataloged it...”
A Small German City on the Rhine
Mannheim sits on the Rhine River about 50 miles north of the current German/French border. It was here that, under the leadership of Johann Stamitz (1717-1757), the first important instrumental trends of the new era began to emerge. Under the direction Stamitz, the Mannheim orchestra became one of Europe's finest. Its precision and flexibility demonstrated that an entire group of musicians could perform gradual dynamic changes accurately and expressively. Composers were quick to adopt the techniques of gradually increasing (crescendo), or decreasing, (diminuendo) volume. The Mannheim school is also credited with adding the minuet and trio to the Sinfonia's three-movement format. The minuet and trio of Stamitz's Symphony in E-flat major, Op.11, No.3 (1754) illustrates that structure.
It should be noted here that the Germans shouldn't get all the credit for developing the symphony. In 1744, an Italian, G.B. Sammartini (1701-1775), wrote his Symphony in F, a work that many consider the first prototypical symphony.
Composer: Johann Stamitz
-
"Symphony in E Flat Major, Op. 11, No. 3: III. Menuetto"
Opera in the Classical Period
Opera had been filling theaters in Europe during most of the 17th century and the early years of the 18th century. However, for all of its popularity, it still wasn't an art form that appealed to the masses. The librettos were usually ancient Greek or Roman in origin, or based on some sort of obscure, heroic tale. Although the opera buffa that developed midway through the Baroque had some success in bringing opera to every social class, it remained primarily an aristocratic form of entertainment. In the years leading into the Classical period, all of this changed.
Several factors led to this adjustment: First, growing numbers of middle class had enough disposable income to attend opera, but were bored by the haughty stories of the Greeks and Romans. Second, a few composers found ways to bridge the gap between the classic Italian form from which opera originated and the more popular folk-based form of opera that the public was demanding to see.
Early in the century, the Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi (1710-1736) composed an opera buffa entitled La Serva Padrona (The Servant Mistress). When it was first performed in Paris in 1752, it did for French opera what The Beggar's Opera had done for English opera: it separated opera lovers into two angry camps. On one hand were those who favored the older, aristocratic style; on the other were those who favored opera with more realistic subjects and a simpler melodic line. Pergolesi's style (leaning towards the "sensitive" style of the rococo) may be heard in the aria O, Euridice, n'andro festoso from his cantata based on the Orfeo legend.
Composer: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
-
"Orfeo, Op. 2, No. 4: O, Euridice, n'andrò festoso"
Christoph Willibald Gluck
The composer who was first able to bridge the cosmopolitan gap between French and Italian styles of opera was Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787). He was born in Germany, studied in Italy, and became famous in France. In the 1750s, a reform movement began in Italy. The primary aims of this movement were to find ways to speed up the action by smoothing the distinction between aria and recitative, and adding depth to the orchestral color.
In Alceste(1767) and his other mature operas, Gluck successfully combined the choral scenes and dances of French opera, the ensemble writing of comic opera, and the new instrumental styles of Germany and Italy. His works changed the direction of opera for centuries to come, particularly in France and Italy. In the following section of the course, we will look at Mozart, the next composer who would have a monumental effect on opera.
Composer: Christoph Willibald Gluck
-
"Alceste: Ombre larve"
Classical composers strove to achieve clarity, poise, and beauty in their music...
