In the second of our music history videos here at Liberty Park Music, we're going to take a look at the classical period in Western music history. Following the Baroque era of the 17th and early 18th centuries, the classical period lasted approximately from 1750 to 1820. Many of the traditional practices of Western music as we know it were codified during the classical period. the reflection of which can be found in the name itself.
Synonyms for classical include authoritative and traditional, fitting adjectives for the period that established many of the rules that composers follow even today. Before we get started discussing the music, let's clarify some terms. In everyday conversation, classical music is a catch-all term for any music that is not pop, world, or jazz music.
Classical music is associated with big concert halls, people wearing tuxedos or fancy dresses, and expensive ticket prices. prices to concerts of symphonies and operas. Generally, what people actually mean when they say classical music is music of the Western art tradition.
Western art music includes music made from the Middle Ages through the 21st century in Western Europe, North America, and other continents with a history of European colonization. This music tradition covers over a thousand years of different styles, trends, and sounds. What we're talking about in this video is a music and this video is the specific time period of that tradition that has been labeled by music historians as the Classical Period, lasting from around 1750 to around 1820. Composers, musicians, and audience members during the Classical Period were reacting to the musical trends of the Baroque Period. Baroque music was known for its highly decorated melodies, complicated textures and structures, and emotional extremes.
As a response, composers in the Classical Period used Baroque genres but focused on formal balance along with memorable and singable melodies, establishing a standard of musical expression whereby emotion was subservient to form and function. Many of the forms and genres invented during the Baroque period were adapted to fit these new aesthetic sensibilities. Examples of these include the Baroque French opera overture, which evolved into a standalone four-movement symphony, Baroque trio sonatas with basso continuo, which evolved into classical string quartets, and sonatas for solo instruments, which became more standardized in their movement and key relations.
These newly standardized forms became the authoritative versions that musicians continued to use and expand upon. The genres of the orchestral symphony and string quartet began during the classical period, and became essential genres for many composers. Orchestral instrumentation likewise became standardized during the classical period, as opposed to earlier periods where composers would simply write for whatever instruments were available at their church or court. Classical period symphonies became standardized as having a medium string section in four voices.
Early string quartets were closely related to early symphonies, with many compositions able to be performed by a string section of the orchestra or by a string quartet featuring a similar organization of voices. Most commonly, early string quartets and similar chamber music were performed in parlors for the entertainment of the players and close friends, many of which involved amateur players who also happened to be emperors, kings, and princes. For example, Haydn wrote many works in which his patron, Prince Nicholas Esterházy I, played the baritone, a large string instrument related to the string bass. Prussian King Frederick the Great was also an avid performer and composer, who used music for courtly events as well as personal entertainment. Later string quartets became important vehicles for virtuosic showmanship, requiring greater levels of skill to successfully perform.
Virtuosic works for all instruments would become important during the virtuosic boom of the Romantic period. During the Baroque period, solo instrumental sonatas have become an important vehicle for individual instrumental expression. In the Classical period, sonatas became standardized as a three-movement genre, and each movement had specific forms to follow.
A good example of a typical sonata from this period is Mozart's Sonata No. 10 for Piano, K. 330. This sonata takes place over three movements, with a fast Allegro-Moderato first movement, a slow Andante-Cantabile second movement, and another fast Allegretto third movement. Let's look at the movements from the Sonata in greater detail.
The first movement of the sonata is in the classical version of sonata allegro form, which developed out of the rounded binary form of the Baroque period. The classical sonata allegro form has an ABA outline, with the first A section, called the exposition, consisting of a first theme that's composed in the primary key of the piece, a second theme written in the dominant or relative major key, and then a conclusion back in the tonic key. The entire exposition then repeats and enters the B section.
called the development, where the themes are manipulated and played with in various ways and through various other keys. Finally, we return to the A section material in the last section, the recapitulation, which is altered harmonically to land on a final cadence in the home key. In classical period sonata allegro form, the development and recapitulation are repeated, as shown in the diagram here. For more on sonata form, check out the article What is Sonata Form?
on the Liberty Park Music Blog. The second movement from the sonata is slow and song-like, with the marking cantabile, or singable, as is expected from the second movements of sonatas. In addition, this movement follows the baroque ternary form adapted from da capa arias in opera. The third movement from our Mozart example is another lively sonata allegro form.
For her final movements of sonatas could be either sonata allegro form or rondo form. Rondo form consists of repeating A material separated throughout the movement with areas of contrasting or developmental material. The A material serves as a main anchoring theme that comes back throughout the movement. and is known as a ritornello.
The contrasting episodes between ritornellos are shown here in the B and C sections. Another common form used during the classical period in compositions with multiple movements is the binary or rounded binary form. In four-movement sonatas, symphonies, and string quartets, these binary forms could be used for the second or third movement. It's important to note here that binary form and rounded binary form get used in almost every genre of classical period music.
As noted in the diagrams for these movements, each section moves through specific key areas. While some Baroque music used the same key areas in their sonatas, the system of tonality that was codified during the classical period was not written out until Jean-Philippe Rameau's treatise on harmony in 1722. In his treatise, Rameau incorporated mathematics to argue for a harmonic gravity, whereby a fundamental base served as the musical ground from which all harmonic movement originates and must necessarily return to by the end of the piece. Rameau coined the terms tonic, dominant, and subdominant to represent the one, five, and four chords of the key and the goal of harmonic progressions to lead back to one. Much of Baroque music, while using some of the tonal practices laid out in Rameau's treatise, would still be considered modal rather than tonal.
and the core principles of tonality as we know it became much more prominent during the classical era. Homophonic textures with individual melodies and chordal accompaniment predominate in classical music, due in large part to the period's emphasis on chordal harmonic progression over contrapuntal line development. This emphasis on melody also leads to instrumental melodies that move more in stepwise motion, with fewer leaps than in the Baroque period. The results of this were tuneful melodies that audience members could remember and sing long after a performance had ended.
These tuneful melodies and simpler textures also appealed to a rising population of new audiences. During the late Baroque period, public concert houses were being established for the first time, allowing more people to hear concert music. The number of public concert houses with a ticket-buying audience increased in the Classical period and became an important way for composers and musicians to support themselves. Finally, Musicians no longer had to rely solely on the church or court to perform their music, and the practice of writing music for public concerts, a practice that serves as the origins for today's concerts and live performances, was born.
Here is a list of some of the major composers of the classical period. And here are some examples to help you explore the sound of classical style. We hope you enjoyed this overview of the classical period.
For more music history videos, stay tuned to Liberty Park Music. And keep an eye out for our Composer Biles article series, where we'll explore the lives and music of your favorite classical composers.