First, the word "classical" needs some clarification:
1. Broadly speaking, classical music is the artistic music of a culture as opposed to the popular or "folk" musics of a culture. The classical music in this course is "western" or "European" classical music, although today it is composed and played all over the world. Many cultures have a classical music, such as the classical music of India. The U.S. has its own native classical music called jazz.
2. Within the western classical music, there is a "classical era." It has nascent beginnings c. 1730 in the height of the Baroque era of George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach. Other than music, the art of the period is called neoclassical, not "classical."
3. The word "classical" refers to classical antiquity of ancient Greece and Roman. Subsequent classical (neoclassical) eras in European art history reference the poetry, literature, philosophy, sculpture, and architecture of antiquity.
4. Some of the most prominent values of classical antiquity that have come down through the ages are:
The exaltation of reason and rationality over the emotions; the emotions must be tempered
A stress on education in what we now call the humanities; poetry, art, history, philosophy, etc
The development of the virtuous man / the civic minded man
5. Classicism and romanticism have switched places as the dominant artistic stance several times in history.
Timeline
(the years designating the eras are approximate because of transitioning)
1450 - 1600 - The High Renaissance - Classical
1570 - Ancient Greek drama enters Italy - romantic.
1607 - Baroque Era begins, the first lasting opera, Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.
Renaissance music fades by 1650. Baroque is romantic.
1700 - Late Baroque era (Baroque's high point) begins (Handel and J.S. Bach)
The piano is invented but it isn't dependable.
The violin is perfected by Antonio Stradivari.
1730 - Beginnings of simplifying music from Baroque's complexity,
the classical era's nascent beginnings, Baroque's popularity starts fading.
1750 - Bach dies, Handel's output slows. Joseph Haydn, 18, starts composing.
1756 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born.
1759 - Haydn's first symphony. The piano begins to challenge
the harpsichord as the preferred keyboard. (Neo)-classicism dominates.
1770 - Beethoven is born. Mozart, 14, is reaching his musical maturity.
Dec, 1792 - Beethoven arrives in Vienna. Mozart had died the previous year. Haydn is 60.
1795 - 1800 - Beethoven's compositions begin to challenge the classical forms of Haydn and Mozart.
c. 1800 - Full blown romantic poets emerge, the painters soon follow. Beethoven leads the
transition of music from the classical towards the romantic over the next 26 years.
1820s - Beethoven's last years. Franz Schubert's short composing career.
Beethoven dies in 1827, Schubert in 1828.
1830 - The first fully romantic symphony, Hector Berlioz's Symphony Fantastique.
Chopin, Liszt, Robert Schumann soon emerge.
No comments:
Post a Comment