MUS100 Exam Content: Classical (eighteenth century)

Learned Style

BAROQUE era

Galant Style

TRANSITION era (between baroque and classical)

Classical Style

CLASSICAL era

Classical Style Characteristics: Melody

• Speech-like melodies

• Tuneful and simple

Classical Style Characteristics: Rhythm

• Flexible

• Varied

Classical Style Characteristics: Harmony

• Structured along weaker and stronger cadences

• Harmonies change at a slower pace

Classical Style Characteristics: Form + Strcuture

• organized in a logical manner

• recognizable segments - beginning, middle, end

Enlightenment

• age of reason

• embraced rationalism

• arts becoming for the general public (not just the elites)

Intermezzo

• a short, connecting interlude

• Pergolesi considered the master of the intermezzo

Da Capo Aria

• “from the top”

• A-B-A structure; A repeated again “from the top”

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

• Important figure in Opera Buffa

Sonata genre 

• a work in 3 movements

  • Fast first movement

  • Slow middle movement

  • VERY fast final movement

• Usually for the piano

• Intended for amateur performers at first

  • Usually played in private settings by females

CPE Emanuel Bach 

• Bach’s son

• Exemplifies trend of empfindsam

  • Sentimental style

Tonality

the idea of pieces revolving around its tonic

Tonic

• the central note in a scale

  • In a C major scale, tonic = C

• roman numeral I

Dominant

• in the key of C, the dominant would be G

• roman numeral V

Sonata Form

• 3 sections:

  • Exposition

  • Development

  • Recapitulation

Exposition

• Has 2 thematic group

1. 1st thematic group

2. Transition = acts as a modulating transition from the 1st to 2nd thematic groups

3. 2nd thematic group (typically contrasts with the first)

Development

• harmonically unstable

• moves through new keys (avoiding the tonic)

• acts as a contrast with the exposition + recap

• creates an increased desire for a double return

Recapitulation

• starts with the double return

  • the home key (tonic) returns at the same time that the first theme returns

• re-introduces opening material - but without modulating to the dominant (like in the exposition)

• stays in the home key

Symphony genre

• originated in 18th century Italy

• Originally consisted of 3 movement scheme:

  • Fast-slow-fast

Symphonic Orchestra 

• allowed orchestral music to distinguish itself from other instrumental chamber genres

• Increase in strings

• Introduction of other instruments

• Prominence on wind instruments

Giovanni Battista Sammartini 

• Influential in the symphony genre

• Emblematic of the galant style

Johann Stamitz

• German developments in the symphony genre

• worked in Mannheim —> mannheim rocket

• Known for their crescendos

• adopted the 4-movement plan of the symphony genre

  • Fast first movement

  • Slow second movement

  • Minuet-trio third movement

  • Fast final movement

Joseph Haydn 

• standardized the symphony

• father of the symphony

• experiment with strum and drang

  • typical of the empifindsam style (sentimental style)

W.A. Mozart

• Worked on lots of stuff, but particularly classical concerto

• Developed the genre by introducing double-exposition form

  • like sonata form but 2 expositions

    • One is orchestra

    • One is solo

Classical Concerto 

• like the solo concerto genre but…

  • candenza: highly virtuosic solo passage

• Mozart greatly developed the genre

Joseph Bologne (Chevalier Saint-Georges)

• mom was a slave

• first man of African descent to be appointed Gendarme de la Garde du Roi