18th-19th Century Music Genres and Composers

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Neapolitan composer who wrote two works that remained extremely popular throughout the 18th and 19th centuries: the Stabat Mater and La Serva padrona (1710-1736).

Jean-Phillipe Rameau

French organist, harpsichordist, and composer of keyboard suites and, later in life, operas and the first trios with obbligato harpsichord (1683-1764).

Accompanied

Sonatas typically written for keyboard with a treble part (violin or flute) that doubles or replaces the right hand.

Ludwig von Beethoven

German composer born in Bonn who spent most of his career in Vienna and who revolutionized writing for a rapidly evolving piano and orchestra.

Suite

A sequence of dances, usually consisting of an allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue, with the possible addition of a prelude and galanteries.

Schema

A stock musical phrase used in partimenti.

Partimento

A harmonic progression based on figured bass and melodic patterns that served as a building block for Italian music from the mid and late eighteenth centuries.

Domenico Scarlatti

Renowned harpsichordist and composer in the service of Maria Bárbara, the infanta of Portugal, for whom he wrote over 555 experimental harpsichord sonatas (1685-1757).

Joseph Haydn

Composer at the Esterházy court and later in London and Vienna, who wrote over 104 symphonies and nearly fifty keyboard sonatas (1732-1809).

Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach

Composer and keyboard player who published a treatise and wrote several fantasias to demonstrate the Empfindsamer Stil (1714-1788).

Galant Style

A musical style known for its simplicity, lightness, and pleasantness, popularized by composers like François Couperin and artists like Antoine Watteau (1720-1790).

Opera comique

French comic opera based on commedia dell'arte performances first in fair theaters and then in its own theater.

Cristoph Willibald Gluck

German composer known for 'reforming' opera seria to return to Greek principles of drama and theatricality (1714-1795).

Querelle des bouffons

A philosophical debate in the early 1750s over the merits of French opera traditions, represented by composers like Lully and Rameau, and Italian intermezzi like La Serva padrona.

Friedrich Schiller

German poet, playwright, philosopher, and historian who wrote the famous ode, 'An die Freude' ('To Joy').

Ludwig von Beethoven

German composer born in Bonn who spent most of his career in Vienna and who revolutionized writing for a rapidly evolving piano and orchestra.

Hector Berlioz

French composer who wrote a modern orchestration treatise and was known for writing programmatic symphonic works like the Symphonie fantastique; deeply influenced by hearing performances of Beethoven's symphonies, he would later become a mentor to Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.

Beethoven's Heroic/middle period

1803-1812, a period of Beethoven's life characterized by proud, bombastic music and the composition of works such as the Eroica Symphony (no. 3), the Symphony no. 5, and the Waldstein Sonata (op. 53).

Sublime

The encounter between the rational and natural resulting in an overwhelming emotion of astonishment, beauty, and horror.

Ode to Joy

The poem written by Schiller that Beethoven set in the fourth movement of his Symphony no. 9.

Orchestration

The art of combining the instruments and timbres (of an orchestra or other ensemble) to form a satisfactory blend and balance.

German Romanticism

A literary movement in the late 18th and early 19th century that was interested in nature as a manifestation of godliness, emotion, and the encounter between the rational and the emotional.

Art Song

A poetic text set for solo voice and piano, usually not very long, with the accompaniment being as important as the text.

Hector Berlioz

French composer who wrote a modern orchestration treatise and was known for writing programmatic symphonic works like the Symphonie fantastique; deeply influenced by hearing performances of Beethoven's symphonies, he would later become a mentor to Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.

Enlightenment

A philosophical movement in the mid-eighteenth century driven by middle-class writers, intellectuals, and artists, that popularized reason over religion, democratic values over monarchy, and capitalism, eventually leading to the French and American Revolutions.

Galanteries

Light, pleasant dances extraneous to the core movements in a Baroque dance suite, including minuets, bourrées, passepieds, gavottes, musettes, etc.

Sonata

A piece for one or more instruments, usually consisting of multiple movements.

Fantasia

A free, inventive instrumental work with daring harmonic modulations.

Sonata Form

The basic tripartite form typically associated with Classical-style movements, consisting of an exposition, development, and recapitulation.

Binary Form

A musical form that consists of two sections that are sometimes repeated.

Preluding

The practice of improvising a prelude at the beginning of a performance.

Empfindsamkeit

German for 'sensibility' or 'sentimentality'—in the Jane Austen sense, eliciting intimate, emotional responses such as tears from listeners.

Amateur

A lover of music.

Kenner und Liebhaber

A music-lover who was both knowledgeable about music and musical taste and had love for music.

Commedia dell'arte

A tradition of improvised Italian comedy based on stock characters and plots dating to the 1500s.

Opera seria

Serious Italian opera usually based on Greco-Roman myths with a standardized cast of characters that featured male castrati in heroic roles.

Intermezzo

Comic plays that were performed between the acts of opera seria productions.

Opera buffa

Italian comic opera based on the structure and characters of commedia dell'arte.

Enlightenment

A philosophical movement in the mid-eighteenth century driven by middle-class writers, intellectuals, and artists, that popularized reason over religion, democratic values over monarchy, and capitalism, eventually leading to the French and American Revolutions.

Aria da capo

A standard ABA' solo form in opera seria. Two contrasting sections, A (ending with a fermata or fine) and B, were written out with the instruction to play 'da capo al fine'. The repeated A section was often ornamented.

Recitative

Pitched dialogue accompanied either by basso continuo (~ secco) or by the orchestra (~ accompagnato) interspersed between arias in opera seria.

Soubrette

A light mezzo-soprano stock character in opera buffa, often a servant who is flirtatious, mischievous, and speaks truth to power.

Basso buffo

A comic character—a buffoon—played by a bass in opera buffa.

Republic of Letters

A community of discourse based on a network of intellectual exchanges.

Salon

A regular gathering of members of an intellectual community who exchange ideas, news, literature, and music—often led by women.

Patronage

Private funding of an artist.

Musical Portraits

Pieces named after well-known social figures, usually associated with salons or artistic communities (i.e. La Couperin, La Rameau, La Pouplinière, La Cupis).

Character Pieces

Pieces that are named after and evoke non-musical cultural references.

Obbligato

An instrumental part that is through-composed and obligatory to the musical texture (by contrast to basso continuo, for example).

Napoleon Bonaparte

Corsican military commander who led republican troops during the French Revolution and later expanded France's territories to establish an empire until his defeat in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Enlightenment

A philosophical movement in the mid-eighteenth century driven by middle-class writers, intellectuals, and artists, that popularized reason over religion, democratic values over monarchy, and capitalism, eventually leading to the French and American Revolutions.

Napoleonic Wars

The wars that expanded the French empire to include most of modern-day Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland from 1803-1815.

Symphonie fantastique

A five-movement programmatic symphony by Hector Berlioz completed in 1830.

Programmatic works

Instrumental pieces that used musical topics (associations of instruments, themes, and musical styles) to recount stories.

Lied

German for 'song'—usually pieces written for solo voice and piano, although there are some exceptions.

Song cycle

A set of Lieder that form a (usually narrative) set, a larger collection of songs that are meant to be listened to in order and with the context of one another.

Friedrich Schiller

German poet, playwright, philosopher, and historian who wrote the famous ode, 'An die Freude' ('To Joy').

Napoleonic Wars

The wars that expanded the French empire to include most of modern-day Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Poland from 1803-1815.

Beethoven's Heroic/middle period

1803-1812, a period of Beethoven's life characterized by proud, bombastic music and the composition of works such as the Eroica Symphony (no. 3), the Symphony no. 5, and the Waldstein Sonata (op. 53).

Sublime

The encounter between the rational and natural resulting in an overwhelming emotion of astonishment, beauty, and horror.

Ode to Joy

The poem written by Schiller that Beethoven set in the fourth movement of his Symphony no. 9.

Orchestration

The art of combining the instruments and timbres (of an orchestra or other ensemble) to form a satisfactory blend and balance.

Symphonie fantastique

A five-movement programmatic symphony by Hector Berlioz completed in 1830.

Programmatic works

Instrumental pieces that used musical topics (associations of instruments, themes, and musical styles) to recount stories.

German Romanticism

A literary movement in the late 18th and early 19th century that was interested in nature as a manifestation of godliness, emotion, and the encounter between the rational and the emotional.

Art Song

A poetic text set for solo voice and piano, usually not very long, with the accompaniment being as important as the text.

Lied

German for 'song'—usually pieces written for solo voice and piano, although there are some exceptions.

Song cycle

A set of Lieder that form a (usually narrative) set, a larger collection of songs that are meant to be listened to in order and with the context of one another.