Baroque and Classical Music Overview

Baroque/Classical Notes

• Baroque music transitioned into the classical period, showcasing simplicity, order, proportion, symmetry, purity, and refinement.
• Classical music had less ornamentation and cleaner textures, lacking basso continuo and focusing on contrapuntal lines.
• Strings were paired with oboes and horns in a style described as "bustle," with builds using timpani and strings.
• Musical periods emerged, grouping phrases.
• Sonata and rondo forms became prominent.
• The Mannheim Orchestra was the largest of its time and important to early symphonies.

Pistro Metastasio

• 27 dramas set to music, 1000s of times.
• Arias and castrati/castrato.
• Orchestra is not as important

Gluck

• Simplified plots.
• Simple arias and avoided fancy details.
• Reformed classical music.
• Comparisons between Paris and Vienna versions. Vienna had a countertenor, while Paris used a regular tenor part.

Johann Sebastian Bach

• Wrote both spiritual and secular cantatas.
• Phoebus and Pan (BWV 201) featured characters talking back and forth, using arias trading between characters.
• Coffee Cantata (BWV 211) depicts a father attempting to persuade his daughter to stop drinking coffee.

Pachelbel

• Composer of the 18th century.
• Wrote I Prigionier Superbo (1733), his noted opera seria.
• Opera seria was dramatic, while Opera buffa was humorous, and intermezzo marked the birth of Italian opera.

Performance Practice Issues

• Young boys used as castrati struggled with holding sustained notes in Bach's cantatas due to small lungs.
• Bach's Cantata BWV 52 illustrates this difficulty.
• 16th-century hymn writers emerged, including Charles Wesley and Isaac Watts.
• Summartini developed sonata form and rhythmic patterns/sequences.
• Works in A Major and G Major.
• Important figure of the period was Dittersdorf, a double bassist.

Haydn

• Creative, humorous, and mischievous.
• Pioneered string quartets and symphonies.
• Composed concerti, piano sonatas, masses, and oratorics.
• Wrote 14 keyboard concerti.
• Wrote 104 symphonies.
• Published 9 symphonies, while Mozart wrote 21.
• Piano Concerto No. 11 in D Major featuring a question-and-answer format between piano and strings with grace notes.
• Concerto in Eb major highlighted impressive trumpet parts with melodic lines.
• Wrote funny piano pieces.
• Symphony No. 104 was particularly significant, in D Major.
• Symphonies #70–104 (particularly #82-87) are called the Paris symphonies.
• Wrote 12 "London" symphonies, that are full, Classical and mature.
• Symphony No. 94, also known as the Surprise Symphony is a recognizable D major symphony.
• Mature symphonies moved away from bustling sound, becoming more complex.

Mozart

• Prodigy
• Beautiful Music
• Science experiments have shown that listening to Mozart's music improves students' performance.
• Musical family, exceptional understanding of music.
• Composed a symphony at the age of 8, featured bustle and octaves.
• Composed operas, loved operas, had to leave Salzburg because of lack of operas there.
• Moved to Vienna where every piece was well-received.
• Died in 1791 from presumed scarlet fever.
• Composed piano concerti, operas, most well liked.
• Requiem left unfinished.
• Classical Style, culminating of Baroque style.

The Creation

• A significant work with 4 notable moments:
  • Chaos as an opening with a C major chord.
  • Part I: Heavens are telling choral.
  • Aria beginning of Part II.

Beethoven

• Beethoven was a significant figure in the symphony, with stylistic elements including strong cadences and articulation. This is more complex than the work of Haydn and Mozart.
• Symphony No. 3: E-flat major, nicknamed Eroica.
• Symphony No. 9 presented chorus/vocal music in the symphony structure.
• Odd-numbered symphonies were loud; even ones less so.
• Symphony No. 4, 2 symphonies were classical.
• wrote 9 symphonies, used chorus, very dense counterpoint (complex).

Additional Notes

• Concerts in the 1800s were longer than today's.
• Mix of instrumental and vocal music.
• Mozart and Beethoven were instrumentalists at heart
• Musicians would improvise.
• Music was functional and entertaining
• Concerts are more complex and require more listening focus than today.