Music Throughout the Ages

The classical period falls between the mid 1700s - 1800s. Although there are a broad range of styles, genres and forms of music encompassing this period, there are certain characteristics that classical music contains that’s different from other forms of music.

Classical Sounds

Instrument selection are a big part of what makes classical music sound unique. Instruments used in common classical music were mostly invented before the middle of the 19th century. Such instruments include the harpsichord, organ, and piano. In classical music not only are these instruments used but a variety of different instruments are used simultaneously to create its grand sound. Symphony Orchestras are a perfect way of describing the synchronizing of theses instruments.

A full size orchestra usually consists of about 100 players a large string, brass, woodwind, and percussion section. Woodwind sections consist of the 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 clarinets, and 2 English horns. Brass sections have 2-8 horns, 2-5 trumpets, 2 trombones, 2 bass trombones, and up to 2 tubas. Strings section may have 1 or 2 harps, 16-30 violins, 8-12 violas, 8-12 cellos, and 5-8 double basses. If there is a percussion section, it will contain cymbals, xylophones, snare drum, tenor drum, bass drum, tambourine and the like. Some composers are synonymous with classical music. 

Masters of Classical Music

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived from January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791. At six years of age, Mozart made his first appearance on stage in a harpsichord piano concert tour of Munich and Vienna. At age seven, his first published composition was distributed in Paris. Throughout his lifetime Mozart composed around 600 compositions.

Mozart’s own stylistic development closely paralleled the development of the classical style as a whole. In addition, he was a versatile composer and wrote in almost every major genre, including symphony, opera, the solo concerto, chamber music including string quartet and string quintet, and the piano sonata. While none of these genres were new, the piano concerto was almost single-handedly developed and popularized by Mozart. He also wrote a great deal of religious music, including masses; and he composed many dances, divertimenti, serenades, and other forms of light entertainment.

Ludwig van Beethoven (December 16, 1770 – March 26, 1827) was a German composer and virtuoso pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the most respected and influential composers of all time.

Born in Bonn, then in the Electorate of Cologne (now in modern-day Germany), he moved to Vienna in his early twenties and settled there, studying with Joseph Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. Beethoven’s hearing gradually deteriorated beginning in his twenties, yet he continued to compose masterpieces, and to conduct and perform, even after he was completely deaf.

n 1792, Beethoven moved to Vienna, where he studied for a time with Joseph Haydn. Rather than working for the church or a noble court (as most composers before him had done), he supported himself through a combination of annual stipends or single gifts from members of the aristocracy; income from subscription concerts, concerts, and lessons; and proceeds from sales of his works.

Around 1796, Beethoven began to lose his hearing. He suffered a severe form of tinnitus, a “ringing” in his ears that made it hard for him to perceive and appreciate music; he also avoided conversation. He lived for a time in the small Austrian town of Heiligenstadt, just outside Vienna. Here he wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, which records his resolution to continue living for and through his art.

Over time, his hearing loss became profound: there is a well-attested story that, at the end of the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, he had to be turned around to see the tumultuous applause of the audience; hearing nothing, he began to weep. Beethoven’s hearing loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made concerts-lucrative sources of income-increasingly difficult.

He was one of the first composers of the post-Renaissance era to use, systematically, interlocking thematic devices, or “germ-motives”, to achieve inter-movement unity in long compositions. Equally remarkable was his use of “source-motives”, which recurred in many different compositions. He brought innovations to most of the genres in which he worked; for example, he introduced an elasticity to the previously well-crystallized form of the rondo, drawing it closer to sonata form.

Beethoven composed in various genres, including symphonies, concerti, piano sonatas, other sonatas (including for violin), string quartets and other chamber music, masses, an opera, and Lieder. He is viewed as one of the most important transitional figures between the Classical and Romantic eras of musical history.

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist born in Eisenach, Saxe-Eisenach and who lived from March 21, 1685 - July 28, 1750. He adhered particularly to the Baroque period and drew from the diversity in music particularly from France and Italy. Some of his works include the more than 200 cantatas, Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo, Cello Suites, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

His father taught him to play the harpsichord and violin. At age ten, after his father and mother died, he moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach. Bach’s received valuable instruction from his brother. He copied, studied, performed music, and was taught to play the clavichord from his brother. At the age of 14, Bach received a choral scholarship to study the prestigious St. Michael’s School in Luneburg.

In 1708 Bach moved to Weimar. Bach’s position in Weimar marked the start of a sustained period of composing keyboard and orchestral works, in which he had attained the technical proficiency and confidence to extend the prevailing large-scale structures and to synthesize influences from abroad. From the music of Italians such as Vivaldi, Corelli and Torelli, he learnt how to write dramatic openings and adopted their sunny dispositions, dynamic motor-rhythms and decisive harmonic schemes. Bach inducted himself into these stylistic aspects largely by transcribing for harpsichord and organ the ensemble concertos of Vivaldi; these works are still concert favorites.

Romantic Music

Romanticism was a time period relating to the early 1800’s and reached height in the early 1900’s. Romantic literature captures the ideas of the time period focusing on emotion and nature. Romantic music referred to here as European Classical Music, runs parallel to the Romanticism period where poets used delicate and deep words of expression as well as strong, pointed, somber proses that reached the heart of the reader. Romantic music at that time, touched the hearts of its listeners.

Frederic Chopin was a polish composer and pianist of the romantic period. Chopin was born of a Polish mother and French father in the ‘Dutchy of Warsaw’ a Polish state created by Napoleon Bonaparte. In wake of the Polish uprising, Chopin went to Paris, used the French part of his name and became a French citizen. While in Paris he made a living as a composer and piano teacher.

Chopin’s compositions were used primarily for piano solos and he is known for inventing the ballade musical form. Chopin is also responsible for innovations in forms of music such as piano sonata, waltz, prelude, nocturne and impromptu.