86. Classical Music: 1. Overview, ACJ Music Academy

 

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This week's lecture is “Overview” of Classical Music, the first topic of “Classical Music”, which is a summary of the contents of “86. Classical Music: 1. Overview” introduced on May 6th, 2017.

Classical music is art music created or rooted in the traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical (religious) music and secular music. 

Historically, the term “classical music” refers specifically to the “Classical period”, the musical period from 1750 to 1820. 

In a more general sense, classical music refers to Western musical traditions considered to be separate from western folk music tradition or refined western folk music tradition. It encompasses a wide range of time from before the 6th century AD to the present, including the Classical period and various other periods. 

The central norms of this tradition was codified between 1650 and 1900, which is known as the “common-practice period”.

The term “classical music” did not appear until the early 19th century in an attempt to clearly formalize the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig van Beethoven as a golden age.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Ludwig van Beethoven

The earliest reference to “classical music” recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from around 1829.

European art music is largely distinguished from many other non-European classical music forms and some popular music forms by its staff notation system that has been in use since about the 11th century. 

A simple grand staff

Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern European musical notation to standardize the liturgy of the entire worldwide church. 

Composers use western staff notation to indicate to performers the pitches and durations of a piece of music.

Classical music is divided into “instrumental music” using musical instruments and “vocal music” using human voices. 

Instrumental music includes “solo” played with one instrument, and “ensemble”, “chamber music”, “concerto” and “symphony” played with instruments. 

Joseph Haydn playing string quartets

Piano Concerto Festival

London Symphony Orchestra

Vocal music includes “solo”, “ensemble”, “chorus” and “opera”.

The Apollo Chorus of Chicago

Opera “Werther”, Jules Massenet

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COMPOSER OF THE WEEK: 40. Carl Maria von Weber

 

 

Born: November 18, 1786; Eutin, Germany

Died: June 5, 1826; London, England

Nationality: German

Occupation: composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist, critic

Carl Maria von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, born on November 18, 1786 and died on June 5, 1826. 

Carl Maria von Weber Museum, Dresden

He was one of the first important composers of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas, he was a crucial figure in the development of Romantische Oper (Romantic opera), a genre of German opera in the early 19th century, which developed from the opéras comiques, not from the German Singspiel.

Statue of Carl Maria von Weber at Theaterplatz, Dresden

In his youth, his father, Franz Anton, frequently moved to many places with his family between Hamburg, Salzburg, Freiberg, Augsburg and Vienna. As a result, he studied with many teachers such as his father, Johann Peter Heuschkel, Michael Haydn, Giovanni Valesi, Johann Nepomuk Kalcher and Georg Joseph Vogler.

Michael Haydn

He had a modest output of non-operatic music, including two symphonies, a bassoon concerto, piano pieces such as Konzertstück in F minor and Invitation to the Dance, and the pieces that featured the clarinet, usually written for the virtuoso clarinetist Heinrich Baermann.

Heinrich Baermann

His operas Silvana (1810), Abu Hassan (1811), Der Freischütz (1821), Die drei Pintos (1820–21), Euryanthe (1823), and Oberon (1826) had a great influence on subsequent German composers, including Heinrich Marschner, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Richard Wagner. 

Heinrich Marschner

His piano works anticipated those of Chopin and Liszt, and his most famous work, Der Freischütz, remains one of the most important German operas.

Costume designs for Samiel and Caspar
in the original production Der Freischütz

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COMPOSER OF THE WEEK: 34. Gioachino Rossini

Born: February 29, 1792; Pesaro, Italy

Died: November 13, 1868; Paris, France

Nationality: Italian

Occupation: Composer

 

Gioachino Rossini was an Italian composer born on February 29, 1792 and died on November 13, 1868. He wrote songs, chamber music, piano pieces and sacred music, but gained a reputation for his 39 operas. He set new standards for both comic opera and opera seria, and stopped composing large-scale works in his 30s, when his popularity reached its peak.

Rossini as a young man (c. 1810–1815)

Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father was a trumpeter and his mother was a singer), Rossini began composing at the age of 12 and received music education at the music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810, when he was 18 years old, and in 1815 he was engaged in writing operas and managing theaters in Naples.

Giuseppe Rossini, father of Gioachino
Rossini

Anna Rossini, mother of Gioachino Rossini

From 1810 to 1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara and Naples. During this period, he composed his most famous works including his comic operas “L'italiana in Algeri”, “Il barbiere di Siviglia” and “La Cenerentola”, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello.

The storm scene from Il barbiere di Siviglia, Alexandre
Fragonard (1830)

Rossini also composed opera seria works such as “Otello”, “Tancredi” and “Semiramide.”

In 1824, Rossini signed a contract with The Paris Opera, for which he created an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, “Il viaggio a Reims”, revisions of two of his Italian operas, “Le siège de Corinthe” and “Mosè in Egitto”, and in 1829 his last opera "Guillaume Tell".

Costume designs for Guillaume Tell

The reason of Rossini's withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years of his life has never been fully explained, but his ill-health, the wealth that his success brought him, and the rise of the splendid grand operas under composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer are presumed for possible reasons. 

Isabella Colbran, first wife of Gioachino
Rossini

Olympe Pélissier, second wife of Gioachino
Rossini

From the early 1830s to 1855, when Rossini left Paris and lived in Bologna, he wrote relatively very few works. Upon returning to Paris in 1855, he became famous for his Saturday musical salon, which was regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and fashionable groups in Paris, and for this event he wrote an entertaining piece, “Péchés de vieillesse”. The guests of the event included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Joseph Joachim. Rossini's last major work was "Petite messe solennelle (1863)," and he died in Paris in 1868.

Rossini's tomb, Basilica of Santa Croce,
Florence

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