Brief overview of stylistic periods in Western music

"Classical" - a term used to reference a specific period of about 60 years. Also used to refer to whole body of Western art music, regardless of when written.


BAROQUE (1600-1750)

Outgrowth of Renaissance musical style (depersonalization, control and serenity)


The Baroque, by contrast, loved colossal artistic statements


Music - exuberance, passion, sudden dynamic contrasts and harmonic and instrumental color. Music has complex, dense textures, constant rhythmic propulsion, changes of pace and more chromaticism (using notes outside the key of the piece)

Architecture enormous churches and extravagant palaces.


Painting - huge canvasses exploding with brilliant colors, strong contrasts in light and shade and strong emotions.


Noted composers: J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti, Henry Purcell and Giovanni Gabrielli


CLASSICAL (1750-1825)


First 25 years of the classical era (1750-1775) called the Rococo. This was a period of "cooling off" from the heated complexity of the Baroque period.


The new trend ushered in music of considerable elegance, restraint, poise, and gentility. Gradually, the surface charm yielded to the greater power and vision of classical composers.


Vienna, Austria became the center of the mature classical style


As court life diminished, music was heard in a variety of new settings, in public concerts and in social and political events.


Classical characteristics - clearer, simpler forms, thinner texture, more use of a single melody supported by accompaniment (called homophonic) rather than numerous, independent parts or voices (called polyphonic) as in the Baroque period.


Noted composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Josef Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven. They expanded the repertoire of chamber music, string quartets and symphonies.


ROMANTIC (1810-1900)

Emotion and instinct now were seen as sources of truth.

Objectivity, equilibrium and restraint of the Classical period gradually yielded to explosive philosophies and emotions.

General characteristics " personalization, impulsive emotional display, baring the soul, attraction for the exotic, mysterious, enchanting, fantastic and the natural. Composed works were larger-scale in forms, ensembles and durations.

Literature and Painting " reflected world filled with supernatural, magical, imaginative freedom and mystery

Music now allowed lavish, unrestrained harmonic and instrumental color, hot emotions and intense poetic tenderness.

This period also bred interesting performers and personalities, perhaps like today's rock stars.

Franz Liszt, pianist and composer whose technical prowess and dynamic stage presence are legendary - it was said women swooned and even picked up his cigar butts and put them in their bosoms!

Nicolai Paganini " violinist who strode onstage in a black cloak and played with such wizardry that it was said he was in league with the devil and that he played the violin with strings from the intestines of his late wife!

Noted composers: Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Tschaikowsky, Grieg, Wagner, Rachmaninoff


IMPRESSIONISM (1890-1925)

Out of the excesses of the previous period came the cool, refreshing alternative of impressionism. Inspiration came from without, not from within oneself.


Painting " blurred outlines, melting colors into one another. Depictions of sunsets, fog, moonlight, water and fireworks.
Noted painters: Monet, Manet, Pissaro, Renoir


Poetry - nuance was the most important. Symbolist poets used words to suggest an image and to act as a symbol, hence the name "Symbolist".


Music - intended to create atmosphere and project a beautiful moment or sensory effect. New and exotic sounds employed, more flexible rhythms, melodies more serene, less goal-oriented, and harmonies were used to create sonority rather than ground us in a particular key. Often gives feeling of drifting.


Noted composers: Debussy, Ravel, Resphigi, Griffes


20th CENTURY

Most fragmented of all the periods. Complicated, turbulent and exhilarating

One side - music offered highly controlled statements
Other side - music was totally free in expression

Experimentation in rhythm, form, melody, tuning of instruments

Traditional instruments were used but sometimes played with completely new techniques (e.g. "prepared piano"
where nails, paper clips, metal, bolts, plastic and paper were placed inside the piano on the strings to create different effects)

Electronic and computer-generated music came into prominence

Cross-polinization of world cultures with popular and commercial music

Some composers looked to the past in neobaroque, neoclassical and neoromantic inflections.

Noted composers: Bartok, Barber, Bernstein, Copland, Crumb, Gershwin, Ives, Prokofieff, Schoenberg, Stravinsky