Module 5: The Baroque Period
Music is described as “highly decorated,” which reflects on the elaborate nature and complexity of the music compositions
Others have likened Baroque music to listening to multiple people having a conversation all at the same time
Over time, "Baroque" would also be applied to other forms of fine art, including architecture.
There is not agreement as to when the Baroque era began – some argue around 1750 and others say
around 1600
Ended around the middle of the 18th century
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Protestant Reformation
Politically and culturally, Europe had turned toward rationalism and humanism to guide policies and philosophy
Scientists had begun using the scientific method and more closely studying the world around them _________________________________________________________________________________________
Scientists pushed society’s notions about the physics of the earth and the universe beyond earth Philosophers built upon and challenged ideas from the Renaissance.
European countries began to expand their territories by colonizing some of the places they had “discovered” during the previous centuries
A mechanical calculator and calculus were invented
The discoveries and changes in society would also extend to the music of the Baroque period.
_________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________ Characteristics of Baroque Music
Some composers also worked as music tutors, composing easier compositions for their students.
The music of the period was often composed for specific circumstances, whether it was a party or a religious event (disposable music.)
The composers of the era would probably be very surprised to learn how often and in how many different circumstances their music is played today.
Figured Bass
also known as thoroughbass
The numbers were generally placed under the bass line to indicate the intervals that the bass note should use.
Basso Continuo
the harmony of the music
an instrument that was capable of playing chords played the basso continuo, such as a harpsichord, organ, or harp
Ornamentation
the use of non-necessary musical flourishes, such as trills and grace notes, to the basic melody or harmony
Orchestras
_________________________________________________________________________________________ Orchestras are larger instrumental ensembles or groups that contain brass, string, percussion, and
woodwind instruments.
When we think of classical music today, we often think of the music played by orchestras.
Although orchestras developed before the Baroque period, it was not until this time that composers actually began to write music specifically for the orchestra.
Many of the instruments that made up orchestras during this period are instruments that we would recognize as being played today.
Pianos were also developed from earlier keyboard instruments. Forms of Baroque Music
Operas and Oratorios
Opera means "work" in Italian and began at the very end of the sixteenth century in Italy.
Oratorios were similar to operas, except that they did not use scenery in the performance. Another difference between operas and oratorios was the subject matter:
Operas often dealt with history and mythology, using themes of romance and deception. Oratorios were often on sacred topics.
Forms of Baroque Music The Instrument Suite
The different parts of the instrumental suite include: Prelude: This is a shorter piece with no dancing
Sarabande
Gigue
Can also include:
Hornpipe, Minuet or Menuet, Gavotte, Air or ayre, Bouree, Pavane Baroque Composers
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Claudio Monteverdi
_____________________________________________________________________________________ His work serves as the point where Renaissance music ends and Baroque music begins.
Born: 1567 Region: Italy
Notable works: wrote one of the earliest operas and The Ottavo Libro Died:1643
Antonio Vivaldi
Regarded by many to be one of the greatest composers during the Baroque period. He was an ordained priest and this, along with his auburn hair, earned him the nickname “The Red Priest. Widely regarded for his violin mastery
Born: 1678 Region: Italy
Notable works: ____________________________________________________ Died:1741
J.S. Bach
_____________________________________________________________________________________
By 1749, he began to experience failing eyesight. A renowned British eye surgeon performed corrective surgery on the composer, but Bach was completely blind after the surgery.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1685 Region: Germany
Notable works: "Air" from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major Died:1750
Georg Fredrich Handel
Johann Sebastian Bach once said of Georg Friedrich Handel, "He is the only person I would wish to see before I die, and the only person I would wish to be, were I not Bach".
He did not expect to become a composer, but studied law. After his father died in 1703, Handel abandoned his study of law in favor of music.
Born: 1685 Region: Germany Notable works:
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Died:1759
Module 6: The Classical Era (also known as the Classic era) is generally understood to be the time period when the "classic" works of the standard repertory were composed.
The period includes the works of composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart.
The terminology is also somewhat confusing as we often refer to music from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries as classical music.
Characteristics of the Classical
Period
The music of this time period was also influenced by society and culture as well as ancient civilizations
Characteristics of Music from the Classical Period
The Viennese School (sometimes called the First Viennese School).
Scholars are not actually referring to a brick and mortar school, but to the music that came out of the city of Vienna, Austria, during this time period.
The Baroque period often characterized by very elaborate music where composers used a high degree of ornamentation and polyphony
Emphasis of the Classical Period During the Classical period, instrumental music increased in popularity.
of music.
Larger ensembles and orchestras often performed these pieces.
The Classical period was really the first time period to include full sections of woodwind, brass, and string instruments in the orchestra, resulting in an often full and dramatic sound.
Forms of Music – Sonata Form
The main three parts of the sonata are:
______________: the first part of the sonata form, and it is where the composer will bring in, or
"expose," all of the musical ideas that will be used in the piece. The first tune and key of the piece are used.
______________: the second part of the sonata form, and it is where the composer builds on the two
themes from the exposition. Music scholars have sometimes described this as "fantasia" because the composer can run wild with the themes set up and create an infinite number of different variations.
______________: the third part of the sonata form, and it is where the exposition is repeated
(although it may be changed slightly).
In many cases, the piece will end with the recapitulation part of the sonata form, but there are some pieces that continue on in what is known as a _____________________.
Forms of Music – Symphony In the Baroque period and the beginning of the Classical period, symphonies were associated with vocal music, such as operas.
However, as the Classical period progressed, the term symphony began to solidify as the term for a longer musical composition and scored for an orchestra.
Four-movement structure
A slow movement
A minuet or a scherzo: A minuet is a type of social dance in ¾ time. A scherzo is a fast-paced composition that sometimes replaces the minuet in longer compositions.
An allegro, sonata, or rondo Classical Composers Joseph Haydn
_____________________________________________________________________________________ In 1761, he was offered a position with the Esterhazy family, one of the richest and most important families in
Austria.
One of the aspects that Haydn's work is known for is the musical humor that often permeated his work. Born: 1732 Region: Austria
Notable works: composed over 100 full symphonies during his lifetime, “Surprise” Symphony Died: 1809
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
_____________________________________________________________________________________.
He is primarily responsible for the development of the piano concerto during the Classical period. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Born: 1756 Region: Austria
Notable works: composed over 600 different pieces, including over 40 symphonies as well as violin sonatas, piano concertos, masses, and arias, Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Died: 1791
Ludwig van Beethoven
His talent was visible at an early age, and, at the age of seventeen, he moved to Vienna, hoping to study with Mozart (although it is not clear whether the two ever met).
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Like Haydn and Mozart, he composed in a range of different musical forms, and added innovation and new sounds to each form that he worked in.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1770 Region: Germany
Notable works: Moonlight Sonata, Fur Elise Died: 1827
Module 7: The Romantic Period
Composers such as Beethoven bridged the two eras in music by using both characteristics of the Classical period and the Romantic period in their work.
Like many of the other time periods that we’ve already discussed, the Romantic period was a reaction to what had come before.
As you might guess, the term "Romantic" for this time period comes from the word "romance".
Romance as a genre in the arts refers to the heroic prose and art that was popular during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
While romance today often has a more general meaning, the roots of this word go back to the stories of knights, chivalry, courtly love, and heroic quests that were popular during these earlier time periods. The music of the Romantic period, then, draws on themes popular centuries before, not unlike how the
Classical period drew on themes from the ancient civilizations that society was interested in during the period.
Influences of the Romantic
Period
In addition to reacting to the Classical period, a number of other influences greatly affected the music produced during the Romantic period.
The Industrial Revolution was having a huge impact on the structure of society and the ways that individuals interacted with each other.
Another factor that influenced music in a number of ways was the rise of nationalism or a strong identification with a particular political group, often an ethnic group.
Characteristics of the Romantic
Period
Romantic composers sought to describe feelings and the deeper truths of life.
The emphasis on feeling often led to fuller, richer melodies and harmonies, resulting in sounds that reflected greater emotion.
During the Classical period, music often followed precise and formal guidelines.
Specific compositions were longer and less constrained than the music of the Classical period.
Not surprisingly then, the music of the Romanic period is often "bigger" than the music from previous periods.
Beyond more emotion and greater freedoms and innovations, the music of the Romantic period is very diverse.
Characteristics of Romantic
Music
The music of the late Romantic period features more influences from the increase in nationalism. Composers increasingly incorporated elements from their national heritages
The works of the late Romantic period also tend to have greater dissonance.
Three groups of Romantic composers:
Conservative Romantic composers were those who retained the classical forms and guidelines. Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms are examples of conservative Romantic composers.
Full Romantic composers were those who were more innovative and creative in the form and style of their works. Examples of full Romantic composers include Liszt, Mahler, and Chopin.
Nationalist Romantic composers were those who used the ethnic and national folk traditions in their work. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Forms of Romantic Music The music of the Romantic period built on previously used forms of music.
The period also saw the rise of musical forms that had not been widely used in the past, including ballets, lieders, and operettas.
With advancements in instruments, composers could now include a wider variety of instruments in their compositions.
The Romantic Symphony
The Romantic period carried on many of the features of the Classical symphony, but composers lengthened the works, in some cases dramatically, and they infused greater emotion into the music.
As a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic periods, Beethoven helped to create changes in the symphony form.
Beethoven’s symphonies include many of the characteristics of the Romantic period.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Other composers also injected new aspects into the symphonic form.
More emotional content was often included.
The symphonic poem, which is a single, continuous movement that reflects a poem, story, or painting. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Other composers added soaring melodies and chromatic harmony to the classical symphonic form. The Ballet
A ballet is a piece in which dancers tell a story through their movements and the music.
Although ballet existed before the Romantic period, the music for ballets was often composed of pieces written for other purposes and cobbled together.
The Romantic period would change this.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ His ballet Die Geschöpfe des Prometheus (The Creatures of Prometheus) was one of the first written for that purpose. Other composers would follow suit.
Ballet companies began commissioning pieces that they could perform and composers began writing especially for the ballet.
In keeping with the Romantic period, many of the ballets composed were light, airy, and free from some of the past constraints and guidelines.
Romantic Composers Although the Romantic period did not really have any composers that can match the musical genius of composers like Mozart and Bach, there were a great many composers that left their mark on the period.
The number of composers that are remembered and discussed from this period is perhaps more than any
of the previous time periods.
One reason for this is the relative recent time of the Romantic period. More of their music has been preserved through sheet music and musical scores which survived to the present.
The rise of the middle class also produced an increasing desire for music, both music to be played at home and music performed in concert halls and other sites.
Johann Strauss I
Also known as Strauss the Elder
One of the techniques that Strauss used in his compositions was to include popular melodies from the time period in his music.
Considered the “Father of the Viennese Waltz” Born: 1804
Region: Austria Died: 1849
Johann Strauss II
Known as Strauss the Younger
_____________________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1825 Region: Austria
Notable works: The Blue Danube and Tales from the Vienna Woods. Died: 1899
Mendelssohn was one of the founders of the first music conservatory in Germany, the Leipzig Conservatory. Gave his first public piano concert at the age of nine.
Although his career was a short one, Mendelssohn served as the musical director for a prestigious orchestra in Germany as well as the Kapellmeister for the King of Prussia.
Mendelssohn is somewhat different from most other Romantic composers in that his work is more conservative and traditional
Born: 1809 Region: Germany Notable works:
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Died: 1839
Frederic Chopin
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Gave his first public piano concert at the age of nine.
A talented pianist as well as composer, Chopin's works are not only very complex and complicated, but they are also infused with a great deal of the Romantic emotion and drama.
Most of his works require skill on the piano in order to play them, and it has been said that it takes a piano virtuoso, or expert, to make the music "sing".
Born: 1810 Region: Poland Notable works:
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Died: 1849
Franz Liszt
Liszt might be compared to the rock stars of our day; he was famous all over Europe for his performing skills, and contemporaries noted that he had great showmanship during his performances.
Considered one of the greatest pianists of all time Innovative and diverse
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1811 Region: Hungary
Richard Wagner
Known for his opera works, which were longer and had a greater emphasis on instrumental music.
He is also a controversial figure both during his lifetime and after. He was outspoken about music and politics, lived in political exile, and spent time on the run from creditors.
He composed his first opera by the age of twenty-two. His vision of the opera was of a musical drama, in which the music, text, and design were all equally prominent and in unity with one another.
His work would have a great deal of influence over the evolution of music in the twentieth century, and pieces of his work have been used in various areas of popular culture, including a Bugs Bunny cartoon
Born: 1813 Region: Germany Died: 1883
Johannes Brahms
The importance of Brahms to the history of music can be seen as his inclusion in the "Three B's" (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) by musical scholars.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Of all the composers in the late Romantic period, he is also the most "Classical" in his music, reflecting many of the techniques of the Baroque and Classical periods.
Many of Brahms' pieces also show a religious influence in them.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1833 Region: Germany
Died: 1897
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
One of the first individuals to incorporate Western classical music into Russian national music styles
He pursued a career in music against his family's wishes, as they had groomed him for a career in civil service. He pursued a career in music against his family's wishes, as they had groomed him for a career in civil service. _____________________________________________________________________________________ One of the characteristics of his work is the use of melody or harmony to create a sudden release of emotion. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Born: 1840 Region: Russia
Module 8: Jazz Jazz has been called "America’s classical music."
_____________________________________________________________________________________ What is Jazz? _____________________________________________________________________________________
The innovative nature of jazz has meant that over the last 100 years or so, many different types of jazz have developed.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Putting a single definition on all of these different types and still managing to capture the essence of jazz music is difficult. In fact, jazz almost defies a precise definition because there are so many variations. When trying to define jazz, most musical scholars will agree on three aspects.
First, jazz originated around the turn of the twentieth century in the United States.
Finally, jazz incorporates elements of both European and African music. Many forms of jazz feature key elements:
One aspect is that jazz is a style of playing a piece of music.
Jazz players can take almost any melody and make it sound like jazz. This is done by "putting a feeling of triplets behind the basic beat."
This triplet beat feel is said to "swing" the melody, and you may notice that it creates a looser feel to the rhythm of the music.
Jazz musicians often use this triplet beat feel with the melodies that they play, enabling them to change many traditional melodies into jazz melodies.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Another key feature in jazz music is improvisation.
Jazz music also tends to use a syncopated rhythm. How does jazz music compare to classical music?
One way of looking at the connections between these two types of music is to say that they are both approaches to musical art.
Music scholars have suggested that some of the classical periods of music correspond to later types of jazz.
For example, music from the Baroque period shares some commonalities with classic jazz or Dixieland jazz.
The composers during the Baroque period, such as Bach, were actually good improvisers, just as the jazz musicians of the classic jazz era were known for their improvisation.
In addition, the emphasis on form during the Classical period corresponds to the swing/big band period of jazz.
The emphasis on emotion during the Romantic period is also reflected in the bebop period of jazz. In other words, both classical music and jazz follow similar developments over time, from simple
melodies in the beginning to accompanied melodies to multiple melodies.
Although the music sounds very different, we find that these two forms of music share similar developments and evolution over time.
The birth of Jazz The birth of jazz occurred around the beginning of the twentieth century.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Classic jazz, sometimes called New Orleans style jazz, started with these dance and funeral bands around the start of the twentieth century. It has also sometimes been called Dixieland jazz.
This type of jazz features a syncopated rhythm and solos that added on to the melody through improvisation. One of the individuals who helped create this new form of music was cornetist Buddy Bolden (1877 – 1931). Bolden led a band in New Orleans from about 1895 to 1906.
He played by ear and adapted the music to his cornet.
His band was said to have been made up of a cornet, clarinet, string bass, trombone, and piano, and they apparently played familiar music from the blues and folk genres, including "My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It" and "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor."
Hot Jazz Hot jazz is a form of jazz that emphasized improvisation.
One of the differences between classic jazz and hot jazz is that with hot jazz, multiple
musicians engage in improvisation at the same time, whereas in classic jazz, improvisation was typically limited to one instrument at a time. Most often, the simultaneous improvisation took place among the "frontline" instruments, such as the trombone, saxophone, trumpet, and clarinet.
The term "hot" was applied to the music because the improvising instruments often built up to a crescendo around the melody, supported by the rhythm section of the band.
The Jazz Age In 1920, the United States banned the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcohol.
While this might not seem to have anything to do with jazz, the age of Prohibition saw a
The Twenties would also see the rise of many popular jazz musicians and bands.
While New Orleans was the birthplace of jazz, the Jazz Age saw the spread of jazz to
other cities and areas.
Musicians in those cities began to put their own spin on jazz. For example, Chicago-style
jazz increased the improvisation in the music and featured innovative harmonic pieces.
Dance clubs also increased, giving individuals a place to go to socialize and enjoy music.
Jazz and other traditionally African-American music began to be played more widely. However, this surge in popularity for jazz was not an entirely positive one.
Due to the association with speakeasies, jazz started to get a reputation as being immoral.
The media and others argued that jazz was contributing to the loss of older values during
the Roaring Twenties.
For many people, jazz came to symbolize the negative aspects of these changes in
society.
In part, this may have been due to continuing racism at the time, since most jazz
musicians were African American.
Swing With the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the beginning of the Great Depression, music was hard hit. However, this was not the end of jazz.
In fact, during the 1930s, jazz became America’s popular music for a time. This came in the form of swing.
featured a strong rhythm section which was fronted by the lead brass section.
With medium to fast tempos, the music encouraged dancing. It also featured soloists who would improvise over the melody line that the other instruments played.
The rhythm of swing was slightly different from classical jazz, as the rhythm was more evened out than syncopated.
In many ways, swing revitalized the music industry.
Big Bands Orchestras and larger bands also began to transform themselves to play swing - this created what is known as big band.
"arranged" than in a traditional smaller jazz band.
Bandleaders led the bands and often injected a bit of their own style into the music that
the band played.
Some of the more famous bandleaders from this time include Count Basie, Bob Crosby,
Duke Ellington, and Benny Goodman.
Unlike classical conductors, bandleaders often played the lead instrument in the big
band.
Bebop Much of jazz music after the 1940s is based, to some degree, on bebop.
Bebop (or bop) features faster rhythms and more complex harmonies. The music also has more frequent chord changes, often after only a beat or two, and greater dissonance.
Unlike swing, bebop was not intended to be dancing music; it was music to be listened
to.
Two of the individuals most associated with bebop jazz are Charlie "Bird" Parker and
Dizzy Gillespie.
Jazz since the 1950s Over the second half of the twentieth century, jazz would take on many new forms and styles.
The commonality between many of them was that they are often based on the
foundations of bebop.
In the 1950s, cool jazz brought together classical music with bebop and swing. Musicians
such as Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck created a more "intellectual" jazz that often de-emphasized the showmanship of earlier periods in favor of a "cool" performance.
Modal jazz was based on cool jazz, featuring single chords for each piece (or a single
chord for each part of the song). This was reminiscent of earlier forms of music, such as the Gregorian chants. Miles Davis also recorded modal jazz as well as cool jazz.
Today, the combination of Latin rhythms and jazz is known as Latin jazz.
By the 1960s, musicians were experimenting further with the jazz form.
In fact, the music is almost totally improvised and it can have a very random, chaotic
Musicians such as Ornette Colman and John Coltrane are associated with this type of jazz.
Jazz Composers and Musicians Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Armstrong was particularly adept at scat singing, which is the use of syllables and sounds instead of lyrics. Armstrong was born in New Orleans to a poor family.
Armstrong is widely regarded as one of the best jazz musicians of all time and probably the best jazz musician of the early jazz years.
The records that he created with his bands Hot Five and Hot Seven in the 1920s are regarded as some of the finest jazz recordings in history.
Musically, Armstrong was talented at improvising and he was one of the major figures in creating the trumpet as a solo instrument.
His larger than life personality and charisma made Armstrong a popular figure outside of the realm of jazz. Duke Ellington(1899-1974)
_____________________________________________________________________________________ He learned to play the piano from his parents and soon began imitating the ragtime music that he heard in Washington, DC. He eventually moved to Harlem, where he joined an orchestra.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ When Ellington formed his own band, the band began playing regularly at first the Hollywood Club and then the Cotton Club.
Like other musicians at the time, Ellington recorded music. As jazz evolved, Ellington stayed true to his roots, preferring to play the types of music that he was familiar with and accomplished in.
In 1974, he died at the age of seventy-five. Count Basie (1904-1984)
___________________________________________________________________________________ As a young man, Basie learned from jazz musicians in Harlem and toured around the country with several bands in the twenties.
In 1929, he became the pianist for a band in Kansas City, Missouri, called the Bennie Moten Band. Eventually, Basie formed his own band, began recording, and relocated to Chicago and then New York. During the 1950s and 1960s, Basie played with some of the best musicians of the time, including Ella
Fitzgerald, Quincy Jones, and Frank Sinatra.
Basie performed at a high level for over fifty years, leaving a lasting impression on jazz. He died in 1984 at the age of seventy-nine.
Billie Holiday (1915-1959)
Considered by many to be the best jazz singer in history
Despite a relatively short career and a tragic life, she brought to jazz new timings and rhythms that would change the way jazz was sung.
Several of the songs that she co-wrote have also become jazz standards and some of those that she sang, including "Strange Fruit" have become iconic jazz songs.
Although Holiday was one of the highest paid performers at the time, her personal life was increasing problematic.
Much of the money she earned went to pay for her heroin addiction. She died in 1959 from liver and heart disease.
Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996)
First wanted to become a dancer, she was considered the “First Lady of Song”
Fitzgerald was a jazz icon during her 60 years of performing, known for a vocal range of three octaves and her ability to improvise during a song.
She is also regarded as one of the best scat singers in the history of jazz.
Yet, perhaps, she is best known for putting her own artistic stamp on the music of her time in a way that no one quite measured up to.
During her career, she won thirteen Grammy awards, including Lifetime Achievement award in 1967, and her records sold over forty million copies.
Miles Davis (1926-1991)
Music scholars consider Davis to be one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century. _____________________________________________________________________________________
Davis began learning music around the age of thirteen. He father gave him a trumpet, which Davis would later say was done to irk his mother, who wanted Davis to learn the piano and who disliked the sound of the
He began playing professionally by the age of sixteen. In 1944, he moved to New York to study at the Julliard School of Music. He eventually left the school and continued to play professionally around New York.
He played in Charlie "Bird" Parker's quintet for a time until he helped form a new band and began recording with them.
In 1956, his album The Birth of Cool was released, giving the name "cool jazz" to the sound. In 1959, what is regarded as Davis' best work, Kind of Blue, was recorded.
As the forms of music changed over the years, Davis continued to lead the changes. He died in 1991 at the age of sixty-five.
