Rococo to Romanticism: Evolution of Western Music
Rococo: General Features (1700-1755)
The Rococo, refining the art of the room of Louis XV, was dominant throughout the first half of the eighteenth century in France. France, in the first half of the eighteenth century, was the intellectual and moral beacon that guided all of Europe. Its palace of Versailles and its academies were imitated across Europe.
The Rococo is essentially a decorative and ornamental style. It is distinguished by the abundant use of rocks and shells in irregular, asymmetrical lines and wavy, decorative plants. This style is reflected in furniture, porcelain, chinoiserie, mirrors, and tapestries.
In painting, the favorite themes were gallant festivals, portraits, bucolic and pastoral scenes. Watteau, Boucher, and Fragonard depicted the life of the frivolous and pleasurable époques.
The same gallant, frivolous art is also found in its sensual condition in music. The arts and music halls of the eighteenth century bring to our remembrance the knights of buckles and wigs, women with hats and crinolines, the steps of minuets and rigadoons, and country scenes in pastoral meadows and parks.
Features
- Improving instruments that would give birth to mid-century symphonic art.
- The favorite tools of the halls were the violin and the harpsichord, which shared supremacy with the flute.
- The clarinet was popularized.
- The bassoon and oboe, which already existed, were perfected.
- The piano was invented in 1709 by Bartolomeo Cristofori.
With the introduction of the violin into the orchestra by Corelli, different schools and interpretive techniques arose. Proponents of this technique included Leclair in France, and Vivaldi and Veracini in Italy, who were joined by Viotti, Geminiani, Kreutzer, Stamitz, and others.
In Italy, apart from Albinoni, Dall’Abaco, Locatelli, B. Marcello, and the aforementioned Geminiani and Veracini, the most outstanding names were those of Vivaldi and Tartini in violin playing, while Domenico Scarlatti stood out on the harpsichord.
In France, the most remarkable violinist was Leclair, who represented the heyday of French sonatas and concertos.
The instrument that best represents the French Rococo is the harpsichord. Two figures are summits of the French harpsichord: François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau.
Broadly speaking, we can say that the instrumental genres and forms started in the seventeenth century.
Other composers of the Rococo are Christopher Gluck and Pergolesi, in France.
Other composers of the transition between the Rococo and Classical periods are Johan Stamitz (creator of the symphony and violin) of Mannheim, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (creator of the sonata structure plan), Johann Mattheson and Georg Philipp Telemann in northern and central Germany, and Luigi Boccherini in Madrid.
Classical Music
Classical music, or the Classical period, began approximately in 1750 and ended around 1820. This period in the history of music is called “Classical” in general opposition to the use of the term as “music of an educated tradition.” In music history, classical music itself is called the “Classical period.” In other arts, it was the rediscovery and copying of classic Greco-Roman art, which was considered traditional or ideal. In music, there was no original classic, as no music had been written in Greek or Roman times. The music of the Classical period evolved into a high balance between harmony and melody. Its main exponents were Haydn, Mozart, and the first Beethoven. Beethoven was a turning point in the evolution of tonal music, going farther and farther away from the so-called tonal center. It is at this point when the Romantic era in the history of music begins.
Instruments in the Classicism
Some instruments emerged in this period, such as the piano, the arpeggione, and the clarinet. While most symphonic instruments had existed since the Baroque, most of them reached maturity in this period, such as the bassoon, oboe, and bass. While new instruments were developed, existing ones became obsolete, some to near extinction: viola da gamba, harpsichord, flageolet, recorder (again reborn in the twentieth century), bassoon, lute, and so on. The piano was imposed on the harpsichord so that it came to occupy a central place in chamber music and solo concerts, even more so in Romanticism.
1750-1775
By 1750, instrumental genres such as the symphony and concerto had gained enough strength to be interpreted independently of vocal music and had great acceptance in the courts. The composer of the time was Joseph Haydn. Besides writing symphonies of a clear classical structure, he wrote sonatas for the pianoforte, a new keyboard instrument that was emerging and allowed greater expressive capabilities. He was also considered the “father of the string quartet,” probably because his works for this formation are very melodic and have harmonic sophistication. This contributed to the quartet being established today.
On harmony, there are significant changes, as the main harmonic rules were already laid in the previous period. However, we see big changes in texture, using a more pure and balanced style, often accompanied melody and sometimes vertical homophony or polyphony. The Alberti bass emerged and was imposed (an accompanying form where chords are deployed). This is in contrast to the overloaded imitative Baroque style, which produced complex fugues and canons. Recall that the classical ideal is balance and harmony. Increasingly, more variety of dynamics and articulations were used, through the development of instruments. The melodies became cantabile, and the musical form was particularly important. It is during this period that the structures that underpin the “serious” music of the West almost to this day, the symphony, and the classical sonata concert, were clearly defined.
The Sonata
It has three or four movements. In the first movement, a schema with three parts is followed: first, an exposition in which the composer presents two themes, one strong and one more melodic; second, a development in which a struggle between the two themes is established; finally, a recapitulation, in which the harmonic tension is resolved by re-hearing the initial themes. The second movement, slow, is often a more melodic theme, using a lied, in ternary form and lyrical. The third movement has a more casual character, usually a minuet, a dance of French origin (in the case of Beethoven, a scherzo). In the fourth movement, the form of the rondo is almost always taken, with fixed sections alternating with variable ones. The sonata itself is written for one instrument or for a small set of duets or trios. The sonata form, whether it is for a chamber group, can be a quartet, quintet, etc. If it is for an orchestra, it is called a symphony, and if it is orchestral but with a soloist, it is a concerto.
Baroque Music
Baroque music is the period of music that dominated Europe during the seventeenth century and the first half of the next, being replaced by Classicism around 1750-1760. It is believed to have been born in Italy and reached its heyday in Germany during the late Baroque. It is one of the richest, most fertile, creative, and revolutionary periods in the history of music.
In this period, new forms were developed, and technical breakthroughs were operated in both composition and virtuosity. Thus, we have chromaticism, expressiveness, figured bass and continuo, intensity, opera, oratorio, cantata, sonata, toccata, suite, fugue, and the symphony.
The Basso Continuo
The basso continuo, also called “continuous bass,” is an accompanying system devised in the early Baroque period, and it is also a stenographic or shorthand notation. As a technique of composition, it allowed the composer to draw only the contour of the melody and the bass, leaving the middle voices, i.e., the harmonic filler, to the invention of the continuo. The continued implementation of an instrument requires two instrumentalists: a melodic serious instrumentalist (viola da gamba, cello, double bass, bassoon, etc.) running low notes, and a harmonic instrument (lute, harpsichord, organ) played by the continuo, who operates on the fly harmonies, according to figures from the bass, in the form of chord arpeggios or other figures, all in accordance with the style and the expressive needs of the musical text.
The Tone System
The tone system was an evolution from the past medieval music masters to its best since the last tone composers of post-Romanticism, such as Bach.
Antonio Vivaldi
Italian Baroque music in Italy during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and early eighteenth centuries was living its heyday, and it was in pursuit of artistic splendor, from the sublime to the sublime. The joy of the religious disputes arose between the human and divine in the battlefield that was the Baroque. The Theatrum mundi of Italy lived under the precept of “delectare et mover.” The Italian sprezzatura gave way to what would be the biggest spectacle of the human voice: opera. The Italian concerto grosso and the orchestra were the prototype of Italian composition and performance to continue throughout Western Europe. The castrati played a strong role in the Italian Baroque. The Baroque was human, the flamboyant and beautiful, while the grotesque, confused, or Mannerist, with the monstrous beauty, morality, and decay, contrasted against the supreme splendor of Italian Baroque society. Caffarelli and Carestini were immortalized by a voice that transcended the concept of “perfection,” which even led to some madness.
The Italian violino, a staging of Baroque mannerism, was a vehicle for the virtuosity of the performer rather than the composer, who only provided guidelines for the performers to take with great freedom. Examples of this time are the twelve concertos by Pietro Locatelli, the concerto grosso of Arcangelo Corelli, and the concerto grosso of the Quattro Stagioni by Vivaldi (il prete rosso, the red priest, from the color of your hair).
Händel
Baroque Händel is one of the most important composers of the Baroque, being, together with his contemporary Bach, the most important of the first half of the eighteenth century. Born in 1685 in Germany, in 1712 he would move to England to be consecrated as one of the best British composers, obtaining British citizenship in 1727. It must be realized that Händel came from a wealthy family and had no impediments or limitations typical of most musicians. In 1759, with a great reputation among the musical circles in London, he would die at age 74 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His music is very numerous, with more than 600 works. Among the highlights are his operas (Julius Caesar, 1724), his oratorios (Messiah, 1741), his concertos (Concertos for Organ Op. 4, 1735), and his orchestral suites (Water Music, 1717, and Music for the Royal Fireworks, 1749).
German Baroque
Heinrich Schütz, Dietrich Buxtehude, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Pachelbel, and Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was a German organist and composer of Baroque classical music, a member of one of the most extraordinary musical families in history (about 120 musicians). His prolific work is considered the pinnacle of Baroque music and one of the summits of world music, not only for its intellectual depth, technical perfection, and artistic beauty but also for the synthesis of various international styles of the era and the past and its unique extension. Bach would have an enormous influence on later musicians, especially following his rediscovery by the musician Felix Mendelssohn. His most important works are among the most outstanding and momentous in classical and world music. All his work is completely finished and is noted for its originality and technical perfection, but of particular importance are the Brandenburg Concertos, the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Mass in B Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, The Art of Fugue, The Musical Offering, and the Goldberg Variations.