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A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music

George GollinFAA 199

February 22, 2011

©2011 George Gollin

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Music is an evolving art

Our species has made music for tens of thousands of years.

Music may have given Homo sapiens

an evolutionary advantage: easily remembered songs preserve and transmit accumulating cultural knowledge long before written languages arose. [1]

40,000 year old bone flute, found in southern Germany in 2008. [1]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Nothing but written fragments…

…remain for music that predates early Christian liturgical music. [2]

This 2nd

century papyrus fragment includes musical notation.

Second century AD papyrus thought to be a fragment from a collection of songs which included musical notation. [3]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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A chronologyThe development of classical music is often discussed in terms of six

different periods. The use of polyphony and large-scale structure became increasingly complex; musical instruments evolved too.

•

Medieval (5th

century AD –

c. 1400)

•

Renaissance (c. 1400 –

1600)

•

Baroque (c. 1600 –

1750)

•

Classical (c. 1750 –

1820)

•

Romantic (c. 1820 –

1900)

•

Modern (c. 1900 –

present) [9]

Sometimes (not always) the boundaries between periods are indistinct.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The Church supported the musical arts

Gregorian chant is a monophonic (single melody, no harmony) liturgical form that probably dates from the eighth century. [5]

Musical notation (different from modern notation) allowed the Church to disseminate Gregorian chants throughout medieval Christendom.

16th century Gregorian chant manuscript. [4]

Anon: Puer Natus

Est Nobis, Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo De Silos, Castile, Spain

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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There could be conflictsEarly (~10th

century) Church policy held that musical instruments were inappropriate for use during worship services. [6]

Even so, pipe organs came to be used in liturgical music. Elfeg, Bishop of Winchester, “procured an organ for his Cathedral had built in his cathedral in 951…

having twenty-six pairs of bellows, requiring seventy men to fill it with wind.”

[8]

It is possible that the development of the pipe organ led to the invention of polyphonic music: on the organ it was possible to play chords, combinations of notes. [2]

Bellows for the Halberstadt Cathedral organ, built in 1361.[7]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Early harmony: organumEarly polyphony used “two melodic lines simultaneously at parallel intervals, usually at the fourth, fifth, or octave.

The resulting hollow-sounding music was called organum and very slowly developed over the next hundred years.

By the eleventh century, one, two (and much later, even three) added melodic lines were no longer moving in parallel motion, but contrary to each other, sometimes even crossing. ”

[9]

We are more accustomed to the sound of triads.

GEC

GC

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Evolution of the instrumentsBaroque keyboard musicians played Harpsichords. The keys cause the instrument’s strings to be plucked by a plectrum; only limited volume control is possible. The piano was invented later.

Probably a copy of a Dulcken

1747 [10]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Viola da

gamba

Note the frets on this bass viol da

gamba, and the presence of six strings instead of four.

“Gamba”

is like “jambe”

(thigh) in French.

Probably a reproduction of a 17th

century instrument [11]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Sacbut and SerpentSacbut: Renaissance version of the trombone, first appeared c. 1500. [12]

Serpent: Renaissance bass cornet, c. 1590. [13]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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It’s progress, not just changeThe newer instruments were more nimble and gave musicians greater control, richer tone, and increased range.

Modern Steinway concert grand piano [16]

“Davydov”

Stradivarius cello (1712) owned by Jacqueline DuPres, photo c. 19 [17]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Evolution of the orchestrationBaroque orchestral pieces were conducted from the keyboard, with

the conductor playing a harpsichord. These were not

concerti, in which a solo instrument plays “against”

the rest of the orchestra.

As new orchestration techniques developed, the use of a harpsichord as an anchor for the music subsided.

Mid 18th

century: “Much of our modern performance practice can be traced to the orchestra at the court of the Elector Palatine, Prince Karl Theodor, at Mannheim.”

[2, 15]

•

the orchestra was large, compared to other orchestras of the time

•

its musicians were better trained, and played with greater precision

•

a variety of new features–loud-soft dynamics, for example–were part of the orchestra’s style of play.

Mannheim is in central Germany, about 300 miles east of Paris.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Hearing the music, back then

Remember: there was no widely-deployed technology available to record/replay music until late in the 19th

century. [14]

People heard music in Church, saw it performed in live concerts,

and (if they could afford to), played it themselves.

Royal families could patronize the arts by supporting composers;

churches could hire composers to write religious music to be included in services.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The Baroque period (c. 1600 –

1750)

Some of the composers:

•

Claudio Monteverdi, 1567 –

1643. Lived in Venice, Italy; his 1607 opera L’Orfeo

is “widely acknowledged as the first great work in the history of the genre.”

[18]

•

Antonio Vivaldi, 1678 –

1741. His most famous composition is probably The Four Seasons, comprising four of the twelve Opus 8 concerti.

•

Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685 –

1750. He didn’t do opera, but was the champion of everything else during the Baroque era. Bach was enormously prolific.

Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto no. 3, BWV 1048 (1721) [19]

Monteverdi [20] Vivaldi [21] Bach [22]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The Classical period (c. 1750 –

1820)

New forms of composition, including: the symphony and string quartet. The works are more layered, more complex. Some of the composers:

•

Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732 –

1809. Vienna; he is “rightly regarded as the father of both the symphony and the string quartet.”

[18]

•

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756 –

1791. “Music’s supremely gifted creator, whose achievements mark a zenith of Western culture.”

[18] Also, “the only composer in history to have written undisputed masterworks in virtually every musical genre of his age.”

[23]

•

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770 –

1827. “The most important and influential musician in history.”

[18] His revolutionary works forced the transition from the Classical to the Romantic period; he composed works in the style

of both periods.

Mozart’s Symphony no. 40, K. 550 (1788) [26]Mozart [24]Haydn [23] Beethoven [25]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The Romantic period (c. 1820 –

1900)Dramatic changes to the form of the symphony and the string quartet. A

few of the composers (in addition to Beethoven):

•

Johannes Brahms, 1833 –

1897. I think: Brahms makes immediate, powerful emotional statements in the opening notes of his orchestral and chamber works.

•

Fryderyk

Franciszek

Chopin, 1810 –

1849. “Polish-born pianist and composer of matchless genius in the realm of keyboard music.”

[18] I think: the Nocturnes

are heartbreakingly beautiful.

•

Felix Mendelssohn, 1809 –

1847. Boy genius: her wrote his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the age of 17.

Brahms’

Symphony no. 4, 4th movement, op. 98

(1885)

Mendelssohn [27]Chopin [28]Brahms [29]

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Twentieth centuryThe twentieth century was a time of global war, genocide, and environmental destruction. It was also the century in which political freedom and human rights became the norm in most of Europe. The music of that/this century is complex, sometimes dissonant, unsettled, forceful.

There is an impressive range of styles; I do not know if they all have names.

•

Impressionism: Claude Debussy, 1862 –

1918; Maurice Ravel, 1875 –

1937.

•

Serialism (12-tone): Arnold Schoenberg, 1874 –

1951; Anton Webern, 1883 –

1945.

•

Béla Bartók, 1881 –

1945; Zoltan Kodály, 1882 –

1967. Both Hungarian.

•

Igor Stravinsky, 1882 –

1971, Russian, lived in Paris.

•

Sergey Prokofiev, 1891 –

1953; Dmitri Shostakovich, 1906 –

1975, both Russian.

•

George Gershwin, 1898 –

1937; Aaron Copland, 1900 –

1990. Both American.

Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky

(1913)

Music for Strings,

Percussion, and Celesta, Béla Bartók

(1936)

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The conflict between Art and PowerPaul Hindemith, 1895 –

1963. “German composer, performer, teacher, and theorist, influential though largely unloved, one of the most important musicians of the 20th

century…

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 they branded Hindemith’s music ‘culturally Bolshevist.’”

After the premier of Mathis der Mahler, Joseph Goebbels called Hindemith “an atonal noisemaker.”

[18]

Mathis der Mahler, first movement (1934)Hindemith [30]

Shostakovich [31]

Dmitri Shostakovich. “Russian composer. His 15 symphonies are the most important addition to the symphonic repertoire by any composer born in the 20th

century…

Among his greatest works are 15 string quartets, which like the symphonies reflect a career-

long balance between musical form and emotional content.”

After Josef Stalin heard Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, he “ordered the publication of a review in Pravda

excoriating the music and its creator.”

Shostakovich called his 5th

Symphony “a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism”

and was “instantly rehabilitated.”

[18]5th

Symphony, first movement (1937)

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The String QuartetHaydn is credited with developing –

some musicologists say “inventing”–

the string quartet. And it was just a lucky fluke!

Haydn's early biographer, Georg August Griesinger, tells the story thus:

The following purely chance circumstance had led him to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg

had a place in Weinzierl, several stages from Vienna, and he invited from time to time his pastor,

his manager, Haydn, and Albrechtsberger, in order to have a little music. Fürnberg

requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four

amateurs. Haydn, then eighteen years old, took up this proposal, and so originated his first quartet which, immediately it appeared, received such general approval that Haydn took courage to work further in this form. [32]

Modern string quartets continue to be written with this instrumentation in mind: two violins, one viola, one cello.

The structure and organization of a quartet has evolved considerably since Haydn’s time.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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A few of the more notable composers of string quartets

Classical period: Haydn, of course. Mozart too, also Beethoven’s six early quartets: op. 18, 1 –

6.

Romantic period: Beethoven’s middle and late quartets; Brahms; Mendelssohn; Schubert

Mozart: Quartet # 14,

K. 387, 1st

movement (1782)

Beethoven: Quartet # 8,

op. 59 #2, 1st

movement (1806)Brahms: Quartet # 1,

op. 51 #1, 3rd movement (1873)

Twentieth century: Bartók, Shostakovich, Elliott Carter (born 1908)

Bartók: Quartet # 2,

op. 17, 1st

movement (1917)Carter: Quartet # 1,

1st movement (1951)

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Dmitri Shostakovich (1)From the program for the February 22, 2011 concert. Notes written by Robert Strong. [33]

Born September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia Died August 9, 1975, in Moscow, Soviet Union

Dmitri Shostakovich was born to a middle-class family with a history of anti-tsarist political activism. His musical gifts became apparent when he began piano lessons at age 9, and at age 13 he was admitted to the Petrograd (later Leningrad) Conservatory. A brilliant student, he had an amazing musical memory and excellent technical skills as a pianist. His First Symphony, premiered in 1926, won him immediate international recognition and a well-

paying commission from the government’s Department of Agitation and Propaganda to compose a major work in honor of the Russian Revolution’s 10th anniversary.

Shostakovich was never politically active but was able to thrive

in the 1920s because Lenin’s Commissariat of Enlightenment permitted experimentation in the

arts as a means of wiping out the old aesthetic norms. Stalin’s rise to power in 1929 changed everything, bringing the arts directly under his control in the service of the Soviet state. Commissions and privileges were offered to those whose work conformed to the

Communist party line, while the wayward suffered poverty, imprisonment, or death.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Dmitri Shostakovich (2)

Two terrifying official denunciations shaped Shostakovich’s response to the demands of the state. The first was the 1936 editorial in Pravda

criticizing his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

at the start of Stalin’s brutal Great Terror. Shostakovich was again condemned as a decadent “formalist”

in 1948 during Stalin’s postwar search for “enemies of the people”

in the arts community. In each case, he was officially reinstated only after a public confession of error. From the mid-1950s until his death, he was honored as the leading Soviet composer and was put forward as a figurehead of the government’s music establishment in a succession of political posts, conferences, and government-prepared speeches.

Dmitri Shostakovich was a man of contradictions. In public he appeared fragile, nervous, and withdrawn, eyes darting behind thick glasses, but with close friends he could be charming and high-spirited. He loved sarcasm and parody, but his manners were unfailingly polite and considerate. Contemporaries describe a hard core of personal strength that he brought to his music.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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Dmitri Shostakovich (3)

Perhaps the most significant contradiction was the double life Shostakovich led as an “official”

composer producing propaganda for the Soviet state and a private composer pouring his personal feelings into his work. The government’s coercive mix of threats and honors kept him outwardly compliant and created an environment in which he struggled to assert his artistic integrity in large-scale works. His chamber music attracted less official scrutiny, and he turned to string quartets increasingly over his career.

Shostakovich’s quartets often use traditional sonata form, but he breaks down

the formal structure in a variety of ways to create a sense of unresolved suspension. This stylistic pattern, in addition to his practice of withholding harmonic resolution, creates what music historian Judith Kuhn has called “a rhetoric of disintegration.”

Recurring musical elements—sinister waltzes, funeral marches, fragile harmonies, sudden changes of mood—and the composer’s use of a four-note musical signature and self-quotation reinforce the highly personal creative expression to be found in all the quartets.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The ConcertString Quartet No. 11 in F Minor, Op. 122 Introduction: Andantino—(1966)

Scherzo: Allegretto—Recitative: Adagio—Etude: Allegro—Humoresque: Allegro—Elegy: Adagio—Finale: Moderato

String Quartet No. 13 in B-flat Minor, Op. 138 Adagio—Doppio

movimento—Tempo primo(1970)

String Quartet No. 14 in F-sharp Major, Op. 142 Allegretto(1973)

Adagio—Allegretto

String Quartet No. 15 in E-flat Minor, Op. 144 Elegy: Adagio—(1974)

Serenade: Adagio—Intermezzo: Adagio—Nocturne: Adagio—Funeral March: Adagio molto—Epilogue: Adagio

1st movement

1st movement

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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The Pacifica Quartet won a Grammy in 2009!

[34]

Simin Ganatra

violin Sibbi Bernhardsson

violin

Brandon Vamos

cello

Masumi Per Rostad

viola

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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References (1)

[1] “Bone Flute Is Oldest Instrument, Study Says,”

James Owen, National Geographic News, June 24, 2009. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090624-bone-flute-oldest-instrument.html

[2] “Music,”

Sir Jack Allan Westrup Encyclopedia Britannica vol. 15, University of Chicago, William Benton, Chicago, 1966.

[3] “Fragments of Ancient Greek Songs from the Early Empire: P. Yale CtYBR

inv. 4510,”

William A. Johnson, Department of Classics, University of Cincinnati http://classics.uc.edu/music/yale/index.html, visited February 20, 2011.

[4] “Analysis and Synthesis of Palestrina-Style Counterpoint Using Markov Chains,”

Mary Farbood and Bernd Schoner, excerpted from "Analysis and Synthesis of Palestrina-Style Counterpoint Using Markov Chains." Proceedings of International Computer Music Conference. Havana, Cuba. 2001. http://web.media.mit.edu/~mary/palestrina.html, visited February 20, 2011.

[5] Harvard Dictionary of Music, 2nd

edition, Willi Apel, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1973.[6] “Organ History: the Organ in the Middle Ages,”

James H. Cook, Birmingham Southern College, http://faculty.bsc.edu/jhcook/orghist/history/hist002.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[7] “Pipe Organ,”

Medieval Life and Times, http://www.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-music/pipe-organ.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[8] Two Hundred and Fifty Easy Voluntaries and Interludes, for the Organ, Melodeon, Seraphine, &c., John Zundel, Oliver Ditson

& Co., Boston, 1851, p. 6, https://urresearch.rochester.edu/fileDownloadForInstitutionalItem.action;jsessionid=F9761E86CCF0070750964C

380024ADB7?itemId=6329&itemFileId=10122, visited February 20, 2011.[9] Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their music;

The Middle Ages, Robert Sherrane, “ipl2: information you can trust,”

Drexel University, http://ipl2server-2.ischool.drexel.edu/div/mushist/middle/, visited February 20, 2011.

[10] Yves Beaupré, Facteur

de Clavecins, http://www3.sympatico.ca/clavecin/fr18.html, visited February 20, 2011.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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References (2)[11] “The Gamba

(bass viol da

gamba,”

Musica

Antiqua, Iowa State University, http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/gamba_b.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[12] “The Sacbut,”

Musica

Antiqua, Iowa State University, http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/sacbut.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[13] “The Serpent,”

Musica

Antiqua, Iowa State University, http://www.music.iastate.edu/antiqua/serpent.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[14] “The History of Recorded Music,”

Rebecca MacQuarrie, et al., Duke University Sociology 142 class project, http://www.soc.duke.edu/~s142tm01/history.html, visited February 20, 2011.

[15] Music 555/755: Symphonic Music Literature, “Mannheim,”

Lawrence Nelson, Eastern Kansas University, http://people.eku.edu/nelsonl/mus555/mannheim.html, visited February 20, 2011.

[16] Steinway & Sons web site, http://www.steinway.com/pianos/steinway/grand/model-d/, visited February 20, 2011.[17] The Davydov

Strad, Internet Cello Society web site, http://www.cello.org/heaven/masters/davydov.htm, visited February 20, 2011.

[18] The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music, Ted Libbey, Workman Publishing, New York, 2006.[19] Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their music, Robert Sherrane, “ipl2: information you can

trust,”

Drexel University, http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/MP3/brandenburg.mp3, visited February 20, 2011.[20] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Claudio_Monteverdi.jpg, visited February 20, 2011.[21] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Antonio_Vivaldi.jpg, visited February 20, 2011.[22] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Johann_Sebastian_Bach.jpg, visited February 20, 2011.[23] Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their music, Robert Sherrane, “ipl2: information you can

trust,”

Drexel University, http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/clas/mozart.html, visited February 20, 2011. [24] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Haydn_portrait_by_Thomas_Hardy_%28small%29.jpg,

visited February 20, 2011.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin

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References (3)[25] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Croce-Mozart-Detail.jpg, visited February 20, 2011. [26] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Beethoven.jpg, visited February 20, 2011. [27] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Mendelssohn_Bartholdy.jpg, visited February 20, 2011. [28] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chopin,_by_Wodzinska.JPG, visited February 20, 2011.[29] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohannesBrahms.jpg, visited February 20, 2011.[30] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Hindemith_1923.jpg, visited February 21, 2011.[31] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dmitri1.jpg, visited February 21, 2011.[32] Midland Chamber Players web site: http://www.midlandchamberplayers.org.uk/details.aspx?event=33, visited

February 21, 2011.[33] Program notes, Robert Snow, for the Pacifica Quartet Shostakovich Cycle, 4th

concert, February 22, 2011: http://krannertcenter.com/images/cm/201056103325950128174106178/PacificaQuartetPart4Program.pdf.

[34] Program notes for the Pacifica Quartet Shostakovich Cycle, 4th concert, February 22, 2011: http://krannertcenter.com/images/cm/201056103325950128174106178/PacificaQuartetPart4Program.pdf.

A Highly Subjective, Highly Abbreviated History of (Western) Classical Music   ©2011 George Gollin