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CHAPTER 42
Music in the Age of Enlightenment:
Orchestral Music
With the rise of the middle
class in the eighteenth
century, high art music
moved beyond the court and
church to become popular
entertainment. Public
concerts and public theaters
opened in many cities:
• Concerted spirituel in Paris,
founded in 1729, emphasized
instrumental music
• At the Vauxhall Gardens in
London
• The Burgtheater in Vienna
Development of Symphony
• By the 1620s, the Italians used the term "sinfonia"
to an instrumental ritornello in a vocal composition.
Soon after, the term "sinfonia avanti l'opera" began
to design the instrumental opening of an opera. As
such, by the end of the seventeenth century it
developed into a three-movement piece
(slow/fast/slow). By 1730s, composers in Italy
began to write symphonies as free-standing
instrumental works.
• Concert symphony: a three- or four-movement
instrumental work projecting the unified sound of
the orchestra.
• Giovanni Battista Sammartini: the leader in the
creation of the concert symphony, he composed
eighty symphonies. While some are trio
symphonies (two violins and a viola part), most
include four independent string parts, with basses
and cellos doubling the bass part. Oboes were at
times added, either doubling a string part or
playing independently.
• Expanded binary form: AB structure in which B
is significantly longer than A.
Antecedent and consequent phrases: two interdependent
phrases, usually of equal length, forming a parallel period. Such
symmetrical phrasing is typical of the galant idiom as well as the
Classical style that followed.
• Johann Quantz: one of the great flutists of the
eighteenth century working at the courts in
Dresden and Berlin. He wrote Essays on Playing
the Flute, one of the most important sources of
eighteenth-century performance practice. Here we
learn that at the time:
– the principal violinist would serve as conductor
– a keyboardist plays continuo
– the players should add ornaments to the written
score
– the players should perform standing up
By the 1750s, the Italian symphony moved north of the Alps,
especially in Mannheim, Germany. There, the Elector's court hosted
one of the best, if not the very best, orchestra in Europe at the time.
• Johann Stamitz: he composed nearly sixty
symphonies and two dozen concertos. After
assuming the position as director of the orchestra
in Mannheim, he hired some of the best solo
instrumentalists in Europe, and formed a highlydisciplined orchestra.
• Mannheim crescendo: a gradual increase from
very soft to very loud with a repetitive figure over a
pedal point.
• Mannheim rocket: a rising chromatic musical
line, played as a tutti unison, that bursts forth
accompanied by a crescendo.
Johann Stamitz La Melodia Germanica,
No. 3: Symphony in Eb Major, i (c1755)
Exposition
Principal (Tonic)
a b c c d* c
1 5 11 15 18 23
Transition (Modulating)
a** b b c(Pb)
27 31 35 39
Secondary and Klosing (Dominant)
a b b
a*(Pd) b(Pc) b(Pc)
47 51 59
66
71
75 – 77
Development (various key areas and modulation)
Tb
Pd
Ta** Tb
Tb
Pb
78
84
90
93
97
100 – 107
*Mannheim crescendo **Mannheim Rocket
Johann Stamitz La Melodia Germanica,
No. 3: Symphony in Eb Major, I (cont.)
Recapitulation
Principal (Tonic) and Transition (Modulating)
Missing
Secondary and Klosing (Tonic)
a
b
b
107 112 120
a*(Pd) b(Pc) b(Pc)
127
132
136
Coda (Tonic) [fills in “missing” material***]
Pa
139 -- 144
***typical of Stamitz