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Classical period (music)
The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between
about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety
of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth
or seventeenth to the nineteenth. This article is about the specific period from 1750 to 1830.
The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. The best known
composers from this period are Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven,
and Franz Schubert.
Ludwig van Beethoven is also sometimes regarded either as a Romantic composer or a
composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic. The period is sometimes referred to as
the era of Viennese Classic or Classicism (German: Wiener Klassik), since Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart, Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven all worked at some time in Vienna, and Franz
Schubert was born there.
In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move towards a new style in architecture,
literature, and the arts, generally known as Classicism, which sought to emulate the ideals of
Classical antiquity and especially those of Classical Greece. the new style was a cleaner style —
one that favored clearer divisions between parts, brighter contrasts and colors, and simplicity
rather than complexity
The new style was also pushed forward by changes in the economic order and in social
structure. As the 18th century progressed, the nobility became the primary patrons of
instrumental music, and there was a rise in the public taste for comic opera.
The changes in economic situation also had the effect of altering the balance of availability and
quality of musicians. While in the late Baroque a major composer would have the entire musical
resources of a town to draw on, the forces available at a hunting lodge were smaller and more
fixed in their level of ability. This was a spur to having primarily simple parts to play, and in the
case of a resident virtuoso group, a spur to writing spectacular, idiomatic parts for certain
instruments, as in the case of the Mannheim orchestra. In addition, the appetite for a continual
supply of new music, carried over from the Baroque, meant that works had to be performable
with, at best, one rehearsal. Indeed, even after 1790 Mozart writes about "the rehearsal", with the
implication that his concerts would have only one.
Main characteristics
Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex. Variety
of keys, melodies, rhythms and dynamics (using crescendo, diminuendo and sforzando), along
with frequent changes of mood and timbre were more commonplace in the Classical period than
they had been in the Baroque. Melodies tended to be shorter than those of Baroque music, with
clear-cut phrases. The Orchestra increased in size and range; the harpsichord continuo fell out of
use, and the woodwind became a self-contained section. As a solo instrument, the harpsichord
was replaced by the piano (or fortepiano). Early piano music was light in texture, often with
Alberti bass accompaniment, but it later became richer, more sonorous and more powerful.
Importance was given to instrumental music — the main kinds were sonata, trio, string
quartet, symphony, concerto and serenade. Sonata form developed and became the most
important form. It was used to build up the first movement of most large works, but also other
movements and single pieces (such as overtures).
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Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)
The first great master of the style was the composer Joseph
Haydn. In the late 1750s he began composing symphonies, and
by 1761 he had composed a triptych (Morning, Noon, and
Evening), he composed over forty symphonies in the 1760s
alone. And while his fame grew, as his orchestra was expanded
and his compositions were copied and disseminated.
While some suggest that he was overshadowed by Mozart
and Beethoven, it would be difficult to overstate Haydn's
centrality to the new style, and therefore to the future of
Western art music as a whole. At the time, before the preeminence of Mozart or Beethoven, and with Johann Sebastian
Bach known primarily to connoisseurs of keyboard music,
Haydn reached a place in music that set him above all other
composers except perhaps George Friedrich Handel. He took
existing ideas, and radically altered how they functioned —
earning him the titles "father of the symphony," and "father of
the string quartet."
Haydn, having worked for over a decade as the music director for a prince, had far more
resources for composing than most and also the ability to shape the forces that would play his
music. This opportunity was not wasted, as Haydn, beginning quite early on his career, sought to
press forward the technique of building ideas in music.
Haydn's gift to music was a way of composing. However, a younger contemporary, Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, brought his genius to Haydn's ideas and applied them to two of the major genres
of the day: opera, and the virtuoso concerto. Whereas Haydn spent much of his working life as a
court composer, Mozart wanted public success in the concert life of cities. This meant opera, and it
meant performing as a virtuoso. Haydn was not a virtuoso at the international touring level; nor
was he seeking to create operatic works that could play for many nights in front of a large
audience. Mozart wanted both. Moreover, Mozart also had a taste for creating a welter of
melodies in a single work, and a more Italianate sensibility in music as a whole. He found, in
Haydn's music and later in his study of the polyphony of Bach, the means to discipline and enrich
his gifts.
Mozart rapidly came to the attention of Haydn, who hailed the new composer, studied his
works, and considered the younger man his only true peer in music.
Рublic taste began to recognize that Haydn and Mozart had reached a higher standard of
composition.
By the time Mozart arrived at age 25, composed his most famous operas, his six late
symphonies which helped to redefine the genre, and a string of piano concertо which still stand at
the pinnacle of these forms.
The force of these shifts became apparent with Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, given the name
Eroica, which is Italian for "heroic", by the composer. As with Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, it
may not have been the first in all of its innovations, but its aggressive use of every part of the
Classical style set it apart from contemporary works.
Viennese -Бечки ( из Беча)
the nobility - племство
reached - достигао
sought - настојао
pre-eminence - превасходно
connoisseur - познавалац
whereas - а, пошто
contemporary - савремен
peer - вршњак
pinnacle - врхунац
мoreover - штавише
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