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How has music of the past affected music today essay
Short essays about classical music era
Short essays about classical music era
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The Italian composer, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), wanted to compose music of emotional intensity. He felt that earlier music had just passed on direct feelings, and he wanted to extend its range to incorporate agitation, excitement, and feelings of love. To make these feelings possible, he freely used dissonance and created a relationship of drama between music and text.
Monteverdi frequently broke the conventional principles of music deliberately in order to convey the poetic text. A classical illustration is the madrigal, Oime il bel viso, oile "l soave sguardo. This madrigal demonstrates various dissonances which violated the rules of counterpoint: suspensions were to be determined before the bass movement, passing tones did not fall
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By then his name was well known across Europe thanks to his series of Books of Madrigals. Monteverdi then began to compose stage music. He composed a ballet, The Love for Diana and Endymion (1628), which is presently lost, and afterward the opera L'Orfeo, which was debuted in 1607. Though Jacopo Peri had composed the first opera in 1598, L’Orfeo is the earliest surviving opera which is regularly performed today. As in his madrigals, Monteverdi uses shocking dissonance in his operas to emphasize important words. His scene-setting is particularly effective, making use of range of instrumental colors.
Monteverdi was known for composing over a dozen operas, yet a large portion of them were lost. From Arianna (1608) only the Protagonist survived and was a piece that is said to have moved the audience the first night of performance to tears. The 'Lamento d’Arianna’ became a "hit," circulating widely in both transcribed and printed duplicates. Monteverdi was quick to cash in. According to the New World Encyclopedia, Monteverdi was the first composer who composed operas using his creative and skillful abilities to develop music dramatically. A modern day audience could listen to his music with much
The first composition, "Miserere Mei, Deus", was produced by Gregorio Allegri in 1638. I learned this, as I read along with the well-thought-out program that was given. As we, the audience, looked up to the vocalists, we were entranced by the consuming sound. The room filled with a vibrant melody, in which the harmonization and tone color was spectacular. The emotion conveyed throughout the room was one of absorption and delight. During this piece, the sopranos hit such high notes, that I was astounded. Being a person who participates in concert choir, I understand the level of commitment and talent it takes to reach those notes and stay in tune. This ...
In Cruda Amarilli, Monteverdi uses rich affective dissonance in order to create the same degree of tension as its predecessor. With this tension he creates a feeling within the listener. He does this through word painting. As an aspect of secular music, Monteverdi uses word painting to reflect the meaning of the words in Cruda Amarilli. The music and the words work together to display the meaning, by making the listener hear the words as if they are actually doing what is being said.
...ugh the publication of his madrigals in Nicholas Yonge’s 1588 publication Musica transalpine, in which, Marenzio’s works were second in number. It is believed that Dowland went to Italy with the intention of meeting and possibly even studying with Marenzio in Rome, although there is no evidence that the introduction ever occurred.
In his day, Johann Adolph Hasse was at the forefront of Italian opera. Although he composed a fair amount of sacred works, he is best known for his operatic output. He was widely popular throughout Italy and Germany, and was commissioned by courts and opera houses throughout Europe. His performances were attended by cultural figures at the time, as well as some of the biggest names in common-era music today. In his later life, styles changed and so Hasse’s acclaim diminished after his death. But generations later, he was re-established as a figurehead and icon of classic ancient Italian opera, a designation he possesses even today.
Although the original purpose of Dido and Aeneas may have been that of court entertainment, it has become one of Purcell’s most widely acclaimed operas, as well as one of the most popular operas of the Baroque period. The first known performance of Dido and Aeneas was held at Mount Josias Priest’s Boarding School in Chelsea, England in 1689. Scholars such as Bruce Wood and Andrew Pinnock have questioned whether this performance was truly the first, or if it was a repetition of an earlier court premiere, due to the fact that John Blow’s opera Venus and Adonis was written and then debuted in 1684, around the same time as Dido and Aeneas, and they seemed to follow the same path to their first performances. B...
The style that Monteverdi intended to write in was called seconda prattica, this was a description that he used to separate himself for what was known as the more conservative tradition of Palestrina and his “Contemporaries.” The main starting point for Monteverdi was the always the words. Whatever his mood was at the time and what the words might suggest, and or whatever a one word needed to express, was mainly reflected on his music. Throughout the century, this was the basic idea of word content; this painting was used in madrigals through out the century. Due to the fact that his music expressed different moods of styles, for Monteverdi it was however isolated effect, and a guiding force. “This ideal permeated his madrigals and found new expression in the dramatic language or opera.” All Monteverdi’s techniques of work altogether made Monteverdi one of the expertise in the field of Western music.
...ts of fever and general ill-health. And in his last ten years in Vienna, the constant need to write commissioned work - for he was the first of the composing freelances, with no regular patrons or court salaries - had worn him down to the point where one bout of fever was sure to finish him off. In July he'd had the anonymous commission to write a Requiem for the Dead; but that had been progressing slowly, because he'd been busy with two operas - La Clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute - and two cantatas at the same time. Thirty-five years of artistic, social and personal pressure was taking its toll.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven are very famous past composers that have created many pieces that have influenced not just people of their time, but people in modern times as well.
The size of the orchestra expanded and consisted of more use of the brass and percussion. He liked creating a barbaric, primeval sound that created a pizzicato. He wanted to create a harsh loud sound; his use of melody and harmony creates static quality. The use of limited ranges and extensive repetition, he also liked using folk like repetition within his pieces. His harmonies include whole notes and eight note scales. The interaction he creates between rhythm and the meter is the most influential part of The Right of Spring. He opened a new lane for western music to be able to explore outside of the regular traditional and metric regular use within western music.
...he connection between the composer and the music. Since composers generally write about events that had an impact in their lives, this analysis receives support.
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra performed Overture to La Scala di Seta by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), which represents the Classical Period. Rossini
Although Beethoven had a rough life as a child and as he got older, he still was able to produce phenomenal compositions. He refused to conform to traditional musical standards and strived for perfection. Beethoven took composing music to a whole new level. “Beethoven opened up new realms of musical expression that profoundly influence composers throughout the nineteenth century.”
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
Vivaldi's music is particularly innovative as he gave brightness to the formal and the rhythmic structure of concertos. He repeatedly looked for harmonic contrasts, creating innovative melodies and themes. Vivaldi’ main goal was to create a musical piece meant to be appreciated by the wide public, and not only by an intellectual minority. The joyful appearance of his music reveals a transmittable joy of composing. These are among the causes of the vast popularity of his music. This popularity soon made him famous also in countries like France, at the time very closed into its national schemes. He is considered one of the authors that brought Baroque music to evolve into an impressionist style.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often referred to as the greatest musical genius of all time in Western musical tradition. His creative method was extraordinary: his writings show that he almost always wrote a complete composition mentally before finally writing it on paper. Mozart created 600 works in his short life of 35 years. His works included 16 operas, 41 symphonies, 27 piano concerti, and 5 violin concerti, 25 string quartets, and 19 masses.