When we hear a song performed by an orchestra, the term classical music is used in two different senses. People sometimes use the term 'classical music' considering all music divided into two main parts: 'classical' and 'popular'.
For the scholar or musicologist, however, 'Classical' has special meaning and precise: is music composed between 1750 and 1810, which includes the music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and others. The compositions of others, can not be considered classic. Listen Bach or Vivaldi means that we are hearing baroque music, whether referring to Chopin, Verdi or Wagner will be hearing music of the Romantic period. If we want to generalize, we can say that we like Classical music. Let us study some more ...
We will not speak of popular music dictates with their various settings, as these can lead to the individual states of joy or a great depression. Those who speak of love between man and woman can illustrate what we mean. Cause of joy or enthusiasm lead the subject to make mistakes in the name of love, can increase the feeling like, you can also demote it to the point of leaving it in the gutter.
The classical music in all periods tends to cause the subject to equilibrium, therefore, a sound wave causes changes in air pressure as it moves through it. Thus, when the musical themes fluent, slows down the heartbeat and breath, plunges you into a world of harmony that gives you peace, tranquility and relaxation.
Compositions full of tranquility evoke images ranging up to the boundaries of your perception, you comovendo deeply. So when you hear a "Gregorian chant" or a more quiet music (harmonica), you tend to settle down and get into a state of relaxation and reflection. So many people listen to music such feel drowsy due to the relaxation of the muscles caused by thin air.
A few years ago, we saw the Fantastic program of TV Globo research by scientists in the United States, where they put in separate rooms, flowering plants that had been germinated, grown and given flowers at the same time. In an environment, plants and baroque music heard in another, plants listened to music like rock metal. After about twenty hours, with accompanying pictures made by the camera, we could see, as time passed they heard that the rock was fading and the other became more viscous as if they were happier.
Digress a little more about classical music for better understanding:
Among the remaining traces of the great civilizations of antiquity, were found in records written testimonies pictorial and sculptural musical instruments and dances accompanied by music. The Sumerian culture, which flourished in the Mesopotamian basin several millennia before the Christian era, included hymns and songs chanted in their liturgical rites, whose influence is evident in societies Babylonian, Chaldean and Jewish who settled later in the geographic areas surrounding. Ancient Egypt, whose agricultural sources was evident in solemn religious ceremonies that incorporated the use of several classes of harps and flutes, also reached a high degree of musical expressiveness.
In Asia, where the influence of religious movements and philosophies such as Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam etc.. was instrumental in all aspects of culture, the main focus of spreading musical were Chinese civilizations of the third millennium before the Christian era and Indian.
The Western Europe had a tradition prehistoric own. It is well known leading role assumed by the druids, priests, bards and poets, in the organization of pre-Roman Celtic societies.
The musical tradition of Anatolia, however, penetrated into Europe through Greek culture, whose elaborate music theory was the starting point of the identity of Western music, quite different from the Far East.
The pre-Columbian American music has strong kinship with the Chinese and Japanese in their forms and scales, which can be explained by migration of Asian and Inuit tribes across the Bering Strait in ancient times. Finally, the non-Arab African musical culture peculiarizes up by complex rhythmic patterns, although not equivalent development in melody and harmony.
Around 500 years DC western civilization began to emerge from the period known as the Dark Ages. During the next 10 centuries, the Catholic Church has recently emerged to dominate Europe, administering justice, instigating "Holy Crusades" against the East, establishing universities, and generally dictating the destiny of music, art and literature.
Thus scored the music known as Gregorian chant music that was approved by the Church. Much later, the University of Notre in Paris saw the creation of a new kind of music called organum. Secular music was sung all over Europe by the troubadours and trouveres France. And it was during the Middle Ages that western culture saw the arrival of the first great name in music, Guillaume Machaut.
Given the above, we can divide the history of music at different times, each identified by a style. Of course, a musical style is not made from overnight. It is a slow and gradual process, always with the styles overlapping each other. But, for classification purposes, it is customary to divide the history of Western music in six major periods:
Medieval music until about 1450
Renaissance Music 1451 - 1600
Baroque Music 1601 - 1750
Classical Music 1751 - 1810
Romantic Music 1811 - 1900
Modern Music - 1901 onwards
Medieval Music
For a long time, the music was cultivated by oral transmission, until they invented a writing system. By the ninth century appeared for the first time, the musical score. The Italian monk Guido d'Arezzo (995 - 1050) suggested the use of a staff of four. The system is still used in Gregorian chant.
The use of the syllabic system of naming the notes should also be the monk Guido d'Arezzo and is in a secular tune, hymn singing boys sang the patron saint of musicians John the Baptist, to protect them from hoarseness, each line which began with a higher note than the last. The melody associated to a sacred text in Latin, whose first syllable of each line could give the name of each note of the musical scale.
Ut queant laxit
Ressonare fibris
Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum
Solvi polluti
Labii reatum
Sancte Ioannes
Which translates as: For us, servants, crisp and unencumbered language, the wonder and might of thy elogiemos, takes us to the grave guilt spotted tongue St. John
During the nineteenth century, the system Guido was adapted to become the sun - makes tonic of our days, and used to teach non-musician to sing choral music. It was then that some tones were reformulated in order to facilitate the corner. Ut became DOH and became SI SA (initial Sancte Ioannes)
The oldest type of music as we know it consists of a single melodic line sung without accompaniment. This style is called plainsong or Gregorian Chant. With the passage of time adds up to other voices chant, creating the first compositions in style coral.
Besides plainsong, sung in churches, produced in the Middle Ages many dances and songs. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was intense production of works in song, composed by the troubadours, poets and musicians of southern France and Italy.
The dances were very popular at parties and fairs and could be played by two instruments, with a larger group. The instruments that accompany these dances included: the alley (ancestor of the violin family), the lute, recorders of various sizes, bagpipes, trumpet straight medieval percussion instruments (triangles, bells, drums).
Major Composers Medieval
Perotin - XII century
Leonen - XII century
Guido d'Arezzo 995/1050
Philippe de Vitry 1290 - 1361
Guillaume de Machaut - 1300/1377
John Dunstable - 1385/1453
Renaissance Music
The Renaissance period was characterized, in the History of Western Europe, especially the enormous interest to knowledge and culture, particularly the many ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
It was also a time of great discoveries and explorations, where Vasco da Gama, Columbus, Cabral and other explorers were making their trips, while notable advances were processed in Science and Astronomy.
Composers began to take an interest in music alive much more secular (non-religious music), including write pieces for instruments, no longer only used to accompany voices. However, the greatest musical treasures Renaissance were made to the church, in a style described as choral polyphony or polychoral and sung without accompaniment of instruments.
The Renaissance music style is polyphonic, ie has several sung melody played or simultaneously.
Vocal music
In St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, there were two bodies and two large galleries for choir, situated on both sides of the building. This gave the composer the idea of composing pieces for more than a chorus, calls polychoral. Thus, a voice from the left is answered by the chorus of right and vice versa. Some of the most impressive pieces are those of Giovanni Gabrielli (1555 - 1612), who wrote for two and three choral groups.
The Motets were written pieces for at least four voices, usually sung in churches. The Madrigals were popular songs written for several voices and is characterized by not having chorus. Great success in England of the sixteenth century, began to be sung in the homes of all families passionate about music.
Instrumental music
By the early sixteenth century, composers were using only instruments to accompany the singing, however, during the sixteenth century, composers began to take increasing interest in writing music for instruments only.
In many homes, plus flutes, lutes and viols, there was also a keyboard instrument, which could be a small organ, clavichord and virginal. Most English composers wrote pieces for the virginal. In the Renaissance emerged the first music albums, only to instruments keyboards.
Many instruments, such as clarions, flutes and some types of medieval and turbinates cromornes still popular. Others, such as the lute, underwent improvements.
Major Renaissance composers
William Byrd - 1542/1623
Josquin des Prez - 1440/1521
Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina - 1525/1594
Giovanni. Gabriel - 1555/1612
Claudio Monteverdi - 1567/1643
Baroque music
The word Baroque is probably of Portuguese origin, meaning pearl jewelry or irregular in shape. Initially it was used to denote the style of architecture and art of the seventeenth century, characterized by excess of ornaments. Later, the term came to be used by musicians to indicate the period of music history that vai the appearance of opera and oratorio to the death of J. S. Bach.
Baroque music is usually exuberant: energetic rhythms, melodies with many ornaments, contrasting instrumental timbres and sonorities with strong soft.
Vocal music
Orpheus, the composer Montiverdi (1567-1643) written in the year 1607 is the first major opera. Opera is a play in which roles are sung rather than spoken. The opera Montiverdi had formed an orchestra of 40 instruments varied, including violins, which began to take place of violas.
Alessandro Scarlatti was the most popular Italian composer of operas. In France the main composers Lully and Rameau operas were.
Born in the same period of the opera, the Oratory is another important form of Baroque vocal music. The oratorio is a type of opera with stories drawn from the Bible. Over time oratories no longer represented and became just sung. The most famous are the oratorios of German composer Handel (1685-1759), the early eighteenth century: Israel in Egypt, Samson and the famous Messiah and many others.
The Cantatas are miniature shrines and were presented in mass.
Instrumental music
During the Baroque period, instrumental music began to have equal importance to vocal music. The orchestra began to take shape. Earlier the word 'orchestra' was used to designate a group formed at random, with the tools available at the time. But in the seventeenth century, the improvement of stringed instruments, especially violins, made the string section became an independent unit. The violins became the center of the orchestra, to which composers they added other instruments: flutes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and timpani.
A constant feature in baroque orchestras, however, was the presence of the harpsichord or organ as continuous, making and filling the low harmony. New forms of composition were created, such as the escape, the sonata, and the concerto suite.
Major Baroque composers
The Corelli - 1653/1713
The Scarlatti - 1660/1755
The Vivaldi - 1678/1741
D Scarlatti - 1685/1757
Henry Purcell - 1659/1695
George Philipp Telemann - 1681/1767
J. S. Bach - 1685/1750
J. F. Handel - 1685/1759
Jean-Philippe Rameau - 1683/1764
José Antônio Carlos Seixas - 1704/1742
Classical music
As we said before, some people sometimes use the term 'classical music' considering all music divided into two main parts: 'classical' and 'popular', however, for the scholar or musicologist, the 'Classical' has special meaning and precise: is music composed between 1751 and 1810.
Instrumental music
The Classical shows is refined and elegant and tends to be lighter, less complicated than the Romantic and following. The composers sought to enhance the beauty and grace of the melodies. The orchestra is under development. The composers stopped using the harpsichord and added more wind instruments.
During the Classic Period, instrumental music began to have more importance than the vocal. At this time created the Sonata. It is a work in several movements for one or more instruments.
The Symphony is actually a sonata for orchestra. Its number of movements become four: fast - slow - Minuet - very fast. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the greatest composers of symphonies of Classicism.
The concert consists of a composition for a solo instrument against the orchestral mass. It has three movements: fast - slow - fast.
Many works were written for the piano forte, piano usually called for short. Bartholomew Cristfori, builder of Italian harpsichords, by 1700 had completed the manufacture of at least one of these instruments. While the strings are plucked by Carnation nozzles feathers, the piano has its strings for percussive hammers, whose dynamics can be varied according to the performer's finger pressure. This would give the piano great power of expression and open a series of new possibilities.
At first the piano took to become popular because the first models were very poor. But in the late eighteenth century the cloves had fallen into disuse, replaced by the piano.
The nobility of service, the musician was just a servant who, after providing background music for dinners and talks, was having dinner in the kitchen with the other employees of the house. To please their bosses, needed to follow the musical traditions. In his respected and reflected the emotions of the court. The creative imagination would not be welcome if it represented the breakdown of traditional structures. Haydn accepted this bargain and fulfill their obligations. Mozart did not accept these limits and paid a high price for obstinacy in keeping true to its principles. The courts relegated to oblivion and left to die like a beggar. Beethoven was the first to decide that it should not obligations to anyone and demanded to be respected as an artist. Born with Beethoven the romantic thought.
Major composers Classics
Carl P. E. Bach 1714 - 1788
Gluck 1714 - 1787
Hayden 1732 - 1809
W. A. Mozart 1756 - 1791
Ludwig Van Beethoven 1770 - 1827
Joaquim A. Mosque -1746/1805
Father José Maurício N. Garcia1767/1830
Antonio Soler Ramos - 1729/1783
Muzio Clemente-1729/1783
Antônio Carlos Gomes
Romantic Music
The classical composers aimed to achieve a balance between formal structure and expressivity. The Romantics came unbalance everything. They sought greater freedom of form, the more intense and vigorous expression of emotions, often revealing their deepest thoughts, including his pains. Many Romantic composers were avid readers and had great interest in other arts, relating closely with writers and painters. Often romantic had a composition as a source of inspiration seen a picture or read a book by the composer.
Among the many ideas that exercised great fascination over the romantic composers have: exotic lands and distant past, dreams, night and moonlight, rivers, lakes and forests, the sorrows of love, legends and fairy tales, mystery, the magic and the supernatural. The melodies become impassioned, song-like. The harmonies become richer, with greater use of dissonance.
During the Romanticism was a rich flowering of the song, especially the Lied ('song' in German) for piano and voice. The first great composer of Lieder (plural of Lied) was Schubert.
The most famous operas nowadays are romantic. The great composers of the Romantic operas were the Italians Verdi and Rossini and Germany, Wagner. In Brazil, there is Antonio Carlos Gomes with his operas The Guarani, Fosca, The Slave, etc..
The orchestra has grown not only in size but also in scope. The section of the metals gained greater importance. In section Woods added the piccolo, the bass clarinet, contrabassoon and the English horn. Percussion instruments were more varied.
The Romantic Concerto wore large orchestras, and composers, now under the challenge of technical skill of virtuosos, became the solo part increasingly difficult.
Until the mid-nineteenth century, all the music had been dominated by German influences. That's when composers from other countries, especially the Russians, now have the need to create his music. Were inspired by folk songs and legends in their countries. It's called Musical Nationalism.
In the nineteenth century the piano has undergone several upgrades. Almost all romantic composers wrote for the piano, but the most important were: Schubert, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt and Brahms. Although among the works of these composers are sonatas, the preference was for short pieces and more freely.
There was a wide variety, including dances like waltzes, mazurkas and the polonaises, short pieces like the novel, the wordless song, the prelude, the night, the ballad and improvisation.
Another type of composition was the Étude (Study), whose objective was the improvement of technical instrumentalist. Indeed, during this time there was a major breakthrough in this direction, favoring the figure of the Virtuoso: concert musician, gifted with an extraordinary technique. Virtuosos like the violinist Paganini and Liszt pianist were admired by audiences haunted.
Top Romantic composers
Gustav Mahler - 1860/1911
Moritz Moszkowki - 1854/1925
Geuseppe Verdi - 1813/1901
Sergei V. Rachmaninov - 1873/1943
Louis Hector Berlioz - 1803/1869
F.Schubert 1797 - 1828
F. Mendelssohn 1809 - 1847
F. Chopin 1810 - 1849
R. Schumann 1810 - 1856
F.Liszt 1811 - 1886
R. Wagner 1813 - 1883
J. Brahms 1838 - 1897
Tchaikovsky 1840 - 1893
Modern music
The history of music in the twentieth century is a series of trials and experiences that led to a series of new trends, techniques and, in some cases, also creating new sounds, all contribute to make it one of the most exciting periods in the history of music.
While the music in previous periods could be identified by one and the same style, common to all composers of the time, in the twentieth century as it shows a complex mixture of many trends. Most trends share one thing in common: a reaction against the romantic style of the nineteenth century. This fact has caused some critics to describe the music of the twentieth century with "anti-romantic". Among the trends and techniques of composition most important music of the twentieth century are:
Impressionism
Nationalism of the twentieth century
Expressionism
Concrete Music
Serialism
Electronic Music
Influences of Jazz
Neoclassicism
Music Shuffle
Atonality
However, if we investigate these compositions better, find a set of characteristics or style tags that let you define as being a part of the twentieth century. Eg
Melodies: They are short and fragmented, angular, instead of long sounds romantic. In some parts, the melody may be nonexistent.
Rhythms: Vigorous and dynamic, with wide use of syncopated; unusual metrics as measures of five and seven times; metric change from one measure to another, using several different rhythms at the same time.
Voices: The biggest concern with the inclusion of tones leads to strange sounds, intriguing and exotic, strong contrasts, sometimes explosive, more emphatic use of the percussion section; unknown sounds taken from known instruments; entirely new sounds, from electronic equipment and magnetic tapes.
Composers of the twentieth century
Igor Stravinsky - 1882/1971
Cláudio Santoro - 1919/1989
Sergei Prokofiev-1891/1953
Marlo Nobre de Almeida - 1939 /
Francisco Mignone - 1897/1986
Edino Krieger
Cézar Guerra Peixe - 1914/1993
Radames Gnatalli - 1906/1988
Alberto Evaristo Ginatera - 1919/1983
Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez - 1897/1948
C. Debussy 1862 - 1918
Schoenberg 1874 - 1951 1951
M. Ravel 1875 -1937 -
B. Bartók 1881 - 1945 -
A. Berg 1885 - 1945 -
H. Villa-Lobos 1887 - 1959
