Misplaced Pages

#476523

45-621: Illiac Suite (later retitled String Quartet No. 4 ) is a 1957 composition for string quartet which is generally agreed to be the first score composed by an electronic computer . Lejaren Hiller , in collaboration with Leonard Isaacson , programmed the ILLIAC I computer at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (where both composers were professors) to generate compositional material for his String Quartet No. 4. The piece consists of four movements, corresponding to four experiments:

90-543: A serenata —as the form was called since it occurred most frequently in Italy and Vienna—was a typically celebratory or eulogistic dramatic cantata for two or more singers and orchestra, performed outdoors in the evening by artificial light. Some composers of this type of serenade include Alessandro Stradella , Alessandro Scarlatti , Johann Joseph Fux , Johann Mattheson , and Antonio Caldara . Often these were large-scale works performed with minimal staging, intermediate between

135-414: A cantata and an opera . The main difference between a cantata and a serenata, around 1700, was that the serenata was performed outdoors and therefore could use instruments which would be too loud in a small room (for example, trumpets , horns , and drums ). The most important and prevalent type of serenade in music history is a work for large instrumental ensemble in multiple movements, related to

180-657: A Romantic style include Ludwig van Beethoven , Hector Berlioz , Franz Schubert , Richard Strauss , Max Reger , Ethel Smyth , Wilhelm Stenhammar and Jean Sibelius (see Two Serenades (Sibelius) ). Some examples of serenades in the 20th century include the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by Benjamin Britten , the Serenade in A for piano by Stravinsky , the Serenade for baritone and septet , Op. 24 by Arnold Schoenberg , and

225-543: A location (e.g. the Budapest Quartet ). Established quartets may undergo changes in membership whilst retaining their original name. Serenade In music , a serenade ( / ˌ s ɛr ə ˈ n eɪ d / ; also sometimes called a serenata , from the Italian ) is a musical composition or performance delivered in honour of someone or something. Serenades are typically calm, light pieces of music. The term comes from

270-584: A number of quartets: "Beethoven in particular is credited with developing the genre in an experimental and dynamic fashion, especially in his later series of quartets written in the 1820s up until his death. Their forms and ideas inspired and continue to inspire musicians and composers, such as Wagner and Bartók ." Schubert's last musical wish was to hear Beethoven's Quartet in C ♯ minor, Op. 131 , which he heard on 14 November 1828, just five days before his death. Upon listening to an earlier performance of this quartet, Schubert had remarked, "After this, what

315-500: A number of them. Many Romantic and early-twentieth-century composers composed string quartets, including Mendelssohn , Schumann , Brahms , Dvořák , Janáček , and Debussy . There was a slight lull in string quartet composition later in the 19th century, but it received a resurgence in the 20th century, with the Second Viennese School , Bartók , Shostakovich , Babbitt , and Carter producing highly regarded examples of

360-417: A part. The British musicologist David Wyn Jones cites the widespread practice of four players, one to a part, playing works written for string orchestra , such as divertimenti and serenades , there being no separate (fifth) contrabass part in string scoring before the 19th century. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the string quartet as a medium. The origins of

405-435: A perspective] is the notion that Haydn "invented" the string quartet... Although he may still be considered the 'father' of the 'Classical' string quartet, he is not the creator of the sting quartet genre itself... This old and otiose myth not only misrepresents the achievements of other excellent composers, but also distorts the character and qualities of Haydn's opp. 1, 2 and 9". The musicologist Cliff Eisen contextualizes

450-514: A portable instrument, most likely a guitar, lute or other plucked instrument. Works of this type also appeared in later eras, but usually in a context that referred specifically to a past time, such as arias in an opera (there is a famous example in Mozart 's Don Giovanni ). Carl Maria von Weber composed his serenade for voice and guitar, "Horch'! Leise horch', Geliebte!" (1809). In the Baroque era,

495-546: A similar way to an instrumental soloist or an orchestra . The early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of the development of the genre by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn . There had been examples of divertimenti for two solo violins, viola and cello by the Viennese composers Georg Christoph Wagenseil and Ignaz Holzbauer ; and there had long been a tradition of performing orchestral works one instrument to

SECTION 10

#1732883891477

540-565: A small orchestra (in the case of the Serenade No. 2, an orchestra entirely without violins ). Dvořák , Tchaikovsky , Josef Suk , Edward Elgar , and others wrote serenades for strings only, see Serenade for Strings (Dvořák) , Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky) , Serenade for Strings (Suk) , and Serenade for Strings (Elgar) , as did Hugo Wolf , who wrote one for string quartet (the Italian Serenade ). Other composers to write serenades in

585-499: A third soloist; and moreover it became common to omit the keyboard part, letting the cello support the bass line alone. Thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta [viola], e Violoncello senza Cembalo (Sonata for four instruments: two violins, viola, and cello without harpsichord), this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition. The musicologist Hartmut Schick has suggested that Franz Xaver Richter invented

630-464: A total of five string quartets; he won Pulitzer Prizes for two of them: No. 2 and No. 3 . Three important string quartets were written by Helmut Lachenmann . The late 20th century also saw the string quartet expand in various ways: Morton Feldman's vast Second String Quartet is one of the longest ever written, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett is to be performed by the four musicians in four helicopters. Quartets written during

675-495: A window. It was considered an evening piece, one to be performed on a quiet and pleasant evening, as opposed to an aubade , which would be performed in the morning. The custom of serenading in this manner began in the Medieval era, and the word "serenade" as commonly used in current English is related to this custom. Music performed followed no one particular form, except that it was typically sung by one person accompanying himself on

720-646: Is left for us to write?" Wagner, when reflecting on Op. 131's first movement, said that it "reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in music". Of the late quartets , Beethoven cited his own favorite as Op. 131 , which he saw as his most perfect single work. Mendelssohn 's six string quartets span the full range of his career, from 1828 to 1847; Schumann 's three string quartets were all written in 1842 and dedicated to Mendelssohn, whose quartets Schumann had been studying in preparation, along with those of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Several Romantic-era composers wrote only one quartet, while Dvořák wrote 14. In

765-462: Is using a boombox to play music. One notable example is in the 1989 movie Say Anything when John Cusack's character Lloyd plays " In Your Eyes " by Peter Gabriel under his love interest's open bedroom window. A serenade is commonly of a multi-movement structure, ranging anywhere from four to up to ten movements. They usually are constructed with a fast opening movement, followed by middle slow movements that alternate with fast ones and close with

810-646: The Serenata notturna , and one of his most famous works, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik . The last two of these, had they been written earlier in the century, would have been atypical for using only string instruments . By the 19th century, the serenade had transformed into a concert work, and was less associated with outdoor performance for honorary occasions. Composers began to write serenades for other ensembles. The two serenades by Brahms are rather like light symphonies, perhaps more closely related to suites, except that they use an ensemble such as Mozart would have recognized:

855-475: The Italian word serenata , which itself derives from the Latin serenus . Sense influenced by Italian sera "evening", from Latin sera , fem. of serus "late". In the oldest usage, which survives in informal form to the present day, a serenade is a musical greeting performed for a lover, friend, person of rank or other person to be honored. The classic usage would be from a lover to his lady love through

900-456: The classical period usually had four movements, with a structure similar to that of a symphony : The positions of the slow movement and third movement are flexible. For example, in Mozart's six quartets dedicated to Haydn , three have a minuet followed by a slow movement and three have the slow movement before the minuet. Substantial modifications to the typical structure were already present by

945-488: The divertimento , and mainly being composed in the Classical and Romantic periods, though a few examples exist from the 20th century. Usually the character of the work is lighter than other multiple-movement works for large ensemble (for example the symphony ), with tunefulness being more important than thematic development or dramatic intensity. Most of these works are from Italy , Germany , Austria and Bohemia . Among

SECTION 20

#1732883891477

990-456: The "classical" string quartet around 1757, but the consensus amongst most authorities is that Haydn is responsible for the genre in its currently accepted form. The string quartet enjoyed no recognized status as an ensemble in the way that two violins with basso continuo – the so-called ' trio sonata ' – had for more than a hundred years. Even the composition of Haydn's earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative. During

1035-525: The 1750s, when the young composer was still working mainly as a teacher and violinist in Vienna, he would occasionally be invited to spend time at the nearby castle at Weinzierl of the music-loving Austrian nobleman Karl Joseph Weber, Edler von Fürnberg. There he would play chamber music in an ad hoc ensemble consisting of Fürnberg's steward, a priest, and a local cellist, and when the Baron asked for some new music for

1080-507: The Op. 20 quartets as follows: "Haydn's quartets of the late 1760s and early 1770s [opp. 9, 17, and 20] are high points in the early history of the quartet. Characterized by a wide range of textures, frequent asymmetries and theatrical gestures...these quartets established the genre's four-movement form, its larger dimensions, and ...its greater aesthetic pretensions and expressive range." That Haydn's string quartets were already "classics" that defined

1125-616: The difference between one masterpiece and the next." The musicologist Roger Hickman has however demurred from this consensus view. He notes a change in string quartet writing towards the end of the 1760s, featuring characteristics which are today thought of as essential to the genre – scoring for two violins, viola and cello, solo passages, and absence of actual or potential basso continuo accompaniment. Noting that at this time other composers than Haydn were writing works conforming to these 'modern' criteria, and that Haydn's earlier quartets did not meet them, he suggests that "one casualty [of such

1170-413: The early "quartets" are actually symphonies missing their wind parts. They have five movements and take the form: fast movement, minuet and trio I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast finale . As Ludwig Finscher notes, they draw stylistically on the Austrian divertimento tradition. After these early efforts, Haydn did not return to the string quartet for several years, but when he did so, it

1215-455: The finales of nos. 2, 5 and 6. After Op. 20, it becomes harder to point to similar major jumps in the string quartet's development in Haydn's hands, though not due to any lack of invention or application on the composer's part. As Donald Tovey put it: "with Op. 20 the historical development of Haydn's quartets reaches its goal; and further progress is not progress in any historical sense, but simply

1260-440: The first is about the generation of cantus firmi , the second generates four- voice segments with various rules, the third deals with rhythm , dynamics and playing instructions, and the fourth with various models and probabilities for generative grammars or Markov chains (see stochastic music ). This music-related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . String quartet The string quartet

1305-455: The genre by 1801 can be judged by Ignaz Pleyel 's publication in Paris of a "complete" series that year, and the quartet's evolution as vehicle for public performance can be judged by Pleyel's ten-volume set of miniature scores intended for hearers rather than players – early examples of this genre of music publishing . Since Haydn's day, the string quartet has been prestigious and considered one of

1350-561: The genre, and it remains an important and refined musical form. The standard structure for a string quartet as established in the Classical era is four movements , with the first movement in sonata form , allegro, in the tonic key; a slow movement in a related key and a minuet and trio follow; and the fourth movement is often in rondo form or sonata rondo form , in the tonic key. Some string quartet ensembles play together for many years and become established and promoted as an entity in

1395-559: The genre. During his tenure as Master of the Queen's Music , Peter Maxwell Davies produced a set of ten entitled the Naxos Quartets (to a commission from Naxos Records ) from 2001 to 2007. Margaret Jones Wiles composed over 50 string quartets. David Matthews has written eleven, and Robin Holloway both five quartets and six "quartettini". Over nearly five decades, Elliott Carter wrote

Illiac Suite - Misplaced Pages Continue

1440-430: The group to play, Haydn's first string quartets were born. It is not clear whether any of these works ended up in the two sets published in the mid-1760s and known as Haydn's Opp. 1 and 2 ('Op. 0' is a quartet included in some early editions of Op. 1, and only rediscovered in the 1930s), but it seems reasonable to assume that they were at least similar in character. Haydn's early biographer Georg August Griesinger tells

1485-461: The modern era, the string quartet played a key role in the development of Schoenberg (who added a soprano in his String Quartet No. 2 ), Bartók , and Shostakovich especially. After the Second World War , some composers, such as Messiaen questioned the relevance of the string quartet and avoided writing them. However, from the 1960s onwards, many composers have shown a renewed interest in

1530-470: The most famous examples of the serenade from the 18th century are those by Mozart , whose serenades typically comprise between four and ten movements. His serenades were often purely instrumental pieces, written for special occasions such as those commissioned for wedding ceremonies. Famous serenades by Mozart include the Haffner Serenade , Serenade No. 10 for winds commonly known as Gran Partita ,

1575-537: The movement entitled "Serenade" in Shostakovich 's last string quartet, No. 15 (1974). Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a Serenade to Music (for 16 solo voices and orchestra) that premiered in 1938, while Leonard Bernstein composed his Serenade after Plato's "Symposium" (for solo violin, strings harp and percussion) in 1954. These modern serenades are freely explored adaptations to the serenade's original formal layout and instrumentation. A modern play on serenading

1620-454: The progressive aims of the Op. 20 set of 1772, in particular, makes them the first major peak in the history of the string quartet. Certainly they offered to their own time state-of-the art models to follow for the best part of a decade; the teenage Mozart , in his early quartets, was among the composers moved to imitate many of their characteristics, right down to the vital fugues with which Haydn sought to bring greater architectural weight to

1665-564: The pursuit of the more advanced quartet style found in the eighteen works published in the early 1770s as Opp. 9, 17, and 20 . These are written in a form that became established as standard both for Haydn and for other composers. Clearly composed as sets, these quartets feature a four-movement layout having broadly conceived, moderately paced first movements and, in increasing measure, a democratic and conversational interplay of parts, close-knit thematic development, and skilful though often restrained use of counterpoint. The convincing realizations of

1710-905: 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 (a brother of the celebrated contrapuntist 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 [ sic ], 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. Haydn went on to write nine other quartets around this time. These works were published as his Op. 1 and Op. 2; one quartet went unpublished, and some of

1755-476: The string quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata , in which two solo instruments performed with a continuo section consisting of a bass instrument (such as the cello) and keyboard . A very early example is a four-part sonata for string ensemble by the Italian composer Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding

1800-473: The string quartet: Further expansions have also produced works such as the String octet by Mendelssohn , consisting of the equivalent of two string quartets. Notably, Schoenberg included a soprano in the last two movements of his second string quartet , composed in 1908. Adding a voice has since been done by Milhaud , Ginastera , Ferneyhough , Davies , İlhan Mimaroğlu and many others. Another variation on

1845-449: The time of Beethoven's late quartets, and despite some notable examples to the contrary, composers writing in the twentieth century increasingly abandoned this structure. Bartók's fourth and fifth string quartets, written in the 1930s, are five-movement works, symmetrical around a central movement. Shostakovich's final quartet , written in the 1970s, comprises six slow movements. Many other chamber groups can be seen as modifications of

Illiac Suite - Misplaced Pages Continue

1890-536: The traditional string quartet is the electric string quartet with players performing on electric instruments . Notable works for string quartet include: Whereas individual string players often group together to make ad hoc string quartets, others continue to play together for many years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist (e.g. the Takács Quartet ), a composer (e.g. the Borodin Quartet ) or

1935-413: The true tests of a composer's art. This may be partly because the palette of sound is more restricted than with orchestral music, forcing the music to stand more on its own rather than relying on tonal color ; or from the inherently contrapuntal tendency in music written for four equal instruments. Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era. Mozart , Beethoven and Schubert each composed

1980-468: Was developed into its present form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn , whose works in the 1750s established the ensemble as a group of four more-or-less equal partners. Since that time, the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form; writing for four instruments with broadly similar characteristics both constrains and tests a composer. String quartet composition flourished in the Classical era , and Mozart , Beethoven and Schubert each wrote

2025-491: Was to make a significant step in the genre's development. The intervening years saw Haydn begin his employment as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy princes, for whom he was required to compose numerous symphonies and dozens of trios for violin, viola, and the bass instrument called the baryton (played by Prince Nikolaus Esterházy himself). The opportunities for experiment which both these genres offered Haydn perhaps helped him in

#476523