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128-584: The Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival ( セイジ・オザワ 松本フェスティバル , Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Fesutibaru , OMF) , formerly known as the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto ( サイトウ・キネン・フェスティバル松本 , Saitō Kinen Fesutibaru Matsumoto , SKF) , is an annual classical music festival held in August and September in Matsumoto, Nagano , Japan, founded in 1992 by conductor Seiji Ozawa . The festival's resident orchestra

256-472: A harpsichord , and were often led by the lead violinist (now called the concertmaster ). Classical era musicians continued to use many of the instruments from the Baroque era, such as the cello, contrabass, recorder, trombone, timpani, fortepiano (the precursor to the modern piano ) and organ. While some Baroque instruments fell into disuse e.g. the theorbo and rackett, many Baroque instruments were changed into

384-595: A collection of Italian madrigals with corresponding English translations of the lyrics, which later initiated madrigal composition in England. The unaccompanied madrigal survived longer in England than in Continental Europe, where the madrigal musical form had fallen from popular favour, but English madrigalists continued composing and producing music in the Italian style of the late-16th century. In early 18th-century England,

512-516: A living construct that can evolve with the times". Despite its decline in the last third of the 20th century, there remained at the end of the century an active core of composers who continued to advance the ideas and forms of modernism, such as Pierre Boulez , Pauline Oliveros , Toru Takemitsu , George Benjamin , Jacob Druckman , Brian Ferneyhough , George Perle , Wolfgang Rihm , Richard Wernick , Richard Wilson , and Ralph Shapey . Two musical movements that were dominant during this time were

640-506: A note that falls to the note below. In the 17th century, acceptance of word-painting as a musical form had changed, in the First Book of Ayres (1601), the poet and composer Thomas Campion (1567–1620) criticised word-painting as a negative mannerism in the madrigal: "where the nature of everie word is precisely expresst in the Note ... such childish observing of words is altogether ridiculous." At

768-634: A process that climaxed in the early 20th century with very large orchestras used by late romantic and modernist composers. A wider array of percussion instruments began to appear. Brass instruments took on larger roles, as the introduction of rotary valves made it possible for them to play a wider range of notes. The size of the orchestra (typically around 40 in the Classical era) grew to be over 100. Gustav Mahler 's 1906 Symphony No. 8 , for example, has been performed with over 150 instrumentalists and choirs of over 400. New woodwind instruments were added, such as

896-513: A remarkable marriage of boldly distinctive melodic lines weaving in counterpoint yet creating a coherent harmonic logic . The use of written notation also preserves a record of the works and enables Classical musicians to perform music from many centuries ago. Although Classical music in the 2000s has lost most of its tradition for musical improvisation , from the Baroque era to the Romantic era, there are examples of performers who could improvise in

1024-406: A wider range of chromatic possibilities in hard-to-tune keyboard instruments. Although J.S. Bach did not use equal temperament, changes in the temperaments from the then-common meantone system to various temperaments that made modulation between all keys musically acceptable made possible his Well-Tempered Clavier . Baroque instruments included some instruments from the earlier periods (e.g.,

1152-437: Is in this time that the notation of music on a staff and other elements of musical notation began to take shape. This invention made possible the separation of the composition of a piece of music from its transmission ; without written music, transmission was oral, and subject to change every time it was transmitted. With a musical score , a work of music could be performed without the composer's presence. The invention of

1280-406: Is named madrigal , some of the settings are Petrarchan in versification and word-painting , which became compositional characteristics of the later madrigal. The Madrigali de diversi musici: libro primo de la Serena (1530), by Philippe Verdelot (1480–1540), included music by Sebastiano Festa (1490–1524) and Costanzo Festa (1485–1545), Maistre Jhan (1485–1538) and Verdelot, himself. In

1408-455: Is one of the only female composers mentioned." Abbey Philips states that "[d]uring the 20th century the women who were composing/playing gained far less attention than their male counterparts." Madrigal Madrigals written by Italianized Franco–Flemish composers in the 1520s partly originated from the three-to-four voice frottola (1470–1530); partly from composers' renewed interest in poetry written in vernacular Italian ; partly from

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1536-604: Is required. Performance of classical music repertoire requires a proficiency in sight-reading and ensemble playing, harmonic principles, strong ear training (to correct and adjust pitches by ear), knowledge of performance practice (e.g., Baroque ornamentation), and a familiarity with the style/musical idiom expected for a given composer or musical work (e.g., a Brahms symphony or a Mozart concerto). The key characteristic of European classical music that distinguishes it from popular music , folk music , and some other classical music traditions such as Indian classical music ,

1664-405: Is that the repertoire tends to be written down in musical notation , creating a musical part or score . This score typically determines details of rhythm, pitch, and, where two or more musicians (whether singers or instrumentalists) are involved, how the various parts are coordinated. The written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them: fugues , for instance, achieve

1792-559: Is the renowned Saito Kinen Orchestra . Classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world , considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music , as the term "classical music" can also be applied to non-Western art musics . Classical music is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization , particularly with

1920-401: Is typically defined as the era between the formation and the dissolution of common-practice tonality . The term usually spans roughly two-and-a-half centuries, encompassing the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods. Baroque music is characterized by the use of complex tonal counterpoint and the use of a basso continuo , a continuous bass line. Music became more complex in comparison with

2048-453: The Abbey of Saint Gall , the Abbey of Saint Martial and Saint Emmeram's Abbey , while the 11th century saw the development of staff notation and increasing output from medieval music theorists . By the mid-12th century France became the major European musical center: The religious Notre-Dame school first fully explored organized rhythms and polyphony , while secular music flourished with

2176-482: The Baroque flute , Baroque oboe , recorder and the bassoon . Brass instruments included the cornett , natural horn , natural trumpet , serpent and the trombone . Keyboard instruments included the clavichord , the tangent piano , the harpsichord , the pipe organ , and, later in the period, the fortepiano (an early version of the piano). Percussion instruments included the timpani , snare drum , tambourine and

2304-613: The First Viennese School , sometimes called the "Viennese classics", a coupling that remains problematic by reason of none of the three being born in Vienna and the minimal time Haydn and Mozart spent in the city. While this was an often expressed characterization, it was not a strict one. In 1879 the composer Charles Kensington Salaman defined the following composers as classical: Bach , Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber , Spohr and Mendelssohn . More broadly, some writers used

2432-571: The Florentine Camerata (1573–1587). In the collection of solo madrigals, Le nuove musiche ( The New Music , 1601), Caccini said that the point of the composition was anti-contrapuntal, because the lyrics and words of the song were primary, and balanced-voice polyphony interfered with hearing the lyrics of the song. After Caccini's developments, the composers Marco da Gagliano (1582–1643), Sigismondo d'India (1582–1629), and Claudio Saracini (1586–1630) also published collections of madrigals in

2560-503: The Medici family commissioned Alessandro Striggio (1536–1592) to compose madrigals in the style of Luzzaschi. In Rome, the compositions of Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) were the madrigals that came closest to unifying the different styles of the time. In the 1560s, Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (1535–1592) — Monteverdi's instructor — Andrea Gabrieli (1532–1585), and Giovanni Ferretti (1540–1609) re-incorporated lighter elements of composition to

2688-763: The Renaissance , including the more complex voicings of motets . During the earlier medieval period , the vocal music from the liturgical genre, predominantly Gregorian chant , was monophonic , using a single, unaccompanied vocal melody line. Polyphonic vocal genres, which used multiple independent vocal melodies, began to develop during the high medieval era , becoming prevalent by the later 13th and early 14th century. Notable Medieval composers include Hildegard of Bingen , Léonin , Pérotin , Philippe de Vitry , Guillaume de Machaut , Francesco Landini , and Johannes Ciconia . Many medieval musical instruments still exist, but in different forms. Medieval instruments included

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2816-438: The Western world , and conversely, in many academic histories the term "Western music" excludes non-classical Western music. Another complication lies in that "classical music" is sometimes used to describe non-Western art music exhibiting similar long-lasting and complex characteristics; examples include Indian classical music (i.e. Carnatic Music Hindustani music and Odissi Music ), Gamelan music, and various styles of

2944-449: The art song , symphonic poem and various piano genres were important vessels. During this time virtuosity was celebrated, immensity was encouraged, while philosophy and nationalism were embedded—all aspects that converged in the operas of Richard Wagner . By the 20th century, stylistic unification gradually dissipated while the prominence of popular music greatly increased. Many composers actively avoided past techniques and genres in

3072-745: The birthplace of opera , the soloist centered concerto genre, the organized sonata form as well as the large scale vocal-centered genres of oratorio and cantata . The fugue technique championed by Johann Sebastian Bach exemplified the Baroque tendency for complexity, and as a reaction the simpler and song-like galant music and empfindsamkeit styles were developed. In the shorter but pivotal Classical period (1730–1820) composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and Ludwig van Beethoven created widely admired representatives of absolute music , including symphonies , string quartets and concertos. The subsequent Romantic music (1800–1910) focused instead on programmatic music , for which

3200-474: The castanets . One major difference between Baroque music and the classical era that followed it is that the types of instruments used in Baroque ensembles were much less standardized. A Baroque ensemble could include one of several different types of keyboard instruments (e.g., pipe organ or harpsichord), additional stringed chordal instruments (e.g., a lute), bowed strings, woodwinds, and brass instruments, and an unspecified number of bass instruments performing

3328-555: The chanson , which much differed from the secular, lighter styles of composition in late-15th- and early-16th-century Italy. Third, the printing press facilitated the availability of sheet music in Italy. The musical forms then in common use — the frottola and the ballata , the canzonetta and the mascherata — were light compositions with verses of low literary quality. Those musical forms used repetition and soprano-dominated homophony , chordal textures and styles, which were simpler than

3456-421: The contrabassoon , bass clarinet and piccolo and new percussion instruments were added, including xylophones , snare drums , celestas (a bell-like keyboard instrument), bells , and triangles , large orchestral harps , and even wind machines for sound effects . Saxophones appear in some scores from the late 19th century onwards, usually featured as a solo instrument rather than as in integral part of

3584-514: The fall of the Western Roman Empire by 476 to about 1400. Monophonic chant, also called plainsong or Gregorian chant , was the dominant form until about 1100. Christian monks developed the first forms of European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the Church. Polyphonic (multi-voiced) music developed from monophonic chant throughout the late Middle Ages and into

3712-671: The flute , the recorder and plucked string instruments like the lute . As well, early versions of the organ and fiddle (or vielle ) existed. Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self accompanied with a drone note, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut (loud, shrill, outdoor instruments) and bas (quieter, more intimate instruments). A number of instrument have roots in Eastern predecessors that were adopted from

3840-458: The guitar , the cittern , the bandora , and the orpharion . Keyboard instruments with strings included the harpsichord and the clavichord . Percussion instruments include the triangle , the Jew's harp , the tambourine , the bells, the rumble-pot, and various kinds of drums. Woodwind instruments included the double-reed shawm (an early member of the oboe family), the reed pipe , the bagpipe ,

3968-416: The impressionist beginning around 1890 and the expressionist that started around 1908. It was a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories of music, innovations that lead to new ways of organizing and approaching harmonic, melodic, sonic, and rhythmic aspects of music, and changes in aesthetic worldviews in close relation to the larger identifiable period of modernism in

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4096-437: The lyre (a stringed instrument similar to a small harp ) eventually led to several modern-day instruments of a symphonic orchestra. However, Donald Jay Grout notes that attempting to create a direct evolutionary connection from the ancient music to early medieval is baseless, as it was almost solely influenced by Greco-Roman music theory, not performance or practice. Medieval music includes Western European music from after

4224-546: The mass and motet . Northern Italy soon emerged as the central musical region, where the Roman School engaged in highly sophisticated methods of polyphony in genres such as the madrigal , which inspired the brief English Madrigal School . The Baroque period (1580–1750) saw the relative standardization of common-practice tonality , as well as the increasing importance of musical instruments , which grew into ensembles of considerable size. Italy remained dominant, being

4352-562: The patronage of churches and royal courts in Western Europe , surviving early medieval music is chiefly religious , monophonic and vocal, with the music of ancient Greece and Rome influencing its thought and theory. The earliest extant music manuscripts date from the Carolingian Empire (800–888), around the time which Western plainchant gradually unified into what is termed Gregorian chant . Musical centers existed at

4480-567: The polyphony of the late 16th century to the styles of monody and of the concertato accompanied by basso continuo , of the early Baroque period. As an expressive composer, Monteverdi avoided the stylistic extremes of Gesualdo's chromaticism, and concentrated upon the drama inherent to the madrigal musical form. His fifth and sixth books include polyphonic madrigals for equal voices (in late-16th-century style) and madrigals with solo-voice parts accompanied by basso continuo, which feature unprepared dissonances and recitative passages — foreshadowing

4608-460: The standard concert repertoire are male composers, even though there have been a large number of women composers throughout the history of classical music. Musicologist Marcia Citron has asked "[w]hy is music composed by women so marginal to the standard 'classical' repertoire?" Citron "examines the practices and attitudes that have led to the exclusion of women composers from the received ' canon ' of performed musical works". She argues that in

4736-465: The systematic notational practices of Ancient Greece centuries before. The musicologist Gustave Reese notes, however, that many Greco-Roman texts can still be credited as influential to Western classical music, since medieval musicians regularly read their works—regardless of whether they were doing so correctly. However, there are some indisputable musical continuations from the ancient world . Basic aspects such as monophony , improvisation and

4864-531: The transverse flute , the recorder , the dulcian , and the crumhorn . Simple pipe organs existed, but were largely confined to churches, although there were portable varieties. Printing enabled the standardization of descriptions and specifications of instruments, as well as instruction in their use. Vocal music in the Renaissance is noted for the flourishing of an increasingly elaborate polyphonic style. The principal liturgical forms which endured throughout

4992-532: The troubadour and trouvère traditions led by poet-musician nobles. This culminated in the court sponsored French ars nova and Italian Trecento , which evolved into ars subtilior , a stylistic movement of extreme rhythmic diversity. Beginning in the early 15th century, Renaissance composers of the influential Franco-Flemish School built off the harmonic principles in the English contenance angloise , bringing choral music to new standards, particularly

5120-533: The 14th century, having in common only the name madrigal , which derives from the Latin matricalis (maternal) denoting musical work in service to the mother church or from the post-classical Latin matricalis (maternal, simple, primitive). Artistically, the madrigal was the most important form of secular music in Renaissance Italy , and reached its formal and historical zenith in the later-16th century, when

5248-564: The 1533–34 period, at Venice, Verdelot published two popular books of four-voice madrigals that were reprinted in 1540. In 1536, that publishing success prompted the founder of the Franco-Flemish school , Adrian Willaert (1490–1562), to rearrange some four-voice madrigals for single-voice and lute. In 1541, Verdelot also published five-voice madrigals and six-voice madrigals. The success of the first book of madrigals, Il primo libro di madrigali (1539), by Jacques Arcadelt (1507–1568), made it

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5376-415: The 1600 period. Beginning around 1620, the aria supplanted the monodic-style madrigal. In 1618, the last, published book of solo madrigals contained no arias, likewise in that year, books of arias contained no madrigals, thus published arias outnumbered madrigals, and the prolific madrigalists Saracini and d'India ceased publishing in the mid-1620s. In the late 1630s, two madrigal collections summarised

5504-404: The 1620s, Gesualdo's successor madrigalist was Michelangelo Rossi (1601–1656), whose two books of unaccompanied madrigals display sustained, extreme chromaticism. In the transition from Renaissance music (1400–1600) to Baroque music (1580–1750), Claudio Monteverdi usually is credited as the principal madrigalist whose nine books of madrigals showed the stylistic, technical transitions from

5632-406: The 16th and 17th centuries, even before the rediscovery of the madrigals of the composer Palestrina (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina). In the 16th century, the musical form of the Italian madrigal greatly influenced secular music throughout Europe, which composers wrote either in Italian or in their native tongues. The extent of madrigalist musical influence depended upon the cultural strength of

5760-431: The 1750s and 1760s, it fell out of use at the end of the century. Brass instruments included the buccin , the ophicleide (a replacement for the bass serpent , which was the precursor of the tuba ) and the natural horn . Wind instruments became more refined in the Classical era. While double-reed instruments like the oboe and bassoon became somewhat standardized in the Baroque, the clarinet family of single reeds

5888-416: The 1800s, women composers typically wrote art songs for performance in small recitals rather than symphonies intended for performance with an orchestra in a large hall, with the latter works being seen as the most important genre for composers; since women composers did not write many symphonies, they were deemed not to be notable as composers. In the "... Concise Oxford History of Music , Clara S[c]humann

6016-468: The Classical era forms (even as those were being codified), with free-form pieces like nocturnes , fantasias , and preludes being written where accepted ideas about the exposition and development of themes were ignored or minimized. The music became more chromatic, dissonant, and tonally colorful, with tensions (with respect to accepted norms of the older forms) about key signatures increasing. The art song (or Lied ) came to maturity in this era, as did

6144-453: The Classical era, the composer-performer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was noted for his ability to improvise melodies in different styles. During the Classical era, some virtuoso soloists would improvise the cadenza sections of a concerto. During the Romantic era, Ludwig van Beethoven would improvise at the piano. Almost all of the composers who are described in music textbooks on classical music and whose works are widely performed as part of

6272-628: The French classique , itself derived from the Latin word classicus , which originally referred to the highest class of Ancient Roman citizens . In Roman usage, the term later became a means to distinguish revered literary figures; the Roman author Aulus Gellius commended writers such as Demosthenes and Virgil as classicus . By the Renaissance , the adjective had acquired a more general meaning: an entry in Randle Cotgrave 's 1611 A Dictionarie of

6400-538: The French and English Tongues is among the earliest extant definitions, translating classique as "classical, formall [ sic ], orderlie, in due or fit ranke; also, approved, authenticall, chiefe, principall". The musicologist Daniel Heartz summarizes this into two definitions: 1) a "formal discipline" and 2) a "model of excellence". Like Gellius, later Renaissance scholars who wrote in Latin used classicus in reference to writers of classical antiquity ; however, this meaning only gradually developed, and

6528-599: The Italian style of madrigal; while Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) went to the Polish court to work as the maestro di cappella (Master of the chapel) for King Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587–1632) in Warsaw. Moreover, the rektor of the University of Wittenberg, Caspar Ziegler (1621–1690) and Heinrich Schütz wrote the treatise Von den Madrigalen (1653). The a capella old-style madrigal for four or five voices continued in parallel with

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6656-465: The achievements of classical antiquity. They were thus characterized as "classical", as was the music of Jean-Baptiste Lully (and later Christoph Willibald Gluck ), being designated as "l'opéra française classique". In the rest of continental Europe , the abandonment of defining "classical" as analogous to the Greco-Roman World was slower, primarily because the formation of canonical repertoires

6784-448: The aforementioned Mahler and Strauss as transitional figures who carried over from the 19th century. Postmodern music is a period of music that began as early as 1930 according to some authorities. It shares characteristics with postmodernist art – that is, art that comes after and reacts against modernism . Some other authorities have more or less equated postmodern music with the "contemporary music" composed well after 1930, from

6912-487: The arts of the time. The operative word most associated with it is "innovation". Its leading feature is a "linguistic plurality", which is to say that no single music genre ever assumed a dominant position. The orchestra continued to grow during the early years modernist era, peaking in the first two decades of the 20th century. Saxophones that appeared only rarely during the 19th century became more commonly used as supplementary instruments, but never became core members of

7040-713: The basso continuo,(e.g., a cello, contrabass, viola, bassoon, serpent, etc.). Vocal oeuvres of the Baroque era included suites such as oratorios and cantatas . Secular music was less common, and was typically characterized only by instrumental music. Like Baroque art , themes were generally sacred and for the purpose of a catholic setting. Important composers of this era include Johann Sebastian Bach , Antonio Vivaldi , George Frideric Handel , Johann Pachelbel , Henry Purcell , Claudio Monteverdi , Barbara Strozzi , Domenico Scarlatti , Georg Philipp Telemann , Arcangelo Corelli , Alessandro Scarlatti , Jean-Philippe Rameau , Jean-Baptiste Lully , and Heinrich Schütz . Though

7168-485: The beginning of the 17th century, yet composers continued using the madrigal into the new century, such as the old-style madrigal for many voices; the solo madrigal with instrumental accompaniment; and the concertato madrigal, of which Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) was the most famous composer. In Naples, the compositional style of the pupil Carlo Gesualdo followed from the style of his mentor, Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545–1607), who had published six books of madrigals and

7296-409: The common practice period, such as traditional tonality, melody, instrumentation, and structure. Some music historians regard musical modernism as an era extending from about 1890 to 1930. Others consider that modernism ended with one or the other of the two world wars. Still other authorities claim that modernism is not associated with any historical era, but rather is "an attitude of the composer;

7424-418: The complex textures of polyphonic language, thus his madrigals were like motets, although he varied the compositional textures, between homophonic and polyphonic passages, to highlight the text of the stanzas; for verse, Willaert preferred the sonnets of Petrarch. Second to Willaert, Cipriano de Rore was the most influential composer of madrigals; whereas Willaert was restrained and subtle in his settings for

7552-656: The composition styles of the Franco-Flemish school. Moreover, the Italian popular taste in literature was changing from frivolous verse to the type of serious verse used by Bembo and his school, who required more compositional flexibility than that of the frottola, and related musical forms. The madrigal slowly replaced the frottola in the transitional decade of the 1520s. The early madrigals were published in Musica di messer Bernardo Pisano sopra le canzone del Petrarcha (1520), by Bernardo Pisano (1490–1548), while no one composition

7680-540: The compositional and technical practises of the late-style madrigal. In Madrigali a 5 voci in partitura (1638), Domenico Mazzocchi collected and organised madrigals into continuo and ensemble works specifically composed for a cappella performance. For the first time in a collection of madrigal music, Mazzocchi published precise instructions, including the symbols for crescendo and decrescendo ; however, those madrigals were for musicologic study , not for performance, indicating composer Mazzochi's retrospective review of

7808-424: The compositional integration of the solo madrigal to the aria . In the fifth book of madrigals, using the term seconda pratica (second practice) Monteverdi said that the lyrics must be "the mistress of the harmony" of a madrigal, which was his progressive response to Giovanni Artusi (1540–1613) who negatively defended the limitations of dissonance and equal voice parts of the old-style polyphonic madrigal against

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7936-553: The concert of the ladies, three women singers for whom Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545–1607), Giaches de Wert (1535–1596), and Lodovico Agostini (1534–1590) composed ornamented madrigals, often with instrumental accompaniment. The great artistic quality of the Concerto delle donne of Ferrara encouraged composers to visit the court at Ferrara, to listen to women sing and to offer compositions for them to sing. In turn, other cities established their own concerto delle donne , as at Firenze, where

8064-450: The concertato madrigal. In the first decade of the 17th century, the Italian compositional techniques for the madrigal progressed from the old ideal of an a cappella vocal composition for balanced voices, to a vocal composition for one or more voices with instrumental accompaniment. The inner voices became secondary to the soprano and the bass line ; functional tonality developed, and treated dissonance freely for composers to emphasise

8192-572: The court of Imperial China (see yayue for instance). Thus in the later 20th century terms such as "Western classical music" and "Western art music" came in use to address this. The musicologist Ralph P. Locke notes that neither term is ideal, as they create an "intriguing complication" when considering "certain practitioners of Western-art music genres who come from non-Western cultures". Complexity in musical form and harmonic organization are typical traits of classical music. The Oxford English Dictionary ( OED ) offers three definitions for

8320-481: The development of medieval musical thought. However, scholars, medieval music theorists and composers regularly misinterpreted or misunderstood the writings of their Greek and Roman predecessors. This was due to the complete absence of surviving Greco-Roman musical works available to medieval musicians, to the extent that Isidore of Seville ( c.  559 – 636 ) stated "unless sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down", unaware of

8448-436: The dominance of text in musical settings are prominent in both early medieval and music of nearly all ancient civilizations. Greek influences in particular include the church modes (which were descendants of developments by Aristoxenus and Pythagoras), basic acoustical theory from pythagorean tuning , as well as the central function of tetrachords . Ancient Greek instruments such as the aulos (a reed instrument ) and

8576-401: The dramatic contrast among vocal groups and instruments. The 17th-century madrigal emerged from two trends of musical composition: (i) the solo madrigal with basso continuo; and (ii) the madrigal for two or more voices with basso continuo. In England, composers continued to write ensemble madrigals in the older, 16th-century style. In 1600, the harmonic and dramatic changes in the composition of

8704-524: The end of the 16th century, the changed social function of the madrigal contributed to its development into new forms of music. Since its invention, the madrigal had two roles: (i) a private entertainment for small groups of skilled, amateur singers and musicians; and (ii) a supplement to ceremonial performances of music for the public. The amateur entertainment function made the madrigal famous, yet professional singers replaced amateur singers when madrigalists composed music of greater range and dramatic force that

8832-525: The end of the century. Prominent composers of this era include Ludwig van Beethoven , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Frédéric Chopin , Hector Berlioz , Franz Schubert , Robert Schumann , Felix Mendelssohn , Franz Liszt , Giuseppe Verdi , Richard Wagner , Johannes Brahms , Alexander Scriabin , Nikolai Medtner , Edvard Grieg , and Johann Strauss II . Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss are commonly regarded as transitional composers whose music combines both late romantic and early modernist elements. At

8960-413: The end of the era, of nationalism in music (echoing, in some cases, political sentiments of the time), as composers such as Edvard Grieg , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , and Antonín Dvořák echoed traditional music of their homelands in their compositions. In the Romantic era, the modern piano , with a more powerful, sustained tone and a wider range took over from the more delicate-sounding fortepiano. In

9088-417: The entire Renaissance period were masses and motets, with some other developments towards the end, especially as composers of sacred music began to adopt secular forms (such as the madrigal ) for their own designs. Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of opera such as monody, the madrigal comedy , and the intermedio are seen. Around 1597, Italian composer Jacopo Peri wrote Dafne ,

9216-583: The epic scales of grand opera , ultimately transcended by Richard Wagner 's Ring cycle . In the 19th century, musical institutions emerged from the control of wealthy patrons, as composers and musicians could construct lives independent of the nobility. Increasing interest in music by the growing middle classes throughout western Europe spurred the creation of organizations for the teaching, performance, and preservation of music. The piano, which achieved its modern construction in this era (in part due to industrial advances in metallurgy ) became widely popular with

9344-522: The first work to be called an opera today. He also composed Euridice , the first opera to have survived to the present day. Notable Renaissance composers include Josquin des Prez , Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina , John Dunstaple , Johannes Ockeghem , Orlande de Lassus , Guillaume Du Fay , Gilles Binchois , Thomas Tallis , William Byrd , Giovanni Gabrieli , Carlo Gesualdo , John Dowland , Jacob Obrecht , Adrian Willaert , Jacques Arcadelt , and Cipriano de Rore . The common practice period

9472-469: The form also was taken up by German and English composers, such as John Wilbye (1574–1638), Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623), and Thomas Morley (1557–1602) of the English Madrigal School (1588–1627). Although of British temper, most English madrigals were a cappella compositions for three to six voices, which either copied or translated the musical styles of the original madrigals from Italy. By

9600-537: The former court musician John Banister began giving popular public concerts at a London tavern; his popularity rapidly inaugurated the prominence of public concerts in the London. The conception of "classical"—or more often "ancient music"—emerged, which was still built on the principles of formality and excellence, and according to Heartz "civic ritual, religion and moral activism figured significantly in this novel construction of musical taste". The performance of such music

9728-448: The history of madrigal composition beyond Italy; and Philippe de Monte (1521–1603), the most prolific madrigalist, first published in 1554. In Venice, Andrea Gabrieli (1532–1585) composed madrigals with bright, open, polyphonic textures, as in his motet compositions. At the court of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (r. 1559–1597), there was the Concerto delle donne (1580–1597),

9856-500: The hurdy-gurdy and recorder) and a number of new instruments (e.g., the oboe, bassoon, cello, contrabass and fortepiano). Some instruments from previous eras fell into disuse, such as the shawm, cittern , rackett , and the wooden cornet. The key Baroque instruments for strings included the violin , viol , viola , viola d'amore , cello , contrabass , lute , theorbo (which often played the basso continuo parts), mandolin , Baroque guitar , harp and hurdy-gurdy. Woodwinds included

9984-401: The instrumental bass part, was optional in the ensemble madrigal. The usual instruments for playing the bass line and filling inner voice parts, were the lute , the theorbo (chitarrone), and the harpsichord . The madrigalist Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) produced madrigals in the solo continuo style, compositions technically related to monody and descended from the experimental music of

10112-475: The late 20th century through to the early 21st century. Some of the diverse movements of the postmodern/contemporary era include the neoromantic, neomedieval, minimalist, and post minimalist. Contemporary classical music at the beginning of the 21st century was often considered to include all post-1945 musical forms. A generation later, this term now properly refers to the music of today written by composers who are still alive; music that came into prominence in

10240-409: The lens of modernism , with some abandoning tonality in place of serialism , while others found new inspiration in folk melodies or impressionist sentiments. After World War II, for the first time audience members valued older music over contemporary works, a preference which has been catered to by the emergence and widespread availability of commercial recordings. Trends of the mid-20th century to

10368-666: The likes of Jean Sibelius and Vaughan Williams infused their compositions with nationalistic elements and influences from folk songs. Sergei Prokofiev began in this tradition but soon ventured into modernist territories. At the same time, the impressionist movement, spearheaded by Claude Debussy , was being developed in France, with Maurice Ravel as another notable pioneer. Modernist classical music encompasses many styles of composition that can be characterised as post romantic, impressionist, expressionist, and neoclassical. Modernism marked an era when many composers rejected certain values of

10496-517: The literary theorist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) published an edition of the poet Petrarch (1304–1374); and published the Oratio pro litteris graecis (1453) about achieving graceful writing by applying Latin prosody , careful attention to the sounding of words, and syntax , the positioning of a word within a line of text. As a form of poetry, the madrigal consisted of an irregular number of lines (usually 7–11 syllables) without repetition. Second, Italy

10624-541: The local tradition of secular music. In France, the native composition of the chanson disallowed the development of a French-style madrigal; nonetheless, French composers such as Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594) and Claude Le Jeune (1528–1600) applied madrigalian techniques in their musics. In the Netherlands, Cornelis Verdonck (1563–1625), Hubert Waelrant (1517–1595), and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) composed madrigals in Italian. In German-speaking Europe,

10752-441: The madrigal as a discrete musical form; the solo cantata and the aria supplanted the solo continuo madrigal, and the ensemble madrigal was supplanted by the cantata and the dialogue, and, by 1640, the opera was the predominant dramatic musical form of the 17th century. In 16th-century England, the madrigal became greatly popular upon publication of Musica Transalpina in ( Transalpine Music , 1588), by Nicholas Yonge (1560–1619)

10880-522: The madrigal as an old form of musical composition. In the Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638), Monteverdi published his most famous madrigal, the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda , a dramatic composition much like a secular oratorio , featuring musical innovations such as the stile concitato (agitated style) that employs the string tremolo . In the event, the evolution of musical composition eliminated

11008-444: The madrigal begins with Cipriano de Rore, whose works were the elementary musical forms of madrigal composition that existed by the early 17th century. The relevant composers include Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594), who wrote secular music in his early career; Orlande de Lassus (1530–1594), who wrote the twelve-motet Prophetiae Sibyllarum (Sibylline Prophecies, 1600), and later, when he moved to Munich in 1556, began

11136-523: The madrigal expanded to include instrumental accompaniment, because the madrigal originally was composed for group performance by talented, amateur artists, without a passive audience; thus instruments filled the missing parts. The composer usually did not specify the instrumentation; in The Fifth Book of Madrigals and in the Sixth Book of Madrigals , Claudio Monteverdi indicated that the basso seguente ,

11264-550: The madrigal originated in the cities of Florence and Rome, by the mid 16th-century Venice had become the centre of musical activity. The political turmoils of the Sack of Rome (1527) and the Siege of Florence (1529–1530) diminished that city's significance as a musical centre. In addition, Venice was the music publishing centre of Europe; the Basilica of San Marco di Venezia (St. Mark's Basilica)

11392-479: The madrigal; serious Petrarchan verse about Love , Longing , and Death was replaced with the villanella and the canzonetta , compositions with dance rhythms and verses about a care-free life. In the late 16th century, composers used word-painting to apply madrigalisms , passages in which the music matches the meaning of a word in the lyrics; thus, a composer sets riso (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes that mimic laughter, and sets sospiro (sigh) to

11520-534: The medieval Islamic world . For example, the Arabic rebab is the ancestor of all European bowed string instruments , including the lira , rebec and violin . The musical Renaissance era lasted from 1400 to 1600. It was characterized by greater use of instrumentation , multiple interweaving melodic lines, and the use of earlier forms of bass instruments . Social dancing became more widespread, so musical forms appropriate to accompanying dance began to standardize. It

11648-455: The mid-16th century, Italian composers began merging the madrigal into the composition of the cantata and the dialogue ; and by the early 17th century, the aria replaced the madrigal in opera . The madrigal is a musical composition that emerged from the convergence of humanist trends in 16th-century Italy. First, renewed interest in the use of Italian as the vernacular language for daily life and communication, instead of Latin. In 1501,

11776-610: The mid-1970s. It includes different variations of modernist , postmodern , neoromantic , and pluralist music . Performers who have studied classical music extensively are said to be "classically trained". This training may come from private lessons from instrument or voice teachers or from completion of a formal program offered by a Conservatory, college or university, such as a Bachelor of Music or Master of Music degree (which includes individual lessons from professors). In classical music, "...extensive formal music education and training, often to postgraduate [Master's degree] level"

11904-416: The middle class, whose demands for the instrument spurred many piano builders. Many symphony orchestras date their founding to this era. Some musicians and composers were the stars of the day; some, like Franz Liszt and Niccolò Paganini , fulfilled both roles. European cultural ideas and institutions began to follow colonial expansion into other parts of the world. There was also a rise, especially toward

12032-410: The modern day, instruments may be classified as brass, strings, percussion, and woodwind. Brass instruments in the Renaissance were traditionally played by professionals who were members of Guilds and they included the slide trumpet , the wooden cornet , the valveless trumpet and the sackbut . Stringed instruments included the viol , the rebec , the harp-like lyre , the hurdy-gurdy , the lute ,

12160-437: The most reprinted madrigal book of its time. Stylistically, the music in the books of Arcadelt and Verdelot was closer to the French chanson than the Italian frottola and the motet , given that French was their native tongue. As composers, they were attentive to the setting of the text, per Bembo's ideas, and through-composed the music, rather than use the refrain-and-verse constructions common to French secular music. Although

12288-416: The movable-type printing press in the 15th century had far-reaching consequences on the preservation and transmission of music. Many instruments originated during the Renaissance; others were variations of, or improvements upon, instruments that had existed previously. Some have survived to the present day; others have disappeared, only to be re-created in order to perform music on period instruments. As in

12416-524: The orchestra, the existing Classical instruments and sections were retained ( string section , woodwinds, brass, and percussion), but these sections were typically expanded to make a fuller, bigger sound. For example, while a Baroque orchestra may have had two double bass players, a Romantic orchestra could have as many as ten. "As music grew more expressive, the standard orchestral palette just wasn't rich enough for many Romantic composers." The families of instruments used, especially in orchestras, grew larger;

12544-556: The orchestra. The Wagner tuba , a modified member of the horn family, appears in Richard Wagner 's cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen . It also has a prominent role in Anton Bruckner 's Symphony No. 7 in E Major and is also used in several late romantic and modernist works by Richard Strauss, Béla Bartók , and others Cornets appear regularly in 19th century scores, alongside trumpets which were regarded as less agile, at least until

12672-526: The orchestra. While appearing only as featured solo instruments in some works, for example Maurice Ravel 's orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky 's Pictures at an Exhibition and Sergei Rachmaninoff 's Symphonic Dances , the saxophone is included in other works such as Sergei Prokofiev 's Romeo and Juliet Suites 1 and 2 and many other works as a member of the orchestral ensemble. In some compositions such as Ravel's Boléro , two or more saxophones of different sizes are used to create an entire section like

12800-695: The other sections of the orchestra. The euphonium is featured in a few late Romantic and 20th century works, usually playing parts marked "tenor tuba", including Gustav Holst 's The Planets , and Richard Strauss 's Ein Heldenleben . Prominent composers of the early 20th century include Igor Stravinsky , Claude Debussy , Sergei Rachmaninoff , Sergei Prokofiev , Arnold Schoenberg , Nikos Skalkottas , Heitor Villa-Lobos , Karol Szymanowski , Anton Webern , Alban Berg , Cécile Chaminade , Paul Hindemith , Aram Khachaturian , George Gershwin , Amy Beach , Béla Bartók , and Dmitri Shostakovich , along with

12928-476: The potential of a wider array of instruments was developed). Chamber music grew to include ensembles with as many as 8-10 performers for serenades . Opera continued to develop, with regional styles in Italy, France, and German-speaking lands. The opera buffa , a form of comic opera, rose in popularity. The symphony came into its own as a musical form, and the concerto was developed as a vehicle for displays of virtuoso playing skill. Orchestras no longer required

13056-656: The predominant music of ancient Greece and Rome , as it was a reminder of the pagan religion it had persecuted and by which it had been persecuted . As such, it remains unclear as to what extent the music of the Christian Church, and thus Western classical music as a whole, was influenced by preceding ancient music . The general attitude towards music was adopted from the Ancient Greek and Roman music theorists and commentators. Just as in Greco-Roman society, music

13184-513: The present day include New Simplicity , New Complexity , Minimalism , Spectral music , and more recently Postmodern music and Postminimalism . Increasingly global, practitioners from the Americas, Africa and Asia have obtained crucial roles, while symphony orchestras and opera houses now appear across the world. Both the English term classical and the German equivalent Klassik developed from

13312-545: The prolific composers of madrigals included Lassus in Munich and Philippe de Monte (1521–1603) in Vienna. The German-speaking composers who studied the Italian techniques for composing madrigals, especially in Venice, included Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612) who studied with Andrea Gabrieli , and Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) who studied with Giovanni Gabrieli . From northern Europe, Danish and Polish court composers went to Italy to learn

13440-524: The religious music Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta ( Responsories for Holy Week , 1611). In the early 1590s, Gesualdo had learnt the chromaticism and textural contrasts of Ferrarese composers, such as Alfonso Fontanelli (1557–1622) and Luzzaschi, but few madrigalists followed his stylistic mannerism and extreme chromaticism, which were compositional techniques selectively used by Antonio Cifra (1584–1629), Sigismondo d'India (1582–1629), and Domenico Mazzocchi (1592–1665) in their musical works. In

13568-400: The simple songs of all previous periods. The beginnings of the sonata form took shape in the canzona , as did a more formalized notion of theme and variations . The tonalities of major and minor as means for managing dissonance and chromaticism in music took full shape. During the Baroque era, keyboard music played on the harpsichord and pipe organ became increasingly popular, and

13696-488: The singing of madrigals was revived by catch clubs and glee clubs , leading to an upsurge of interest in the form and creation of musical institutions such as the Madrigal Society , which was established in London by attorney and amateur musician John Immyns in 1741. In the 19th century, the madrigal was the best-known music from the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) consequent to the prolific publishing of sheet music in

13824-507: The solo continuo style. Whereas Caccini's music mostly was diatonic , later composers, especially d'India, composed solo continuo madrigals using an experimental idiom of chromaticism . In the Seventh Book of Madrigals (1619), Monteverdi published his only madrigal in the solo continuo style, which uses one singing voice, and three groups of instruments — a great technical advance from Caccini's simple voice-and-basso-continuo compositions from

13952-405: The style of their era. In the Baroque era, organ performers would improvise preludes , keyboard performers playing harpsichord would improvise chords from the figured bass symbols beneath the bass notes of the basso continuo part and both vocal and instrumental performers would improvise musical ornaments . Johann Sebastian Bach was particularly noted for his complex improvisations. During

14080-440: The stylistic influence of the French chanson ; and from the polyphony of the motet (13th–16th centuries). The technical contrast between the musical forms is in the frottola consisting of music set to stanzas of text, whilst the madrigal is through-composed, a work with different music for different stanzas. As a composition, the madrigal of the Renaissance is unlike the two-to-three voice Italian Trecento madrigal (1300–1370) of

14208-634: The term "classical music" includes all Western art music from the Medieval era to the early 2010s, the Classical Era was the period of Western art music from the 1750s to the early 1820s —the era of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and Ludwig van Beethoven . The Classical era established many of the norms of composition, presentation, and style, and when the piano became the predominant keyboard instrument. The basic forces required for an orchestra became somewhat standardized (though they would grow as

14336-442: The term "classical" to generally praise well-regarded outputs from various composers, particularly those who produced many works in an established genre. The contemporary understanding of the term "classical music" remains vague and multifaceted. Other terms such as "art music", "canonic music", "cultivated music" and "serious music" are largely synonymous. The term "classical music" is often indicated or implied to concern solely

14464-439: The text, striving for homogeneity, rather than sharp contrast, Rore used extravagant rhetorical gestures, including word-painting and unusual chromatic relationships, a compositional trend encouraged by the music theorist Nicola Vicentino (1511–1576). From Rore's musical language came the madrigalisms that made the genre distinctive, and the five-voice texture which became the standard for composition. The latter history of

14592-411: The turn of the century, music was characteristically late romantic in style with its expressive melodies, complex harmonies, and expansive forms. This era was marked by the works of several composers who pushed forward post-romantic symphonic writing . Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss continued to develop the western classical tradition with expansive symphonies and operas, while

14720-521: The use of polyphony . Since at least the ninth century it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical , critical , historiographical , musicological and philosophical practices. A foundational component of Western culture , classical music is frequently seen from the perspective of individual or groups of composers , whose compositions, personalities and beliefs have fundamentally shaped its history. Rooted in

14848-405: The versions still in use today, such as the Baroque violin (which became the violin ), Baroque oboe (which became the oboe ) and Baroque trumpet, which transitioned to the regular valved trumpet. During the Classical era, the stringed instruments used in orchestra and chamber music such as string quartets were standardized as the four instruments which form the string section of the orchestra:

14976-417: The violin family of stringed instruments took the form generally seen today. Opera as a staged musical drama began to differentiate itself from earlier musical and dramatic forms, and vocal forms like the cantata and oratorio became more common. For the first time, vocalists began adding ornamentals to the music. The theories surrounding equal temperament began to be put in wider practice, as it enabled

15104-417: The violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Baroque-era stringed instruments such as fretted, bowed viols were phased out. Woodwinds included the basset clarinet , basset horn , clarinette d'amour , the Classical clarinet , the chalumeau , the flute, oboe and bassoon. Keyboard instruments included the clavichord and the fortepiano . While the harpsichord was still used in basso continuo accompaniment in

15232-472: The word "classical" in relation to music: The last definition concerns what is now termed the Classical period , a specific stylistic era of European music from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. The Western classical tradition formally begins with music created by and for the early Christian Church. It is probable that the early Church wished to disassociate itself from

15360-447: Was beginning to attract musicians from Europe; and Pietro Bembo had returned to Venice in 1529. Adrian Willaert (1490–1562) and his associates at St. Mark's Basilica, Girolamo Parabosco (1524–1557), Jacques Buus (1524–1557), and Baldassare Donato (1525–1603), Perissone Cambio (1520–1562) and Cipriano de Rore (1515–1565), were the principal composers of the madrigal at mid-century. Unlike Arcadelt and Verdelot, Willaert preferred

15488-531: Was considered central to education; along with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, music was included in the quadrivium , the four subjects of the upper division of a standard liberal arts education in the Middle Ages . This high regard for music was first promoted by the scholars Cassiodorus , Isidore of Seville , and particularly Boethius , whose transmission and expansion on the perspectives of music from Pythagoras , Aristotle and Plato were crucial in

15616-432: Was either minimal or exclusive to the upper classes. Many European commentators of the early 19th century found new unification in their definition of classical music: to juxtapose the older composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Joseph Haydn , and (excluding some of his later works ) Ludwig van Beethoven as "classical" against the emerging style of Romantic music . These three composers in particular were grouped into

15744-470: Was for a while subordinate to the broader classical ideals of formality and excellence. Literature and visual arts—for which substantial Ancient Greek and Roman examples existed—did eventually adopt the term "classical" as relating to classical antiquity, but virtually no music of that time was available to Renaissance musicians, limiting the connection between classical music and the Greco-Roman world . It

15872-564: Was in 18th-century England that the term 'classical' "first came to stand for a particular canon of works in performance." London had developed a prominent public concert music scene, unprecedented and unmatched by other European cities. The royal court had gradually lost its monopoly on music, in large part from instability that the Commonwealth of England 's dissolution and the Glorious Revolution enacted on court musicians. In 1672,

16000-402: Was more difficult to sing, because the expressed sentiments required soloist singers of great range, rather than an ensemble of singers with mid-range voices. There emerged the division between the active performers and the passive audience, especially in the culturally progressive cities of Ferrara and Mantua . The emotions communicated in a madrigal in 1590, an aria expressed in opera at

16128-456: Was not widely used until Mozart expanded its role in orchestral, chamber, and concerto settings. The music of the Romantic era , from roughly the first decade of the 19th century to the early 20th century, was characterized by increased attention to an extended melodic line, as well as expressive and emotional elements, paralleling romanticism in other art forms. Musical forms began to break from

16256-515: Was specialized by the Academy of Ancient Music and later at the Concerts of Antient Music series, where the work of select 16th and 17th composers was featured, especially George Frideric Handel . In France, the reign of Louis XIV ( r.  1638–1715 ) saw a cultural renaissance, by the end of which writers such as Molière , Jean de La Fontaine and Jean Racine were considered to have surpassed

16384-534: Was the usual destination for the oltremontani ("those from beyond the Alps") composers of the Franco-Flemish school , who were attracted by Italian culture and by employment in the court of an aristocrat or with the Roman Catholic Church. The composers of the Franco-Flemish school had mastered the style of polyphonic composition for religious music, and knew the secular compositions of their homelands, such as

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