Western Art Music

Western Art Western Art MusicMusic

Era, Era

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris (1163-1345)

Renaissance

French word for “Rebirth”

Rise of secular (not religious) music forms and polyphony (multiple voices at the same time)

Minstrels, troubadours, minnesingers.

Renaissance Artists

Michelangelo (1475-1564)Michelangelo (1475-1564)Leonardo da Vinci (1452-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)1519)

Raphael (1483-1520)Raphael (1483-1520)

Donatello (1386-1466)Donatello (1386-1466)

“The Last Supper”Leonardo da Vinci,

1495-98

Baroque Times

Jamestown, Virginia founded as first English colony in North America (1607)

Math/Science- Newton, Galileo, Copernicus

English Civil War (1642-1651)

Old empires dissolving, new ones forming; rise of Nationalism

Music is more ornate than previous times; instrumental music written more than vocal music.

Composers: Bach, Händel, Vivaldi.

St. Paul’s Cathedral,London, England (1710)

Architect- Sir Christopher Wren. Architect- Sir Christopher Wren.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

German

Worked as court composer and/or music director in three cities

1126 known published works, all recorded by Bach Works Catalogue (BWV)

Survived by many sons who also became composers

Georg Friderich Händel(1685-1759)

German-born

Known especially for oratorio Messiah (1741) and Water Music (1717)

1723- moved to London, commissioned to write works for Royal Academy of Music, Covent Garden Opera, and King George I.

One of few foreign-born personalities to be buried in Westminster Abbey

The Classical Era

New addition to music: dynamics and phrasing

Less complex/ornate than baroque music

4 July 1776- Declaration of Independence

14 July 1789- Bastille Day- beginning of French Revolution

1806- Napoleon storms in, Holy Roman Empire dissolves

Musical life is centered around Vienna

Franz Josef Haydn(1732-1809)

Austrian

“Father of the Symphony” , wrote over 100 symphonies

Taught Beethoven

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Austrian

Child prodigy- toured around Europe with his father

First opera- age 14

Operas- Don Giovanni, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte

Last piece composed was ironically the Requiem Mass

Ludwig van Beethoven(1770-1827)

German-born

Student of Haydn

Began to lose hearing around 1796

One opera, 32 piano sonatas, nine ground-breaking symphonies.

Romanticist Music

Music tells a story, mostly of the human experience.

Composers begin to write based on their country’s folk music traditions

Russia- Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky

Germany/Austria- Brahms, Strauss I, Strauss II, Schumann, Wagner

France- Faure, Berlioz, Saint-Säens, Bizet

Eastern Europe- Dvořák (Czech), Liszt (Hungarian), Chopin (Polish), Sibelius (Finnish), Grieg (Norwegian)

Italy- Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Paganini

Museum of science and industry, chicago, 1893

All about breaking the traditional rules of music and being creative

Had more competition with the rise of folk music forms (jazz, pop, rock, etc.)

“BIG invention in music- phonograph (1877)

“CLASSICAL” MUSIC IN THE 20TH CENTURY

“Focuses on a suggestion or an atmosphere rather than an emotion or telling a story”

Use of less common scales and intervals

Composers: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie (all French)

Impressionism

Monet: “Impression, Monet: “Impression, Sunrise” (1872)Sunrise” (1872)

Chance music- Music based on everything that happens around it.

Serialism- music based on short patterns.

Sound, more than music- using instruments in different ways to make different sounds (George Crumb, Henry Cowell, Krzysztof Penderecki)

Minimalism- Phillip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams

Postmodern music

Postmodern art

Dadaism- “The Treachery of Images”, Rene Magritte, 1929Dadaism- “The Treachery of Images”, Rene Magritte, 1929