The Enlightenment
and the Classic style
Enlightenment as intellectual context for
music
• Builds on rationalism but tends away from it toward
empiricism — deductive replaced by inductive thinking
• Attempts to bring order to experience in various fields
• Empirical science
• Practical technology
• Progressive political thought — empiricism leads to
egalitarianism
• Literature — novel brings plot to new importance
The “classic” outlook
• Term suggests standard or model, enduring value
• Based on ideas of Classical Antiquity, specifically
Apollonian spirit
– clarity, simplicity
– symmetry, balance, order
– objectivity
• Visual art imitates ancient models — “neoclassic”
• Only partly applicable in music (no ancient models as
for visual arts)
Political and social contexts for music
• Feudal system replaced by enlightened monarchy, e.g.,
– Frederick the Great in Prussia (r. 1740–1786)
– Maria Theresia (r. 1740–1780), Joseph II (r. 1780–1790)
in Austria
• Aristocratic patronage important
• Expansion of urban, commercial class
– sales of music and instruments to amateur public
– demand for teaching
– concert series made music available to ticket buyers
Comparison of musical careers —
Haydn and Mozart
Franz Joseph Haydn
(1732–1809)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791)
• Nonmusical family — father was
village wheel maker
• Trained as Vienna choirboy
• Poor gigging musician in his 20s
• Thrived under patronage of Prince
Nicholas Esterhazy
• Musical family — father, Leopold,
was important violinist
• Trained by Leopold, traveled
widely
• Early international successes
• Chafed under patronage in
Salzburg, eventually independent in
Vienna
Opera reform in the mid–eighteenth
century
• Composers (and librettists) and audiences turning away
from Metastasian artificiality and rhetorical excess
• Viennese reform
– Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787) — composer
– Raniero Calzabigi (1714–1795) — librettist
• Ideals — outlined in Preface to Alceste
– music to serve drama rather than the reverse
– “beautiful simplicity” — classicist
– “simplicity, truth, and naturalness” — Enlightenment
Four-movement sonata plan
Symphony, String quartet
• Fast movement, tonic key, sonata form
• Slow movement, usually subdominant or submediant
key, various forms
• Minuet, tonic key, composite ternary form
• Fast movement, tonic key, sonata or rondo form
Three-movement sonata plan
Sonata, concerto
• Fast movement, tonic key — sonata form or special
variant for concerto
• Slow movement, subdominant or submediant key,
various forms
• Fast movement, tonic key, sonata or rondo form
Sonata form
I.
1.
P T
||:
2.
S K
:||:
I – – →→ V – – – – V
–I
II.
3.
4.
P T S K
:||
→→ I – – – – – – –
Sonata form in minor keys
I.
1.
P T
||:
2.
S K
II.
3.
4.
P T S K
:||:
:||
i – – →→ III – – III
→→ i – – – – – – – –
i
or I – – – I
Rondo form
Five-part Rondo —
A
I
B
A
I
C
A
I
or
A
I
B
A
I
B
A
I
Seven-part Rondo —
A B A C A D A or A B A C A B A
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
I
Concerto first-movement form
(with integration of sonata and ritornello forms)
Ritornello I.
Tutti
Rit.
Solo
1.
2.
1P 2P K 1P T S/2P K
II.
Ritornello
Tutti Solo
Tutti Solo
3.
Tutti
4.
1P T S/2P K
[Cadenza]
I – – – – – I I – – → V – – – V – – – V → → I – – – – – – – – I6/4 – – V7 I – – –I
NB: The thematic outline shown is only an example. Different concertos have different
thematic plans.
“Topics” in eighteenth-century music
Some examples of expressive tospos
• Military
• Singing — cantabile, aria
• Dances
– upper social classes — minuet, gavotte,
– lower classes — contredanse, Ländler, rustic waltz
•
•
•
•
•
Ecclesiastical
Empfindsam
Sturm und Drang
Hunt
Brilliant
Questions for discussion
• How were ideals of the Enlightenment and
neoclassicism reflected in music in the middle of the
eighteenth century?
• Why did Haydn’s and Mozart’s careers differ so
strikingly?
• What elements of the eighteenth-century symphony
can be traced to roots in the preceding period’s style?
• Given the importance of convention in eighteenthcentury music, what value should be placed on
originality in music of the period, and how might the
composer make her or his work original?