New Currents in the Early
Eighteenth Century
New aesthetic and stylistic values
• Rejection of concentration on single affects:
“The rapidity with which the emotions change is common
knowledge, for they are nothing but motion and restlessness.
. . . The musician must therefore play a thousand different
roles; he must assume a thousand characters as dictated by
the composer.” (Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718–1795),
Der critische Musicus an der Spree (1749)
• Flexibility and variety of style and texture become
characteristic
The theory of tonality
• Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), Traité de l’harmonie
réduite a ses principe naturels (1722)
• Laid out basic principles of tonal harmonic practice
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triads, chord roots, inversion
harmonic functions — tonique, dominante, sous-dominante
modulation by change of harmonic function
melody should be derived from harmony — reverses
concept of harmony produced by counterpoint
The galant in music
• From galer, to have a good time (cf. “regale”)
• Elegant, charming, graceful, natural — opposite of
learned, serious, strict, artificial
• Term galant indicates
– music departs from aesthetic stiffness and procedural
rules of the older style
– awkward capriciousness is kept in check and appeal
maintained by grace and good taste
Aspects of galant style
• Textures
– light, soloistic; homophony, arpeggiation
– change within a movement
• Melodic/rhythmic flexibility and variety in a movement
– short-breathed phrases rather than Fortspinnung
– decorative surface — agréments
• Simple harmony
– considerable freedom from rules governing dissonances
and voice leading
• Simple forms
Operatic comedy in the early eighteenth
century
• Opera buffa — comparable to intermezzo but
independent
• Controversy in Paris in 1750s — La Querelle [or
Guerre] des bouffons
– incited by reaction to 1752 production of Pergolesi’s
La serva padrona
– argument over merits of French vs. Italian style
• Opéra comique — French style
– used spoken dialogue rather than recitative
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), Le Devin du
village (1752)
Empfindsamkeit
• German reaction against Rationalism
• Emphasizes sensitivity/sentiment
“. . . the incorrigible sentimentality of the Germanic soul
broke into tears at the slightest provocation. Where the
French created a style, delicate and frothy, but with a fine
net of judiciously designed lines, the Germans wanted
‘mood,’ ‘atmosphere,’ and ‘feeling.’” Paul Henry Lang,
Music in Western Civilization (1940)
The empfindsamer Stil
• Melody
– speechlike model; rubato
– sigh motives, gasping rests
– ornaments interpreted as sentimental
• Rhythmic flexibility
• Dynamic effects
• Harmonic irregularity
– minor keys
– chromatic harmony
– unusual progressions
• Varied textures
• Freedom of form — especially in keyboard fantasy
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788)
• Second-oldest son of J. S. Bach
• Keyboard player — worked at court of Prussian king
Frederick the Great in Berlin 1738–1768
• Kantor in Hamburg 1768–1788
• Composed keyboard music, songs, symphonies
• Authored important treatise on keyboard playing,
Versuch über die wahre Art das Klavier zu spielen (1753)
• Leading composer in empfindsamer Stil
The sinfonia in the eighteenth century
• Developed from Italian operatic sinfonia
– three movements — fast, slow, fast
– small orchestra of a dozen to twenty players, often
strings and basso continuo
• Mannheim orchestra important for expanding scoring
– increased winds — flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns,
trumpets (and timpani)
– effects including “Mannheim crescendo” (Roller),
increasing melodic register, total sound space above
pedal point, number of instruments, and dynamics
leading to climax
Forms in the early eighteenth century
Basic model — binary form
Balanced binary form
• Theme associated with secondary key (S) returns
with arrival of tonic in part 2
• Characteristic in sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti
(1685–1757)
Rounded binary form
• Theme associated with initial presentation of
tonic at the beginning returns with the tonic key
in part 2
Questions for discussion
• In what ways do the galant style and empfindsamer Stil
differ, and what aspects of musical thinking do they
share?
• What social or political factors affected new ways of
musical thinking in the early eighteenth century?
• How did tonality’s function in the developing binary
form in the early eighteenth century differ from its
function in earlier musical forms?