Week 1: Introduction — What is Music?

Aims, Scope, and Method

This course is about “classical” or “art” music — a term worth unpacking immediately. When most people hear “classical music,” they conjure associations: music for snobs, for the rich, for intellectuals; music you can’t dance to, impenetrable, elitist, refined, “good for you.” Notice that most of these notions carry class or economic connotations. The goal here is not to replace those impressions with reverence, but to give you the tools to form your own judgements.

The aim of the course is the same as composer Aaron Copland’s: to encourage you “to become as completely conscious and wide awake a listener as can possibly be developed.” Note the absence of value judgements. We will hear a great deal of “great” music in this course, but you are not obligated to accept its greatness simply on authority. At some point you will undoubtedly ask yourself, “What’s so great about that piece of @#$%^?” This course will give you the tools to defend your position.

The course does not cover popular music or jazz — not because they are unimportant, but because there is simply not enough time. Dates matter, but are not most important. Sequence and context are far more critical than memorizing years: understanding why something happened when it did illuminates the music far more than a timeline can.

Many approaches to music history are possible: Historical/Chronological, the “Great Composers” method, Genre-based (opera, ballet, chamber music, symphonies, absolute music, program music, film music), Marxist (music as economic and cultural activity), and Feminist (asking, for instance, why women are so overwhelmingly underrepresented in Western Art Music). Most of these approaches have a particular ideological axe to grind. Some axes are very interesting, some necessary, but exploring the cultural baggage around a practice like music does not necessarily enlighten us about the “sounds themselves.”

Consider the danger of the pure chronological approach: it is easy to think of old music as “simple” and new music as “complex,” and to imagine the history of music as a story of ever-upward progress culminating — quite coincidentally — with us. This is not necessarily the case.

The approach used in Music 100 is eclectic — broadly chronological, with side excursions into materials and genre, and with as few “isms” as possible. Above all, it is centred on sound.

All music, indeed all art and cultural products, has a function. Functions change over time.

Another basic term: genre. Best thought of as categorization — Classical, Romantic, Baroque, or Rock, R&B, Alternative, Hip Hop — based on style or distinctive features. Style is created through “individual treatment of the elements of music (melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, form, dynamics, tempo).”

What is Music Anyway?

Definitions of music are surprisingly difficult. Philosopher Walter Wiora offered a favourite: “A game with tones.” The simplicity is the point — it invites engagement without imposing judgement.

The Big Three: Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm

Melody

Before we can discuss musical sounds, we need a basic vocabulary. Musical sounds — tones — have three fundamental properties: pitch (how high or low), duration (how long), and timbre (tone colour — what makes a violin sound different from a flute on the same pitch). The written symbol or name for a pitch is called a note (a term used sparingly here).

A melody is a sequence of pitches. The distance between two pitches is called an interval. The melodic range is the span from the highest to the lowest tone; ranges are described as narrow, medium, or wide. The melodic line or shape is the graphic representation of a sequence of pitches — moving up and down through time. Melodic motion describes whether a melody moves by steps (adjacent pitches), leaps (larger jumps), or repeated notes. Most melodies are a mixture of all three.

A melodic sequence occurs when a rhythm-and-pitch pattern is repeated starting on a different pitch — a very common compositional device. Familiar examples include Happy Birthday, God Save the Queen, and Twinkle, Twinkle. Most melodies are diatonic — built from the pitches of a major or minor scale.

Harmony

Harmony refers to simultaneous sounds. A chord is three or more pitches sounded together. The most fundamental chord in Western music is the triad — a three-note chord commonly built by stacking alternate notes of a scale. Triads may appear in various inversions depending on which note is in the bass. Though a chord can be any set of three or more pitches, chords are usually thought of as being built from particular sets of pitches or scales.

Every tonal piece has a tonic — a central pitch that the music is “about” and toward which it gravitates. Most common-practice Western music (roughly 1600–1900) is tonal. Music that uses primarily the major or minor pitch-set is diatonic; music using pitches outside the scale is chromatic.

Major/minor tonality carries emotional, “feel” connotations in most cultures: major is typically perceived as “happy,” minor as “sad.” This is neatly demonstrated by playing Mary Had a Little Lamb in both modes.

Dissonance (harmonic tension, “what we don’t like”) and consonance (harmonic stability, “what we like”) are central to understanding musical movement. Dissonance is necessary for the phenomenon of musical motion. Certain combinations of sounds “lead to,” “imply,” or “demand” certain other combinations. Everyone senses this, trained or not — and there is still no fully accepted explanation for it.

Rhythm

Rhythm is the temporal aspect of music — from the ancient Greek rhythmos, “flow.” The Western understanding of rhythm tends to reduce it to “marking off time,” which is notoriously unsophisticated compared to many world traditions.

Rhythm organizes around a regular pulse or beat. When beats are grouped into patterns of stress, we get meter — marked off in notation by “measures” and “bar lines.” Duple meter groups beats in twos (strong-weak), while triple meter groups them in threes (strong-weak-weak).

Tempo is the rate of the pulse. It is usually indicated by Italian terms established in the period 1600–1750:

Tempo may also be specified precisely with a metronome marking (e.g., ♩ = 120 beats per minute).

Expression: Dynamics

Expression breathes life into music. Beyond tempo, dynamics — the volume of sound — add an expressive dimension also indicated by Italian terms:

Texture

Texture in music is best understood through the metaphor of weaving — how many independent melodic threads are being woven together, and how independently do they move?

Monophony is a single melodic voice without accompaniment — not necessarily one person, but a single unharmonized line. Gregorian chant is the defining example.

♪ Gregorian Chant, Kyrie ♪

Song texture (also called homophony) is a single prominent melody with chordal accompaniment. This is the most familiar texture in Western music — virtually all pop songs use it.

♪ Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte ♪

Polyphony consists of two or more independent melodic voices of roughly equal importance, occurring simultaneously. It is the most difficult texture both to compose and to hear. When polyphony follows strict rules for combining melodies, it is called counterpoint — from the Latin punctus contra punctum, “note against note.” A simple example is a round (“Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Frère Jacques”), where the same melody is staggered in time, creating harmony through overlap. J. S. Bach’s Art of Fugue represents the pinnacle of contrapuntal mastery.

♪ J. S. Bach, Art of Fugue ♪

Real musical works often mix all three textures. Handel’s Messiah: Hallelujah Chorus, for instance, moves through monophony (brief unisons), song texture, and polyphony in the space of a few minutes — making it a useful listening guide for all three.

♪ Handel, Messiah — "Hallelujah" Chorus ♪

Week 2: Form and Instruments

Form

Form is best thought of as the organization of music in time. This makes it harder to grasp than form in sculpture or painting, where you can literally see balance and contrast at a glance. In a temporal art, you must hold earlier sections in memory as new material unfolds.

Fundamentally, there are really only two things a composer can do: repeat the same thing (repetition) or do something different (contrast). Variation is a little of both — recognizably derived from an original but transformed in some way. Form can operate on a small scale (a phrase) or a very large scale (a multi-movement symphony).

The simplest forms are labelled with letters. Binary form (A–B) has two contrasting sections. Ternary or “arch” form (A–B–A) adds a return of the opening material, as in Twinkle, Twinkle. Many songs follow A–A–B–A: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “I Got Rhythm.” Rock, blues, and jazz frequently use the 12-bar blues form (A–A–B). These are very loose descriptors — a short tune and a long symphony can both be described as A–B–A; the label tells you about proportion and return, not absolute length.

Large-scale classical music uses named forms: sonata, theme and variations, and rondo, discussed in depth in Week 7.

Rondo form (A–B–A–C–A–D–A–…) features a recurring main theme (the “refrain”) alternating with contrasting episodes.

♪ Haydn, Rondo (String Quartet No. 30) ♪

Instruments

We need different instruments for their different timbres — their individual tone colours. The standard classification system is the Sachs–Hornbostel system (Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, 1914), which classifies instruments by their primary vibrating medium.

Aerophones (Wind Instruments)

The primary vibrating medium is a column of air. Brass instruments — trumpet, trombone, French horn, tuba — are aerophones initiated by lip vibration. Woodwinds divide into single-reed (clarinet, saxophone), double-reed (oboe, English horn, bassoon), and no-reed (flute). The pipe organ is also an aerophone: compressed air passes through pipes of varying length.

Chordophones (String Instruments)

The primary vibrating medium is a stretched string: violin, viola, cello, double bass, guitar, banjo, lute, harp, and the piano (whose strings are struck by felt hammers via the keyboard).

Idiophones (Percussion — Vibrating Body)

The body of the instrument itself vibrates: marimba, xylophone, cymbals, castanets, wood blocks.

Membranophones (Percussion — Vibrating Membrane)

A stretched membrane vibrates: bass drum, snare drum, timpani, bongos.

Electrophones

Added in the late 20^th century for instruments that produce sound electronically: synthesizers, electric organs, turntables. The electric guitar is both a chordophone and an electrophone — arguably the most important instrument of the 20^th century.

Ensembles

Orchestras are large mixed ensembles (strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion). Chamber music is music for small ensembles of any makeup — string quartet, woodwind quartet, brass quintet, piano trio. Mixed ensembles combine voices and instruments: chorus plus orchestra is the format for large choral works.

Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (1945) provides an ideal listening introduction. It uses theme and variations form to showcase each instrument of the orchestra in sequence: theme stated by the full orchestra and each section, variations for each instrument, a culminating fugue with all instruments re-entering in order, and a final return of the theme.

In theme and variations form, a recognizable theme is stated and then subjected to a series of alterations — changes of melody, tempo, rhythm, texture, or harmony — while retaining the general harmonic structure. Variation can also vary melody while keeping rhythm and harmony intact, or vary rhythm while keeping the melody recognizable.

♪ Britten, Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra ♪

Week 3: The Medieval Period and the Beginning of the Renaissance

Medieval Music (476–c. 1450)

Historical Context

The “Middle Ages” spans approximately 1,000 years — from the Fall of Rome in 476 CE to around 1450 — a greater time span than all the remaining periods in this course combined. Formerly called the “Dark Ages” (a term now disfavoured), much knowledge was in fact preserved and advanced in the Islamic world during this period: astronomy, mathematics, medicine. Roman Christianity continued as the dominant religion of Europe after Rome’s fall; society was organized feudally (God–King–nobles–serfs). Monasteries were the primary centres of learning. The word music itself derives from the Muses — the nine daughters of Zeus who inspired the arts (Calliope: epic poetry; Euterpe: lyric poetry and music).

Sacred and Secular Music

The two broadest functional categories for music are sacred (religious) and secular (non-religious). There was secular music throughout the Middle Ages — work songs, tavern songs, love songs, nursery songs, lullabies — but we have almost no idea what most of it sounded like, because it was not written down.

The earliest music we know anything about is sacred, because of one critical development: notation. A sophisticated system for writing music down began to be developed in the Christian church in the early Middle Ages. The motivation was practical: the church needed to standardize the liturgy — the order and structure of worship — across a vast geographic area. This innovation is attributed to Pope Gregory I (590–604 CE).

Gregorian Chant

Gregorian chant (also called plainsong or plainchant) is the monophonic, unaccompanied sacred vocal music of the medieval Catholic church. Its three defining characteristics are:

1. Flowing rhythm — non-metric, without regular pulse
2. Single melodic line — monophonic, without harmony
3. Modal pitch organization — built from scales called modes, which are diatonic but not necessarily major or minor

Chant is occasionally responsorial — alternating between a soloist and a chorus. Texts come from the Ordinary (sections always observed: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) or the Proper (texts varying by week and season).

Three styles of text setting appear in chant: syllabic (one pitch per syllable), neumatic (a small cluster of notes per syllable), and melismatic (many notes on a single syllable). In practice, all three are found within the same chant.

♪ Gregorian Chant, Kyrie (plainsong) ♪

The Rise of Polyphony

Around 850 CE, polyphony began to emerge. Adding multiple voices required more elaborate notation and introduced controlled meter. The earliest polyphony was called organum, flourishing in the 12^th and 13^th centuries. Initially, added voices simply moved in parallel to the chant; the development of independent voice movement was a crucial advance. Composer Pérotin (fl. c. 1200) is among the first known polyphonic composers.

♪ Pérotin, Alleluya, Nativitas ♪

Secular Music of the Middle Ages

Minstrels and jongleurs (entertainers) performed for the courts and common people alike. Troubadours and trouvères (“finders” — poet-musicians) composed and sang of love and chivalry. The Countess Beatriz de Dia (c. 1175) is one of the few known female troubadour composers. Her chantar is a strophic song — one in which the same melody repeats for each verse.

♪ Beatriz de Dia, chantar (strophic song) ♪

The Renaissance (1400–1600)

Historical Context

The Renaissance — literally “Rebirth” — is characterized by renewed interest in ancient Greece and Rome combined with a confident looking-forward. What a cast: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raphael, Botticelli, Luther, Machiavelli. This was a time not unlike the present: people looked to the future and to the past. Renewed interest in science, philosophy (Aristotle, Plato), and classical architecture (Palladio’s villas reflect Roman forms). Artists developed perspective drawing — representing three-dimensional space on a flat surface.

Technology reshaped the world:

• The compass made long sea voyages out of sight of land possible — Europe encountered the Americas
• Trade routes to India and Asia opened by sea
• The longbow and gunpowder ended the age of chivalry and began the decline of feudalism
• The printing press (Gutenberg, c. 1440) created a market for amateur musicians and allowed music to circulate widely

The Reformation (c. 1500, Luther’s Protestant revolt) and the Counter-Reformation (c. 1530) profoundly shaped the music of the period. Music began to have more named authors (composers) rather than “anonymous.”

Week 4: Renaissance Music in Depth

Styles

Renaissance sacred music is characterized by:

• A cappella texture — unaccompanied choral writing dominant in sacred music
• Use of thirds and sixths as consonant intervals
• Still primarily polyphonic, with a cantus firmus (a pre-existing melody in one voice) and increased use of imitation as a compositional device
• Word painting — music that literally depicts the meaning of the text. “Death” = dissonance, descending line; “heaven” = ascending line. This is an ancient Greek idea revived with enthusiasm

Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521)

Josquin des Prez was the undisputed master of Renaissance polyphony. What set him apart was his insistence that musical setting must serve the emotion of the text. His Kyrie from the Pange Lingua Mass (1520), based on a plainchant hymn, shows his supple, expressive handling of imitative counterpoint.

♪ Josquin des Prez, Kyrie from Pange Lingua Mass (1520) ♪

Palestrina and the Counter-Reformation

Prior to the Reformation, sacred music had become increasingly complex and ornate. The Council of Trent (1545–1563) — a long and contentious meeting — demanded simpler, more “pious” music that congregations could actually understand. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1524–1594) was the answer. Based at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome under the patronage of Pope Julius III, he wrote in a conservative, a cappella style and mastered counterpoint so perfectly that his technique became a pedagogical model for centuries (species counterpoint). His motets — typically four unaccompanied voices, sacred text — are extraordinarily expressive despite their restraint.

♪ Palestrina, Exsultate Deo (motet) ♪

Secular Music: Madrigals

Publishing created a thriving market for amateur music-making. Dance music circulated in enormous quantities: pavanes, allemandes, bourrées, gigues, courantes, galliards, sicilianos, saltarellos.

Chansons (French) and madrigals (Italian/English) were secular songs for 3 or 4 voices, mostly courtly love songs. English madrigals are full of nonsense syllables (fa la la, like “Deck the Halls”), often with oblique humorous content. Many Christmas carols have roots in the madrigal tradition. The countertenor voice and the castrato (a male singer castrated before puberty to preserve a high voice) were important vocal types. Word painting is a key feature: in John Bennet’s “Weep, O Mine Eyes,” the descending melody conveys grief with visceral effect.

♪ Thomas Weelkes, "Four Arms, Two Necks, One Wreathing" (King's Singers) ♪

♪ John Bennet, "Weep, O Mine Eyes" — word painting ♪

♪ Anonymous, "Fair Phyllis" — metric complexity ♪

♪ Thomas Weelkes, "Come, sirrah Jack, ho!" ♪

Instrumental Music: Gabrieli and Venice

Instrumental music purely for listening — not for dancing or accompanying voices — was a Renaissance idea. Venice, with its Basilica of San Marco, was the centre. Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554–1612) exploited the architecture of St. Mark’s: two choir lofts facing each other enabled antiphonal (back-and-forth) polychoral writing. His Canzona per sonare is a landmark in the history of ensemble instrumental music.

♪ Gabrieli, Canzona per sonare ♪

♪ Gabrieli, Canzona Duodecimi Toni — note use of imitation ♪

Week 5: The Baroque Period — Vocal Music

Historical Context (1600–1750)

The Baroque extends from about 1600 to 1750 (the death of Bach). Europe saw an expanding middle (merchant) class; courts maintained orchestras, opera companies, and choirs. Science advanced rapidly: Newton, Harvey, Kepler, Descartes, Copernicus. Scientific rationalism was chipping away at religious dogma (the Galileo affair). The scientific attitude was reflected in the arts as a preoccupation with order, organization, symmetry, and geometry (Versailles is the architectural emblem).

Several developments define Baroque music:

• Figured bass / basso continuo: a bass line with improvised harmonic realization, typically played by harpsichord or organ plus a bass instrument — the rhythmic and harmonic foundation of virtually all Baroque music
• Consolidation of the major/minor system of tonality
• Equal temperament adopted, enabling modulation to any key (enabling Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier)
• The Florentine Camerata — a group of Florentine musicians and intellectuals — invented opera in their attempt to recreate ancient Greek musical drama
• A general interest in “decoration” — florid, elaborate melody in both vocal and instrumental music — leading to the rise of the virtuoso performer

The doctrine of affections (Affektenlehre) held that music not only ought to arouse emotions — it actually makes the listener experience certain emotions. This drove Baroque composers to develop sophisticated techniques for depicting specific emotional states.

♪ Purcell, "Come Ye Sons of Art" ♪

♪ Purcell, Queen Mary Funeral Music ♪

Baroque Vocal Music: Opera

Opera was invented in the Baroque period, in Florence, around 1600. It is a drama that is sung — odd to us, but logical in an era without amplification. Opera combines all the arts: music, literature (the libretto), theatre, dance, and visual art (costumes, sets, staging). Baroque opera drew on themes from classical antiquity.

Conventions of Baroque opera:

• Overture — orchestral introduction
• Recitative — text-heavy, speech-like vocal writing carrying the dramatic action
• Aria — a lyrical song for a soloist expressing emotion and displaying vocal skill
• Ensembles — duets, trios, etc.
• Choruses — often the “big finish”
• Spectacle — flying machines, trap doors, waves

Opera developed first in Italy, growing out of the Commedia dell’Arte and court masques. Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607) is one of the earliest surviving operas.

♪ Monteverdi, L'Orfeo — Rosa (aria) — note castrato discussion ♪

Henry Purcell (1659–1695) is the greatest English Baroque composer. His opera Dido and Aeneas (c. 1689) contains the famous lament “When I Am Laid in Earth” — built over a ground bass, a short bass pattern that repeats continuously while the upper voices change above it. This creates inexorable, tragic momentum.

♪ Purcell, "Thy Hand, Belinda" from Dido and Aeneas — note ground bass ♪

Cantata

A cantata is a work for vocalists with instrumental accompaniment, setting a poetic text. Sacred cantatas were written for the Lutheran service. They are always based on a chorale (a Lutheran hymn tune) and incorporate arias, recitatives, and choruses — but are not staged. J. S. Bach (1685–1750) wrote hundreds.

♪ J. S. Bach, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" (Ein feste Burg) — cantata + chorale ♪

Passions

Passion plays — dramatic depictions of the last days and crucifixion of Christ — are among the earliest forms of European theatre. A Passion is defined by its subject matter. Like opera it has characters, solos, and choruses, but it is not staged. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (1727) is one of the towering monuments of Western music.

♪ J. S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion — "Blute nur," "Aber am Abend," "Ich bins" ♪

Week 6: Baroque Instrumental Music and Handel’s Oratorio

Orchestration and Instruments

Most instruments we associate with orchestral music were developed or refined in the Baroque. Some earlier instruments fell out of fashion — viols gave way to the modern violin family. Orchestration — the art of writing specifically for particular instrument characteristics — originated in the Baroque.

Oratorio

The oratorio resembles opera closely — soloists, chorus, orchestra — but it is not staged and is almost always on a sacred subject. George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), born the same year as Bach, composed in all idioms and became the towering name in Baroque oratorio. His Messiah (1741) is the most performed choral work in history.

Messiah displays remarkable textural variety: the “Hallelujah” chorus moves between monophony (brief unisons), polyphony, and song texture; “Since by Man Came Death” opens in hushed homophony, then erupts into polyphony for “by man came also the resurrection”; “The Trumpet Shall Sound” is a strophic bass aria; “Amen” is a massive fugue.

♪ Handel, Messiah — "Hallelujah"; "Sinfonia"; "Since by Man Came Death"; "Behold! I Tell You a Mystery"; "The Trumpet Shall Sound"; "Amen" ♪

Dance Suite

A dance suite is a group of contrasting dances written as concert music — not for dancing. Standard movements include allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue, bourrée, and minuet. Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks are suites. Note the triple meter of the minuet.

♪ Handel, Music for the Royal Fireworks — Bourrée; Minuet (triple meter) ♪

♪ Handel, Water Music — Jig; Hornpipe ♪

Sonata

“Sonata” is a confusing term that shifts meaning over time. In the Baroque, a sonata consists of several contrasting movements — not essentially different from a suite. The chamber sonata (sonata da camera) has dance origins; the church sonata (sonata da chiesa) is more serious and polyphonic. Both use a small number of instruments (1–8).

Arcangelo Corelli’s Trio Sonata — confusingly, written on three staves, for two violins and viola da gamba, performed by four players with basso continuo — spans six movements but runs only eight minutes.

♪ Corelli, Trio Sonata (six movements) ♪

Concerto

A concerto is built on contrast between two groups. The solo concerto contrasts one soloist with the full orchestra. The concerto grosso contrasts a small group (the concertino) with the large group (the ripieno or tutti). Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was the master of the Baroque concerto. His Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni, c. 1720) is a landmark of program music — music that depicts extra-musical images or events. Each concerto represents a season, complete with birds, storms, flies, ice, and drunken peasants. The ritornello (a recurring refrain for the full orchestra) holds each movement together structurally.

♪ Vivaldi, The Four Seasons — ritornello form, tone painting ♪

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)

Bach came from a dynasty of musicians; he had two wives and at least nineteen children, four of whom became notable composers: Johann Christoph, Johann Christian, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Wilhelm Friedemann. He served as Kantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig for the last 27 years of his life.

Bach was largely ignored by the general public during his lifetime and considered old-fashioned by contemporaries. He is now widely regarded as the greatest composer in Western history. His achievement was the perfection of existing forms rather than the invention of new ones.

Prelude and Fugue

The fugue is the highest form of polyphonic composition. It is built on a single theme (the subject) stated alone in one voice, then imitated successively in all others. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys) and Art of Fugue are the supreme achievements of the form. Even solo instruments can carry the illusion of counterpoint — Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 Prelude is “counterpoint for one instrument.”

♪ J. S. Bach, Prelude and Fugue in E minor (organ) ♪

♪ J. S. Bach, Musical Offering — Ricercar a 3 ♪

♪ J. S. Bach, Cello Suite No. 1 — Prelude ♪

Week 7: The Classical Period

Historical Context (1750–c. 1800/1825)

The Classical period in music runs from roughly 1750 to 1800 or 1825. The intellectual backdrop is the Enlightenment — the Age of Reason. The late 18^th century brought the American Revolution (1776), the French Revolution (1789–99), the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the middle class. Philosophically, this was the age of Voltaire and Kant: the conviction that the world could be understood through reason. “Systemization” became a cultural value: Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, the French Encyclopédie.

In music, this led to preoccupation with form and the systematic organization of materials. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Treatise on Harmony” (1722) was an attempt to systematize music theory. The characteristic sound of Classical music: song texture dominates (replacing Baroque polyphony), with balanced melodies, simple harmony, and light accompaniment. Absolute music — instrumental music with no extra-musical associations — became the central aesthetic ideal.

Sonata Form (Sonata-Allegro Form)

In the Classical period, form became of prime importance. The central achievement was sonata form, the form most commonly used for first movements of sonatas, symphonies, and string quartets. It has three parts:

1. Exposition: Two contrasting themes are presented — Theme 1 in the tonic key, Theme 2 in a related key (usually the dominant). A closing section confirms the new key.
2. Development: The themes are fragmented, combined, and subjected to harmonic adventures. Tension builds through modulation (moving through many keys). This is the dramatic heart.
3. Recapitulation: Both themes return — now both in the tonic key. Harmonic tension resolves.

A coda may follow to close decisively. The structure enacts the fundamental principle of departure and return.

♪ Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G minor — Movement 1 (follow Listening Guide) ♪

Minuet and Trio

The minuet and trio is the third movement of most Classical multi-movement works. It is in triple meter, with an A–A–B–B structure for the minuet and a contrasting C–C–D–D trio, followed by a return to the minuet. The “trio” originally indicated a passage written for three instruments; the textural contrast defined it.

♪ Haydn, Minuet and Trio ♪

Joseph Haydn (1732–1809)

Haydn was Austrian, contemporary with Mozart, and the father figure of the symphony and string quartet. Initially a freelancer in Vienna, he entered the service of Prince Esterházy in 1761, for whom he produced an extraordinary output. Over 100 symphonies, 14 Masses, 2 oratorios (The Creation, The Seasons), string quartets, and much more.

His “Surprise” Symphony (No. 94) takes its nickname from a sudden fortissimo chord in the otherwise quiet second movement — a theme-and-variations movement where the surprising loud chord arrives on the second phrase. Rondo form (A–B–A–C–A–D–…) features in his String Quartet No. 30.

♪ Haydn, "Surprise" Symphony — Movement 2 (Andante, Theme and Variations) ♪

♪ Haydn, Rondo from String Quartet No. 30 ♪

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

Mozart lived only 35 years, yet his output is staggering: 40 symphonies, 22 piano concertos, 5 violin concertos, plus concertos for flute, clarinet, oboe, horn, and trumpet; string quartets; chamber music; choral music; and above all his operas. He was a child prodigy, son of Leopold Mozart, who toured him as a performing marvel across Europe from age six. His first patron was the Archbishop of Salzburg; at 25 he cut free and became a freelancer in Vienna — constant financial trouble, poor health, married to Constanze. He died at 35 under “questionable circumstances” (murdered by Salieri? — probably not) while writing his unfinished Requiem, completed by his student Süssmayr.

His catalog uses Köchel (K.) numbers (compiled by Ludwig von Köchel). Operas include: The Magic Flute, Idomeneo, The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan Tutte (“Thus do all” — or “Women are Like That”), The Abduction from the Seraglio, and more. All great.

♪ Mozart, Symphony No. 18 — Movements 1 and 3 (Minuet) (1772, age 16) ♪

♪ Mozart, "Marriage of Figaro" Overture ♪

♪ Mozart, Don Giovanni — Don Giovanni and Zerlina duet ♪

♪ Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 21 — Movement 2 (Andante) ♪

♪ Mozart, Horn Concerto — Rondo ♪

Week 8: Beethoven and the Turn to Romanticism

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)

Beethoven is the biggest of the “three B’s” (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). Born in Bonn, he was a piano prodigy — though not of Mozartean proportions. He moved to Vienna in 1792 and became a true freelancer: lessons, compositions, commissions, publishing, concertizing for the rising middle class. He represents something historically new — the composer as independent artist, beholden to no single patron.

His story is a tragedy of Greek proportions: the greatest composer in history goes slowly deaf. The cause was possibly lead poisoning. He documented his despair and his determination in the “Heiligenstadt Testament” (1802), a remarkable letter in which he contemplates suicide but chooses to persist for the sake of his art. He had a difficult personal life throughout.

Beethoven’s output: 9 symphonies (his 9^th among the most famous pieces in all of Western music); concertos (piano and violin), piano sonatas, string quartets; one opera (Fidelio, with three overtures: “Leonora No. 2,” “Leonora No. 3,” “Fidelio”); ballet (The Creatures of Prometheus); Missa solemnis.

Beethoven is a transitional figure — bridging Classical concern for abstract form with Romantic emphasis on individual expression. He combines classical interest in development with powerful emotion and an unmistakably individual style — a sharp contrast with Bach, who wrote in the shared international idiom of his era.

The Three Periods

1. Early (“classic”): first two symphonies, chamber music, piano sonatas — largely in the Classical tradition
2. Middle (“heroic”): six more symphonies, concertos, Fidelio, chamber music — increasing length, emotional power, personal expression, Sturm und Drang (storm and stress). Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) was originally dedicated to Napoleon — the dedication was famously revoked. The orchestra grew in size.
3. Late: string quartets, Ninth Symphony — increasingly personal, inward, formally unconventional

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphonies

Beethoven’s nine symphonies show a clear arc of development — from I to IX, they grow larger, thematically more unified, with larger forces. The minuet and trio becomes a scherzo (a more energetic, often humorous triple-meter form). The Ninth introduces a chorus and vocal soloists into the final movement — unprecedented for a symphony.

The Fifth Symphony (1807)

The Fifth Symphony is a landmark. Its famous four-note opening motive (s-s-s-L: short-short-short-long) permeates all four movements, achieving thematic unity unprecedented in symphonic music:

• Movement 1: Sonata-Allegro form — duple meter
• Movement 2: Theme and Variations — triple meter
• Movement 3: Scherzo (M&T) — with fugal episodes, transitions without pause into:
• Movement 4: Sonata-Allegro form — duple meter, with acceleration to the end

The four movements are meant to be heard as a unity. Beethoven’s decision to link the scherzo and finale without pause — and to quote the scherzo midway through the finale — is revolutionary.

♪ Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 (1807) — s-s-s-L ♪

♪ Beethoven, Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral") — Movement 1 (program vs. absolute music) ♪

♪ Beethoven, "Moonlight" Sonata — Movement 1 ♪

The Romantic Period (c. 1825–1900)

The Romantic period covers most of the 19^th century and is the most popular kind of “classical” music with general audiences today. Historical context: post-French Revolution; colonial empires at their greatest extent; the Industrial Revolution (Romanticism as a reaction?); idealization of nature and the past.

Friedrich Nietzsche offered a useful comparison:

Characteristics of Romantic music:

• Size ranges from miniature (a Chopin nocturne) to enormous (a Mahler symphony)
• Fluid tempo (rubato — “robbing time”)
• Longer melodies
• Emphasis on individual feeling and emotion
• Less structured form
• Harmony pushed to the limits of tonality
• New instruments (and existing instruments taking their present form: valves on brass, steel strings)
• Rise of virtuosi — show-business celebrities: Liszt, Paganini, Clara Schumann. Liszt was essentially the first “pop star” (the Hungarian Idol). Chopin.

♪ Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2 (opening) ♪

♪ Chopin, "Minute" Waltz ♪

Week 9: Romantic Opera and Wagner

Opera in the Romantic Era

The same trends evident in Romantic instrumental music played out in opera. Opera became show business — a star system, “divas and prima donnas.” Vocal types were codified: coloratura soprano (highest, most agile), mezzo soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass. Stereotypical role assignments: soprano = heroine, tenor = hero, baritone = friend or villain, bass = villain. Opera scaled to “giantism” — huge orchestras, casts of thousands (Verdi’s Aida).

In Italy, bel canto style (“beautiful singing”) dominated: Bellini’s Norma, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. The appeal is pure melody and vocal display.

Romantic opera was shaped by national musics: Russian opera (Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov), Italian opera (Verdi’s Rigoletto), and exoticism — setting operas in foreign lands: Verdi’s Aida (Egypt), Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (Japan), Bizet’s Carmen (Spain).

Puccini — La Bohème (struggling Parisian artists), Turandot — writes with an irresistible melodic gift. Above all, 19^th-century opera is about melody and the emotion that melody can invoke. Beethoven only wrote one opera — Fidelio.

♪ Puccini, "Che gelida manina" from La Bohème ♪

♪ Puccini, "Nessun Dorma" from Turandot ♪

♪ Bizet, Carmen (excerpt) ♪

♪ Puccini, Madame Butterfly — "Un bel dì" ♪

♪ Mascagni, Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana ♪

Richard Wagner (1813–1883)

Richard Wagner has a difficult place in music history. He was a vicious anti-Semite; until recently, his music was not performed in Israel. Hitler’s favourite composer — though this is somewhat unfair, since Wagner died long before the rise of National Socialism. Hitler’s interest was driven by Wagner’s subject matter. Can we love the art but despise the artist?

Born in Leipzig (Bach’s hometown), Wagner was virtually self-taught in music — perhaps why he was unafraid to try “wrong” approaches. He is a pivotal figure (like Beethoven), bridging Romanticism to most of the “isms” of the 20^th century: expressionism, modernism, impressionism. He wrote no symphonies and little chamber music; his entire output was essentially operatic.

Wagner’s operas differ fundamentally from Italian grand opera:

• They are “music dramas” — continuous, no set pieces; music flows unbroken throughout
• Enormous orchestras
• He built his own Bayreuth Festival and Opera House (patronage of the mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria) and was a control freak — he darkened the performance hall, a practice now universal
• Subject matter: German/Northern European mythology — Scandinavian sagas, Beowulf, King Arthur. He provided Germany with a mythological national identity. His “Ring” tetralogy (Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried, Götterdämmerung) bears striking similarities to Tolkien’s LOTR: a magic ring forged in secret, mighty warriors, a final battle, the supernatural, a broken sword reforged. Tolkien drew from the same mythological well.

An important Wagnerian innovation is the Leitmotiv (“leading motif”): characters, emotions, and objects all receive specific musical themes that are then developed and transformed throughout the work, providing symphonic unity.

Wagner’s chromaticism — constantly shifting tonal centres — is so extreme that it is sometimes difficult to say there is a tonal centre. The shifting keys create powerful, unsettling emotional effects.

♪ Wagner, "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin (his most "anonymous" piece) ♪

♪ Wagner, "Ride of the Valkyries" from Die Walküre (familiar from Apocalypse Now) ♪

♪ Wagner, Prelude to Tristan und Isolde — extreme chromaticism ♪

Week 10: Romantic (Non-Opera) Music Continued

Song and Lieder

The Lied (plural: Lieder) — the German art song for solo voice and piano — is one of the great inventions of the Romantic period. Two forms predominate: strophic (same music for each verse) and through-composed (durchkomponiert — new music for each verse, following the text’s changing emotions). Song cycles — groups of songs on a related theme — represent the Lied at its most ambitious.

Franz Schubert (1797–1828) lived an even shorter life than Mozart — only 31 years — yet composed over 600 songs, 9 symphonies (including the “Unfinished,” No. 8), and much chamber music. He was arguably the greatest songwriter who ever lived. “The Trout” (Die Forelle) is among his most celebrated songs.

♪ Schubert, "The Trout" (Die Forelle) ♪

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849)

Chopin composed essentially for solo piano, and in that sphere had no equal. His music is quintessentially Romantic: dreamy, rubato, with evocative titles like “Impromptu,” “Nocturne,” “Ballade.” The German word Innigkeit — “poignant intimacy of feeling,” with no exact English equivalent — captures something essential about Chopin and the Romantic ideal.

As Lawrence Schenbeck writes (summarizing Richard Taruskin): the Romantics “gradually displaced the old Enlightenment idea of truth as something external, objective, and knowable through reason and observation, with a new vision of many truths — of truth as something internal, subjective, and knowable through personal intuition and introspection.” At its worst, Innigkeit devolves into sentimentality and kitsch. At its best, we get Schumann. . .

♪ Chopin, Prelude in E Minor ♪

The Romantic Artist as Tortured Soul

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) and Clara Schumann (1819–1896)

Robert Schumann embodies the Romantic artist as tortured soul. He suffered from what appears to have been bipolar disorder; he attempted suicide in 1854, was institutionalized, and died at 46. Yet his music is among the most personal and poetic of the century.

Clara Wieck Schumann — pianist, composer, and Robert’s wife — was one of the great performers of her era and a fine composer in her own right. Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847) was another important composer of the period whose work was largely published under her brother Felix’s name. Both represent the systematic suppression of women’s creative voices in the 19^th century.

♪ Schumann, "Dreaming" (Träumerei) ♪

♪ Clara Schumann, Piano Trio ♪

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) — Absolute Music

Brahms is the third “B.” He composed 4 symphonies, 4 concertos, much piano music, and substantial chamber and vocal music. He studied under Schumann, fell in love with Clara Schumann, and when Robert died — torn between love and loyalty — he did not set up housekeeping with Clara, though he remained devoted to her for the rest of his life.

Brahms’s personal life was “romantic” in the biographical sense; his music was controlled in a way that Tchaikovsky’s, for example, was not. He deliberately worked within Classical forms — under the shadow of Beethoven (the “clomping of giants”) — which is why he waited until after age 40 to write his first symphony. He was the great champion of absolute music in the Romantic period.

♪ Brahms, "Wiegenlied" (Lullaby) ♪

♪ Brahms, Symphony No. 4 — Movement 4 (Theme and Variations) ♪

Late Romanticism and Post-Romanticism

Late or Post-Romanticism extends the Romantic vocabulary to its limits. The influence of Wagner is felt everywhere.

Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) — conductor and composer — pushed the Romantic symphony to its absolute limits of scale. His symphonies are enormous; his Songs of the Earth (Das Lied von der Erde) and Kindertotenlieder are haunting song cycles. His music stands at the edge of tonality, one foot in the Romantic world, one pointing toward the 20^th century.

♪ Mahler, Symphony No. 2 — "Urlicht" (Movement 4) ♪

Also worth noting from the Romantic era: Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of piano pieces (later orchestrated by Ravel) depicting paintings by Viktor Hartmann — a prime example of program music. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture represents the golden age of national program music. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade is a masterpiece of exoticism.

♪ Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition — "Hut of Baba Yaga" ♪

♪ Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture ♪

♪ Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade ♪

Week 11: The 20th Century — Impressionism, Primitivism, and the Rejection of Tonality

Overview

Consider the compression of history: 65 years from the first powered flight to the moon landing. The first half of the century was catastrophically violent — two world wars killing 40 and 30 million people respectively, the Russian Revolution. Technology exploded: photography, recording, radio, broadcasting. More “isms” appear in 20^th-century music than in all prior music history combined.

Two key conditions shaped music:

1. Technology radically altered how music was consumed — radio and recording changed who heard music, when, and how
2. WWI ended the era of European imperial power. The “great split” between art music and the general public began. Art music became introspective, hermetic, inward-looking.

Impressionism

Impressionism — primarily French — takes its name from painting (Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir): “blurriness,” scenes of light and urban life. The two great names are Claude Debussy (1862–1918) and Maurice Ravel. Debussy actually disliked the term — it was applied by critics. His innovations:

1. Freer harmony — the “emancipation of the dissonance”: using 9^th, 11^th, 13^th chords, and whole-tone scales as colour rather than tension. The “solid blocks” of functional harmony dissolve — analogous to perspective dissolving in Impressionist painting.
2. Freer rhythm — regular metric pulse becomes fluid and ambiguous.

Debussy was influenced by the gamelan music he heard at the Paris Exposition of 1889, and understood that there were entirely different ways of organizing sound. His principle: art should be “sensuous” — a direct appeal to pleasure.

♪ Debussy, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune ♪

♪ Ravel, Mother Goose Suite; Pavane pour une infante défunte ♪

Primitivism and Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) — Russian, student of Rimsky-Korsakov — composed three great ballets for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes that changed music history: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913).

The term “primitivism” was applied by critics, not composers. It reflects a Eurocentric art movement (Picasso, Rousseau, the “noble savage”) that romanticized non-Western cultures. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is anything but primitive — its rhythmic complexity is staggering. Key technical features include polyrhythm (multiple simultaneous rhythms), bitonality (two keys simultaneously), and ostinato (a short pattern repeated many times).

The Rite of Spring (1913) was a watershed event — still considered revolutionary. Its subject matter was pagan (sexual, sacrificial, violent, non-Christian, non-“ballet”). Its premiere provoked a famous riot. Key musical features: extreme high registers, no traditional melodies, brilliant orchestral colour, rhythmic disruption that revitalized rhythm as a primary musical force.

♪ Stravinsky, The Firebird — Finale (Kaschei's Dance) — 7-beat meter ♪

♪ Stravinsky, Petrushka — The Shrovetide Fair — polytonality ♪

♪ Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring ♪

Expressionism and the Rejection of Tonality

Expressionism was a German movement in art and literature depicting extreme emotional states. In painting: Munch’s “The Scream,” Kokoschka’s “Bride of the Wind.” In film: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu. Characteristics: bold strokes, stark contrasts, distortion away from realism. Where Impressionism blurred tonality, expressionist music took an axe to it.

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

Schoenberg led the “Second Viennese School” with students Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Trained in the German/Wagnerian tradition, he pushed the boundaries of tonality before WWI, served in the war though over 40, wrote nothing for eight years (1915–23), and emigrated to the US in 1933 with the rise of Hitler. He was also an amateur painter.

Atonal music avoids any sense of key in an ad hoc, non-systematic way. Pierrot Lunaire (1912) is the landmark: the voice uses Sprechstimme (“speech-voice”) — a notated pitch is suggested but immediately slides away, halfway between speech and song.

12-tone composition is a system replacing the rules of functional harmony. The composer chooses a tone row (all 12 chromatic pitches arranged to avoid any sense of key), and all melodic and harmonic material derives from this row through counterpoint procedures: inversion (upside down), retrograde (backwards), retrograde inversion, transposition, rotation, diminution, augmentation. Dynamics, orchestration, rhythm remain freely chosen. The result can sound “soulless” and hollow — or result in works of great beauty.

Serialism extends the 12-tone principle further: the row controls all aspects of composition — pitch, rhythm, dynamics, articulation. The 2^nd Viennese School is the origin of this stream, influencing Babbitt, Xenakis, Boulez, and Stockhausen.

♪ Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night) — late tonal style ♪

♪ Schoenberg, Pierrot Lunaire — atonal, Sprechstimme ♪

♪ Schoenberg, Variations for Orchestra — 12-tone ♪

♪ Webern, Five Movements for String Quartet ♪

Tonality Extended: Three Reasons

Why did some 20^th-century composers continue working in a tonal idiom?

1. Conservatism — Many composers believed tonality was not “mined out”:

• Jean Sibelius (1865–1957): Finlandia, Violin Concerto, 7 symphonies
• Richard Strauss (1864–1949): tone poems — Ein Heldenleben, Death and Transfiguration, Also sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel, Don Quixote — and operas: Elektra, Salome, Der Rosenkavalier
• Holst and Orff: The Planets and Carmina Burana remain among the most popular orchestral works of the century

♪ Richard Strauss, Also sprach Zarathustra — opening ♪

♪ Holst, Mars from The Planets ♪

♪ Orff, O Fortuna from Carmina Burana ♪

2. Popularity — Some composers deliberately chose accessible music:

In the US, Aaron Copland (1900–1990) consciously wrote for a mass audience. He embraced film scoring (won an Oscar), composed ballets on American subjects (cowboys, farmers), and pursued a democratic ideal: accessible music without compromising artistic integrity.

♪ Copland, "Fanfare for the Common Man" ♪

♪ Copland, "Hoedown" from Rodeo ♪

3. Compulsion — Political repression forced tonal writing:

In Nazi Germany, music deemed “decadent,” “Jewish,” or “Negroid” (i.e., jazz) was brutally suppressed. Schoenberg fled to America. In Eastern Bloc countries, composers were forced to conform to Socialist Realism or face prison or death.

Shostakovich (1906–1975) navigated this with irony and double meanings that sailed right over the censors’ heads. Prokofiev (1891–1953) wrote the “Classical Symphony,” beloved ballets, and film scores including Alexander Nevsky.

♪ Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 — Movement 4 ♪

♪ Prokofiev, Alexander Nevsky (excerpt) ♪

Week 12: Blurring of the Boundaries

The Fragmentation of Style

By the mid-20^th century, the concept of a single “art music” tradition had effectively dissolved. Today, virtually anything can fall under the banner of “classical music.”

Aleatoric Music (“Chance Music”)

Total serialism — controlling every parameter — inevitably provoked a reaction. If serialism controls everything, why not control nothing? Aleatoric (from the Latin alea, die) or “chance” music determines musical events by random or loosely structured procedures. The same spirit of anti-control appears in visual art: Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, Mark Rothko’s colour fields (abstract expressionism).

John Cage (1912–1992) is the defining figure. His 4'33" (1952) — four minutes and thirty-three seconds of “silence” — is the most famous and controversial piece of the 20^th century. The performer sits at the instrument and plays nothing; the “music” is the ambient sound of the room. Its point: all sound can be music; listening is a choice. Cage also pioneered the prepared piano — inserting bolts, screws, paper, and other objects between the strings to alter timbres dramatically.

♪ John Cage, Sonatas and Interludes (prepared piano) ♪

Edgard Varèse (1883–1965) explored musique concrète (music from recorded real-world sounds), additive rhythm (patterns that expand and contract asymmetrically), and Klangfarbenmelodie (“tone colour melody”) — melody defined by shifting timbres rather than pitches. His Ionisation (1931), for 13 percussion players, was among the first major works written entirely for percussion.

♪ Varèse, Ionisation ♪

♪ George Crumb, Music for a Summer Evening ♪

Minimalism and the Return to Tonality

As a reaction to serial complexity, minimalism emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. Minimalist music is tonal, based on simple melodic and harmonic patterns repeated and gradually transformed over long stretches of time. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Arvo Pärt are the key figures. The influence of non-Western music — African drumming, Indian raga — is significant.

♪ Steve Reich, "Eight Lines" ♪

New Technologies

Electronic synthesis, computer composition, and digital recording opened entirely new possibilities. Paul Lansky’s “Notjustmoreidlechatter” (1988) is a landmark work created entirely on a mainframe computer using vocal sounds as source material — it sounds remarkably like natural speech and music merged.

♪ Paul Lansky, "Notjustmoreidlechatter" ♪