Opera

Where did the genre come from?/ Who was involved in its development?
Although the earliest operas date from the very end of the sixteenth century,
the association of music with drama goes back to ancient times. The choruses
and principal lyric speeches in the plays of Euripides and Sophocles were
sung, as well medieval liturgical dramas. Some renaissance plays incorporated
songs or sung choruses; others presented musical interludes known as
intermedi, between their acts. On important occasions at the Italian courts,
these intermedi became elaborate musical productions, with choruses, soloists,
large instrumental ensembles, and costumes and stage effects. Another source
for early opera was the pastoral drama, a play in verse with incidental music.
By the end of the sixteenth century, pastoral plays were very much in vogue at
Italian courts. The most popular was by the Ferrarese court poet Giovanni
Battista Guarini; his Il pastor fido (The Faithful Shepherd, 190) not only was
performed as a theater piece, but also supplied lyrics for hundreds of madrigal
settings, including Monterverdis Cruda Amarili. Despite these musical and
theatrical precedents, however, opera might never have emerged without the
interest of humanist scholars, poets, musicians, and patrons in ancient Greek
tragedy. They hoped to revive the legendary ethical powers attributed to
ancient tragedy, which some believed was entirely sung, by creating modern
works that were equally powerful in performance. The prime mover behind
the idea that the entire text of a Greek tragedy was performed in song was
Girolamo Mei (1519-1594), a Florentine scholar who edited several Greek
dramas. He concluded that Greek music had consisted of a single melodic line
sung by a soloist or chorus, with or without accompaniment. Such delivery of
the text could evoke powerful emotional responses from the listeners through
the natural expressiveness of the voice via the register, rhythms and contours.

Mei communicated his ideas to colleagues in Florence, including Giovanni

deBardi (1534-1612), and Vicenzo Galilei (ca. 1520s-1591). From the early
1570s, Bardi hosted an informal academy at his palace in Florence where
scholars dicussed literature, science and the arts, and musicians performed
new music. Bardis young protg, Guilio Caccini (1551-1618) later referred
to this gathering as Bardis Camerata (circle of coterie). After Bardi moved
to Rome in 1592, discussions about ancient and modern music continued
under the sponsorship of Jacopo Corsi (1561-1602). Among the participants
were two veterabs of the 1589 intermedi, poet Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621)
and composer Jacop Peri (1561-1633). Convinced that Greek tragedies were
sung in their entirety, they set out to re-create the ancient genre in modern
form. They first experimented with Rinuccinis partoral poem Dafne.
Although only fragments of the music survived, this was the first opera: a
staged dram set entirely to music, with a new kind of singing designed
specifically for theatrical delivery.
Social situation involved?
Three important works from different periods in the genre
Rinuccinis more ambitious drama LEuridice (October 1600) was set to
music by Peri and Caccini and performed during the court festivities
celebrating the marriage of Maria deMedici to Henry IV of France.
LEuridice elaborated the well-known myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, giving
it a happy ending to suit the joyous occasion. The story demonstrated musics
power to move the emotions: through his singing, Orfeo (Orpheus) persuades
the gods of the underworld to restore his bride, Euridice, to life. Peri and
Caccini had similar approaches to theatrical music, but Caccinis setting is
more melodious and lyrical, resembling le nuove musiche, whereas Peris is

better suited to the drama because he found a new way to imitate speech and
varied his musical style according to the text and plot.
Glucks Orfeo (1762) exploits music and dramatic possibilities of libretto.
Gluck aspired to write music of a beautiful simplicity, which he realized in
the celebrated aria Che faro senza Euridice? (What shall I do without
Euridice?) from Orfeo and in other airs, choruses, and dances from the same
work. Gluck molded the music to the drama, intermingling recitatives, arias,
and choruses, in large unified scenes.
Though originally set to an Italian libretto, Orfeo ed Euridice owes much to
the genre of French opera, particularly in its use of accompanied recitative and
a general absence of vocal virtuosity.
Hector Berliozs great five-act opera Les Troyens (1856-58), partial premiere
in 1863, drew on grand opera but also on the older French opera tradition of
Lully, Rameau and Gluck. The text, by Berlioz himself, is based on the second
and fourth books of Virgils Aeneid. Les Troyens can be classified as an epic
opera (a work in which the story of a nation competes with the passions and
emotions of individual characters) The style is severe, almost ascetic by
comparison with Berliozs earier works, recalling the evocation of antiquity in
some of the works of French painter Jacques-Louis David.

Piano Sonata
Where did the genre come from?
In the Baroque era, sonata generally meant a multimovement work for a small
group of instruments, most often in trio texture. In the classic period, the word

had different meanings for different composers. It also connoted

compositional procedure or form, first articulated by the German theorist
Heinrich Cristoph Koch. Koch describes sonata form as an expanded version
of binary form, which we have already encountered in the dances and dance
suites of the Baroque period. Also called first-movement form, this was the
most common plan for the first movement of a sonata, chamber work, or
symphony in the classic period. Koch details two large sections, each of which
may be repeated. The first section has one main period, moving from tonic to
dominant (or relative major in a minor key), and presents the principal ideas
organized into a series of smaller phrases. The second section has two main
periods: the first of these periods often begins with the opening theme on the
dominant before digressing harmonically and ending on the dominant chord in
preparation for the return of the tonic. This coincides with the final period,
which begins and ends on the tonic, although it typically parallels the first
section and for the most parts restates the same material.

Who was involved in its development? / Social situation involved?

Stimulated by the growing demand by amateurs for music that could be played
at home and in private gatherings, composers of the middle and late eighteenth
century produced great number of keyboard works, especially sonatas, which
were widely regarded as the most challenging and rewarding genre for
performers and listeners. Among the most prominent keyboard composers
active in the middle decades of the century, the Italian Domenico Scarlatti
(1685-1757) was also the most original and creative.

Three important works from different periods in the genre

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 10 in C major, K 330 (300h)
is among one of the three works in the cycle of piano sonatas K.330-332. The
sonata was composed in 1783, when Mozart was twenty-seven years old. A
typical performance of this sonata lasts around twenty minutes.
The sonata is in three movements:
1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante cantabile
3. Allegretto
I: Allegro moderato[edit]
The first movement typically takes about five minutes to nine minutes to
perform. The movement shows a two clear major themes, which have been
decorated by the use of ornamentation, as was typical of the time.
The movement is composed of an exposition, a development and a
recapitulation.
The first subject is in tonic key of C major and modulates to the dominant, G
major, for the exposition of the second subject. The development is more
intense and contains wider modulations. In the recapitulation, the first subject
is heard, again in C major. The music then modulates to G major, and then
returns to C major for the recapitulation of the second subject in the tonic key.
II: Andante cantbile
The second movement takes between five and seven minutes to perform. The
very end of the movement which Mozart wrote was misplaced in the
autograph.

III: Allegretto
The third movement is the most energetic movement among the movements in
the sonata. Performance times range from three to five minutes. Use of
arpeggios is prevalent throughout the piece. Like the second movement, the
last few bars were lost in the autograph as well.

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, known as

the Waldstein, is one of the three most notable sonatas of his middle
period (the other two being the Appassionata, Op. 57, and Les Adieux, Op.
81a). Completed in summer 1804 and surpassing Beethoven's previous piano
sonatas in its scope, the "Waldstein" is a key early work of Beethoven's
'Heroic' decade (18031812) and set a standard for piano composition in the
grand manner.
The sonata's name derives from Beethoven's dedication to his close friend and
patron Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein of Vienna.
Ist mov. Allegro con brio
The sonata opens with repeated pianissimo chords in a straightforward but
anxious rhythm, devoid of melody for two bars. It then swiftly ascends,
followed by a three-note descent in the middle register and a four-note descent
in the upper. The rhythm rumbles on until the notes seem almost to stumble
over themselves.
2nd movement-Introduzzione , adagio molto
The Introduzione is a short Adagio in 6/8 time that serves as an introduction to
the third movement. This replaced an earlier, longer middle movement, later

published as the Andante favori, WoO 57. The music gradually gets more
agitated before calming down to segue into the Rondo.
Third movement: Rondo. Allegretto moderato - Prestissimo
Opening bars of final movement
The Rondo begins with a pianissimo melody played with crossed hands that
soon returns fortissimo, over daringly fast scales in the left hand and a
continuous trill on the dominant in the right, as described above. The second
theme, a series of broken chords in triplets, is soon interrupted by a turbulent
section in A minor that foreshadows the central episode.
The Piano Sonata in G major, D. 894 (Op. 78) by Franz Schubert is
a sonata for solo piano, completed in October 1826. The work is sometimes
called the "Fantasie", a title which the publisher Tobias Haslinger gave to the
first movement of the work, and not Schubert himself
I. Molto moderato e cantabile
G major
II. Andante
D major
III. Menuetto: Allegro moderato - Trio
B minor
Trio in B major
IV. Allegretto
G major
A typical performance runs approximately 35 minutes.

Peter Pesic commented on Donald Francis Tovey's observation that Schubert

used a "circle of sixths" series of key signatures in the fourth movement of this
sonata, in the sequence G E B = C G = A .[4]
The opening theme of the third movement is remarkably similar to the second
theme of the first movement of Schuberts second Piano Trio both in rhythm
and in note progression.

Symphony
Where did the genre come from?
Sonatas and orchestral compositions of similar form during the early part of
the eighteenth century (1730) adopted the overall shape of the Italian opera
overture or sinfonia, and also influenced by the late Baroque concerto, the
orchestral suite, and the trio sonata. About 1700, the overture had assumed a
three-movement structure in the order fast-slow-fast: an Allegro, a short
lyrical Andante, and a finale in a dance rhythm such as a minueto or a gigue.
Except insofar as such overtures incorporated contrast and drama into their
musical rhetoric, they usually had no thematic connection with the operas they
introduced and were played as independent pieces in concerts. It was a natural
step, then, for Italian composers to begin writing concert symphonies using
the general plan of opera overtures. The earliest of these, dating from around
1730, are equally indebted to the late Baroque concert, the orchestral suite,
and the trio sonata in details of structure, texture, and thematic style.

Who was involved in its development?

From Italy the symphony spread north to Germany, Austria, France and
England. Mannheim and Berlin were the principal German centers of

symphonic composition after 1740. Under the leadership of Bohemian

composer Johann Stamitz (1717-1757), The Mannheim Orchestra became
renowed all over Europe for its discipline and impecable technique, prompting
Charles Burney to call it an army of generals. It was also famous for its
astonishing and novel dynamic range from the softest pianissimo to the
loudest fortissimo- and for the thrilling sound of its crescendo, both effects
that Stamitz explioted in his music.
Stamitz was the first symphony composer to use consistently what
would later become the standard plan: four movements, with a minuet and trio
as the third movement, and a very fast finale, often marked Presto. He was
also among the first to introduce a strongly contrasting and full-blown theme
after the modulation to the dominant in the first section of an allegro
moevement, a practice that likewise became estndar.
The principal symphonist of the Berlin, or north German, school
clustered around Frederick the Great, who was himself a composer; Johann
Gottlieb Graun (1702/03-1771) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
were two of its chief members.
Other centers of symphonic activity included Vienna and Paris. In
Vienna, Georg Christipher Wagenseil (1715-1777) and others wrote
symphonies that feature pleasant lyricism and good humor, as well as the
contrasting first-movement theme groups that later became important
characteristics of Mozarts music. In Paris, an important center of composition
and publication in the mid-eighteenth century, symphonies flowed from the
citys presses. Foreign composers flocked to the city, including Sanmartini,
Stamitz and Wagenseil. The Belgian Francoise-Joseph Gossec (1734-1829)
came to Paris in 1751 and eventually established himself as one of Frances
leading composers of symphonies, string quartets, and comic operas. He

became one of the most popular composers of the Revolutionary period and
one of the first directors of the Paris Conservatoire.
Social situation?

Three important works from different periods in the genre?

One of the early works in this genre, the Symphony in F Major No. 32 (ca.
1740) by Giovanni Battista Sanmartini (1701-1775) of Milan, is scored for
two violins, viola and bass, played by cellos and probaly hapischord and
bassoon. There are three contrasting movements in the fast-slow-fast format,
each relatively short. The opening presto presents a variety of ideas in rapid
sucession, much like a Scarlatti keyboard sonata. It follows the firstmovement form described by Koch in a concise thirty-eight measures. Each
phrase of the form has one or two distinctive ideas, and their diversity helps to
make the structure clear.
Haydns symphony no. 92 in G Major (Oxford) illustrates many elements that
characterize his symphonic techniques. In the first movement, Haydn creates
contrasts between stability and instability, and each thematic area in the
exposition contains a variety of ideas. In the development, Haydn uses a
vaiety of techniques to manipulate motives from the exposition; he sometimes
disguised or played down the appearance of the recapitulation, which repeats
all themes in the tonic and often amplifies the transition. In the second
movement, Haydn usually offered songlike themes and simple forms to
contrast with the drama and complexity of the first movement. The minuet and
trio provided relaxation, since it was shorter tan the second movement, was
written in a more popular style. The finale, usually in sonata form, rondo

form, or sonata-rondo form, closes the symphony with a buildup of tension, a

climax,

and

release.

Schuberts unfinished (No.8, 1822, in only two movements) has been called
the first truly romantic symphony by virtue of its songlike melodies, its
adventurous harmonic excursions, and its innovative colors and textures, all
pioneered in his Lieder.

Schubert met his listeners expectations for

symphonic development while devoting the main thematic areas to the

presentation of memorable, seductive melodies like those of his songs. This
practice, to maintain the outward form of the symphony while infusing it with
more lyrical context, was a solution adopted by many romantic composers.
The first movement is in sonata form, development section begins qith quiet
restatement of the opening theme in the subdominant and rises a prolongued
climax in the same key.
The 2nd mov alternates 2 contrasting themes in sonatine form. The fragment of
scherzo intended as a third mov returns to B minor with a G major trio.

Concerto
Where did the genre come from?
The instrumental concerto was a new kind of orchestral composition,
developed in the 1680s and 1690s and destined to become the most important
type of Baroque instrumental music and to establish the orchestra as the
leading instrumental ensemble. Like the vocal concerto, it united two
contrasting forces into a harmonious whole in an instrumental version of the
concertato medium. It combined this texture with other traits favored at the
time: florid melody over a firm bass; musical organization base don tonality;

an multiple movements with contrasting tempos, modos and figurations.

Concertos were closely related to sonatas and served many of the same
purposes: they were played at public ceremonies, entertainments, and private
musical gatherings, and they could substitute for elements of the mass. By
1700, composers were writing three kinds of concertos. The first two types,
concert grosso and solo concerto, were more numerous and more important.
The concert grosso set a small ensemble (concertino) of solo instruments
against a large ensemble (concert grosso o ripieno, meaning full). In the solo
concert, a single instrument, most often a violin, contrasted witht he large
ensemble. The third type, the orchestral concerto, was a work in several
movements that emphasized the first violin part and the bass, distinguishing
the concert from the more contrapuntal texture of the sonata.

Who was involved in its development?/Social situation involved?

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Venice, though declining in
political power and headed for economic ruin, still remained the most
glamorous city in Europe. It was fullof tourists, tradespeople, intellectuals,
artists and musicians. Venice also nurtures a unique group of institutions that
were actually state-run shelters for chronically ill, por, or homeless children.
The Pio Ospedale della Pieta was one of such hospitals that provided quality
music education for women outside the convent and that became famous as
musical centers. From 1703 to 1740, Vivladi was conductor, composer,
teacher, and superintendent of musical instruments at the Pio Ospedale della
Pieta. His job required meeting the publics demand for new music. Vivaldi
was expected to furnish new oratorios and concertos for every church holiday
at the Pieta. Vivaldi included a remarkable range of colors and sonorities
through different groupings of solo and orchestral instruments. His orchestra

at the pieta probably consisted of twenty to twenty five string instruments,

with hapischord or organ for the continuo.

Three important Works from different periods in the genre

Vivaldis Il Cimento dellarmonia e dellinventione (The test of Harmony and
Invention, 1725) Op. 8, is one of his most famous concerto, specially the first
four, known as The Four Seasons. Each of these is accompanied by a sonnet,
perhaps written by Vivaldi himself, that describe the seasons, and the
concertos cleverly depict the images in the poetry, taking advantage of the
variety possible in ritornello forms. The texture of each concerto is varied,
each resembling its respective season. For example, "Winter" is peppered with
silvery pizzicato notes from the high strings, calling to mind icy rain, whereas
"Summer" evokes a thunderstorm in its final movement, which is why the
movement is often called "Storm" (as noted in the list of derivative works)
Each one is in three movements, with a slow movement between two faster
ones (and these movements likewise vary in tempo amid the seasons as a
whole). At the time of writing The Four Seasons, the modern solo form of the
concerto had not yet been defined (typically a solo instrument and
accompanying orchestra) Vivaldi's original arrangement for solo violin with
string quartet and basso continuo helped to define the form of the concerto
Mozarts Piano Concerto in A Major, k. 488 (1786) follows the traditional
three-movement pattern in the sequence fast-slow-fast. The first movement
contains the general features of a concertos Allegro (solo sections resembling
the exposition, developing and recapitulation of a sonata form, the opening
orchestral ritornello introduces the movements primary theme, among
others). The differences are in the details that make each first movement

unique. The resulting form follows convention in most respects yet may
surprise the listener with several individual features.
In Beethovens Piano Concerto No. 5 in Eb Major, Op. 73 (The Emperor;
1809), Beethoven greatly expanded the music expressive range and
dimensions. At times, the soloist seems pitted against the orchestra, as if
playing the part of a lone hero contending with opposite forces. In the first
movement, the soloist enters with a written out cadenza-like passage even
before the orchestras exposition begins. Such contrast between soloist and
orchestra, rather than cooperation (as in the original meaning of concerto),
was to become a common feature of nineteenth-century concertos.

String Quartet
Where did the genre come from?
The origins of the string quartet can be traced back to the Baroque trio sonata,
in which two solo instruments performed with a continuo section consisting of
a bass instrument (such as the cello) andkeyboard. A very early example is a
four-part sonata for string ensemble by Gregorio Allegri (15821652) that
might be considered an important prototype string quartet. By the early 18th
century, composers were often adding a third soloist; and moreover it became
common to omit the keyboard part, letting the cello support the bass line
alone. Thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled
"Sonata Quattro per due Violini, Violetta [viola], e Violoncello senza
Cembalo" (Sonata for four instruments: two violins, viola, and cello without
harpsichord), this was a natural evolution from existing tradition

Who was involved in its development?

The string quartet rose to prominence with the work of J. Haydn. Haydn's own
discovery of the quartet form appears to have arisen essentially by accident.
Quartet

composition

flourished

in

the

Classical

era,

with Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert writing famous series of quartets to set
alongside Haydn's. A slight slackening in the pace of quartet composition
occurred in the 19th century; here, composers often wrote only one quartet,
perhaps to show that they could fully command this

hallowed genre,

although Antonn Dvok wrote a series of 14. With the onset of the Modern
era of classical music, the quartet returned to full popularity among composer,
and played a key role in the development of Arnold Schoenberg, Bla Bartk,
and Dmitri Shostakovich especially. After WWII, some composers, such
as Pierre Boulez and Olivier Messiaen questioned the relevance of the string
quartet and avoided writing them. However, from the 1960s onwards, many
composers have shown a renewed interest in the genre.
Three important works from different periods in the genre
The six string quartets opus 20 by Joseph Haydn are among the works that
earned Haydn the sobriquet "the father of the string quartet.
The quartets, written in 1772, were composed at a time of tensions in Haydn's
life, and also at a time when Haydn was influenced by new philosophical and
political ideas that were sweeping Europe. Some analysts see the impact of the
emotions and ideas of Sturm und Drang in the quartets.
While the first movement is in straightforward sonata-allegro form, Haydn
nonetheless breaks with the standard quartet model of the period. The second
theme of the exposition is presented by the cello, rather than the violin,
playing in a high register above the viola accompaniment. Haydn also
disguises the return to the recapitulation after the development section of the

movement:[22] after only three bars of development, Haydn returns to the

theme in the tonic, suggesting the beginning of the recapitulation; but instead,
deviates into a series of transpositions, finally sneaking back to the main
theme when least expected. Haydn uses this trick of a pretended recap in
others of the opus 20 quartets.
The second movement is a minuet, one of two from the set that follow all the
rules of the traditional dance (the other is the minuet of number 6). The third
movement is marked "Affettuoso e sostenuto", written in A-flat major as an
aria, with the first violin carrying the melody throughout. The finale,
marked presto, is built on a six-measure phrase, with extensive use of
syncopations in the first violin. In the middle of the movement there is an
extended passage where the first violin plays syncopations and the other
instruments are playing on the second beat of the 2/4 bar; no one plays on the
downbeat, and toward the end of the passage the listener loses track of the
meter, until the main theme returns.

The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 13, was composed by Felix
Mendelssohn in 1827.[1] Written when he was 18 years old, it was, despite its
official number, Mendelssohn's first string quartet. The quartet draws much of
its inspiration from Beethoven's quartets.
This work has four movements:
1. Adagio Allegro vivace
2. Adagio non lento
3. Intermezzo: Allegretto con moto Allegro di molto
4. Presto Adagio non lento
A typical performance lasts about 30 minutes.

The three-note motif from "Ist es wahr?", presented in an opening Adagio in

the key of A Major, establishes the cyclic form of the quartet; the motif
appears in all four of the movements, and concludes the quartet.[4] After the
Adagio

introduction,

the

quartet

breaks

into

tumultuousAllegro

Vivace in Sonata form in A minor. So the quartet, which is mostly in minor

keys, and is primarily minor in character, opens and closes in a major key a
rather daring departure from standard quartet-writing practice of the time. The
opening closely resembles Beethoven's Op. 132 quartet:[5] that quartet, also,
has an opening adagio, then a first theme built of running sixteenth notes and a
lyrical passage, which is close to an inversion of Mendelssohn's theme.
The Adagio movement has a middle slow, fugal section which is modelled
after the fugal middle section of the slow movement of Beethoven's Op. 95.
The subjects of both fugues are sinuous melodies that slide down
chromatically, moving from viola to second violin and then to the other
voices. Like the Beethoven model, the fugue goes through a series of
increasingly complex variations with cross-rhythms in the different
instruments.
The Intermezzo movement opens with a light, gossamer theme which is
Mendelssohn's signature style. The lilting theme in the first violin, with
pizzicato accompaniment in the other instruments, recalls the overture to the
incidental music to A Midsummer Night's Dream (op. 61) and scherzo
movements from many of Mendelssohn's chamber works.

The String Quartet No. 1 in A minor by Bla Bartk was completed in 1909.
The score is dated January 27 of that year.
The work is in three movements, played without breaks between each:

1. Lento
2. Allegretto (sometimes referred to as Poco a poco accelerando
all'allegretto) - Introduzione
3. Allegro vivace
The work was at least in part inspired by Bartk's unrequited love for the
violinist Stefi Geyer - in a letter to her, he called the first movement a "funeral
dirge" and its opening notes trace a motif which first appeared in his Violin
Concerto No. 1, a work dedicated to Geyer and suppressed by Bartk for
many years. The intense contrapuntal writing of this movement is often
compared to Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14, the opening
movement of which is a slow fugue.
The following two movements are progressively faster, and the mood of the
work lightens considerably, ending quite happily. The third movement is
generally considered to be the most typical of Bartk's mature style, including
early evidence of his interest in Hungarian folk music.