COLEGIO ANGLO COLOMBIANO DEPARTMENT OF VISUAL ARTS MUSIC Pr.

Daniela Quadrio

Classical and Romantic Period

Nicols Urdaneta Grado 8

The classism as a musical movement begins around the first thirty years of the second part of the XVIII century, with the death of Johan Sebastian Bach. It terminates when its successor, romanticism begins in 1830. With its mayor representatives, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Clementi, classism had special qualities such as elegancy, equilibrium and clarity in its simple rhythms. The music that was developed in the classical period came quite late, about one century after the classism began in general. But it was only because before the musical classism, there was a pre classical time, this was what allowed the real musical classism to emerge with those four magnificent composers, without taking away any credit to many other ones, led by J.S Bach probably the most acknowledged musician of this period, again, without undervaluing many of the great composers in history. But this happens because Bach is the one that takes this `pre classism to its highest point. But there was a reason why the first century of classical period was not developed in music and it became part of it when Haydn and Mozart began to do some changes on the music of the time, with some changes involved with the rhythm of the piece. The change between these two periods was that these two composers (Haydn and Mozart) started to concern more on the melody of the music. They applied what is called vertical writing, meaning that they started to use simultaneous pitches, chords, notes, to the purpose of taking them to a resolution, or chord progression. This can be noticed in several of Mozarts very well, you can tell that every section of the piece is being led to a resolution giving it a pause, not necessarily of time but for the melody to change. Classism music had various characteristics, others from the ones mentioned before: a regular structure, a harmonic language. Another difference between baroque music and classism, (baroque could be also known as pre-classism) is that classical music, used a larger variety of keys, melodies and rhythms, also by using more crescendos and diminuendos than before, so the piece would not get repetitive. Before Haydn and Mozart, the music was composed with a horizontal kind of music, also known as counterpoint. Counterpoint consisted of the use of several voices or melodies being played at the same time, but every single one independent from the other. Probably the greatest change or modification to the music of the time was that symphonies started to blossom, symphonies where a great way to mix several voices to a magnificent piece of music.

Romanticism came just after classism, but it was kind of announced, during the last few years of classism, there was already a transition to romantic music. Beethoven was probably he who made its biggest part on the change, he was part of classism but his

contributions were not as much to classism as to its predecessor. Romanticism began around the last five years that classism was ending, but it actually did not end, it evolved into romantic music. As fact, Classism became Romanticism in 1830 and this period ended around 80 years later, in 1910. There were some particularities of romantic music and some of those were, the larger use of chromaticism, this is when you start to play notes that are all one half tone from the previous one (Beethovens Fur Elise has a part with a chromaticism effect, very noticeable) specially with a dissonant ending, dissonant means a sound that does not sound right, noticed in some chords. Another thing that was well noticed in this music period was the use of a note that was remotely separated from the previous one. Also, the start of the use of diminish sevenths and its relative chords, this came with the use of un used chords, because for most, they sounded weird, these were just dissonant, with as purpose of tension sometimes or the use of a sound that could feel awkward. This period of music was very important for later musicians, because they showed a different type of music, they used other sounds, that people did not think that would work but they proved wrong, not technically wrong, but the thing is that if it was music that began a few decades before, it might have been in comprehended. Beethovens, Shuberts works were very well received specially knowing that both of them where who began this magnificent music. Later on Chopin and Liszt came with many other fantastic composers, but from all of these romantic composers, these four were the ones that are known more today than many others by most. Classic music is also very important but even though its changes were not as big as giving more sounds for people to hear, they did brought new ways to play music, ways that were very different, specially in its structure, same as what romanticism used, classism music was a way for romantic music to emerge in its full form. Even though both great in its own way.

Bibliography BROSSARD, Yoland de (1983) El Clasicismo Musical. In: Gran Larousse Universal (vol 5, pg 2840-2841) Place: Barcelona, Spain; Plaza y Jans.

Classical Period (music) (2011). Wikipedia the Free Encyclopedia. BARZUN, Jacques (1965) Romanticism. In: Colliers Encyclopedia. (vol 20 pg 162-167) Place: USA Romantic Music (2011) Wikipedia The free Encyclopedia