• Note-taking Guide for Notion

History

• “classical” - old fashioned, stood the test of time, best/highest example of a type, Ancient Greek/Roman civlization
  • “classic” - has stood the test of time

The Enlightenment

• late 18th to early 19th century
• age of reason
• Historical events
  • American revolution (1776)
  • French revolution (1789-1799)
  • Industrial revolution, Franklin, Watt, Whitney, etc.
  • increased importance of middle (merchant) class
• Vienna as the musical centre of Europe
• Philosophy: age of Voltaire, Kant
  • world can be understood through reason (link to Ancient Greece)
  • advancement of science from Renaissance became drastic and accelerated
• systematization
  • Samuel Johnson, dictionaries, French encyclopedists
  • led to form and organization in music
    • Rameau: Treatise on Harmony - attempt to systematize music theory
• absolute music
  • music with no extra-musical associations
  • instrumental, abstract

Characteristics of Classical Music

1. Balanced melodic phrases
2. Simple harmonies
3. Light accompaniment

Genres

Opera

• people began to criticize Baroque opera
  • too centralized on mythology or histrosical figures, not real people and actual situations
• comic opera - simpler music, down-to-earth characters, amusing plots

Symphony