Music through the ages

Music through the ages 

Musical forms, kinds and languages

The form is the architectural presentation of the music: the way in which the musical ideas are articulated and develop in time in a coherent whole.

It is based on three essential principles, commun runs with other arts: symmetry (factor of balance and solidity), the repetition (which constrained the listener with the identification and memorizing) and the movement (generating the dynamism, the action towards a given goal). The formal processes thus rest on elements of unit and contrast, acting on several levels: presentation of initial ideas, the projection towards paroxysms and their resolution, the articulation of the particular entities in vaster units. The binary formats (in two parts, AB), monothematic (founded on a single topic), generally present a section of exposure and its answer, where the topic can be transposed, varied or developed. As for the ternary forms (ABA), known as still forms Lied, they rest on the succession contrasting-réexposition exposure-section.  

One of the most elaborate forms of the Western music remains the sonata form. Composed of an exposure (two topics, connected by a transition), of a central development and a réexposition, it is used in the instrumental compositions: sonata, trio, quartet, quintet, symphony. The forms are also one of the elements which make it possible to identify the various musical genres, characterized in addition by their manpower (vocal or instrumental components, soloists or units), their atmosphere and their destination (concert hall, theater, place of worship).  

The musical kinds and languages did not cease evolving of Antiquity until our century.

Music in Antiquity

If the representations of music scenes are numerous in the old ages of the Mediterranean basin (Mésopotamie, Egypt), the Bible is also rich in musical mentions. Indeed, as of chapter IV of the Genesis, the invention of sound art is allotted to Youbal; Brace strikes up a song after the crossing of the Red Sea, and it is known that the toothing-stone of David could calm the furies of Saül.  

In Greek mythology, the place of the music is not less: the quadrant of Amphion is enough so that the stones intended pile up to build the walls of Thèbes; Arion, abandoned in open sea by the pirates, is saved by dolphins which the softness of its song tenderizes; Orphée alleviates the wild animals and arouses the pity of the gods of the Hells by the charm of its music.  

If there remains sound art of the Greeks only some rare testimonies, the importance which to this art the poets grant and the philosophers (Pythagore, Plato, Aristoxène) testifies to the role which was it his in this civilization, whose convictions and practices influenced then the patricians of ancient Rome.  
 

Music with the Middle Ages

At the time medieval, the Roman Roman Catholic Church was the dominant unifying force of the Western music. Works which reached us are in nuns majority, copied in the monasteries and often founded on the Gregorian plainsong, whose modal lines, generally joint, inspired the polyphony crowned like the profane song.  

The liturgical song, related on the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) and to the office (vespers, complies), is used indeed basic for the organum, the first kind polyphonic (conceived for several voices). Triphonic and even quadraphonic Diphonique then, this one culminates in the great compositions of the school of Notre-Dame de Paris, of which the most famous representative is, to the XII E century, Pérotin the Large one; in these organums with singing exercises, the plainsong is stretched in inordinately long values with low, while two or three higher votes unroll important melisms (ornaments of vast scale) on the vowels of the Latin text.  

When words are placed under the singing exercises of the organum, this one becomes syllabic and disappears to give rise to the motet (of Latin motetus, “short note”), major kind of the medieval music. The most serious voice made there hear, in held notes, a liturgical melody of source (the tenor), cut out in identical rhythmic cells (according to the principle of the isorythmy), whereas one or two higher melodies (voices known as double and triple) is sometimes equipped with different texts (motets pluritextuels, sometimes even bilingual). The first polyphonic fragments of masses (masses of Turned, of Besancon, of Barcelona) are designed to the XIII E and XIV E centuries in an often identical style.  

Song profanes Latin, we preserved few traces, if it is not the discovered collection with Beuren (Dyed with carmine burana) and dating from the XIII E century. At the same time in the feudal company a tradition of songs in language vernacular, profane and monodic culminates (with a voice), corresponding to the art of the troubadours, trouveres, minstrels and minnesänger in Germany: ballades, rondos, virelais, resulting from the poetic forms then to the mode. This profane art makes first great strides through the polyphony of the XIV E century, time of stylistic revival which indicates itself by the expression Ars nova (Philippe de Vitry). Works are learnedly worked out, the forms lengthen; the more complex rhythm made there, mixing from now on binary formats and ternary, curiously cutting up the melody through the technique of the hiccup. The most famous French composer of this time is Guillaume de Machaut, author of the first unit mass (known as Messe Nostre-Lady), of motets and songs (ballades, alluvium, rondos, virelais).  

In Italy, the madrigal, and two poético-musical kinds, the ballata, the caccia (founded on the imitation of the higher voices), affirm the importance of the secular inspiration, which opens out here in a greater simplicity of language. At the beginning of the XV E century, the court of Burgundy will confirm this tendency with Gilles Binchois and Antoine Busnois, by proposing soon a return to a less complex style, taken again by the Flemish school, whose Guillaume Dufay affirms the importance. The musicians free-Flemish (Johannes Ockeghem, Jakob Obrecht, Josquin Of the Meadows) were considerably to influence Italy at the end of the XV E century.  
 

Music of the Rebirth

The music of the Rebirth (1450-1600) is characterized by a greater fluidity and a quasi systematic recourse to the imitation, extended soon to all the voices, thus giving rise to extremely balanced polyphonies, whose works of Roland de Lassus and Palestrina represent the apogee. The major kinds remain those of the Middle Ages (mass, motet, song), which by no means prevents the Tomás Luis de Victoria Spanish from conceiving extremely expressive motets (O your omnes, O magnum mysterium).  

The musics related to the Reform Lutheran and calvinist (chorals, psalms) however introduce a new will of simplification, through repertories intended to be sung by the community of faithful, and either only by well exerted cantors. In reaction to these changes, the Roman Catholic Church will decide, it also, at the time of the council of Thirty, to make more understandable the words of the musical works played in the crowned enclosures and to banish religious compositions any reference to the profane melodies.  

The song, which often takes support on the humanistic spirit of the Rebirth, knows a growing favor then: polyphonic song of Clement Janequin - readily descriptive and even rich in onomatopoeias (the War, Song of the birds) -, simple frottola (piece with three or four votes) or expressive Italian madrigal (Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Gesualdo), German polyphonic Lied or villancico Spanish (of which the topic is the birth of Christ).

In parallel, the instrumental music, which affirms its independence, is not limited any more to accompany the dance or the song. The lute, extremely with the honor, and the keyboard instruments (organ, harpsichord or clavichord) see to open out imaginations, ricercari, canzone and variations, often written on songs in vogue. Whole of instruments, either of the same family (viols or recorders), or mixed (the such broken English consorts), makes hear a similar repertory.  

Music at the time baroque

The Rebirth (1600-1750) had carried to its more extreme development the founded polyphonic style on the imitation, and, as of the end of XVIe century, humanistic research of the musical movement of the Italian camerate (such that of the count Giovanni Bardi, in Florence) were to lead to a new individualization of the voices, announcing a stylistic change of great importance: birth of the accompanied monodie (known as also stile nuovo or stile rappresentativo), which allowed the blossoming of new musical genres (the cantata, the opera and the oratorio).  

The cantata (of Italian cantare, “to sing”), for voice soloists with instrumental accompaniment, devotes the advent of virtuosity (Giulio Caccini), typical of the baroque. This musical genre was maintained until the death of Jean-Sebastien Bach, author of more than two hundred crowned parts of this kind; the cantata more exceptional, and will be then confined often in an academic use (in particular within the framework of the price of Rome of musical composition decreed by the Institute of France, of 1803 to 1969).  

Another musical genre, the oratorio, will know, on the other hand, a more famous destiny. Founded on a religious subject, but without scenic representation, it appears in 1600 with Rappresentazione di animated E di corpo of the Roman composer Emilio de Cavalieri. Just like the opera, it makes alternate orchestral passages, numbers of soloists (recitatives or airs) and choruses; the French Giacomo Carissimi Italian and his disciple Marc Antoine Charpentier are particularly illustrated in this repertory, which was to give rise to the oratorios of Haendel (the Messiah) and to great Passions baroques, such those of Jean-Sebastien Bach (Passion according to Jean saint, Passion according to Matthieu saint).  

The opera, born at the same time, will be destined for a development more still shining. The musical structure in contrasted numbers is accompanied here by decorations (often sumptuous) and ballets where the sovereigns themselves (such Louis XIV) did not scorn to appear. Italy first of all affirms its superiority in this kind (Jacopo Peri, Claudio Monteverdi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi), but is joined soon by other countries like England (Henry Purcell: Didon and Enée) and France (Jean-Baptiste Lully: Alceste). The French taste (respect of probability, tender to the requirements of the declamation, refusal of any excess, importance of the ballet) will not be long in being opposed to the transalpine practices (naturalness and passion), unchaining important esthetic cabals of which all the XVIIIe century will resound (“Quarrel of the Buffoons”).  

In instrumental works continues another great technique baroque, the style concerting, consisting in opposing instrumental soloists and groups (typical style of the concerto grosso), tempos (slow-sharp-slow, as in good of other kinds, the such French opening), nuances (already exploited in the parts in echo or with double chorus, whose Venetian ones had been made a speciality) or other structural elements. Virtuosity gives itself free course in the concerto of soloist, where the instrumentalist deploys all the resources of his art in final rate, born with the example of the improvisation of the singer in the aria; this kind will triumph soon over the concerto grosso baroque, and the invention of the composers (expressive freedom, imitative effects) there is sometimes completely surprising (Antonio Vivaldi: the Four Seasons, 1724).  

As for the instrumental suite, that François Couperin calls order, it continues to juxtapose rhythms of dance moderate (German), sharp (current, gigue), slow (saraband) and free (minuet, gavotte, faggot), linked by the same tonality; but it can also be done more evocative, especially at the French (Claude Daquin, Jean-Philippe Rameau). It will be supplanted soon by the sonata (of Italian sonare, “to sound”), which, after having indicated with the Rebirth any species of instrumental music, will be often written for three parts (sonata in trio), before being entrusted to a soloist (Arcangelo Corelli, Pietro Antonio Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini, all three violonists and also composers).  

Music at the traditional age
1750-1825. If the music of the previous decades is characterized by the low one continues (harmonic accompaniment of the melody), especially founded on the oppositions, the traditional years lead to a new homogeneity of the style. The musical genres (concerto, opera…) are not new, but their forms are stabilized. Whereas the instrumental music had developed much formerly around the violin (carried to perfection by the violin makers Amati and Antonio Stradivari), the piano (still called pianoforte at that time), appeared at the beginning of the XVIIIe century, little by little will triumph over the harpsichord.  

Birth of the symphony
An evolution much clearer still is achieved in the orchestral field: whereas one formerly indicated under the name of sinfonia the opening of opera or even any composition where various stamps mixed, the traditional symphony takes truly its rise, after Giovanni Battista Sammartini and François Joseph Gossec, with Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. At the same time, the chamber music fixes also its forms and its kinds (trios, quartets, quintets…). Exceeding the principle of the simple melody, dynamic oppositions and stamps, the sonata form already starts to impose in these works that of the development and work set of themes.

The opera and its various forms
The opera knows a true revival, first of all through the raising of the quality of the booklets (Apostolo Zeno, Pierre Métastase), then thanks to Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787), who reinforces with it the dramatic aspect and internal coherence (Alceste, Iphigénie in Tauride, etc). These years see also the appearance of a new scenic kind, opened to the characters of modest condition and with the dialogs spoken in vernacular language: the French Opéra Comique (Monsigny, Grétry, Dalayrac, Boieldieu…), parallel with the development of Germanic Singspiel, which illustrates particularly Mozart (Removal with the seraglio, 1782; the Magic Flute, 1791). Later, the crisis of the opera seriated will lead Rossini towards comic works, where he will affirm a liveliness not very common (the Italian to Algiers, 1813; the Barber of Seville, 1816).  
 

Romantic and postromantic music

Traditional forms and kinds were taken again by the composers of the romantic years, which, such Mendelssohn or Brahms, could collect the heritage of it and enrich by it the language (Lieder, sonatas, symphonies, chamber music). In all the repertories, the melody sentence distends, lengthens, under the effect of the rubato, a tempo privileged by Frédéric Chopin, or of the passages cadenza has, close to the improvisation (Franz Liszt). The need for freedom and brightness puts at the last style works virtuosos (Niccolo Paganini), just like the pieces of character without diagram fixes (impromptu, intermezzos, night, preludes, rhapsodies, lovesongs without words…), readily evocative, and in which Robert Schumann (Carnival, Papillons, etc) excels.  

The need for personal expression constrained musicians to modify the old diagrams to follow the idea or the program, like Hector Berlioz in her fantastic Symphony (1830), emblematic of these new tendencies. This recourse to the inspiration extramusicale led even to the birth of a new kind, resulting from the opening to program: the symphonic poem, descriptive orchestral composition, generally in only one movement (Liszt: Preludes; Saint-Saëns: Macabre dance; César Franck: the cursed Hunter).  

The improvements brought to the instrumental invoice make it possible moreover the symphony to increase its manpower, to diversify it also, particularly with regard to the wind instruments (low clarinet, double bassoon, tuba…). At the same time, the dimension of works lengthens to reach exceptional developments at the end of the century, for example in Gustav Mahler, whose Eighth Symphony, known as Symphonie of the Thousand (1907), lasts more than one hour and half.  

The revival of the languages also passes by the interest which from now on the national schools cause, in particular those of East and Northern Europe. Popular melodies and rhythms penetrate in the noblest kinds (of Moldau de Smetana to the Symphony of the New World of DvorSák, via the Cevennes Symphony of Vincent d' Indy). The Spanishs (Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, Manuel de Falla) develop in their works of the dances with the characteristic colors. The Russian school is illustrated particularly in the field of the opera: in Saint-Pétersbourg, works of the group of the Five (Mili Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodine, César Cui, Modest Moussorgski, Nikolaï Rimski-Korsakov) transfer the musical sentence on the inflections of the spoken language.  

The transformations are less spectacular in the vocal music than in the instrumental art. The refinement of the language and attraction for the poetry of quality give birth in France to the kind of the melody, which succeeds the lovesong at the end of the years 1860, when texts of Victor Hugo, of Alfred de Musset, Théophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine are put in music by Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré or Claude Debussy.  

The Italian opera preserves its primacy in first half of the century (Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti), before Giuseppe Verdi does not engage it in new ways by giving more broadth to him (Helped), by packing the symphonic speech and by directing it towards a new form of melody declamation (Otello, Falstaff); Giacomo Puccini inherits her taste for the melody (Manon Lescaut, the Bohemian one, Tosca), but also her orientation towards modernity (Turandot). As for France of 1830, she sees to open out the romantic grand opera of Giacomo Meyerbeer (Robert Devil, the Huguenot ones), before adopting the opera of half-character, characterized per less dramatic intensity, of Charles Gounod (Faust, 1859), the exoticism of Georges Bizet (Carmen, 1875) and the tender curve end of century of Jules Massenet (Manon, 1884; Werther, 1892; Thais, 1894). In Germany, at the beginning of the century, the romanticism found its expression in the lyric works of Carl Maria von Weber, where the mysterious voices of nature resound and where starts to appear the fantastic one (Freischütz, 1821; Euryanthe, 1823).  

But this alliance between arts was to reach a top in Gesamtkunstwerk (“total work of art”) of Richard Wagner. The author indeed proposes there a new type of relation between the literary sentence and the music, plain in a kind of arioso perpetual (halfway between the aria and the recitative), whereas the orchestra weaves the recalls of its leitmotive (conducting reasons) reinforcing the unit of this new musical drama (Tristan, Parsifal, etc).  

The Wagnerian language, its legendary topics, its melodies and its harmonies tended by the chromatism, its orchestra dense will influence a good amount of composers (of César Franck with Richard Strauss), in these years Symbolists which cultivate the imperceptible mystery.  

Music at the XXe century

Music of first half of the XXe century
The reaction will not be made wait. Since 1909, futuristic Filippo Tommaso Marinetti preaches the lapse of memory of the past, the worship of the machine or speed, and makes soon know the Art of the noises (1913) of its disciple Luigi Russolo. At the same time, the Russian Ballet of Serge de Diaghilev imposes in the French capital their coloured decorations and their powerful rhythms (Igor Stravinski: the 1913, Rite of Spring).  

Far from the Wagnerian fogs and fogs debussystes, Jean Cocteau (in the Cock and the Harlequin, expresses of 1918) will take soon the defense of a music simple, daily, near to the circus or jazz, with the example of most innovative of the musicians of this time: Erik Satie (Three Gymnopédies, Parades, Socrate…). Around the famous writer some young artists gather, with particularly modern esthetics, who will form in 1920 celebrates it group of the Six (Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Germaine Tailleferre). Works are done shorter: symphonies of room and opera-minute of Milhaud last less than one fifteen minutes; winds and percussions dominate there; short sentences, acid dissonances and incisive rhythms create there a climate near already to the neoclassicism.  

Years 1920 will be dominated by an esthetics of clearness and concision, represented by Paul Hindemith in Germany, Igor Stravinski (Pulcinella) in France, Sergueï Prokofiev in the USSR. The forms, often borrowed from the Baroque art or traditional (the such continuation), are shortened there sometimes until excess, as in the parts of the school of Vienna (Anton von Webern). Rhythmic energy comes very close to obsession (Maurice Ravel there: Bolero, 1928), the harmonies redouble boldness and the instrumental modes of play diversify to the extreme (Béla Bartók: 1908-1939, string quartets; Sonata for two pianos and percussion, 1937; Concerto for orchestra, 1943).  

The obvious wear of the tonal techniques leads to the focusing of another language, the dodecaphony of Arnold Schönberg, a musical writing founded on series of twelve perfectly equal sounds between them, released from the tyranny of the tonics and dominant of the previous, likely centuries of transformations and varied combinations. This technique of writing, wide later with the other parameters of the sound (integral” or “generalized” serialism “), was to know an important flowering the shortly after the Second world war (Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna, Luigi Nono, Henri Pousseur…) and to generate, through its asymmetrical and discontinuous speech, a particular esthetics.  

The period is fertile in innovations which go multiplying over the years: searchs of Charles Ives (Concord Sonata, 1915) or for Edgar Varèse (Ionization, 1933); microtones of Julián Carrillo, Haba Qualities or Ivan Vychnegradski; prepared piano of John Cage… And yet, the will of return to the expression appears through the group Young person-France, of which the protagonists - Yves Baudrier, Daniel Lesur, André Jolivet and Olivier Messiaen - call in 1936 with a more human art, joining again readily with the obscure forces (Jolivet: Mana, Five ritual Dances).  

Music of second half of the XXe century
This standpoint does not prevent Olivier Messiaen, one of the most notable composers and pedagogs of this time, to affirm its taste for the innovation and research. Moreover, the evolution of technology allows completely spectacular achievements then.

Since 1948, Pierre Schaeffer records and handles in studio the most realistic sounds within the framework of what it calls the “concrete music” (Symphony for a man alone, 1950). At the same time, in Germany, the electronic music, nourished by the infinite possibilities offered by data processing develops; these types of music research always live the centers more the avant-gardists: Cologne, Milan, Warsaw, Paris, where in 1975 the IRCAM (Research institute and of coordination acoustics-music) under the direction of Pierre Boulez opened. Never the music more joined again with sciences only in these last years when the composer comes from there to study the decomposition of the sound spectrum in laboratory to try to recompose it with the instruments of the orchestra (spectral music of Gérard Grisey or Michael Lévinas).  

Manpower, the techniques diversify always more: use of bunches of sounds, even of continuous sounds, a kind of sound continuum (density evaluated through the probability calculus in Iannis Xenakis, “micropolyphonie” of György Ligeti), open works (of which the realization depends mainly on the choices of the interpreter: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Andre Boucourechliev…), effects of stamp and dynamics (Krzysztof Penderecki: Threne, 1960).  

In reaction to this expansion of research and innovations a movement of return to esthetics of the past takes shape; based on the freedom of the choices and entitled “new simplicity”, this will continues in certain composers, in Germany (Wolfgang Rihm, Manfred Trojahn) as in Italy, since the end of the year 1970. Constant restoration supplied with technological advance or inescapable reference to old modes of expression, sound art chose, to the XX E century, alternatively for these two tendencies which continue to be opposed until our days.  

Popular music

At the age where the music rock'n'roll attracts itself the favors of the general public, the Western erudite music does not represent, from the point of view of the diffusion, which a negligible part of world sound art. The varieties, the film music and, especially, the ethnic melodies present, throughout the world, a great diversity of scales, materials and uses.

This repertory is characterized by its functional aspect (related on work or the dance) and by its oral mode of transmission. Songs of love and narrative songs are very widespread there, but the polyphonic practices are rather rare there (except in Italy of North, in Wales or in Sardinia). The musical scales used are often defective (pentatonism) and them extremely specific rhythms of dance (Aragonese jota, faggot from the Auvergne), sometimes irregular (Bulgaria and Romania). As for the instruments, they preserve very different characters according to the geographical surfaces: Breton bagpipe or zampogna Italian, Norwegian panpipes Rumanian, galoubet of Provence, hardingfele, hurdy-gurdy from the Auvergne.

After the first historical searches of the XIX E century and more musical research of the beginning of the XX E (Bartók, Kodály), the general public takes taste with the folklore during the inter-war period (period of the folk music music revival). The best proof is the emergence of the country music, this American white repertory forged with the image of the music popular, centered especially around Nashville (Tennessee) and entrusted to the beginning with the string instruments (banjo, guitar, violin). In particular Jemmie Rogers and Hank Williams are marked there. In the years 1960, this style, combined with some more modern rhythms, gives rise to the country rock'n'roll.  

The musical
It is undoubtedly the taste of the Americans for the European, French operetta (Jacques Offenbach), English (Arthur Sullivan) or Viennese (Johann Strauss), which, combined with the vogue of the song, gave birth to at the end of the XIX E century on the New Yorkean scenes the first spectacles founders from the kind. Still was necessary it to establish these diagrams in the familiar universe with this public; it is what did, in 1927, Jerome Kern with Show Boat: the way opened with the musicals, where spoken dialogs, songs, choruses, units and ballets alternate.

The melodies of Irving Berlin or Cole Porter could allure the listeners, sometimes led on the borders of the opera (Porgy and Bess of George Gershwin, 1935). The luxury of the spectaculars attracted then prestigious interpreters (Fred Astaire, Judy Garland), and soon the kind invades the screens and the scenes of the whole world: large was thus the success of an American in Paris (music of Gershwin, film of Vincente Minnelli, 1951) or of My Fair Lady (on a music of Frederick Loewe, 1956).   Currently, the recoveries in Broadway of last successes are however considered - in addition to the interest of the public for the history of the kind - as a proof of the crisis which touches this repertory.