Name: Ntombizodwa Ndlebe
Student number: 201705107
Assignment 12: Genre Research
Research about the Western Music eras (Remember Wikipedia is not a credible source!)
Medieval era
The word “Medieval” is taken from the Latin word “Medius” which means “Middle”.
The middle age period in the Western History is known as the Dark Ages.
It was the period of the Western civilization and when it broke down in its different ways and become quite complicated, the cultural progressives of the very long Greece and Rome were essentially lost with the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 A.D.
Music of the Medieval Period
Monody_ Monophonic Music
(Meaning ” one sound “)
The melodies are not accompanied by any instruments,a single line melodies
They are known as plainchant and were used as the early Christians music.
Development in Medieval Music
Polyphony (meaning ” many sounds ” )
Two or more lines of music,standing independently/ played at the same time.
A system of symbols representing musical notes began to be improved around the same time of the polyphony development.
Renaissance era
Its a term for the period history between 1450 and 1600 and it has a lagacy in Italy.
At this time a renaissance of man came about,restoring the rational and inventive values of conventional distant times.
The important events of the season
Discovery of America by Columbus in 1492
Invention of printing by Gutenberg in 1455
Luther’s Protestant Reformation and Anglicat reform
Rise of modern science with Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo Galilei
How was the society?
In the economic development of trade and mercantilism
Knight assumes great importance which replaces the court
Rise of the Bourgeoisie one important situation
Time of the great confrontation between the lords and kings
The musicians life during the Renaissance times
The musical life was linked to the power and royal court
The musicians depended on the churches
The musician is produced in the empire of faith, receives universal and music guidance
Chapels Musicians
They serve the king
They are a group of musicians brought to encourage parties and travel
They have many opportunities and they earn lots of money
Renaissance Music
The renaissance is a time where musical sonata,where several voices sound at a time
Dance Music
This was very important in the renaissance times,it was very popular
The dancers were paired up and were moving according to the song,always quick with another slow
The Renaissance dances
Pavane
Gallarda
Passamezzo
Saltarello
The Renaissance instruments
Wind:
Viento madera woodwind
Bajon
Chirimia
Orlo
Serpent on
Viento mental brass
Trompetas
Cometas
Sacabuche
Cornamusa
2. Strings:
Bowed string
Violas
String dotted
Harp
Lute
Vihuela
The two categories according to their sound power
Musica Alta
These are instruments which are high in terms of sound power and they are normally used for outdoor public events.
Musica Baja
These are instruments which are of a mild intensity, they are normally used for indoors interpretation.
Baroque era
The baroque is a style and a period at the same time.
It is used to show overstatement gesture, drama,pressure and etc…in paintings, literature, dance and music
It started around 1600 in Rome,Italy and Europe
Characteristics of baroque music
Mood_the baroque music conveys one sentiment at a time,for example if a song is about happiness, therefore the song has to be about that throughout and if its about sadness, it should convey that theme throughout the the entire song
Melody_most of the baroque melodies are long,compound and sophisticated containing a apparently everlasting string of notes.They are complicated to sing or play and they often need a massive gasp run and lot of rehearsal to complete.
Basso continuo_Its a type of musical addition that is used in the baroque period, this instrument consists of a harpsichord and cello but it also includes other instruments like organs
Dynamics_
Texture_a lot of music of baroque period has a polyphony (there are many voices or melodic lines taking place at the same time)consistency
The baroque instruments
– Harpsichord
-Bassoon
-Violin
-Timpani
– Organ
– Oboe
The society
Classical era.
The element of drama and suprise are emphasized
The change of dynamic
Changing of mood
The vocal forms
Opera
Mixture of music,drama and scene
Types of opera
Opera seria_it gives emphasis to the unaccompanied voice
Opera buffa_its a show for people with the familiar effort or anxiety
Instruments forms
Sonata “sonare” (Latin)
Its a musical masterpiece for one or two instrument/s, in numerous arrangements
Sonata- Allegro
-Exposition
-Development
-Recapitulation
2.Symphony
Its a opus for a orchestra with 4 travels
It normally lasts for about to 1200-2700 secondwhich is about 20-45 minutes
it has four activities:
Unhurried
Speedy
Lively and fast
Brilliant/ swift
3.Concerto
It can be used for a unaccompanied instruments like the violin or any other instruments, addition by the orchestra
It has three arrangements
The symphony form
Romantic and sluggish
Prompt
4.Suite
Its performed for a concert setting and not for addition
Musical instruments
-classical clarinet
-violin
-pianoforte
-buccin
-Bassett horn
-chalameau
Chamber music
Its a standard section for a small group of instruments that could fit in an important chamber
The music chamber may consist of the following: string quartet, sextet, trio and quartet or mixed group like trio for violin and piano
Romantic era.
The Romantic period started with the second sector of the nineteenth century. It should be prominent, however, that throughout the history of music there has been a pressure sandwiched between the Classical and Romantic views of life and art. Impartiality against partisanship, form against free will, and independence against universality are problems that composers and other artists have confronted in every age. Romantic tendencies were unmistakable in the music of all three of the finest Viennese standard composers (predominantly Mozart and Beethoven), and by the end of Beethoven’s profession, the passionate strength was powerfully well-established in Europe, outstanding the prevailing in music awaiting the establishment of the twentieth century.
There are some basic Romantic description that should be eminent to inaugurate this conversation. Classicism and impracticality symbolize two opposite views of life and art. Where classicism aims, impracticality is slanted. Manage the vocal worry, steadiness between disagreement and consonance,the caution and the whole utilization of thematic exploitation give standard music a exact and decrete strict configuration. Equally, the Romantic spirit needs the loosen of formal constraints and the outgoing appearance of the entity composer’s information and sentiment.
According to John Keats, the romantic period is a term applied to the literature of approximately the first third of the nineteenth century. During this time, literature began to move in channels that were not entirely new but were in strong contrast to the standard literary practice of the eighteenth century.
How the word romantic came to be applied to this period is something of a puzzle. Originally the word was applied to the Latin or Roman dialects used in the Roman provinces, especially France, and to the stories written in these dialects. Romantic is a derivative of romant, which was borrowed from the French romaunt in the sixteenth century. At first it meant only “like the old romances” but gradually it began to carry a certain taint. Romantic, according to L. P. Smith in his Words and Idioms, connoted “false and fictitious beings and feelings, without real existence in fact or in human nature”; it also suggested “old castles, mountains and forests, pastoral plains, waste and solitary places” and a “love for wild nature, for mountains and moors.”
The word passed from England to France and Germany late in the seventeenth century and became a critical term for certain poets who scorned and rejected the models of the past; they prided themselves on their freedom from eighteenth-century poetic codes. In Germany, especially, the word was used in strong opposition to the term classical.
The grouping together of the so-called Lake poets (Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey) with Scott, Byron, Keats, and Shelley as the romantic poets is late Victorian, apparently as late as the middle 1880s. And it should be noted that these poets did not recognize themselves as “romantic,” although they were familiar with the word and recognized that their practice differed from that of the eighteenth century.
According to René Wellek in his essay “The Concept of Romanticism” (Comparative Literature, Volume I), the widespread application of the word romantic to these writers was probably owing to Alois Brandl’s Coleridge und die romantische Schule in England (Coleridge and the Romantic School in England, translated into English in 1887) and to Walter Pater’s essay “Romanticism” in his Appreciations in 1889.
The reaction to the standard literary practice and critical norms of the eighteenth century occurred in many areas and in varying degrees. Reason no longer held the high place it had held in the eighteenth century; its place was taken by imagination, emotion, and individual sensibility. The eccentric and the singular took the place of the accepted conventions of the age. A concentration on the individual and the minute replaced the eighteenth-century insistence on the universal and the general. Individualism replaced objective subject matter; probably at no other time has the writer used himself as the subject of his literary works to such an extent as during the romantic period. Writers tended to regard themselves as the most interesting subject for literary creation; interest in urban life was replaced by an interest in nature, particularly in untamed nature and in solitude. Classical literature quickly lost the esteem which poets like Pope had given it. The romantic writers turned back to their own native traditions. The Medieval and Renaissance periods were ransacked for new subject matter and for literary genres that had fallen into disuse. The standard eighteenth-century heroic couplet was replaced by a variety of forms such as the ballad, the metrical romance, the sonnet, ottava nina, blank verse, and the Spenserian stanza, all of which were forms that had been neglected since Renaissance times. The romantic writers responded strongly to the impact of new forces, particularly the French Revolution and its promise of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The humanitarianism that had been developing during the eighteenth century was taken up enthusiastically by the romantic writers. Wordsworth, the great champion of the spiritual and moral values of physical nature, tried to show the natural dignity, goodness, and the worth of the common man.
The combination of new interests, new attitudes, and fresh forms produced a body of literature that was strikingly different from the literature of the eighteenth century, but that is not to say that the eighteenth century had no influence on the romantic movement. Practically all of the seeds of the new literary crop had been sown in the preceding century.
The romantic period includes the work of two generations of writers. The first generation was born during the thirty and twenty years preceding 1800; the second generation was born in the last decade of the 1800s. The chief writers of the first generation were Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, Southey, Blake, Lamb, and Hazlitt. The essayist Thomas De Quincey, born in 1785, falls between the two generations.
Keats and Shelley belong to the second generation, along with Byron, who was older than they were by a few years. All three were influenced by the work of the writers of the first generation and, ironically, the careers of all three were cut short by death so that the writers of the first generation were still on the literary scene after the writers of the second generation had disappeared. The major writers of the second romantic generation were primarily poets; they produced little prose, outside of their letters. Another striking difference between the two generations is that the writers of the first generation, with the exception of Blake, all gained literary reputations during their lifetime. Of the writers of the second generation, only Byron enjoyed fame while he was alive, more fame than any of the other romantic writers, with perhaps the exception of Scott, but Keats and Shelley had relatively few readers while they were alive. It was not until the Victorian era that Keats and Shelley became recognized as major romantic poets.
Reference
https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/sonyacline/the-romantic-period-22724914
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/k/keats-poems/about-the-romantic-period
http://cmed.faculty.ku.edu/private/romantic.html