ClassicalMusic (19-12-03)

DDEX Data Dictionary, 19-12-03

ClassicalMusic

Traditional Western art music. Though wide-ranging in sound and style, it is largely characterized by its system of staff notation, and often by its musical complexity.

Relationships
Parents	MusicalWork	A Work intended to be perceivable as a combination of sounds, with or without accompanying text.
Children	Acousmatic	Sound is heard, but the sound source is not clearly discernable. It is typically used in connection with musique concréte, a style of music that involves the layering and manipulation of multiple independent sounds by creative use of tape. The term acousmatic can also be applied to nondiegetic film music, or to all fixed media compositions, whether in combination with live sound sources or not.
	AmbrosianChant	[missing definition]
	ArsAntiquaMusic	Refers mostly to sacred or polyphonic music written between 1170 and 1310. It saw advances in conception and notation of rhythm such as the use of rhythmic modes in music notation. Forms such as organum and conductus were prominent, as was the Notre Dame school of polyphony, which featured independent, overlapping melodic lines. The motet began to developed toward the end of the Ars Antiqua period.
	ArsNovaMusic	Can refer either specifically to a style from France and the Low Countries roughly between 1310 and 1377 or to all European polyphonic music of the same time period. Ars Nova features rhythmic innovations over the Ars Antiqua, including notational developments such as the isorhythm that made it possible for composers to write more rhythmically sophisticated pieces than rhythmic modes previously allowed. The polyphonic innovations made in the sacred realm in the previous century began to spread into the secular realm in the 14th century.
	BaroqueMusic	Western art music composed from approximately 1580 to 1760. Common-practice tonality began to emerge in the Baroque era, moving from the Renaissance era focus on independent melodic lines toward a key-centric view of tonality and an emphasis on formal separation of bass, melody, and accompaniment. Baroque music often features elaborate musical ornamentation and looser implied rules regarding counterpoint and dissonance than Renaissance music. Western musical groups and forms expanded in size, range, complexity and variety during the Baroque era - forms such as the opera, cantata, oratorio, solo concerto, sonata, and fugue emerged during this time. In contrast to later Classical eras, Baroque performers were often skilled improvisers of melodic lines and accompaniment, and improvisation and ornamentation were fundamental elements of many Baroque performances. The Baroque era saw the increasing preeminence of instruments and instrumental forms - composers began to write for specific instruments and instrumental ensembles with texture in mind, as opposed to the earlier Renaissance focus on vocal music and the limitation of instrumental music largely to transcriptions of vocal music.
	ByzantineChant	[missing definition]
	ClassicalCrossover	Popular classical music and pop music with classical stylings.
	ClassicalPeriodMusic	Era of classical music between roughly 1730 and 1820. The sound of classical music during this time was less complex than during the Baroque period and featured clear melodies. Also, orchestras became larger during this time and sections in a piece became increasingly contrasting, which led the way into the Romantic era.
	ContemporaryMusic	Contemporary Classical refers to increasingly divergent developments in art music following the death of serial music composer Anton Webern in 1945, and includes diverse genres such as electroacoustic music, musique concréte, minimalist music, experimental music, post-modern music, spectral music, and sound art.
	Early20thCentury	Diverse array of genres, from late Romantic styles, French Impressionism, jazz-influenced composition, and Expressionism, to the emergence of modernism and post-modernism as guiding philosophies.
	EarlyBaroque	Approximately from 1580 to 1630 baroque music began to transition Western art music from Renaissance norms, as the Florentine Camerata, a group of humanists, artists, and intellectuals inspired by Ancient Greek musical practice, began to codify certain exceptions to the rule in Renaissance music as the new norm - things such as emphasis on separate melody, bass, and accompaniment, and harmony and single-key tonality over multiple independent melodic lines and counterpoint. Early Baroque saw the spread of the idea that a sequence of chords rather than just a sequence of notes could provide movement and closure to a piece of music. Claudio Monteverdi is a major figure in the Early Baroque - he began his career writing in the earlier Renaissance polyphonic styles, but helped transition musical culture to the Early Baroque with the innovation of basso continuo (a notational method featuring numerals and symbols which communicate intervals and chords to play above the bass) and his theorizing of seconda pratica, a codification and defense of his new musical approach in opposition to the earlier Renaissance polyphonic style, or prima pratica.
	EarlyElectronic	Featuring early electronic instruments such as the theremin and ondes Martenot amongst more traditional performance ensembles and styles, as well as early manipulation of recorded sounds and pieces created primarily by sound synthesis.
	EarlyRenaissance	Consists primarily of the years 1400 to 1470. Late Medieval techniques such as isorhythm continued to be used in the Early Renaissance, even as newer developments such as triads took hold. Many composers began to prefer simpler, prettier music over the often highly complex styles of late Medieval music, while other composers increased the complexity of their music.
	EarlyRomanticMusic	Began with Beethoven and goes up to about 1850. Melodies became more chromatic, music became more expressive, and descriptive musical forms such as program music and character pieces began to predominate. Important Early Romantic composers include Frédéric Chopin, Robert Schumann and Hector Berlioz. Concerts and music became an increasingly prominent part of public and private life for the burgeoning middle class, and were afforded more respect and attention than the aristocracy had given in previous eras.
	ExperimentalClassical	Pushes the social and cultural musical norms of the classical tradition. It can be applied to a broad range of music, from John Cage's experiments with indeterminacy and musique concréte's tape manipulations to music involving alternate tuning systems, experimental instruments, and free improvisation.
	Expressionism	A categorization of music often applied to music by composers of the second viennese school and their successors. It refers to expressing true feelings without illusions, disguises or euphemisms.
	FirstVienneseSchool	Three major composers of the Classical era - Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. In German-speaking countries, the term is used more broadly as a reference to the Classical period as a whole.
	Futurism	Cross-domain artistic movement initiated by the Italian Filippo Tommaso Marinetti with his publication of the Manifesto of Futurism in 1909. Musically, Futurism involved the rejection of traditional music and instead focused on experimental sounds, often produced by or in imitation of machinery.
	GregorianChant	Most significant tradition of Western plainchant. It is a monophonic, entirely vocal, sacred from of music developed for use in the Roman Catholic Church. Neumes, an early form of musical notation that showed general direction of a melodic line, were developed to jog the memories of Gregorian Chant singers. There are two major categories of Gregorian chant melody: recitatives and free melodies. Recitatives are largely syllable repeated over a single note, or reciting tone, with infrequent appearance of other pitches, whereas free melodies are freer and consist of a great variety of pitches.
	ImpressionismMusic	Originated in France in the late 19th century and carried on into the early 20th century. Major composers include Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, though both composers disliked the term and considered it an inaccurate label for their music and for any kind of music in general. Prominently focuses on color, or timbre of instruments, as well as extended and ambiguous tonality and chords, common usage of modes and exotic scales, parallel motion, and musical evocations of imagery, such as in Debussy's La Cathédrale Engloutie, a musical depiction of the mythical cathedral of Ys rising from the ocean.
	Late20thCentury	Encompassed by a wide array of musical movements both arising from and seemingly unrelated to the widely divergent Classical genres of the Early 20th Century. The philosophies of Modernism and Postmodernism held sway. Composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Schaeffer utilized new electronics and computer technology to compose with never-before-heard sounds and techniques for manipulating sound. Minimalism, a trancelike stripping down of musical surface complexity, became a major force, typified by composers such as La Monte Young and Steve Reich. Experimental composers such as John Cage played with new methods of performing on old instruments, as in his pieces for prepared piano, and with traditionally held expectations of music in general, as in his piece 4'33'.
	LateBaroque	Approximately from 1630 to 1760, baroque music saw increasing complexity in the works of composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, and a proliferation of dance forms, such as the minuet, gigue, courante, allemande, and sarabande, as well as a large number of operas and oratorios.
	LateRenaissance	Took place from 1530 to 1600. Developments over the Middle Renaissance include the use of large ensembles consisting of multiple choirs of singers, brass, and strings among the Venetian School. Music by secular composers trended toward greater complexity and chromaticism.
	LateRomanticMusic	Increased experimentalism, chromaticism and expressiveness defined the Late Romantic period. The continuing expansion of both the middle class and music education led to ever greater resources and an ever great quantity of professional musicians and music. Major Late Romantic composers include Richard Strauss and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
	LightMusic	'Light' orchestral music, designed to appeal to a wide audience and less sophisticated and complicated than more serious forms of classical music. Typically short, sweet, and tuneful. Particularly popular in the mid-20th century.
	MedievalMusic	Western music from approximately 500 to 1400. Medieval music ranges from monophonic chants to highly complex and layered rhythmical and melodic concoctions. Early Medieval music was learned by ear, but it was in the Medieval era that musical notation made significant developments, first in showing general melodic direction, and later, by way of the innovation of the musical staff, the ability to show more exact musical pitch intervals and the subsequent capability of non-oral transmission of melodies. Rhythmic notation began to develop in the Medieval era as well, opening up new musical possibilities which composers gladly exploited.
	Middle20thCentury	[missing definition]
	MiddleBaroque	Approximately from 1630 to 1680, baroque music saw the widespread introduction of chamber music, or music for small ensembles of instrumentalists, along with the emergence of the cantata, oratorio, and opera. In vocal music, the status of melody and harmony were raised to an equal level with words, and totally instrumental styles of music began to become more popular. Conducting as a method to hold ensembles of instrumentalists together began to emerge in the Middle Baroque. Archetypical composers of the Middle Baroque include the French court composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and the violinist and innovator of the concerto grosso, Arcangelo Corelli.
	MiddleRenaissance	Took place from 1470 to 1530. At the beginning of the period, some music continued to become more complex, but later in the period, according with the new restrictions on excessively complex polyphony of the Council of Trent, composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina drastically simplified their music.
	MiddleRomantic	[missing definition]
	Minimalism	Uses limited musical materials. Tends to lack the sense of progression between sections found in other classical-derived music styles. Minimalist music often uses a small set of slow-moving and simple harmonies, strung together in a trancelike steady rhythmic pulse and part of a constantly shifting quilt of repeated phrases and smaller melodic units of music. Some minimalist music relies on processes such as phase shifting. Archetypal composers include Terry Riley, John Adams, and Steve Reich.
	Modernism	[missing definition]
	MusiqueConcrete	Experimental electronic music that involves the manipulation and layering of tape recordings. Its theoretical underpinnings were developed by the French composer Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1940s. The term concréte refers to the fact that the music is fixed and does not change from performance to performance.
	Nationalist	The Late Romantic period saw a growing strain of nationalism among certain composers. For instance, the Russian Five, including Modest Mussorgsky, saw themselves as breaking free from Western European hegemony and forging a distinctly Russian style. Other composers such as Jean Sibelius of Finland and Frédéric Chopin of Poland incorporated nationalist elements into their music as a reaction against Russian dominance of their respective homelands. In all areas of Europe, incorporation of old folk tunes in compositions became a significant way of emphasizing national themes.
	NeoClassical	Aesthetic trend which took place largely between the world wars, Neo-Classical music represented an infatuation with the perceived orderliness of Classical music as opposed to the perceived formlessness and lack of restraint of late Romantic music and the extremes of early 20th-century experimental music. Neo-Classical music involved the use of Classical (and older) forms of music such as the concerto grosso, devices such as ostinato figures and long pedal notes, and the quotation of old melodies, such as in Igor Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella.
	NeoRomantic	20th-century return to the sentimentality and emotional expression associated with 19th-century Romanticism. Neo-Romantic composers include Wolfgang Rihm and Francis Poulenc.
	OrchestralFusion	Mixes traditional Western orchestral ensembles and styles with other kinds of performance groups and styles.
	Organum	Plainchant melody with at least one added voice, typically singing in parallel 4ths or 5ths to the primary melody. It is an early harmonic development in Western music.
	Plainsong	[missing definition]
	PostClassical	Combination of classical styles and approaches to making music with emerging technologies and with elements of electronic music and other popular music, such as rock and hip-hop. A classical-first form of 21st century crossover music. Well-known composers include Max Richter, Nils Frahm, and Jóhann Jóhannsson.
	PostMinimalism	Conventionally classical in format, length, performance method, and presentation, but harmonically, procedurally, and texturally minimal. Often features subtle influences from other styles of music, ranging from pop and jazz to Balinese gamelan.
	PreClassical	Transitional period between the Baroque and the Classical eras. It is sometimes referred to as Galant or Rococo, and in this time period, established Baroque composers such as Handel and Telemann continued to compose in the old style even as proponents of the new, more homophonic style such as C.P.E. Bach flourished.
	RenaissanceMusic	Western music from roughly 1400 to 1600. Secular and sacred music were both common, made possible by massive advances in musical notation and the development of the printing press, which allowed for easier copying of musical notation. Polyphony flourished in the Renaissance period. Triads began to appear in the 15th century, and in the 16th century, the harmonic system of church modes was gradually replaced by the concept of functional tonality. Opera was developed in the Renaissance, along with early versions of many modern instruments.
	Romantic	Romantic music consists of Western art music written approximately from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Romantic music, compared to music of the preceding Classical period, was more expressive, dynamic, and programmatic. The size of the orchestra increased as its internal makeup diversified. Melodies became longer and more fluid, harmonic progressions became more elaborate, dynamic and tonal range increased, and a wider range of musical structures were employed than in the Classical era. A growing middle class and increased demand for public concerts led to greater independence of composers from wealthy patrons. Ludwig van Beethoven ushered in the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic with his highly expressive compositions. Other major Romantic composers include Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, and Gustav Mahler.
	Serialism	A method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking.
	Spectralism	Broadly informed by spectral analysis of sound. Timbre, rather than motif, is the central organizing element - generally focuses on sound and texture. Spectralist composers often make use of sonographic representations and the analysis of sound spectra and generated spectra to both create hybrid timbres and organize the structure of their compositions. Originated in France in the early 1970s.
	TwentiethCentury	Western art music composed in the 20th century by composers typically drawing inspiration from modern and postmodern philosophy.
	TwentyFirstCentury	Contemporary classical music produced after the year 2000. It is often characterized by its influence from rock, pop, and jazz music.
Belongs to AVS	avs:ClassifiedGenre	A Type of genre.