Music Weblog

The grandest form of classical music is the symphony.  Although it has been transformed down through the years as audience tastes have changed, the traditional symphony is a large work in four movements, played by the entire orchestra.  These movements generally follow a certain formula of both tempo and musical style.  The opening movement is usually marked “allegro,” which means fast or bright.  In contrast the second movement is slower, perhaps even funereal.  The third movement ups the ante yet again, given to playfulness or some sort of dance tempo.  During the Romantic era, the minuet was a popular choice here.  The closing movement repeats the allegro style found at the beginning—although with different music—or is written as a rondo.  This style calls for a certain pattern of repetition and thematic variation that builds upon itself, only to end up at nearly the same place where the fourth movement began.

During the Baroque era, when the symphony was proving to be a popular musical genre, most were relatively short pieces.  Joseph Haydn composed more than a hundred symphonies during his lifetime, but few of them lasts longer than 15–20 minutes.  Following in his footsteps, Mozart expanded the length and intricacy of the symphony.  He composed 41 during his relatively brief time on earth.  But the nine symphonies of Ludwig von Beethoven truly came to define the concept.  He was also the first major composer to include a chorus and vocal soloists as part of the symphonic form, which he did with Symphony No. 9 and its iconic ending.

Symphonies began to express what has since become known as “programmatic” music, where the orchestration is meant to evoke a certain sensation or event.  For example, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 features music that gives the impression of a storm overtaking the stage, ultimately giving way to birds singing and the sun shining again.  Other composers have used martial music to portray various other events in nature, or dances, or even battle scenes.

The standard symphonic orchestra consists of four basic units: a large string section (violin, viola, cello, and string bass), woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, and bassoon), brass (trumpet, trombone, and tuba), and percussion (tympani, snare and bass drums, and cymbals).

Beethoven Violin Sonata - Cover Page

Whereas a classical concerto is a musical piece written for orchestra plus one or more solo instruments, the classical sonata is generally defined as a piece of music composed for a single instrument.  The term itself extends far back into the history of music—the use of sonata to define an instrumental piece versus cantata, which specifically referred to a vocal piece—and during the Baroque period it was often used to describe all sorts of musical works including ensemble pieces.  It was not until the beginning of the nineteenth century, however, that SONATA truly became synonymous with SOLO.

Classical sonatas from about 1800 forward were generally comprised of three distinct movements, each of which portrayed a different tempo and theme.  While many composers have strayed from this formula, the typical sonata encompasses the fast–slow–fast progression that is also found in the conventional concerto.  Sonatas can be found for nearly any instrument, although the most common were written for piano, violin, or cello.  Piano sonatas dominate the field.  One reason is because these instruments are among the most often played, and they possess the greatest breadth of expression; many composers wrote music directly from the piano, no matter what instrumentation their final piece may have taken.  Most sonatas are moderately short works, with a running time in the range of 20–25 minutes.

W.A. Mozart was quite prolific as a composer of sonatas, including 18 for solo piano and 16 for solo violin, plus a dozen violin sonatas during his youth designed to be accompanied by piano.  The piano sonatas by Beethoven are perhaps the most well known selections from the classical repertoire.  He composed 32 such works, the most famous of which are the Pathétique (No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13), the Moonlight (No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27), and the Appassionata (No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57).  His clear successor in this realm was Chopin—known more for composing piano music than in any other genre—although surprisingly he wrote only three piano sonatas.  The most often heard cello sonatas are by Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and Samuel Barber.

Beginning with music’s Baroque era (ca. 1600–1750), the concerto became one of the most popular forms of classical music to be performed in the concert hall. A concerto is generally defined as a piece in three movements (parts) that includes full orchestra plus one or more solo instruments. The most common classical concertos were written for individual string instruments (violin and cello), wind instruments (flute, clarinet, oboe and bassoon), brass instruments (trumpet), and keyboards (harpsichord and piano). Some of the more unusual concertos feature guitar, lute or harp (strings), contrabassoon or harmonica (wind), tuba, cornet or euphonium (brass), and organ or celesta (keyboard). There are even concertos for such percussion instruments as tympani or vibraphone.

Each of the three movements of a traditionally constructed concerto is meant to portray a different style or tempo, offering the listener some contrast between one part and another. While the best-known composers of their day—among them Haydn, Handel, Beethoven, and the sons of J.S. Bach—rarely strayed from the traditional progression of fast–slow–fast for the three movements, modern composers have not felt compelled to be this strict in their adherence to form. However, one element that can be found in nearly all concertos is the cadenza; this is the place where the solo artist is invited to show off his or her playing skills as the orchestra goes silent for a brief time. Although usually found near the end of the first movement, some concertos feature a cadenza near the end of the third movement as well. Many composers crafted their own cadenzas on a note-by-note basis, matching its intricacy to the skill level of the soloist scheduled to debut the piece. Others sketched out a few tonal ideas but left the substance to the individual performer. The iconoclastic pianist Glenn Gould was known for devising highly entertaining cadenzas (especially for the five Beethoven piano concertos) that used musical themes from the movement but were far more modern in tonality and structure.

It is not surprising to find concertos that were written for more than one solo instrument; in some cases these involve two violins, two flutes, or even two pianos. More often, though, a composer has chosen to create a double- or triple concerto that matches one kind of kinds of solo instrumentation with another. Some of the best-known examples are a Beethoven concerto for violin, cello and piano, and a Mozart concerto for harp and flute. Hungarian composer Béla Bartók even wrote a Concerto for Orchestra [1943], where instruments from all parts of the orchestra get a chance to show off their virtuosity.