Chapter 11 Prelude: Music and the Enlightenment

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Chapter 11Prelude Music and the Enlightenment

• The Enlightenment and Music

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Where we are

• Feb 16th-Intro to Classical Period 1750-1827
• Feb 28 back-Haydn and Mozart Symphony and form.
• March 2nd-Other classical forms and exam review.
  I will give you a study sheet.
• March 7th EXAM
• 8-classes left after that with guest speakers!

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Key Terms

• The Enlightenment
• The Pursuit of Happiness
• Rococo
• Divertimento

• Opera buffa
• Novel
• Neoclassicism
• Classical style

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Classical Timeline
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Classical Timeline
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Prelude

• Classical style emerged in second part of the
  eighteenth century
• Pioneers included composers in Italy Bachs
  sons working in Germany London
• Reached maturity in the hands of great composers
  in ViennaHaydn Mozart
• Vienna an important crossroads
• Capital of Hapsburg (Austro-Hungarian) empire
• Influence of Germany, Bohemia (Czech Republic),
  Hungary, Italy

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Vienna (1)

• Viennas golden years1780-1790
• Emperor Joseph II an enlightened ruler
• Emancipated peasants
• Furthered education
• Reduced power of the clergy
• Supported music literature
• Encouraged free press
• Many composers were drawn to Vienna

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Vienna (2)
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Composers in Vienna

• Haydn was Europes principal composer
• Worked in nearby Eisenstadt
• Wrote symphonies for far-off Paris London
• Mozart came from Salzburg in 1781
• Spent final decade of his life in Vienna
• Wrote many of his greatest works
• Beethoven arrived from Bonn in 1792
• Came to study with Haydn
• Launched his career in Vienna

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The Enlightenment and Music

• France the center of the Enlightenment
• Influenced by English philosophy
• Influential in Germany Austria
• Major figures included Voltaire Rousseau
• Rooted in a faith in reason
• Derived from Baroque scientific orientation
• Science now to be used for human benefit
• Applied rational methods to social sphere
• Public morality, education, politics
• Social injustice religion came under fire

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The Pursuit of Happiness

• American contribution to Enlightenment was
  profound
• Declaration of Independence Federalist Papers
• Notion that a new state could be founded on
  rational principles
• Emphasis on human rightslife, liberty, and the
  pursuit of happiness
• An age that valued good living
• Encouraged intelligence, wit, sensitivity
• Invented salon, coffee house, public concert

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Art and Entertainment

• Arts expected to entertain, to please
• Not to instruct, impress, or express
• Rococo style fashionable at midcentury
• Light, decorative style
• Popular in painting, furniture, jewelry design
• Music developed a similar style (galant)
• Light charming
• Divertimento a typical genredesigned to divert,
  amuse, entertain

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau Opera (1)

• Rousseau the first alienated intellectual
• Emphasis on nature the individual
• The natural man an influential idea
• Social institutions seen as too stifling
• Wrote articles on politics music for the great
  French Encyclopédie (1751-65)
• Rousseau attacked Baroque opera!
• Encouraged a simpler, more natural music that
  focused on real people, real life

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau Opera (2)

• Rousseau was excited by a new Italian comic opera
• Pergolesis La serva padrona
• Lively, catchy music
• No coloratura singing or exaggerated emotion
• Story of servant girl who tricks a rich bachelor
  into marriage
• Encouraged French comic opera as well
• Comic opera became the most progressive operatic
  form of the day

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The Novel (1)

• New genre took hold around 1750
• Literary equivalent of the new comic opera
• Features that made the novel popular
• Sharp, realistic observation of contemporary life
• Sensitive depiction of feeling
• Many managed to be sexually explicit,
  sentimental, moralistic all at the same time

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The Novel (2)

• Well-known early novels included
• Henry Fieldings Tom Jones
• Samuel Richardsons Pamela
• Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, Emma,
  Persuasion, etc.
• Many novels were turned into operas
• Mozarts great operas can be compared to great
  novels
• Penetrating, sympathetic portrayal of characters

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Neoclassicism

• Important movement in the visual arts
• Emphasis on the natural
• Influence of Greek Roman classics
• Return to simple, natural values
• Rejection of complex Baroque solemnity
• Rejection of pleasant Rococo frivolity
• Gluck attempted to reform serious opera
• Austere yet dramatic classical subjects
• Simpler, more natural melodies