A History of Music from Baroque to Classicism and from Classicism to Romanticism

It is suggested that a major change in any form of art is a reflection to its era’s social, political and economic situation as it is seen in literature, painting, and the other forms. Music, on the other hand, is one of the significant art forms that show a perfect and parallel change in combination with the era in which it is produced.  A progression of major elements in music has always been there in the history of it. The shifting can be seen in the change of music from Renaissance to Baroque around the year 1600, and in the equally clear change from Romantic to contemporary style after the year 1900 (Ulrich, 312). Therefore, it can be said that music is always reflected, it did not paved the way for the next step in the understanding of art. The aim of this paper is to show two of the major changes in the history of music; one is from Baroque to Classical and the other is from Classical to Romantic under the light of such composers as Mozart and Beethoven and such newly-emerged forms as sonata and opera.

After the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, the leading composer of the Baroque Music, in 1750, there was not a major successor to him (Ulrich, 312). Bach and Handel were composing their most monumental works between 1720 and 1750, when a competing music style emerged to challenge the values of the Baroque Music.  This new style continued to compete with the Baroque values for another three decades after the death of Bach and finally became the dominant music style in the 1780s, called Classism and often associated with the works of Haydn, Mozart and to some extent, Beethoven (Ulrich, 313).

Classism in music is accepted as a reaction against to the formalism, rigidity, and seriousness of the Baroque music by many of the musicologists today. Contrary to what neo-classical movement in literature stood for, classism in music was aimed to obscure the clean structures of the musical compositions. The main influence on the classical style was the period’s French architecture, which was “ornamented and decorated to excess with elaborate stone carvings and plaster encrustations” (Ulrich, 313). A term, Rococo, derived from French word ‘rocaille’, was often applied to the music of the time, and since a great part of music was composed to entertain the aristocracy and the fashionable world in general, the music between the years 1720 and 1780 was named as Style Galant in France (Ulrich, 313).

It is assumable that many innovations were made in the structure of musical compositions with the arrival of the classical style. One of those changes, the emergence of Sonata-Form would be a good example to illustrate in order to understand how great the changes were. Here is an example of the two part dance form of the Baroque period:

(Bach, Duet 1, 1733)

As it is seen in the example above, the composition goes with a single main melody that is accompanied by a less populated scheme, following some strict rules such as that the accompanier melody’s corresponding notes must be the thirds or fifths of the main note. On the other hand, “the simple two part dance form of the Baroque” (Ulrich, 316) was changed into the sonata-form of the Classical period. To compare and contrast, here is an example of the sonata form from one of its best composers:

                       

(Mozart, Fantasie and Sonata in C Minor, 1785)

In Mozart’s piece, it is seen that each hand has almost the same amount of contribution to the composition. While one melody is played in its own harmonic structure, the other melody contributes it by creating an independent melody. Having generally been used as the first movement of the multi-movement pieces, the sonata-forms have their own expositions, developments and recapitulations within themselves. However, the shifting from the two part dance music of the Baroque to the sonata form of the Classic period is a great example to understand the strict transition in the history of music.

The end of the Classical period and the beginning of the Romantic music are generally considered as falling around 1810s, especially 1815. Since Beethoven’s productive life fell into both periods, he is a great figure to analyze in order to understand the transition between the two periods. White writes:

Indeed, the works of his first period, up to about 1804, are firmly grounded in the tradition of the eighteen century, at the same time containing elements suggestive of the later Beethoven. But during his second period, approximately 1804 to 1816, Beethoven increasingly infused his music with evocative qualities, musical innovations, and new concepts of form that transcended the frameworks the Classical style and set precedents for the art of the Romantic era (223).

Adorno puts forward that “in the early Beethoven, there is a development from the rhetorically decorative through the Romantic to the tragic” (81). Indeed, it was only Mozart who managed to create a synthesis between the newly-emerged forms  and the aesthetic principles of Classicism. After Mozart, many composers failed to relate drama and music properly. Therefore, “their unsuccessful attempts at synthesis demonstrated to Romantic composers the need for other methods” (Ulrich, 445) and Beethoven was the one who achieved this task by directing the base of his musical composition towards the tragic. Hence, a new form of music, Opera as a genre, was born in the beginning of the 19^th Century. Opera did not show up within a day. There were many factors that influenced the emergence of the opera as a genre in the Romantic period. “The study of folk poetry, national legends and remote history opened new vistas for composers of opera” (Ulrich, 446). In the first pieces of opera, there was the stylistic elements showing the characteristics of the new form. Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio (1805) was one of the best examples of the first well-structured operas in the history of music (Ulrich, 446).  

The popular image of the Romantic composer as an “unhappy and improvident garret artist” (White, 242) is often associated with Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and Liszt (White, 242), who were the early romantic composers and generally known as the melancholic composers. However, the late Romantic composers, such as Wagner and Brahms, were more interested in the expression of the inner feelings in music. They included expressive orchestral textures, “allegorical, legendary, and even superhuman characters” (White, 261) into their music. While  the early romantic composers can be said to be introverts, the late romantic composers can be said to be extroverts. However, they shared something in common; it was the glimpses of feelings that the external nature caused in their perception of it, which led them to the individualistic compositions. Although each composer tried to express those feelings in different ways, their concern was the same.

To sum up, it can be said that the history of music has always reflected to its era by changing its rules, textures, and creating new forms that suited the need of the period. From Baroque to Classical, or from Classical to Romantic, the changes were always under the effect of the great leading figures, such as Mozart and Beethoven. Sonatas of Mozart are great examples to understand the change from the Baroque period to Classicism while Beethoven’s attempts to create a new artistic style in music can be seen as the main causes for the emergence of Romantic music.