Incomplete Music Handbook of Classical Music (Including Pure Music)

(1) Multi-movement music played by an orchestra:

1. Symphony Symphony:

The word Symphony has had different meanings at different times in the development history of classical music. During the Renaissance, the name "symphony" was used as a synonym for instrumental music. At that time, the symphony did not have a specific form and simply meant that the piece was not a vocal piece. This concept extended to the Baroque period. Bach once titled the orchestral music he wrote in a suite-like form "Symphony"; and in Handel's famous oracle "Messiah", there is a song played with instrumental music. A short piece named "Pastoral Symphony". It can be seen from this that even until the late Baroque period, symphonies still did not have a specific style. But at the same time, some composers began to try to change the Italian opera overture, which consists of three movements, Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro, played continuously, into music that consists of three movements, Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro, played separately, and This kind of music is called "symphony", which formed the early three-movement symphony.

Around 1740 AD, a Viennese composer inserted a minuet as the third movement in the three-movement symphony he wrote. This formed the way that most people today The familiar four-movement symphony form. Haydn and Mozart, two of the most important composers of the classical period, wrote some three-movement symphonies early in their creative careers (fifteen of Haydn's 104 symphonies adopted the three-movement form. Eighteen of Mozart's forty-one symphonies were in the three-movement form), but later they all composed four-movement symphonies, and this kind of symphony was developed through the efforts of Haydn and Mozart. It was finally established as a specific form of music, and it also occupied an important position in the world of music.

A typical four-movement symphony in the classical period, its four movements are roughly as follows in genre: the first movement is Allegro written in sonata form; the second movement is usually in ballad form, Adagio written in Rondo form, variation form or sonata form; the third movement is usually a minuet movement; the fourth movement is mostly Allegro written in Rondo form or sonata form. When the "classical form" of the symphony came into the hands of Beethoven, it began to undergo some changes. For example, in addition to expanding the orchestral rules of the symphony, Beethoven also changed the third movement from a minuet to a scherzo. This made the symphony appear tighter in overall structure, and Beethoven even added vocals to his Symphony No. 9, which was a rather creative endeavor at the time.

Beethoven’s reforms in symphonies had a great enlightenment effect on the concepts of later composers. Therefore, after Beethoven, symphonies showed more features in terms of scale, structure or content. Such a look. For example, the number of movements is no longer limited to four. Symphonies with as many as five or six movements or as few as one or two movements have been created. In addition, the length and orchestration of music have become increasingly longer and more complex. Finally, in the late Romantic period, There appears a symphony that is as long and monolithic as one written by Mahler or Bruckner.

2. Concerto Grosso:

Concerto Grosso is a very popular form of music in the Barlog period. It is a combination of a solo instrument group and an orchestra. The music played. The solo group in a concerto grosso usually includes two violins and a digital bass (harpsichord and cello), while the orchestra is composed of a small string orchestra plus several wind instruments. The performance characteristic of the Concerto Grosso is that the solo instrument group and the orchestra group perform alternately, showing a contrast in intensity.

As for the movement organization of the Concerto Grosso, there is no definite form. There are four-movement forms of Adagio, Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro; there are three-movement forms of Allegro, Adagio, and Allegro; and there are also Suites generally consist of several movements, and so on.

3. Concerto:

When it comes to concerto, in most people’s concept, it should refer to “solo concerto”, so if there is no special emphasis, then the term concerto The name refers to the solo concerto.

The so-called "solo concerto" is a musical form in which a single solo instrument is played together with an orchestra. Some music lovers think that in the entire history of the development of concertos, the concerto grosso came first, and then after the concerto grosso declined, the solo concerto came on the stage to replace the concerto grosso. This concept is not entirely correct. Concerto grosso and solo concerto Concertos existed at the same time during the Baroque period, but the development of solo concertos came later than the concerto grosso. Moreover, after the Baroque period, the concerto grosso gradually declined, while the solo concerto flourished.

If we compare the solo concerto with the concerto grosso, we will find that in the concerto grosso, the composer does not place special emphasis on the performance skills of the solo group, and the competition between the solo group and the orchestra is also limited. Not very intense.

However, in solo concertos, the solo instrument has gradually gained an advantage in terms of melody and technical presentation, and the competition between the solo instrument and the orchestra has become much stronger. Since solo instruments play an important role in solo concertos, solo concertos have become a good form for instrumentalists to demonstrate their performance skills.

From the classical period to the romantic period, due to the continuous improvement and improvement of the performance of various musical instruments, and the greatly improved instrumental performance skills, various instrumental music masters emerged in large numbers, and composers wrote various concertos one after another. Therefore, This period became the period with the richest output of solo concertos in the history of Western music.

In concertos, there is the so-called "ornament". An ornamentation refers to a passage or section in a concerto movement in which the orchestra stops playing and the soloist plays the solo. Ornaments usually appear near the end of a movement, and the soloist uses the ornaments to give full play to his playing skills.

Composers before Beethoven usually did not write ornaments into the music. At this time, the ornaments were left to the soloist to improvise freely. However, Beethoven believed that if the soloist was allowed to play freely, the soloist might play ornaments that went against the composer's intention in order to show off his skills, so Beethoven wrote the ornaments in full when writing his Piano Concerto No. 5. out, eliminating the convention of improvisation by the soloist. After Beethoven set the example, composers in the Romantic period followed suit one after another, and it became more obvious that the composer himself wrote the ornaments.

In addition to the aforementioned concerto grosso and solo concerto, there is also a musical form called "complex concerto". A complex concerto (also called a symphonic concerto by some composers in the classical period) refers to a concerto composed of two or more solo instruments (usually two to four) and an orchestra. Mozart's Symphony Concerto for Violin and Viola K. 364. Concerto in C major for flute and harp, K. 299. Beethoven's "Triple Concerto" for piano, violin and cello, and Brahms's "Double Concerto" for cello and violin, can be regarded as the most representative pieces of complex concertos. .

4. Suite (Suite or Partita):

From the name "Suite" we can infer that "Suite" is a combination of multiple pieces of music. A musical form. Although we discuss suites in this section, not all suites are performed by orchestras, and many composers have written suites for solo instruments. This is the first thing to be explained here.

The origin of suites can probably be traced back to the Middle Ages. Early suites were mostly composed of several different styles of dance music. The more commonly used dance music include Alleman dances, Coulant dances, Sarabon dance, jiga, buré, Jiahe dance and Leigaodong dance, etc. This kind of suite composed of dance music reached a creative peak in the Baroque period, and at that time, the most dazzling figure on the peak was Bach. Bach wrote orchestral suites, unaccompanied cello suites, and unaccompanied violin suites. Suites, lute suites, English suites and French suites written for keyboard instruments are all repertoire that music lovers cannot miss.

After the Baroque period, suites have undergone many essential changes. Its composition is no longer limited to dance music. People began to create suites in a variety of freer techniques and to perform them with large orchestras. , symphonic suites with titles and narrative properties also appeared, such as Chinese composer Rimsky. "Arabian Nights" written by Korshakov; some people have adapted melodies from operas, dramas or ballet music into suite forms to perform, such as Bizet's "Carmen Suite", "Allais Suite", Chai Ke Fsky's three ballet suites "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Nutcracker" are all famous examples. In addition, some people use more modern composition techniques to compose suites in the form of dance music with a nostalgic style, such as Grieg's "Hallberg Suite" and Respecki's "Ancient Dances and Tunes" three-piece suite, etc. All in all, suites have appeared in various forms since modern times. The only thing that remains unchanged is: "A suite is a musical form composed of several pieces of music." This characteristic is the same in ancient and modern times.

(2) Single-movement music played by an orchestra:

1. Symphonic Poem:

First created by Liszt Single movement orchestral piece. The word "symphony" is used in the name because the scale of the music and the orchestra formation required for its performance are on the same level as a "symphony"; it is called "poetry" mainly because it usually uses literary themes. As a basis for creation, and with the goal of conveying "poetry" beyond pure music.

2. Overture (Overture):

Before the official performance of an opera or divine drama, it is customary for the orchestra to play an instrumental piece first. This piece is generally called As "overture". However, not every opera must have an overture. For example, Puccini's famous opera "Princess Turandot" does not have an overture.

In addition, not all composers call the music before the opening of an opera an overture. For example, the instrumental music played before the first act of Wagner's opera "Lohengrin" and "Tristan and Isolde", Wagner Call it "Prelude" instead of "Overture".

The main functions of an opera overture are twofold: (1) When the audience rushes to the opera house to enjoy the opera performance, playing an overture first can help relieve the panic of the audience. emotions. (2) Another function of the overture is to create an atmosphere for the upcoming drama. In addition, it can also hint at the plot of the drama, giving the audience a simple concept before watching the performance. Mozart's "Magic Flute" overture, Weber's "Magic Bullet" overture and overtures written by Wagner all have this function. Of course, not all overtures have the function of hinting at the plot. For example, some overtures written by Rossini are often just a few melodies taken from operas and mixed together, or even randomly selected from old works written in the past. It's just a prelude to an opera, but it has nothing to do with the plot of the play.

In addition to overtures written for operas and oratorios, after the 19th century there was also an orchestral piece called an overture, but it had nothing to do with drama. Written in conjunction with a drama, it is performed independently as a concert piece, so some people also call this kind of overture a "concert overture", such as Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave" overture, Brahms' "University" The "Celebration" Overture, the "Tragedy" Overture, Dvorak's "Carnival" Overture and Tchaikovsky's "1812" Overture are all famous concert overtures.

In addition, Bach's four famous orchestral suites, the first piece of each suite is also labeled "Overture". From this we can know that the first piece of the suite The song may also be called an overture, which is another usage of overture.

3. Prelude:

In some cases, the prelude and the overture are functionally the same. For example, Wagner opened some of his operas The instrumental music before it is called "prelude" rather than "overture", but regardless of the name, their function is the same. In addition, composers of the Baroque period such as Handel and Couper sometimes titled the first piece of the suite they wrote as "Prelude". In this case, this "Prelude" and the Bach orchestra The "overture" in the suite is connected in meaning.

In the Romantic period, in addition to the above-mentioned uses, the name "prelude" was also used for another completely different purpose. At this time, the prelude became an independent instrumental piece (mostly composed for piano). It has no connection with any other works. The name "prelude" does not have a special meaning here. It's just a name given by composers to the music they wrote. For example, Chopin named the twenty-four piano ditties in his Op. 28 "Preludes." After Chopin, Scriabin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff and others also imitated Xiao's form. , wrote some preludes to be played on the piano.

4. Intermezzo:

As for the meaning of intermezzo, the most popular explanation is that it refers to the music between each act of an opera or drama or between different scenes in an act. , a short instrumental piece for orchestra. For example, Mascagni's opera "Cavalier" and the intermezzo in Bizet's opera "Carmen" are very famous examples. In addition, the famous song "Thérèse", which is familiar to most music lovers, is actually the intermezzo between Act 1, Scene 1 and Scene 2 of Massenet's opera "Thérèse".

Secondly, in multi-movement music such as symphonies, chamber music or sonatas, some composers will also name one of the movements as an intermezzo, such as Mendelssohn's No. 1 The second movement of the quintet is labeled an intermezzo. It is speculated that the reason why the composer labeled a certain movement as an "intermezzo" may be that this movement is sandwiched between two larger movements before and after it. In comparison, this movement seems relatively short and a bit like a transition. That's why we got the name Intermezzo. This is the second meaning of intermezzo.

Brahms once named some of the piano ditties he wrote "intermezzos", which formed the third meaning of intermezzo. Why did Brahms use the name Intermezzo? This is quite similar to Chopin naming his twenty-four piano pieces "Preludes". There is no special reason to explain why the composer did this. Maybe it was just their whim.

If I had to find a reason to explain why Brahms chose the name Intermezzo, I think it is probably because Brahms believed that these piano pieces called "Intermezzo" were the completion of several large-scale works. Shorter works written between them!