What is classical music?

What is the standard of classical music?

What is the standard of classical music? The word "classical" itself contains the concepts of balance, moderation, conciseness and exquisiteness. For example, these concepts can be used in "classical" architecture, but they are not enough to express classical style. Classical music can have stormy momentum and complex content and form. In short, classical styles refer to those styles that can be heard from the music of the greatest and most famous composers of18th century, such as Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. So, what are the basic elements that distinguish their music from baroque music before and romantic music after?

Part of the reason for the unprecedented characteristics of classical style is historical. One thing is certain, if there is a tendency of nationalization in classical style, it will surprise composers in the middle of18th century, because this tendency did not appear until19th and 20th centuries. Although they realize that their works are in sharp contrast with the late Baroque, their gradual change process is slower than the historical motivation.

Perhaps sonata form is the most typical feature of classical music. This form is the basic way to organize music materials in many works in the late18th century. However, as the main form of a whole generation, it has been used until the decline of classical music school, and provided inspiration for many composers in The Romantic Period.

Classical composers have never described the form of sonatas so thoroughly as we do now. More importantly,1composers in the mid-8th century like to use the concept of expression. Mozart provided important clues for his creative intention in his letter to his father. At that time, he talked about the creation of his piano concerto: "A pleasant medium between extremely difficult and easy, they are very brilliant and pleasant, very natural and smooth. There are doorways in music from time to time, from which connoisseurs can get satisfaction; But these doors are not profound, so as not to be too high and too few. " Easy to understand is the vitality of Mozart's music.

The development of easy-to-understand music language is closely related to the thought of18th century Enlightenment. It provides clues for understanding the inevitable reasons for the following phenomena: 1740 or so, an impatient mood is generated for the obscure traditional methods assumed by the old school. This traditional method pays attention to the counterpoint of composition. At that time, composers wanted to write some simple music, with open harmony (the positions of notes in chords are scattered and cymbals). But the most important thing is not to confuse the mainstream development of classical style. Because in the era of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, these revolutionary changes have been absorbed by the music language: people can see this evolution process from Haydn's early symphonies or Mozart's symphonies (from a completely different angle). Moreover, another important feature of the mature classical style (which obviously puzzles us) is to return to the counterpoint principle in the heyday of Baroque.

In classical music, the idea of contrast is the essential feature, just like the description in sonata form, the "strong" first theme contrasts with the usually restrained second theme. There are many famous examples of avoidance in the late Baroque music, among which the strong concept of contrast is extremely important. For example, a drama ensemble in Han Deer's oratorios and operas. On the other hand, this kind of works can also be found in the category of classical style, that is, the concept of contrast is almost abandoned in a certain movement in pursuit of consistency of expression: many movements in Han Deer's symphony and string quartet are considered to be single-themed, or based on a single theme. Sometimes they may show dynamic contrast, but in fact they keep the unity of music materials, which contradicts our simple understanding of classical style. Other examples can be found in Mozart's early piano concertos, with smooth and beautiful melodies.

If there is a standard to distinguish the structure of classical music from baroque music, it must be the use of tuning or tonality, which is a dramatic element in the work. Classical composers have established a new set of expressive skills, using different themes to balance and balance. For example, most of the novelty in Haydn Quartet music comes from the fact that when the audience's attention is directed to listen to one tonality, they hear another tonality. There is also freshness in rhythm and melody, but the important way to express this freshness is through the contrast of tonality.

We don't have to be overly rational like critics in the19th century, but as long as we grasp the essence of this tone, the basic driving force of classical style will be clear at a glance. We can immediately see how wide it is, because the possibility of tonal cooperation is very great; But it is also limited, because the rich chromatic harmony has not been developed, and chromatic harmony has gradually developed into a dominant technique of romantic music.

Therefore, we can see that although the classical style is a expressive style, it can not only express strong and passionate emotions, but also express lyrical and rich emotions, but it is always limited by convention. /kloc-At the end of 0/8th century, the music of great composers was under these conventions, but they always followed them. In this sense, understanding classical style is more important than any form of description.