Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) is remembered less for his music than for his famous textbook on counterpoint, the Gradus ad Parnassum, Yet his music is well worth remembering for its own sake; it was not for nothing that the Emperor Leopold I made Fux his court-composer and music-director.
But to begin at the beginning; Fux was born of peasant stock at Hirtenfeld in Eastern Styria, Austria, about 1660. Little is known of his youth, except that he became a student at Graz University when he was about twenty. Again he disappears into obscurity, perhaps to study in Italy. When next heard of, he is the organist of the famous Scottish Church in Vienna, and on the highroad to imperial preferment. In 1696 he got married, and two years later was appointed Court Composer by the Emperor, an appointment usually reserved for Italian musicians. The Emperor evidently realized that Fux was a man of exceptional talent, to give him precedence over the all-conquering Italians.
Further high appointments were in store; in 1701 Fux became Capellmeister at St. Stephen's Cathedral, and ten years later, in 1711, Music Director at the Imperial Court itself - the highest musical position in Europe. Fux filled the post with distinction, composing and directing many operas and oratorios, as well as dozens of smaller pieces. His most famous stage work was the festival opera Costanza e Fortezza, performed in the most sumptuous and spectacular manner in Prague Castle in 1723 when the Emperor Charles VI was crowned King of Bohemia.
In 1725 Fux published his famous Gradus ad Parnassum, a textbook from which most of the composers of the next generation learnt their counterpoint - indeed Bach himself had a copy in his library. Some six years after the publication of the Gradus, Fux's wife died, and from then on he seems to have devoted himself more to sacred music. He himself died in 1741, at the age of 81.
As a secular composer, he was soon neglected, but his sacred works continued to be performed for many years, and his book maintained its hold over several generations of composers. Then, in the middle of the nineteenth century, Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, Mozart's cataloguer, became interested in Fux, and produced a biography and catalogue of works. This reawakened interest to some extent in the old court composer, and eventually some of his works were reprinted in the Austrian Denkmaler series; Fux began to emerge from the shadows as a fine composer in his own right, and not a mere pedagogue. He was indeed the greatest master of the Austrian Baroque, in music.
Sicilian-born in 1660, Alessandro Scarlatti was trained in Rome. He married in 1678 and later that year was appointed Maestro di Cappella of San Giacomo degli Incurabili. His first large-scale oratorio-operatic works were performed there the following year when he was only 19. His patrons from the outset were of the highest rank, among them the exiled Queen Christina of Sweden who made him her Maestro di Cappella, Cardinal Pamphili, and the musically indefatigable Cardinal Ottoboni and, in Florence, Prince Ferdinando de Medici.
In 1684 at the age of 24 Scarlatti moved to Naples, where he was appointed Maestro di Cappella at the vice-regal court of Naples, at the same time as his brother Francesco was made First Violinist. It was alleged that they owed their appointments to the intrigues of one of their sisters with two court officials, who were dismissed.
For the next two decades over half the new operas given at Naples were by Scarlatti, producing over 40 works, which were first performed at the Viceregal Palazzo Reale and then at the public theatre of S. Bartolomeo, where Scarlatti was employed as the director along with nine singers, five instrumentalists and a copyist. In contrast to contemporary five-act Venetian operas, which continued to rely upon mythological characters and stage machinery, Scarlatti's shorter three-act 'Drammi per Musica' centered on the characterization of kings and confidants, lovers and servants. Il Pirro e Demetrio (1694) and La caduta de' Decemviri (1697) were particularly successful.
From 1695 his operas and 'musical dramas' incorporated three-movement sinfonias which soon became standard for all Italian operas. Indeed, the Italian opera overture, or sinfonia, contained most of the elements of the pre-classical and classical symphonies, and the symphony (or sinfonia), designed for concert performance, may be traced back to the Italian opera overture (or sinfonia) of Alessandro Scarlatti. It was in these overtures and last operas that he also began experimenting with orchestral (instrumental) color in the modern sense.
While resident in Naples Scarlatti occasionally returned to Rome to supervise carnival performances of new operas, contributions to pasticci and cantatas at the Palazzo Doria Pamphili and the Villa Medicea (at nearby Pratolino), as well as oratorios at Ss. Crocifisso, the Palazzo Apostolico and the Collegio Clementino. Astonishingly, he also produced at least ten serenatas, nine oratorios and sixty-five cantatas for Naples.
By 1700 the War of the Spanish Succession was beginning to undermine the privileged status of the Neapolitan nobility, rendering Scarlatti's position insecure. In 1702 he left with his family for Florence, where he hoped to find employment for himself and his son Domenico with Prince Ferdinando de' Medici. When these hopes failed, he moved back to Rome at the end of 1703, seeking a quieter life, as assistant Maestro di Cappella at S Maria Maggiore (the public theaters had been closed by papal decree since 1700, so operas were performed only occasionally and in private). In this capacity he was required to compose motets and Masses in both strict (Papal) and concertato styles, according to the occasion. To augment his income he renewed his connections with the cardinals and formed new ones with Marquis Ruspoli, concentrating now on oratorios, celebratory serenatas and cantatas.
In 1706 he was elected, along with Pasquini and Corelli, to the Accademia dell'Arcadia, where he must have met Handel in 1707. From 1702 until 1708 he sent Prince Ferdinando de' Medici quantities of oratorios and church music and four operas which the prince had performed at Siena, Livorno and Florence. Scarlatti also composed and directed two five-act tragedies for the 1707 Venetian Carnival. Upon his return to Rome he was made Maestro di Cappella at S. Maria Maggiore, but the salary was so meager that he was ultimately forced to return to his posts in Naples in 1709.
During the next decade he produced 11 operas employing greater instrumental resources, of which Il Tigrane (1715) was his Neapolitan masterpiece. His 'commedia in musica', Il trionfo dell'onore (1718), was also very successful.
He maintained his connections in Rome, returning there in 1718 to oversee his opera Telemaco at the Teatro Capranica, in 1719 Marco Attilio Regolo, and finally in 1721 for La Griselda (his last opera). He produced a lavish Messa di S Cecilia for soloists, chorus and strings, performed there in October 1720.
Meanwhile Scarlatti ventured into orchestral writing, expanding the Sinfonia concept with his twelve Sinfonie di concerto grosso.
The "Six Concertos in seven parts for two Violins and Violoncello Obligate with two Violins more a Tenor and Thorough Bass, Compos'd by Sigr Alexander Scarlatti", as they were first called, were published in London under the above title by Benjamin Cooke in 1740. Of these six Concerti, numbers 1, 2, 4, and 5 were composed so that they could also be performed as string quartets. Scarlatti called them specifically Sonate a quattro, and as such they represent some of the earliest forms of chamber music in this genre.
The fact that these Six Concertos were published some fifteen years after the composer's death was quite unusual for that time; it may be suggested that Benjamin Cooke was "cashing in" on the popularity of the Scarlatti name. Thomas Roseingrave had published in London the first edition of Alessandro's son Domenico's Essercizzi per gravicembalo a couple of years before, and Domenico's work was also being popularized in London by Thomas Kelway and Thomas Arne. That Domenico's popularity continued is witnessed by the publication in 1743 by Charles Avison of his twelve Concerto Grosso arrangements of Domenico's harpsichord sonatas.
Alessandro's last years were spent in Naples, teaching (Hasse was his pupil from 1722), composing cantatas (which ultimately numbered over 600, mostly for soprano and continuo), a Serenata and a set of Sonatas for Flute and Strings, probably composed for Quantz, who visited him in late 1724 or early 1725. Quantz describes the visit thus:
"I heard Scarlatti play on the harpsichord, which he knew how to play in a learned style although he did not possess as much finesse as his son. After this he accompanied me in a solo. I had the good fortune to win his favor, in fact so much so that he composed a few flute solos for me."
This comment would almost prove to be an epitaph, for Alessandro Scarlatti died on October 24, 1725.
Born in 1659, Henry Purcell was the finest and most original composer of his day. Though he was to live a very short life (he died in 1695) he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music after the Restoration of the Monarchy.
As the son of a musician at Court, a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and the holder of continuing royal appointments until his death, Purcell worked in Westminster for three different Kings over twenty-five years.
In the Chapel Royal young Purcell studied with Dr. John Blow. Dr. Burney, the eighteenth century historian, is amusingly skeptical on this point: "..... he had a few lessons from Dr. Blow, which were sufficient to cancel all the instructions he had received from other masters, and to occasion the boast inscribed on the tomb-stone of Blow, that he had been 'Master to the famous Mr. Henry Purcell'." Legend has it that when, in 1679, Purcell succeeded Dr. Blow as organist of Westminster Abbey, the elder musician stepped aside in recognition of the greater genius, and it is true that on Purcell's death in 1695 Blow returned to the post, and would write a noble Ode on the Death of Purcell.
In addition to his royal duties Purcell also devoted much of his talent to writing operas, or rather musical dramas, and incidental stage music; but he would also write chamber music in the form of harpsichord suites and trio sonatas, and became involved with the growing London public concert scene. Indeed one of the most important musical developments in Restoration London was the gradual establishment of regular public concerts. Even the few meetings that began as private concerns were eventually prevailed upon to admit the general public, such as the group that gave concerts in the Castle Tavern. Whereas other organizations charged only a shilling, their admittance fee was more than twice that sum, and before long they had enough capital to equip a music room in York Buildings.
By the time Henry Purcell began to attend such concerts in the 1670s there were many highly skilled players of the violin, cello, and flute, as well as exponents of the (for London) relatively new art of playing continuo instruments, the most usual being the organ and the harpsichord. In 1683 a group of gentlemen amateurs, and professional musicians started a "Musical Society" in London to celebrate the "Festival of St. Cecilia, a great patroness of music" which any music-lover so desirous may still celebrate yearly on November 22nd. They asked Henry Purcell, then only 24, to be the first to write an Ode for their festivals; Purcell was to compose two more such Odes for the Society.
The writing of incidental theater music seems not to have been regarded by Purcell as embarrassing or beneath his dignity as Organist of Westminster Abbey. He was in the very midst of a tradition that not only permitted but actually encouraged well-known church musicians to provide lighter music for the theatre and opera, and this was an accepted practice in the great continental cities as well as in London. Most of Purcell's theatre music was written between 1690 and 1695 (the year of his death), and within that relatively brief period he supplied music for more than forty plays. Much of the instrumental music was published in 1697, when the composer's widow compiled A Collection of Ayres, Compos'd for the Theatre, and upon Other Occasions. This body of music, viewed as a whole, shows that Purcell gave to the theatre some of his happiest melodic inspirations, distributed among solemn overtures, cheerful or pathetic airs, and delightful dances of every imaginable kind.
There is hardly a department of music, as known in his day, to which Purcell did not contribute with true distinction. His anthems were long since accorded their place in the great music of the church; there are enough fine orchestral movements in his works for the theatre to establish him in this field; his fantasies and sonatas entitle him to honor in the history of chamber music; his keyboard works, if less significant in themselves, hold their place in the repertory; his one true opera. Dido and Aeneas, is an enduring masterpiece, and his other dramatic works (sometimes called operas) are full of musical riches. And, most especially, Purcell's songs themselves would be sufficient to insure his immortality. His sensitivity to his texts has been matched by few masters in musical history; when he had worthy poetry to set, he could hardly fail to produce a masterpiece.
The Italian composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli exercised a wide influence on his contemporaries and on the succeeding generation of composers. Born in Fusignano, Italy, in 1653, a full generation before Bach or Handel, he studied in Bologna, a distinguished musical center, then established himself in Rome in the 1670s. By 1679 had entered the service of Queen Christina of Sweden, who had taken up residence in Rome in 1655, after her abdication the year before, and had established there an academy of literati that later became the Arcadian Academy. Thanks to his musical achievements and growing international reputation he found no trouble in obtaining the support of a succession of influential patrons. History has remembered him with such titles as "Founder of Modern Violin Technique," the "World's First Great Violinist," and the "Father of the Concerto Grosso."
His contributions can be divided three ways, as violinist, composer, and teacher. It was his skill on the new instrument known as the violin and his extensive and very popular concert tours throughout Europe which did most to give that instrument its prominent place in music. It is probably correct to say that Corelli's popularity as a violinist was as great in his time as was Paganini's during the 19th century. Yet Corelli was not a virtuoso in the contemporary sense, for a beautiful singing tone alone distinguished great violinists in that day, and Corelli's tone quality was the most remarkable in all Europe according to reports. In addition, Corelli was the first person to organize the basic elements of violin technique.
Corelli's popularity as a violinist was equaled by his acclaim as a composer. His music was performed and honored throughout all Europe; in fact, his was the most popular instrumental music. It is important to note in this regard that a visit of respect to the great Corelli was an important part of the Italian tour of the young Handel. Yet Corelli's compositional output was rather small. All of his creations are included in six opus numbers, most of them being devoted to serious and popular sonatas and trio sonatas. In the Sonatas Opus 5 is found the famous "La Folia" Variations for violin and accompaniment. One of Corelli's famous students, Geminiani, thought so much of the Opus 5 Sonatas that he arranged all the works in that group as Concerti Grossi. However, it is in his own Concerti Grossi Opus 6 that Corelli reached his creative peak and climaxed all his musical contributions.
Although Corelli was not the inventor of the Concerto Grosso principle, it was he who proved the potentialities of the form, popularized it, and wrote the first great music for it. Through his efforts, it achieved the same pre-eminent place in the baroque period of musical history that the symphony did in the classical period. Without Corelli's successful models, it would have been impossible for Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach to have given us their Concerto Grosso masterpieces.
The Concerto Grosso form is built on the principle of contrasting two differently sized instrumental groups. In Corelli's, the smaller group consists of two violins and a cello, and the larger of a string orchestra. Dynamic markings in all the music of this period were based on the terrace principle; crescendo and diminuendi are unknown, contrasts between forte and piano and between the large and small string groups constituting the dynamic variety of the scores.
Of all his compositions it was upon his Opus 6 that Corelli labored most diligently and devotedly. Even though he wouldn't allow them to be published during his lifetime, they still became some of the most famous music of the time. The date of composition is not certain, for Corelli spent many years of his life writing and rewriting this music, beginning while still in his twenties.
The Trio Sonata, an instrumental composition generally demanding the services of four players reading from three part-books, assumed enormous importance in baroque music, developing from its earlier beginnings at the start of the seventeenth century to a late flowering in the work of Handel, Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, alter the earlier achievements of Arcangelo Corelli in the form. Instrumentation of the trio sonata, possibly for commercial reasons, allowed some freedom of choice. Nevertheless the most frequently found arrangement became that for two violins and cello, with a harpsichord or other chordal instrument to fill out the harmony. The trio sonata was the foundation of the concerto grosso, the instrumental concerto that contrasted a concertino group of the four instruments of the trio sonata with the full string orchestra, which might double louder passages.
Corelli's dedications of his Sonatas mark his progress among the great patrons of Rome. He dedicated his first set of twelve Church Sonatas, Opus 1, published in 1681, to Queen Christina, describing the work as the first fruits of his studies. His second set of trio Sonatas, Chamber Sonatas, Opus 2, was published in 1685 with a dedication to a new patron, Cardinal Pamphili, whose service he entered in 1687, with the violinist Fornari and cellist Lulier. A third set of trio sonatas, a second group of twelve Church Sonatas, Opus 3, was issued in 1689, with a dedication to Francesco II of Modena, and a final set of a dozen Chamber Sonatas, Opus 4, was published in 1694 with a dedication to a new patron, Cardinal Ottoboni, the young nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, after Cardinal Pamphili's removal in 1690 to Bologna. Cardinal Ottoboni became Corelli's main patron, who made it possible for Corelli to pursue his career without monetary worries, and it would seem that no composer has ever had a more devoted or understanding patron.
Corelli's achievements as a teacher were again outstanding. Among his many students were included not only Geminiani but the famed Antonio Vivaldi. It was Vivaldi who became Corelli's successor as a composer of the great Concerti Grossi and who greatly influenced the music of Bach.
Corelli occupied a leading position in the musical life of Rome for some thirty years, performing as a violinist and directing performances often on occasions of the greatest public importance. His style of composition was much imitated and provided a model, both through a wide dissemination of works published in his lifetime and through the performance of these works in Rome. Corelli died a wealthy man on January 19, 1713, at Rome in the 59th year of his life. But long before his death, he had taken a place among the immortal musicians of all time, and he maintains that exalted position today.
Given the difficulties of travel and communication two centuries ago, it might easily be assumed that composers would know relatively little of other composers and other countries. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Travel by stage-coach may have been lengthy, and probably only for the well-to-do. But the many post-coach monuments still to be found in Germany, with their journey timings between towns precise down to one-eighth of an hour attest to the high degree of organization and reliability in this mode of travel. Music-making was highly prized by many of the princely and kingly courts, and leading musicians would often be financed for their journeys to bring back the latest styles and compositions. During the first half of the 1700s, German music adopted the Italian forms of the concerto and sonata, and with them, much of the Italian baroque "vocabulary" together with the latest Italian compositions. ITALY The papacy returned to Rome in 1377, and after the middle of the 15th century the city became a center of Renaissance culture. Massive papal patronage of the arts began to enrich Rome. During the papacy (1447-1455) of Nicholas V the defense walls were repaired, palaces built, and churches restored. Major artists and architects now worked in Rome, and by the end of the century it had supplanted Florence as the primary focal point of the Renaissance. The sack of the city in 1527 by Habsburg mercenaries was a temporary setback. During the 16th century Michelangelo, Donato Bramante, Raphael, and other artists worked for the popes, and construction of the new Saint Peter’s Basilica progressed. It was not until the reign (1585-1590) of Pope Sixtus V, however, that the dense, confused medieval urban pattern began to be modernized. Three major streets were laid out to radiate from the Piazza del Popolo to the center of the city. Sixtus also built squares and fountains, and he restored the Acqua Felice aqueduct. In addition, old churches were refurbished, and Saint Peter’s dome was completed. It was hardly surprising that music too should flourish against this rich visual background. Typical of baroque musicians active in Rome was the composer and violinist Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), whose style of playing became the basis for the violin technique of the 18th and 19th centuries, and whose chamber music compositions were far-reaching in their influence. Born in Fusignano, he studied in nearby Bologna and after 1675 lived in Rome. There his patrons included Queen Christina of Sweden and, after 1690, Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, (1667-1740), librettist and important music patron who as vice-chancellor of the church resided in the Palazzo della Cancelleria where Poetico-Musicali Accademie were held and operas and oratorios performed. The most widely published and reprinted composer before the Austrian Joseph Haydn, Corelli was the first composer to gain an international reputation solely on the basis of his instrumental music. Many elements of his style became commonplace in the 18th century, and his works are early examples of the newly evolved system of major and minor tonality. As the preeminent violin virtuoso of the day, he taught many leading violinist-composers of the 18th century, among them the Italian Francesco Geminiani. Many eminent composers of the baroque period, notably Handel for example, sojourned in Rome, and Corelli's influence was to spread itself throughout Europe. Rome was of course also featured on the Grand Tour, which the wealthy of Europe and especially England were enjoying in increasing numbers during the 1700s. Rivalling Rome in its musical influence if not in its architectural and artistic splendor, Naples owed its outstanding position in music to the inordinate number of talented musicians to which the city gave birth - as well as to its music conservatories which educated and served them so well. Indeed Naples has aptly been called the conservatory of 18th century music and did in fact boast four conservatories of the highest musical caliber. Scarcely any great composer of the first half of the settecento was not influenced by Neapolitan music. Indeed, most great musical figures of the time visited Naples or stayed and worked there for some time. The brilliant Nicola Porpora (b. Aug. 19, 1686, in Naples; d. there February 1767), for instance, not only taught Joseph Haydn but knew intimately such world-renowned figures as Bononcini, Farinelli, Handel, and Hasse. In 1733, he went to London, joining first Hasse, then Bononcini, to compete with the giant Handel. Some say that Porpora's influence modernized Handel's late operatic style of composition — or at least had had that tendency up until Porpora's departure from England for Italy in 1737. The universally acknowledged master of Neapolitan Baroque music was Alessandro Scarlatti (b. May 2, 1660, in Palermo; d. October 24, 1725, in Naples). Almost overnight he revolutionized the provincial musical atmosphere prevailing at Naples before he arrived in February of 1684 as new maestro di cappella at the Viceregal Chapel. Direct inheritor of the grand Italian traditions of opera, oratorio, cantata, and instrumental composition received from Pietro Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674), Alessandro Stradella (1642-1682), and Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690), Scarlatti was well equipped to revolutionize Neapolitan musical life. The abrupt resignation of the old Neapolitan Guard - Francesco Provenzale (ca. 1627-1704) and six of his colleagues, all disappointed that Provenzale was passed over in favor of Scarlatti upon the death of Pietro Andrea Ziani (ca. 1630-1684), cleared the way for Scarlatti's breath of fresh air. Scarlatti's operas and cantatas, his serenatas and oratorios, and especially his instrumental works soon brought new life to Neapolitan music. He was to write over one hundred operas, six hundred cantatas and a number of oratorios. He was also frequently commissioned by members of the European nobility to compose sonatas for wind and string instruments as well as cembalo pieces and concerti grossi. His set of Sinfonie di Concerto Grosso are currently available in the Philips label performed by I Musici. Domenico Scarlatti (b. Oct. 26, 1685, in Naples; d. July 23, 1757, in Madrid) was the sixth son of Alessandro Scarlatti. The father no doubt exposed Domenico to the best possible training in Naples, taking him in about 1708 to Venice to study with Francesco Gasparini (1668-1727), himself a pupil of Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). From Venice the younger Scarlatti journeyed to Rome — with Handel, according to report — where both performed before Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. About 1720 he moved to Lisbon, and some ten years later to Madrid. He is perhaps best-known today for his keyboard sonatas, in which he borrowed liberally from Hispanic folk tunes and rhythms creating a unique blend which might be called "Iberian Baroque". Francesco Durante (b. March 31, 1684, in Fratta Maggiore; d. August 13, 1755, in Naples) was the busiest of Neapolitan teachers, holding posts at both the Sant' Onofrio and Santa Maria di Loreto conservatories, and teaching, playing, and composing elsewhere as well. His career developed at the best possible time for taking maximum advantage of the new depths and richness, the new musical fluency which Alessandro Scarlatti had created for Naples. Durante so profited from these fortunate circumstances that Rousseau was encouraged to name him "the greatest harmonist in Italy, that is to say, of the world." For further information on this composer see the link at the bottom of this page. But for consistently high inspiration few composers of the time, Neapolitan or otherwise, can compare with Giovanni Batista Pergolesi (b. January 4, 1710, in Jesi; d. March 16, 1736, in Pozzuoli). His career also coincided with the most fruitful period of Neapolitan musical history. It was Pergolesi's destiny to take advantage (within two and a half decades of a tragically foreshortened life) of the grand opportunity for completely new musical formulation which Scarlatti's works provided. Almost single-handedly Pergolesi forged a new dramatic style, utilizing for his purposes the lowly opera buffa, and bringing to the stage and concert hall all the subtleties of psychological, idiomatic, and motivic development and all the dramatic flexibility so vital to the art of musical characterization which Mozart was to bring to perfection. Venice, the great independent trading city-on-the-water in the north, was also a place of great wealth, architectural masterpieces, and musical influence, the most famous among its musical sons being Antonio Vivaldi. Venice also featured on the European nobility's "Grand Tour". In retrospect however we may perhaps sadly note that the economic power and wealth of Venice was already in decline, and by the end of Vivaldi's lifetime economic recession had set in from which Venice was never to recover. An underlying, all-pervading and inspirational influence on Italian baroque music was provided by its violin-makers, mainly centered in Cremona - the Amati family in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Guarneri and Stradivari families in the 17th and 18th. It might be suggested that in a similar way the great organ-builders of Germany, Arp Schnitger in the north and Gottfried Silbermann in the south, inspired and challenged composers such as Buxtehude and JS Bach to compose organ works which would exploit to the full the varied and majestic tonalities of these notable instruments. FROM ITALY TO GERMANY Johann Georg Pisendel (born 1687, died at Dresden in 1755) was not only one of the foremost German violinists of the 18th century, but also a musical personality of international renown. At the age of ten he went to Ansbach, where Giuseppi Torelli became his teacher. When he was 25 he entered the Dresden Court Orchestra, and in 1728 he was appointed as its leader, occupying that post with great distinction until his death. It was largely to his work that the Dresden Court Orchestra owed its fame throughout Europe. Johann Friedrich Reichardt wrote in 1774: "Good though the Berlin orchestra has always been, those people qualified to judge and who were acquainted with both always preferred the Dresden orchestra under the leadership of the renowned Concertmeister Pishändel." With the permission of the Court, Pisendel traveled to France in 1714 and to Italy in 1716/17. He studied under Vivaldi in Venice, also coming into contact with other prominent Italian masters of the day, and after his return to Dresden he introduced the latest Italian violin compositions. We know that Pisendel played a concerto by Torelli for the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, while Dresden was, at that time, the center of the German cult of Vivaldi, under whose influence J.S. Bach composed his organ concertos. The political and cultural links between Saxony and Italy were made even stronger by the coronation of Marie Amalia of Saxony as Queen of Naples. The royal residences in Munich, Stuttgart and Hanover also allowed themselves the luxury of Italian musical establishments, and many of the smaller princely courts where the music was directed by Germans ordered the latest scores from Italy. Pisendel's significance and stature as an original composer were long underestimated. While he was not a prolific writer, those compositions of his which survive are of a high quality, and demonstrate an individual creative purpose. A sonata for violin solo is a highly exacting work both from the musical and violinistic viewpoint, and tends to confirm the theory that Pisendel's playing and style may have led to the composition of Bach's solo sonatas. Indeed it has been suggested that Bach's Six Sonatas/Partitas for solo violin were composed precisely as a challenge to Pisendel during a visit with Bach at the Köthen Court where Bach was then in service. Likewise, the Capellmeister of Gotha, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (1690-1749), went to Italy in 1713 in order to come into personal contact with the foremost musicians of the age, and to miss no opportunity "where anything was to be heard''. He met Alessandro Scarlatti in Rome, and in Venice Vivaldi, Marcello, and his fellow-countryman Johann David Heinichen. His journey took him by way of Florence, Pisa and Leghorn, and the return journey through Bologna, Venice and Trieste to Innsbruck, then via Linz and Budweis to Prague. Stölzel's 'Concerto a quattro chori' for example, was a splendid highlight in the court music making of the time. The very scoring of this work, with its two groups of trumpets, a group of woodwind and subdivided strings, creates the air of festive splendor characteristic of the later Baroque period, with its sheer joy in making music. J.S. Bach knew and probably valued this splendid-sounding work by his colleague at Gotha; he used the fugal theme from the Finale of this Concerto in his G minor Bourrée from the "Clavierbüchlein'' for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach - in which a "Partia di Signore Stelzeln'', in several movements, has a place of honour. GERMANY Though highly influenced by developments in Italy, Germany was in fact grafting these forms and styles onto its own indigenous traditions. The Reformation, led by Martin Luther and formally begun in 1517, brought religion to the masses, both through Luther's translations of biblical texts into German, and through the extensive use of the chorale as an essential textual/musical accompaniment to the church service. From the traditional chorale melodies much of German baroque music was to grow and develop. Cantatas and Passions were frequently chorale-based, and if not, were simply extensions of the chorale tradition. Organists too would elaborate on the chorale for the week, either by adding interpolations between verses, or by composing whole sets of variations based on a specific chorale melody. To this tradition must be added the instinctive German love of order, manifested still today in so many aspects of German life. Thus German composers were attracted to the fugue, the canon and passacaglia for their basis of fundamental form, pattern and unity. One of several early baroque composers who contributed significantly to the marriage of chorale and counterpoint was DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE. Of Danish origin and born at Oldesloe, Holstein (then a Danish possession), in 1637, he died at Lübeck in 1707 aged sixty-nine or seventy. In addition to his compositional contributions, his artistry on the organ was legendary. His performance of sacred music, instrumental and vocal, made Lübeck a place of pilgrimage for musicians anxious to advance in their art, and the young Sebastian Bach himself traveled two hundred miles to hear them and to sit at the feet of the Master. In Bach's Cantatas and Passions, and in his numerous chorale preludes and variations, the development of the chorale reached a peak which has never subsequently been exceeded. The chorale has continued, and continues to occupy a place of fundamental in German life, both Protestant and Catholic. The chorales have been continually heard in the homes as much as in the churches. It was customary for centuries for church choirs to perambulate the streets during the week, singing them before the houses. Even in the 1880s Steinert, the Boston piano dealer, re-visiting his native Bavarian town after an absence of forty years, found the night-watchman in the streets still marking the hours by singing his hymn verses to their old chorale tune, as he does in another Bavarian town in Wagner's Mastersingers. The chorale, indeed, has permeated German religious, communal, and domestic life. A private traveler in Germany today may be surprised to learn how many of those he or she meets are regular and enthusiastic participants in church choirs, once again attesting to their deep love of choral music. ENGLAND The 1600s proved to be a century of political upheaval and change in England - change from autocratic to parliamentary monarchy. As the century opened Britain was ruled by a highly autocratic monarch who would have nothing to do with the young and aspiring parliament. The showdown came with the trial by parliament and subsequent execution of King Charles I in 1649. This was followed by an attempt at a republic under Cromwell - which proved to be chaotic and disastrous. The restored monarchs - Charles II and James II - were still somewhat reluctant to accept the supremacy of parliament, until parliament itself called upon James's daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange to rescue the country from its political instability. This they did in 1689, reigning jointly thereafter as William III and Mary. This brief history will explain why, after the cultural vacuum and chaos of the revolution, the republic and its ensuing years, music would once again flourish as the century drew to a close. Henry Purcell was born in 1659, and though he was to live a very short life (he died in 1695) he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music. He devoted much his talent to writing operas, or rather musical dramas, and incidental stage music; but he would also write chamber music in the form of harpsichord suites and trio sonatas, and became involved with the growing London public concert scene. For a young London Musical Society he produced Odes to celebrate Saint Cecilia's day (the Patron Saint of Music) - which any music-lover so desirous may celebrate on November 22nd. As the son of a musician at court, a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and the holder of continuing royal appointments until his death, Purcell worked exclusively in Westminster for three different Kings over twenty-five years, and facts about Purcell's activities at court are fairly well documented. Among other works written for the Court, he produced Odes for royal birthdays, among which is the lively and tuneful "Come ye Sons of Art". Queen Mary's death was a devastating blow which deeply affected the country. Mary had been a much-loved monarch and the public demanded a funeral which reflected its devotion. No expense was spared. Sir Christopher Wren had ensured that the route to Westminster was lined with black railings. Three hundred somber women led the entourage dressed in black capes with boys carrying their trains. Purcell was also called upon to provide an ode for the death of his (and the country's) beloved Queen Mary. How perfectly the occasion leant itself to Purcell's evocative and bitter-sweet music. In November of that same year Westminster Abbey would also be the setting for Purcell's own funeral, at which the combined choirs of the Abbey and the Chapel Royal would commemorate the premature passing of 'the English Orpheus'. During the last decades of the 1600s England had learned much about Italian and French musical styles from Purcell and would enter the new century warmly receptive to continental fashions. English musical life during the first half of the 1700s was dominated by the giant figure of Handel, who had settled in London in 1712; here once again, royalty had played its influential part. Following his early studies in Germany, Handel went to Italy where he spent more than three years, in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. In Rome he studied with Corelli, and may also have met Vivaldi in Venice on his return. Handel left Italy early in 1710 and went to Hanover, where he was appointed Capellmeister to the Elector, George Louis. The Royal Houses of Britain and Europe had always been closely inter-related, and the Act of Settlement of 1701 which secured the Protestant succession to the Crown, made George's mother heiress-presumptive to the throne of Great Britain. In 1705 George had already been naturalized by Act of Parliament, and in August 1714 the death of Queen Anne made him King. Handel, who had already visited London and apparently found it to his liking, was to follow the Elector in adopting British nationality, and indeed part of Handel's success in London was due to the royal patronage of the Elector of Hanover, now King George I. Handel's influence both upon the cultural milieu of his day and upon his younger English contemporaries can hardly be overstated. It was the beginning of the age of the "Grand Tour," when educated and wealthy citizens embarked on the "Grand Tour' to Italy, France, Germany and The Netherlands. As often as not they returned home full of enthusiasm for the academies, theatres, opera houses and concert life which they had encountered in Europe. England, in short, became a welcoming host to foreign virtuosos, impresarios, singers and composers. As the Hamburg theorist, critic and composer Johann Mattheson noted in 1713 (Das Neu-Eröffnete Orchester): "He who in the present time wants to make a profit out of music betakes himself to England." In England, as to begin with in Germany, the chief model for instrumental music was Corelli, whose compositions first became known in London towards the end of the seventeenth century. In 1715 John Walsh senior - he and his son were soon to become Handel's publishers - issued Corelli's 12 Concerti Grossi Op. 6, from which time they were performed, adapted, and from all accounts, universally loved. The English music historian Sir John Hawkins mentions an occasion in 1724 when an enthusiastic group of amateurs, having just acquired Corelli's Op. 6 from a bookseller, "played the whole 12 concertos through, without rising from their seats" (History of the Science and Practice of Music, 1776). Concertos by Corelli's contemporary, Torelli, and the up-to-date fashionable Venetian concertos by Vivaldi were also published and became popular in England. Among the very first composers to have concertos printed in England was Francesco Geminiani. Geminiani was born in Lucca and studied the violin under Corelli in Rome. It is also possible that he studied composition with Alessandro Scarlatti in Naples. In 1707 Geminiani returned to his native town of Lucca, where he played in the town orchestra for three years before taking up a position in Naples in 1711 as leader of the opera orchestra. In 1714 he came to England where his playing quickly gained him the support of leading figures at court and among the aristocracy. Geminiani left London for Dublin in 1733 where he built up a fine reputation as a teacher, performer, concert promoter and theorist. In that year he opened a Concert Room in Dublin, apparently using the upstairs premises for music and the rooms below for trading in pictures. FRANCE The contribution of France to baroque music, particularly in its earlier period, 1650-1700, was comparatively small. This was due entirely to the influence of one Giovanni Battista Lulli (1632-1687), an Italian of noble birth who, as a young man, journeyed to France, taking up service in 1653 at the Court of Louis XIV. Here he used his influence with the king, combined with an aggressive sense of business, to create for himself a virtual monopoly over French music which was to last beyond his death and well into the early 1700s, it being only with Rameau and Couperin that France began to find itself musically once again. The stranglehold of Lully (to use his later French spelling) on French music at the time could hardly be over-emphasized. A series of highly restrictive royal patents gave him a total monopoly on the use of music on the French stage. Aggressive and shrewd in business, Lully bought up the leading theater venues, and to strengthen his position he even persuaded the king to issue an ordnance limiting the number of singers and instrumentalists that could perform with other Parisian theater troupes. The major influence which France did exert over the baroque age was one of courtly opulence. In 1669 Louis XIV (1638-1715) decided to convert an old hunting lodge at Versailles into a palace of unprecedented magnificence. It was completed in 1682, and the court moved in 1683. There was not a kingly or princely court in Europe which could match Versailles for the opulence of its gilded interiors, its mirrors and chandeliers, with an appropriately matching flamboyance of courtly ceremony, and there was not a kingly or princely court in Europe which did not, either openly or secretly aspire to match this model. Lully (now naturalized French as Jean-Baptiste Lully with a 'y') reflected this ideal in the magnificence of his operas and operatic settings, staged with the aid of all kinds of machines by which suns and angels could fly about and ships could ride the wild stormy seas. His operatic texts praised the king and reflected the latest royal thinking at every turn, which of course served to strengthen his position. At the same time however, it must be stressed that his performances were not to be missed. His operas and sacred works displayed a richness and majesty (the French-style Ouverture being one of his contributions) which would attract the interest admiration of audiences, and visiting musicians from Italy and Germany. Though much or Europe's royalty was to make the pilgrimage to Versailles, none was to know that Louis and his country were overburdened by the debts which the costly Versailles imposed on them. In addition France during the latter years of the 1600s was to suffer two famines and a series of disastrous military defeats. The splendor of Versailles gradually faded along with the king's vigor, and his death in 1715 signaled both an end for Versailles (though it would later revive), and a rebirth of (non-Lullian) music in Paris with a boom in sheet-music printing and music lessons for the bourgeoisie, Musical freedom and vitality were reborn in Paris, and would continue to flourish even after Louis XV moved his court back to Versailles. SPAIN The Moorish presence (roughly 800-1500) gave Spanish music much of its distinctive flavor, bequeathing a legacy of complex Arabic rhythms, microtonic scales, and an ongoing love of the plucked instrument, the vihuela and the guitar. Itinerant gypsies would later add regional variety in rhythm and melody. It was this rich and varied folk mixture which Domenico Scarlatti would later explore and exploit with such flare and enthusiasm. When Emperor Charles V united the Netherlands, Burgundy, Naples and Spain under one crown, Spain would open to the whole European musical world. In Charles' reign and that of his son Philip II, together covering the period 1516-1598, Spanish music reached a highpoint. During this period organ building also flourished; organ-builders became enterprising and inventive as Spain's prosperity flowed into the churches. Philip II himself presented the organ in Granada Cathedral - it is still in regular use. The blind organist-composer Antonio de Cabezón (1510-66) was one of the world's earliest composers for keyboard, his works exhibiting a fairly advanced style. Significant musical developments during the baroque period however, took place in other areas of Europe. Looking at the names of Spanish composers of 1650-1750, we find not one of any special note. The major figure of the Spanish baroque was Domenico Scarlatti who was born, and received his musical training, not in Spain but in Italy. In Scarlatti's 500 or so Sonatas we find all the richness and excitement, the melodic and rhythmic variety of traditional Spain. From EUROPE to the NEW WORLD As the 18th century progressed, European music was also becoming increasingly familiar in the United States, a particularly enthusiastic exponent being Thomas Jefferson, politician, diplomat, foreign minister to France, vice president under John Adams, two-term president of the United States, and of course, author of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, whose spirited pursuit of excellence has few parallels in American history, regarded music as "a delightful recreation through life" and "this favorite passion of my soul." Once again we encounter the ubiquitous Corelli, who is known to have been one of Jefferson's favorite composers.
Baroque music expresses order, the fundamental order of the universe. Yet it is always lively and tuneful. Follow the development of music through this brief outline, from the earliest times to the present day, with baroque music set in historical context.
The English word baroqueis derived from the Italian barocco, meaning bizarre, though probably exuberant would be a better translation more accurately reflecting the sense. The usage of this term originated in the 1860s to describe the highly decorated style of 17th and 18th century religious and public buildings in Italy, Germany and Austria, as typified by the very baroque angelic organist adorning the Gottfried Silbermann organ completed in 1714 for the Cathedral in Freiberg, Saxony (illustrated above). Later, during the early-to-mid 1900s, the term baroque was applied by association to music of the 17th and early 18th century, and today the term baroque has come to refer to a very clearly definable type or genre of music which originated, broadly speaking, around 1600 and came to fruition between 1700 and 1750.
Listen to music of the 1200s and 1300s. It's relatively primitive in terms of melody and harmony. If we move to the 1500s we find a great difference, as Italian music began to blossom and English composers like Dowland, Morley and Tomkins produced the wonderful melodies and surprisingly sensitive poetry which accompanied them - or vice versa. A major theme underlying music at that time however was the exploration of form. There was still so much new to discover: new melodic lines and harmonic progressions to be explored, new combinations of instruments, and new forms in music such as the fugue, canon, and variations on a bassline, a popular tune or a chorale. As the 1600s progressed, so these different musical forms took on definite shape, and the period from 1700 to 1750 can clearly be seen as the "high baroque".
Two geographical influences were at work here. In north Germany and Holland, composers such as Froberger, Kerll, and particularly Dietrich Buxtehude were concentrating mainly on the art of counterpoint, especially the fugue. Here, organ and voice were the major elements. At the other end of Europe, in Rome, the instrumental forms of the sonata and concerto were formalized. Every period in music has certain recognizable clichés, and much of what is typical in baroque music, specific cadences and snatches of melody, can be traced back to one Arcangelo Corelli, who seems to have influenced just about everybody, from his Italian contemporaries and students to Handel who sojourned in Rome from 1704 to 1710. From Rome, the "Italian" influences spread northwards while the stricter north German forms flowed southwards, intermingling to produce a common baroque vocabulary. Indeed, the inter-mingling of musical trends from different parts of Europe was surprisingly extensive, considering the relatively primitive methods of travel and communication. Vivaldi, Geminiani, Corelli, Scarlatti, Handel and many others all met one another or were thoroughly conversant with one another's music. Bach journeyed north from his "base" in Thuringia and Saxony, southern Germany, to hear Buxtehude, and his later travels included Dresden and Berlin. Bach owned and/or copied the music of many of his contemporary composers, often re-writing them for different instruments. Indeed this was a recognized method of study widely practised in baroque times.
It is also important, when studying the composers and their music of the baroque or indeed any age, to review the circumstances in which composers worked. Take Vivaldi for example. Though he wrote many fine concertos (like the Four Seasons and the Opus 3) he also wrote many works which sound like five-finger exercises for students. And this is precisely what they were. Vivaldi was employed for most of his working life by the Ospedale della Pietà. Often termed an "orphanage", this Ospedale was in fact a home for the female offspring of noblemen and their numerous dalliances with their mistresses. The Ospedale was thus well endowed by the "anonymous" fathers; its furnishings bordered on the opulent, the young ladies were well looked-after, and the musical standards among the highest in Venice. Many of Vivaldi's concerti were indeed exercises which he would play with his many talented pupils.
Two major influences in Germany were the Church and the State, or rather, States. Neither Italy nor Germany existed then as we know them today. Germany was a complex mass of small princely states, each with its own Court and, with any luck, Court Musicians. Alliances came and went as princely families inter-married thus uniting, for a time anyway, their respective territories. That is why so many princely titles of those days were hyphenated, as for example, Anhalt-Köthen or Saxe-Coburg. Many a composer's fortunes rose or fell with the status accorded to music at the court in which he was serving, and composer-musicians would try to seek a position in a city or court where music was known, for the time being anyway, to be thriving under the patronage of an enthusiastic king or prince. The direction of Bach's music was influenced in his early years by several courts at which he was employed; the greater part of his working life however was spent in Leipzig where his position as Cantor of St Thomas' Church required church cantatas in abundance (200 have come down to us, some 100 more are supposed lost).
A brief look at the life of Handel illustrates both the mobility, and the influence of royal patronage on a composer typical of the baroque age.
Georg Friederich Händel was born in Halle (Germany), on February 23rd,1685, just a month before JS Bach was born in Eisenach, not so far to the south.
Handel's father intended him for the law, but his own musical inclinations soon prevailed. Following his studies in Germany, Handel went to Italy where he spent more than three years, in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. In Rome he studied with Corelli, and no doubt met and exchanged ideas with a number of other Italian composers.
Handel left Italy early in 1710 and went to Hanover, where he was appointed Kapellmeister to the Elector, George Louis. The Royal Houses of Britain and Europe had always been closely inter-related, and England's Act of Settlement of 1701 which secured the Protestant succession to the Crown, placed George directly in the line of succession. In 1705 George was naturalized by Act of Parliament, and in August 1714 the death of Queen Anne made him King of England. Handel, who had already visited London and apparently found it to his liking, was to follow the Elector in adopting British nationality, and indeed part of Handel's success in London was due to the royal patronage of the Elector of Hanover, now King George I.
Handel became deeply involved, both artistically and commercially, in the growing London opera scene. Later, during the 1730s he would lean more to the English musical forms, the oratorio, ode and the like, and his Messiah belongs very much to the anglican anthem tradition. When Handel died on April 14th, 1759 he was buried in Westminster Abbey, recognized in England as the greatest composer of his day. In his association with royalty and royal occasions, Handel followed a tradition set fifty years earlier by Purcell, and is still regarded as one of England's greatest composers.
In the music of JS Bach, the different forms and styles of the baroque came together and were brought to perfection. Johann Sebastian Bach came from a musical family stretching back through many generations, and the Bachs were well-known throughout their "home ground" of Thuringia in what is now southeast Germany. The Bach family members were church and court musicians, teachers, and one or two were instrument-makers. Though Bach himself traveled less than some of his contemporaries, he seems to have been able to draw freely and widely on the developments taking place throughout the western musical world as indeed were all the other major composers. Later in Bach's life, during his Leipzig years, his son Carl Philipp Emanuel wrote that "no musician of any consequence visiting Leipzig would fail to call upon my father". Leipzig was an important and cosmopolitan university city, and visiting musicians would call upon Bach or stay at his apartments in the Thomas School building where they would make music together on whatever ensemble of instruments the occasion could muster. Many of Bach's later concertos were written or modified for such occasions - the 3 and 4 harpsichord concertos for example.
When Bach died in 1750 he left a legacy which summarized his art, his life's work in which he had, by general recognition, brought baroque musical forms to the peak of their development. He left 48 Preludes and Fugues for the keyboard adopting the new "equal temperament" enabling all keys to be played equally and modulation between keys; he left us the Art of the Fugue (complete, though many deny this, attaching an incomplete fugue which is not part of the "Art"), and the Goldberg Variations, a set of 30 Variations on a popular tune. He also left numerous collections of chorale variations, canons, and fugues, as well as many pieces in more standardized form such as preludes, sonatas and concertos. Add to that, some 200 cantatas, the Passions, and the monumental B-Minor Mass (plus the Four Shorter Masses which Bach "assembled" drawing upon what he considered as his finest cantata movements).
After Bach music took a different turn. Even the music of his sons, with the possible exception of Wilhelm Friedemann, was quite different in character, expressing the new "gallant" style which was lighter, with less stress on pure form - and having its own set of "clichés"! Here we find composers such as Haydn and Mozart, to be followed by the "romantic" composers such as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. It was however in the baroque period that the essential language of music was defined, and it is interesting to note how successive composers would often "return to base", studying and playing Bach's works, writing fugues in the baroque style, or adapting the works of baroque composers. Mendelssohn led the baroque revival, while Mozart, Schumann, Beethoven and many others produced fugues in strict baroque style. Max Reger, as well as writing many pieces in baroque contrapuntal style, adapted Bach's Six Brandenburg Concertos for two pianos.
Many instruments reached the peak of their development at the height of the baroque era; the organs of Arp Schnitger (north Germany) and Bach's close friend Gottfried Silbermann (Saxony, south Germany) were among the period's finest and are still regarded as such today. Likewise the violins and other stringed instruments of the baroque Italian masters are the prized possessions of today's professional string players. The domestic, and later concert keyboard instrument provides an example of disappearance, replacement, then rediscovery. The baroque age favored the harpsichord, in which the strings are plucked and the player cannot vary the tone through finger touch. After 1750 the piano took over, offering touch sensitivity, and developing later into the "iron grands" needed for concert-hall performances of the great romantic concertos by such as Beethoven. Interestingly however it was the organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, working with Bach, who contributed substantially to the development of the piano. King Frederick the Great is said to have owned no less than fourteen Silbermann fortepianos (as they were then called) in his Sans Souci palace at Potsdam, just west of Berlin, and it was ostensibly in order to "try out" such an instrument that JS Bach was invited to Potsdam in 1747. The result of this visit was the Musical Offering.
Music which is melodious yet so constructed as to reflect the "perfect order" of the universe: that is the essence of the baroque. In the words of baroque composer and theorist Johann Joseph Fux: "A composition meets the demands of good taste if it is well constructed, avoids trivialities as well as willful eccentricities, aims at the sublime, but moves in a natural ordered way, combining brilliant ideas with perfect workmanship."
These days more and more people are seeking a return to music for the mind, music combining beauty with the order of an underlying architecture and structure. So we are witnessing a resurgence of interest in the baroque, and those who are fortunate enough to be as yet unfamiliar with it have a wonderful experience awaiting them.
The Eroica Symphony was first performed privately in early August, 1804. Two possible performances followed, including one at the Lobkowitz Palace on January 23, 1805 (Maynard Solomon). We know from discovered writings of Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven’s patrons, that the first public performance was on April 7, 1805 at the Theater-an-der-Wien in Vienna, Austria. It is clear that the performance was not as well accepted or understood as the composer would have liked. “Even Beethoven’s pupil Ferdinand Ries was misled by the ‘false’ horn entry halfway through the first movement and was reprimanded for saying that the player had come in wrongly.” (Denis Matthew). Harold Schonberg tells us that, “Musical Vienna was divided on the merits of the Eroica. Some called it Beethoven’s masterpiece. Others said that the work merely illustrated a striving for originality that did not come off.”
Nevertheless, it was clear that Ludwig had consciously planned to compose a work of unequaled breadth and scope. Three years before he wrote the Eroica, Beethoven had declared he was discontent with the quality of his compositions thus far and “Henceforth [he] shall take a new path.”
Key and Structure of the Eroica Symphony
The work was composed in E flat major and the orchestration called for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, three horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Hector Berlioz discussed Beethoven’s use of the horn (measures 166-260 during the third movement) and the oboe (measures 348-372 during the fourth movement) in his Treatise on Orchestration. The symphony itself is Beethoven’s third (op. 55) and consists of four movements:
1. Allegro con brio 2. Marcia funebre. Adagio assai 3. Scherzo-Allegro vivace 4. Finale-Allegro molto
The Eroica Symphony and Napoleon Bonaparte
Originally the work was to be titled the “Bonaparte Symphony” (New Groves), as a tribute to Napoleon Bonaparte, the French Consul who had begun to radically reform Europe after conducting sweeping military campaigns across the continent. In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself emperor, a move which angered Beethoven. As legend has it, the composer ripped through the title page and later renamed the symphony the Eroica because he refused to dedicate one of his pieces to the man he now considered a “tyrant”. Nevertheless, he still allowed the published manuscript to carry the inscription, “composed to celebrate the memory of a great man,” despite dedicating the work to Lobkowitz. This has led historians and biographers to speculate on Beethoven’s feelings towards Napoleon ever since.
The Eroica Symphony and Pop Culture
The Eroica-Napoleon link is recognized even today. Peter Conrad discussed Alfred Hitchcock’s subconscious use of the symphony in his movie Psycho:
“In Hitchcock's films, the most innocuous object can rear up threateningly. What could possibly be sinister about the record of Beethoven's Eroica, which Vera Miles finds on a gramophone turntable during her investigation of the Bates house? At the age of 13, I had no idea - though I felt an unmistakable chill when the camera peered into the gaping box to read the label of the silent disc. Now I think I know the answer. The symphony summarizes [sic] one abiding undercurrent of Hitchcock's work. It is about Napoleon, a man who - like many of Hitchcock's psychopaths - set himself up as a god, and it includes a funeral march for the toppled idol. It first rejoices in the hero's freedom from moral inhibitions, then recoils in dismay. Truffaut, detecting unease beneath the joviality of The Trouble with Harry, suggested that Hitchcock's films were afflicted by the mood Blaise Pascal analyzed [sic] - "the sadness of a world deprived of God".
The Birth of the Heroic Style
The influence of Bonaparte, the French Revolution, and the German enlightenment on Beethoven were considerable factors in explaining the development of the so-called “Heroic” style that came to dominate his middle period. Traits of the Heroic include driving rhythms (often, the works of the period could be identified as much by rhythm as melody / harmony), drastic dynamic changes, and in some cases, the use of martial instruments. The Heroic contains drama, death, rebirth, strife, and resistance. It can be summed up as “overcoming”. The Eroica is one of the major milestones in the development of this trademark Beethoven style. It is here that we first see the breadth, depth, orchestration, and spirit that mark a breaking away from the pretty, melodically pleasing melodies of earlier periods.
The Influence of Josef Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
Solomon discusses the innovative features of the Eroica symphony, and does conceded that some of these traits were “anticipated” by the late music of Haydn and Mozart. These innovations include, “the use of a new theme in the development section of the first movement, the employment of the winds for expressive rather than coloristic purposes, the introduction of a set of variations in the Finale and of a ‘Marcia funebre’ in the Adagio assai, and the use of three French horns for the first time in symphonic orchestration. More fundamentally, Beethoven style is now informed with a rhetorical fluidity and structural organicism that gives the symphony its sense of unfolding continuity and wholeness within a constant interplay of moods.”
The Theme of Death in the Eroica Symphony
Solomon also tells us that another unique characteristic of the Eroica symphony and the subsequent works is the “incorporation into musical form” the idea of “death, destructiveness, anxiety, and aggression as terrors to be transcended within the work of art itself.” This idea of transcending, or overcoming, as mentioned before, is central to the Heroic style. Joseph Kerman, Alan Tyson, Scott G. Burnham, and Douglas Johnson paraphrased it nicely when they wrote that the manipulation of sonata form in a more “comprehensive” and “less formalistic” way was the most innovative feature of the Eroica Symphony.
Innovative Features of the Symphony
The combined innovations eventually caused people to label the Eroica Symphony a masterpiece. Heinrich Schenker, the man who laid the ground work for future structural analyses by musicologists, students, professors, professionals and amateurs, held up the Eroica as an example of just such a piece in his writings before his death in the 1930’s. In an article in the New York Times, Edward Rothstein examines Schenker’s assertions about the concept of a masterpiece and takes a specific look at the Eroica. Rothstein believes that the work can be labeled a masterpiece, but not for the harmonic or structural reasons Schenker sets forth. Instead, its value lies in the potential interpretation that can arise out of that harmonic language – and stresses that this is entirely objective and subject to culture (“complex cultural meanings grow out of abstract form,” as he puts it.)
Capstone on the Eroica Symphony
Regardless of one’s personal feelings about Beethoven’s third symphony, the fact that it is still discussed in one of the modern world’s largest newspapers is a testament to its power and impact on music almost two hundreds years after it was composed. The length, breadth of ideas, scope, orchestration and use of instruments, the musical embodiment of death, the idea of overcoming, and the political and historical significance of the work as a representation of the enlightenment period and hence, French revolution, are respected and recognized throughout the world.
Written Resources
Berlioz, Hector. Berlioz’s Orchestration Treatise – A Translation and Commentary. Edited/Translated by Hugh MacDonald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Conrad, Peter. The Hitchcock Murders. New York: Faber & Faber, 2001.
Joseph Kerman, Alan Tyson, Scott G. Burnham, Douglas Johnson: ‘The Symphonic Ideal’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 20 April 2003),
Matthews, Denis. “Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 55 (Eroica).” Notes to Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Volume I. CD. Musical Heritage Society, ID#532409H, 1994.
Rothstein, Edward, “Dissecting a ‘Masterpiece’ to Find Out How it Ticks,” The New York Times, Tuesday, 30 December 2000, Arts section.
Schonberg, Harold. The Lives of the Great Composers, Third Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Ltd., 1997.
Solomon, Maynard. Beethoven, Second Revised Edition. New York: Schirmer, 1998.
Sound Recordings
Beethoven, Ludwig Van. Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Volume I. Walter Weller, Conductor. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. CD. Musical Heritage Society, ID#532409H, 1994.
Scores
Beethoven, Ludwig Van. Symphonies Nos. 1,2,3, and 4 in Full Score. New York: Dover, 1989.
