The Classical Period

At this time the Austrian capital of Vienna became the musical center of Europe, and works of the period are often referred to as being in the Viennese style. Composers came from all over Europe to train in and around Vienna, and gradually they developed and formalized the standard musical forms that were to predominate European musical culture for the next several decades. A reform of the extravagance of Baroque opera was undertaken by Christoph von Gluck. Johann Stamitz contributed greatly to the growth of the orchestra and developed the idea of the orchestral symphony. The Classical period reached its majestic culmination with the masterful symphonies, sonatas, and string quartets by the three great composers of the Viennese school: Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. During the same period, the first voice of the burgeoning Romantic musical ethic can be found in the music of Viennese composer Franz Schubert. (From the Internet Public Library - No longer available)

The Age of Elegance and Sensibility

Opera

• Opera: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera

  • Mozart Opera - http://opera.stanford.edu/Mozart/main.html

• MSN Encarta: Website no longer available

  • Opera, drama in which the text is set to music and staged. The texts of operas are sung, with singing and stage action nearly always given instrumental accompaniment. Many operas also feature instrumental interludes (called intermezzi) and dance scenes, even extended ballets that interrupt the action

  • Opera began as an entertainment at the courts of the Italian aristocracy, with outdoor terraces and even enclosed tennis courts being adapted for performances. It had its origins in the last years of the 16th century, and eventually this new form of entertainment caught on with the public. Giasone (1649) by Italian composer Pietro Francesco Cavalli held the stage for some 50 years. Opera as a popular entertainment attained its zenith in the 19th and early 20th centuries, after which the disruptive effects of two world wars and far-reaching developments in music itself left opera in a state of fairly arrested development.

  • Singing is at the heart of opera. In grand opera, the type of opera most commonly performed today, the entire text is sung. What makes it opera in the grand manner is the spectacle—lavish sets and costumes, huge choruses, brilliant vocal displays and dance numbers (usually ballet). In comic opera, however, singing generally alternates with passages that are half-sung and half-spoken and usually accompanied by a keyboard instrument. Comic operas are not necessarily humorous, however. The term comic opera (opéra comique in French, opera buffa in Italian, and Singspiel in German) was intended to distinguish operas that were lighter in style from opera seria (serious opera). Comic operas generally deal with ordinary people and places and end happily, whereas opera seria treats mythological or historical subjects and typically ends tragically. The most famous examples of comic opera are Carmen (1875) by French composer Georges Bizet and Fidelio (1805; revised 1806, 1814) by German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. A form of light, sentimental comic opera that flourished in Paris and Vienna in the late 19th and early 20th centuries came to be called operetta. Imported to the United States, it evolved into the musical, a play that includes songs, choruses, and dances in its narrative.

  • All of these types of opera rest on the shared belief that music—and especially singing—intensifies dramatic effect. This was not always so. In opera’s early days, singing was often subordinated to ballet spectacles. And some opera composers, especially those of France and 19th-century Russia, emphasized extravagant scenic effects and extended dance episodes. Many of the later German composers made the orchestra a partner rather than an accompanist of the singer. But throughout the history of opera, the human voice has remained dominant.

  • The drama in opera is not only a function of the text but of the music as well. The original creators of opera called their productions dramma per musica (drama through music), and the tradition can be traced back to medieval religious plays, which also used music to tell their stories. An opera is more than a play with song and dance inserted, however. Plays are complete in themselves, but because opera requires a severely compressed text (time must be allowed for musical development), an opera without music is not even half of a dramatic entity. Music must not only carry the text, it must also provide subtext and fill out aspects of character and situation that the text can only hint at. This applies even to operas with considerable spoken dialogue, such as Beethoven’s Fidelio, where the music remains essential.

Dance

For centuries, in Europe and wherever Europeans have settled, the ballroom was the perfect setting for men and women to demonstrate their dancing abilities, to show their awareness of the latest fashions, and to display their mastery of polite behavior--qualities required for acceptance in society. The importance of dance and appropriate conduct was echoed in manuals that date back to the early Renaissance, to a time when courtiers, gentry, and wealthy citizens were fortunate enough to have a private dancing master or to have taken advantage of the skills of itinerant masters who traveled from one court to another.

The grandeur of the Baroque court of King Louis XIV and his court at the Palace of Versailles set the stage for a new style of dance that would spread to royal courts throughout Europe. With the development of a dance notation system, published in 1700 by dancing master Raoul-Auger Feuillet, French court dance could be taught in every palace and manor house. By the end of the eighteenth century, when ideals of democracy swept through nations, group dances gained popularity, so dance instruction manuals, as well as etiquette books, were published to enlighten a growing middle class of Europeans and European colonists, especially those in the Americas.

In the era of the nineteenth century, a proliferation of publications were intended to aid those who needed to adhere to the expanded rules and regulations surrounding the growing ritual of the ballroom. As well as knowing the most fashionable dances, precepts for the ballroom also included the organization of balls and the protocol of invitations, introductions, choice of dances, and appropriate music. Dance instruction manuals and corresponding etiquette and fashion manuals provided instruction for fashionable dances, appropriate ballroom conversation, and even the handling of silverware in the supper room. (From the Library of Congress Introduction to Western Social Dancing).

• An American Ballroom Companion - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/dihtml/dihome.html

• Dance Instructions - 18th Century - https://www.loc.gov/collections/dance-instruction-manuals-from-1490-to-1920/articles-and-essays/

• Quadrille and Cotillion Panarama Dance Instruction Manual - http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=musdi&fileName=167//musdi167.db&recNum=0&itemLink=r?ammem/musdibib:@field(NUMBER+@od1(musdi+167))&linkText=0&presId=musdibib

• George and Martha Washington Cotillion - http://www.americanrevolution.org/dance.html

• Earthly Delights - https://www.facebook.com/edhda/

• The Dance Project: 18th Century Dance - https://www.thedanceproject.org/new-page

Theatre

• Theatre History on the Web: The 18th Century - http://www.videoccasions-nw.com/history/jw18th.html

• Theatre History on the Web: The 19th Century - http://www.videoccasions-nw.com/history/jw19th.html

• 18th Century Theatre - http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/

• The First American Theatre - http://www.theatrehistory.com/american/hornblow01.html

• History of British Theatre - http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/

• History of French Theatre - http://www.theatrehistory.com/french/

• French Drama in the 18th Century - http://www.theatredatabase.com/18th_century/french_drama_001.html

• History of American Theatre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_theatre

Video of Classical Dances

• The quadrille.