Though we tend to think of the entire 18th Century as the 'Age of Enlightenment', we must remember that the great revolutions happened in the last quarter of the century and first part of the next.  Baroque characteristics, which we begin to note as such by 1600, persisted at least through the death of J.S.Bach (1750) and Handel (1759), though certainly the contrapuntal complexities of Bach were considered old fashioned in his old age. It was in the music of his sons, Wilhelm Friedmann (1710-1784) Carl Philip Emmanuel (1714-1788) Johann Christoph (1732-1795), Johann Christian (1735-1782) and their contemporaries, that we begin to see a move toward something different.

A large quantity of music written from about 1725 to 1760, and many art, architectural, and literary works of the same period show characteristics which, while derived from Baroque elements, are not based on the same aesthetic principles. The style was called rococo (meaning rock work, think Versailles) and featured extravagance of detail, delicacy of structure, elaborate attention to insignificant details, and the choice of some frivolous subject matter. Baroque music, with its strict rules, its conventional affections (emotions), and its monumental forms, became one of the first victims of the new direction. Music was valued much for its ability to please and entertain. One graceful melody was preferred to the multitude of intertwined melodic strands of the Bach fugue. Homphonic texture becomes the dominant texture. The Baroque principle of one mood per movement gave way to the practice of contrasting moods within a movement, and musical forms suited to this different content emerged.

The musical amateur was reborn (having been very much en vogue in the Renaissance, all children of a certain family status studied keyboard, a string instrument or took vocal lessons. The sonata form (which is a harmonic context for melodic development), and the serenade (or divertimento) came into being, along with a new expressiveness in the melody, a new type of accompaniment, and the careful marking of dynamic changes in the music. (Sequence + crescendo = Mannheim Rocket etc.)  These new devices were experimented with considerably, and in time passed on to the great Viennese masters we associate with the mature Classical period.  First movement form was one of the most obvious changes. The Baroque practice of spinning material out of short melodic motives along with a fast harmonic rhythm gave way to longer melodic conceptions more akin to sentence structure supported by a much slower harmonic rhythm. Sequence became a device for reducing tension rather than increasing it as it had been in the Baroque era. (there are always exceptions)  Musical phrases complete in themselves and with their own harmonic and cadential schemes were set opposite, or made to contrast with, other such phrases. The melodic material thus dominated the musical structure; there was little need for polyphonic treatment in the style, hence the use of counterpoint declined.
Balanced pairs of phrases - often four measures in length - became typical. Cadences were spaced with a certain regularity, and sectional structures resulted.

COMPOSERS

           The three Austro-Germanic composers Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) and Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827) so dominate the 18th and early 19th century that there is little reason to mention other composers for purposes of this course.  Haydn is the trailblazer and the standard setter for the new style 'neo-classicism', Mozart, the flower of its' perfection, and Beethoven, the Promethean figure, who through his persuasive 'point of view', set instrumental music forever on a par with vocal music; and accomplishment never achieved before his time. Haydn is known for 104 symphonies and his many string quartets, Mozart for his operas, piano concertos, the quartets of his maturity and his 41 symphonies, and Beethoven for his monumental achievement in his 9 symphonies, his concertos and the 17 string quartets. 

All the forms that evolved in the Baroque era, particularly those of opera, concerto, sonata, oratorio and cantata continued to flourish in the the new style. Though the new style favored  single melodies above homophonic texture, Mozart and Beethoven began to show the knowledge and influence of the contrapuntal style of J.S.Bach, incorporating fugues and fugatos in many of their greatest works.

Among the new instrumental forms, Serenade, Divertimento, String Quartet, and Symphony, it is the Symphony that will become the most important multi-movement work culminating in the achievement of Beethoven. The Symphony is a four-movement 'Sonata' for orchestra in contrasting moods, keys and tempos, and it has been the most important instrumental genre from its' maturity in the late works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven through the 20th century.  

A General History of the late Eighteenth Century

1. 18th c. revolt against "supernatural religion" in favor of "natural religion" and practical morality

2. Advocated common sense, empirical psychology, applied science and sociology

3. Espousal of individual freedom, equal rights, and universal education

4. Enlightenment thought has been characterized as secular, skeptical, empirical, practical, liberal, egalitarian, and progressive.

5. Continued rise of the Middle class

6. "Democratization" and popularization of art and learning

7. Changing economic support for composers, performers, and other artists

   i.e. Haydn (1732-1809) - employee of the Esterhazy family until 1790, after which he composed and conducted in public concerts ; Mozart (1756-1791) - employed for a time by the bishop of Salzburg; after 1781 he composed on a freelance basis ; Beethoven (1770-1827) - taught piano and composed, although he received some income from patrons on the condition that he remain in Vienna

8. Public concerts in London, Paris, Leipzig, Vienna, Berlin, and other cities

9. music publishing, including publication for amateurs; the growth of music journalism and music criticism

           In addition to Haydn and Mozart, the most important and prolific composers of symphonies in Vienna from c1780 to 1800, the date of Beethoven’s First Symphony, were the composer and publisher F.A. Hoffmeister (1754-1812) and the two Bohemians Paul Wranitzky (1756-1808) and Adalbert Gyrowetz (1763-1850). For the most part their works are content to represent the high Classical tradition of Mozart in well-wrought, melodically accessible works rather than to break new or controversial ground.

          The prince-bishopric of Salzburg has only recently gained attention as a centre of symphony composition, both for its intrinsic importance and for its role in Mozart’s compositional development (Eisen, 1994). Among symphonists active in Salzburg, the most important during the middle decades of the century was Leopold Mozart (1719-87), who arrived in 1746 as a court violinist and became Vice-Kapellmeister in 1763. Both formally and stylistically his symphonies trace the same overall evolutionary path as those of the imperial capital. However, he had begun using a four-movement cycle on occasion by about 1750, earlier than in Vienna; his preferred sequence of movements placed the minuet and trio in second rather than third place, a practice found in most of Haydn’s quartets from op.9 through op.33 and in five of his symphonies. Leopold’s symphonies are also up-to-date in their use of clearly differentiated secondary themes; like the Viennese, during the same period, he often places them in the dominant minor, recapitulating them in the tonic minor.        

         Leopold Mozart evidently wrote few if any symphonies after his promotion in 1763, which was also the date at which Joseph Haydn’s younger brother Michael (1737-1806) arrived in Salzburg as Konzertmeister and court composer. Trained in Vienna, where he may have written a few of his earliest symphonies, his style belongs more to that school than elsewhere. 

Any discussion of the symphony in Austria should also refer to the active role of the great Austrian monasteries such as Göttweig, Melk, Kremsmünster and Lambach in fostering both the performance and composition of symphonies (see Freeman and Meckna, 1982), a role magnificently illustrated by the huge collections of instrumental music extant at each. Of numerous monks who composed symphonies, the most important was probably Amandus Ivanschiz (fl 1755-70), whose 20-odd symphonies from approximately the 1760s generally reflect contemporaneous Viennese trends, including clear sonata forms (in this case with or without repeats) and the frequent use of four movements.

Northern German Protestant centers

Of the two most important courts in north Germany, that of the Elector of Saxony in Dresden (and for part of this period Warsaw) seems to have fostered relatively few independent symphonies.

1. The other principal court of north Germany was that of Frederick the Great in Berlin. The 18 symphonies of C.P.E. Bach (1714-88) are divided fairly evenly between the eight written for the Berlin court (one in 1741, the remainder in 1755-62) and the ten composed after his move to Hamburg in 1767. Of the latter, four are string symphonies written for Gottfried van Swieten in 1773, while the other six, for large orchestra, were written in 1775-6 and published in 1780 in Leipzig. Bach's symphonies, surprisingly consistent in style for works that span three and a half decades, occupy a somewhat enigmatic position in the history of the symphony. Few of them achieved wide distribution, and since his contemporaries seemed unable to adopt or adapt Bach’s idiosyncratic style, his influence, though often intense, was selective. 

10/06/02  CMS