From Aeon: Realism was a revolution in music not just in literature
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,114
    On these boards, many typically prefer to skip over the Classical era in music, given that it was an era when sacred music ceded more of the foreground to secular music, but I thought some here might appreciate reading and listening to this - and then to keep in mind when considering to program sacred music from this era:

    https://aeon.co/essays/realism-was-a-revolution-in-music-not-just-in-literature

    From the author: "What changed in this century or so between Purcell and Haydn? Three crucial innovations of musical composition are part of the story. One is a much greater variety of texture – the surface events and gestures of the music. Another is a more unified, integrated approach to overall structure, based on large-scale repetition and resolution. The last is a new system of harmony that was able to create a sense of proximity and distance, foreground and depth, over extended periods of time. I want to suggest some parallels between this 18th-century musical lingua franca and a familiar device from another medium: modern realist prose, which emerged through the 17th and 18th centuries – just when these musical conventions took shape."
    Thanked by 6CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn Paul F. Ford Andrew_Malton DavidOLGC Richard Mix
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,423
    Many thanks for this link, Liam! It so happens that just the other day did I start reading Karol Berger's fascinating book, which has sat on a bookshelf staring at me for about five years. I recommend it to all as it makes real the dimensions of music and the historical and cultural contexts that we often do not think about, or are aware even in our making of it, or our hearing of it. Everyone should read your offering - and Berger's book, Bach's Cycle, and Mozart's Arrow.
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