THE AGE OF CLASSICISM
Its Cultivation of Ears, Eyes & Thoughts
Appallingly over-generalized as rational, staid, prim, courtly, even frozen in its reverence for the outward aspects of ancient Rome and Greece, the second half of the 18th century and first quarter of the 19th witnessed two great, successful revolutions against monarchy,
phenomenal increases in scientific information, vast developments in technology, and
endless invention of new ideas in music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and drama.
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Lecture 1 - ON THE PATH TO REVOLUTION: BAROQUE TO CLASSICISM
Discoveries about Nature, conversions of taste, new musical livelihoods,public and private performances, the rise of antiquarianism, innovations of the Bach Sons, Sammartini, Stamitz, Quantz and other fresh talents.
Lecture 2 - A NEW STYLE: COMPONENTS IN COALESCENCE
Balance of elements, moderation of expression, new emotional tone, amateurism vs. professionalism, feelings of place, music as icon, harpsichord vs. fortepiano, the music of Scarlatti, Rameau, Philidor, Arne, Galuppi, et al.
Lecture 3 - MASTERY DEVELOPED AND ACKNOWLEDGED: HAYDN
His unerring climb from peasant to servant, then to unheard-of exaltation in society through his personal transformation of music’s every type with the happiest, most original combinations of melodic, harmonic and rhythmic events.
Lecture 4 - GENIUS APPARENT AND ACHIEVED: MOZART
History’s most prodigious talent, its subtleties of affect and characterization, the dire consequences of his adaptations from Martini, J.C. Bach, Haydn, and Gluck. The phenomenon of his fame as a child and after death but not during his last five years.
Lecture 5 - GIANT ASTRIDE THE CENTURIES: BEETHOVEN
The garrulous master who dared to erect mighty musical edifices on foundations laid by his predecessors, his unyielding advocacy of emotional unity to hold together works large and small, his demand that music become vertiginously public.
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