List of classical music genres

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This is a list of musical genres within the context of classical music, organized according to the corresponding periods in which they arose or became common.

Contents

Various terms can be used to classify a classical music composition, mainly including genre, form, compositional technique and style. While distinct, these terms have broad, sometimes overlapping definitions and are occasionally used interchangeably. [1] The genre categorizes a piece based on a shared tradition or an overarching set of conventions, like opera or symphony. Form refers to its structural aspects, the way its individual sections are constructed and how they relate to each other, such as binary form, rondo or sonata form. Compositional techniques involve specific methods of composition, such as canon, fugue or twelve-tone technique. Style indicates the distinctive characteristics of a particular composer or historical period, like Baroque or Romantic, placing the composition within a broader cultural and chronological context and linking it to artistic movements and historical events that influenced its creation.

Some forms and compositional techniques occasionally also give name to the compositions based on them, such as rondo or canon. This does not occur in other cases such as strophic, binary, ternary or arch forms. A notable source of confusion is the term 'sonata': as a genre, it denotes a multi-movement composition for one or more solo instruments, while in structural terms, 'sonata form' refers to a specific three-part structure (exposition, development, recapitulation) frequently used within individual movements of larger works.

Historically, genres emerged from a fusion of social functions and compositional conventions and served as communicative tools that guided listeners' experiences and responses. [2] Because genres are defined not only by their musical elements but also by social contexts, functions, and validation by specific communities, their definitions are subject to change as these validating communities evolve even if the musical notes themselves remain unchanged. [3] Historically rooted in social functions and compositional norms, by the 19th century and especially in the 20th century genres evolved from serving clear functions to highlighting individual features, thus emphasizing individual artist expression. [2]

In summary, genre is a broader term and often refers to the overall style, structure, cultural context, or purpose of the music. For example, a rondo is based on alternation between familiar and novel sections (e.g. ABACA structure); a mazurka is defined by its distinctive meter and rhythm; a nocturne is based on the mood it creates, required to be inspired by or evocative of night.

Medieval

Conductus 'Beata viscera' by Perotin c. 1200 Beata viscera.jpg
Conductus 'Beata viscera' by Perotin c.1200

Dance forms

Renaissance

Frontispiece of Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo, 1609 Frontispiece of L'Orfeo.jpg
Frontispiece of Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo , 1609

Dance forms

Baroque

Six-part ricercar from J.S. Bach's The Musical Offering, 1747 Ricercare a 6 from The Musical Offering.jpg
Six-part ricercar from J.S. Bach's The Musical Offering, 1747
Gavotte from J.S. Bach's French Suite No. 5, 1723 Gavotte from French suite n. 5.jpg
Gavotte from J.S. Bach's French Suite No. 5, 1723

Dance forms

Classical and Romantic

Poster for Robert Schumann's cycle of Lieder Dichterliebe, 1840 Dichterliebe.png
Poster for Robert Schumann's cycle of Lieder Dichterliebe , 1840
Performance by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, 2020 State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation.jpg
Performance by the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, 2020

Dance forms

20th and 21st century

Performance of Hymnen, a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1972 Shiraz 40.jpg
Performance of Hymnen, a work by Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1972

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical period (music)</span> Era of classical music (c. 1730–1820)

The Classical Period was an era of classical music between roughly 1750 and 1820.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music</span> Form of art using sound

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadenza</span> Improvised solo between musical sections

In music, a cadenza, is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist(s), usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing virtuosic display. During this time the accompaniment will rest, or sustain a note or chord. Thus an improvised cadenza is indicated in written notation by a fermata in all parts. A cadenza will usually occur over either the final or penultimate note in a piece, the lead-in, or the final or penultimate note in an important subsection of a piece. A cadenza can also be found before a final coda or ritornello.

Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed books or pamphlets in English, Arabic, or other languages – the medium of sheet music typically is paper. However, access to musical notation since the 1980s has included the presentation of musical notation on computer screens and the development of scorewriter computer programs that can notate a song or piece electronically, and, in some cases, "play back" the notated music using a synthesizer or virtual instruments.

Articles related to music include:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaconne</span> Type of musical composition

A chaconne is a type of musical composition often used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression, often involving a fairly short repetitive bass-line which offers a compositional outline for variation, decoration, figuration and melodic invention. In this it closely resembles the passacaglia. It originates and was particularly popular in the Baroque era; a large number of Chaconnes exist from the 17th- and 18th- centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Passacaglia</span> Musical form written in triple metre

The passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used today by composers. It is usually of a serious character and is typically based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suite (music)</span> Ordered set of classic musical pieces in a concert

A suite, in Western classical music, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes; and grew in scope so that by the early 17th century it comprised up to five dances, sometimes with a prelude. The separate movements were often thematically and tonally linked. The term can also be used to refer to similar forms in other musical traditions, such as the Turkish fasıl and the Arab nuubaat.

In music, perpetuum mobile, moto perpetuo (Italian), mouvement perpétuel (French), movimento perpétuo (Portuguese) movimiento perpetuo (Spanish), is a term used to describe a rapidly executed and persistently maintained figuration, usually of notes of equal length. Over time it has taken on two distinct applications: first, as describing entire musical compositions or passages within them that are characterised by a continuous stream of notes, usually but not always at a rapid tempo; and second, as describing entire compositions, or extended passages within them that are meant to be played in a repetitious fashion, often an indefinite number of times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Recitative</span> Ordinary speech-like singing in opera, cantata, mass or oratorio

Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition.

A variety of musical terms are encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special musical meanings of these phrases differ from the original or current Italian meanings. Most of the other terms are taken from French and German, indicated by Fr. and Ger., respectively.

Stephen Cuthbert Vivian Dodgson was a British composer and broadcaster. Dodgson's prolific musical output covered most genres, ranging from opera and large-scale orchestral music to chamber and instrumental music, as well as choral works and song. Three instruments to which he dedicated particular attention were the guitar, harpsichord and recorder. He wrote in a mainly tonal, although sometimes unconventional, idiom. Some of his works use unusual combinations of instruments.

French classical music began with the sacred music of the Roman Catholic Church, with written records predating the reign of Charlemagne. It includes all of the major genres of sacred and secular, instrumental and vocal music. French classical styles often have an identifiably national character, ranging from the clarity and precision of the music of the late Renaissance music to the sensitive and emotional Impressionistic styles of the early 20th century. Important French composers include Pérotin, Machaut, Du Fay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Lully, Charpentier, Couperin, Rameau, Leclair, Grétry, Méhul, Auber, Berlioz, Alkan, Gounod, Offenbach, Franck, Lalo, Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Bizet, Chabrier, Massenet, Widor, Fauré, d'Indy, Chausson, Debussy, Dukas, Vierne, Duruflé, Satie, Roussel, Hahn, Ravel, Honegger, Milhaud, Poulenc, Auric, Messiaen, Françaix, Dupré, Dutilleux, Xenakis, Boulez, Guillou, Grisey, and Murail.

Václav Nelhýbel was a Czech-American composer, mainly of works for student performers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Klaas de Vries (composer)</span> Dutch composer

Klaas de Vries is a Dutch composer. De Vries taught composition at the Rotterdam Conservatory until his retirement in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trio (music)</span> Group of three musicians

In music, a trio is any of the following:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boris Papandopulo</span> Croatian composer

Boris Papandopulo was a Croatian composer and conductor of Greek and Russian Jewish descent. He was the son of Greek nobleman Konstantin Papandopulo and Croatian opera singer Maja Strozzi-Pečić and one of the most distinctive Croatian musicians of the 20th century. Papandopulo also worked as music writer, journalist, reviewer, pianist and piano accompanist; however, he achieved the peaks of his career in music as a composer. His composing oeuvre is imposing : with great success he created instrumental, vocal and instrumental, stage music and film music. In all these kinds and genres he left a string of anthology-piece compositions of great artistic value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baroque music</span> Style of western classical music

Baroque music refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition. The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, Tomaso Albinoni, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Johann Hermann Schein, Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, Dieterich Buxtehude, Gaspar Sanz, José de Nebra, Antonio Soler, Carlos Seixas, Adam Jarzębski and others, with Giovanni Battista Pergolesi being the most prominent Baroque composer of sacred music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of classical music</span> Art music of the Western world

Classical music – Art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions.

References

Citations

  1. Dannenberg, Roger (2010). Style in Music (PDF) (published 2009). p. 2. Bibcode:2010tsos.book...45D. Archived (PDF) from the original on May 6, 2021. Retrieved March 8, 2021.
  2. 1 2 Kallberg, Jeffrey (1988). "The Rhetoric of Genre: Chopin's Nocturne in G Minor". 19th-Century Music. 11 (3): 238–261. doi:10.2307/746322. ISSN   0148-2076. Archived from the original on 2023-12-27. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  3. Samson, Jim (1989). "Chopin and Genre". Music Analysis. 8 (3): 213–231. doi:10.2307/854288. ISSN   0262-5245. Archived from the original on 2023-12-26. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  4. Jack Sage; Susana Friedmann (2001). "Glosa (Sp.: 'gloss')". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.11291.
  5. "Gebundener Stil (Ger.)". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press. 2001. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.10806.

Sources