A Simple Post About Classical Music
I go to the opera no more than four times a year and review it sometimes but it isn’t my expertise, so for people as classical music stupid as I am, here are the broadest of broad strokes.
Medieval music (500–1400) – Gregorian chants annotated effective the mid-800s, the birth of written music is also the birth of classical music. Which is, of course, to ignore the ancient world but then no music is extant so… This is mostly religious with the troubadour in front of them. Figure it ended some 200 years later where William Shakespeare often included wandering minstrels…
Renaissance (1400–1600) – The first opera dates from the 1590s. before that new instruments, complex music composition, and the European onslaught of the end of the dark ages happened here. The biggest break was tonal counterpoint and basso, written, with the family of string instruments along with the harpsichord. This is the start of classical music, names you listen to today, began: Bach, Vivaldi, Handel
Classical (1600–1820) – This is the heart of the matter, pop music as the plaything for Princes of the realm to pay for in the royal courts of Europe, huge sounds, large orchestras and opera: Mozart and Beethoven both came out of the classical period and Schubert began there.
I’ll pass on the Romantic, Modernist and Postmodernist period. I tend to not bother with the ancient nor the Medieval music unless I stumble across it. But from 1400 – 1820, classical music was happening and thrives to this day.
On Saturday I am going to see The Marriage Of Figaro (Mozart) and that’s what I prefer in classical, as a tune lover of course it is my preference.
