While our study in this course is focused on classical music andwhat we might refer to as “traditional” tonality, it’s worth notingthat the musical language of tonality has continued to evolve.In the language of classical music, the only chord that can serve asa tonic sonority is a major or minor triad. But over the last 100years or more, composers have introduced increasing dissonanceinto the tonal language, and made use of more complex anddissonant harmonies to serve as the “tonic chord.”There are those who would argue that the melodic and harmonicvocabulary of tonal jazz is the most sophisticated extension of themusical language of tonality. While jazz is, at its heart, animprovisatory art, there are nevertheless essential aspects of thejazz vocabulary that can be demonstrated with orwithout improvisation.Here, for example, is a demonstration of some of the harmonicvocabulary of post-bop jazz, as composed-arranged by theperformer. The melody should be familiar to you. It’s the Mozarttheme, K. 284, which we heard earlier in the lesson as a software-notation piano score. See if you can recognize it!
SummaryJoseph Haydn was the first of the great triumvirate of Vienneseclassicists (followed by Mozart and Beethoven). Haydn was apioneer in forging the Classical style. He ushered in the age of thegreat symphony and established the string quartet as thequintessential genre of chamber music.The Classical style was brought to artistic maturity in the works ofHaydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. It is a style of elegance andsimplicity that exhibits clarity, balance, symmetry, proportion.Clarity of phrase structure is a hallmark of the Classical style. Andmusical form is an essential aspect of the Classical style, as well.Theme and variations, rounded binary form, and sonata-allegroform are characteristic forms that we hear in Classicalcompositions.In this lesson we heard the slow movement from Haydn’s“Emperor” quartet, which is a theme and variations. We becamefamiliar with a Mozart theme from the third movement of hisSonata for Piano in D major, K. 284, which is a rounded binaryform.We were introduced to the instruments of a contemporarywoodwind quintet by members of our performance faculty andheard their performance of Haydn’s Divertimento in B-flat major.The first movement of the Divertimento, which is a sonata-allegroform, provided an initial point of comparison between roundedbinary form and sonata-allegro form.And we were introduced to a chromatic predominant harmony—the Augmented sixth chord—that came to prominence in theClassical style.
We will continue our study of the music of the Classical era in thenext lesson.
Lesson 9: Classical Style and Form: MozartIntroductionIn this lesson we will get “under the hood” to observe theimportance of form in the development of the Classical style.Sonata-allegro form, as we know it, is the invention of the greatClassical composers. In many respects, it defines the era. Sonata-
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