![]() In fact, generally-speaking, the nineteenth-century orchestra looked not unlike what you might see today at most concerts by most professional orchestras (see Figure 6.9). With orchestral compositions requiring over fifty (and sometimes over 100) musicians, a conductor was important, and the first famous conductors date from this period. Orchestras also increased in size and became more diverse in makeup, thereby allowing composers to exploit even more divergent dynamics and timbres. Along with the many improvements to instruments, new instruments were researched and created, including the piccolo, English horn, tuba, contrabassoon, and saxophone. Efficient valves were added to the trumpet and a general improvement in metal works tightened tolerances and metal fittings of all brass instruments. ![]() As we will see, Fryderyk Chopin was the first composer to make prevalent use of rubato as a performance instruction in his musical scores.ĭuring the nineteenth century, the industrial revolution facilitated and enabled marked improvements to many musical instruments besides the piano with its improved and updated iron frame and tempered metal strings. Crescendos and decrescendos became more common, alongside more tempo fluctuations, even within compositions. The piano achieved a modern form, with the full eighty-eight-note keyboard that is still used today and an iron frame that allowed for greater string tension and a wider range of dynamics. There is much nineteenth-century music for solo piano or solo voice with piano accompaniment. Performing forces reflected similar extremes. By the end of the century, a typical symphony might be an hour-long, with the operas of Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini clocking in at several hours each. On the other hand, symphonies and operas grow in size. Songs and short piano pieces might be only a couple of minutes long, although they were sometimes grouped together in cycles or collections. The lengths of nineteenth-century musical compositions ran from the minute to the monumental. Composers were in effect “pushing the harmonic envelope.” Such modulations tend to disorient the listening and add to the chaos of the musical selection. ![]() One composition may modulate between several keys, and these keys often have very different pitch contents. These dissonances may be sustained for some time before resolving to a chord that is consonant. More chords add a fourth note to the triad, making them more dissonant and chromatic. Harmonies in nineteenth-century music are more dissonant than ever. Along with the continuing emphasis on tuneful melodies comes predominantly homophonic textures, although as compositions use more instruments, there are also increasing numbers of accompanying, but relatively interesting, musical lines. Melodies use more chromatic (or “colorful”) pitches from outside the home key and scale of a composition. They still use sequences, which are often as a part of modulation from one key to another. As identified by the style comparison chart above, nineteenth-century melodies continue to be tuneful and are perhaps even more songlike than classical style melodies, although they may contain wider leaps. The nineteenth-century is marked by great diversity in musical styles, from the conservative to the progressive. Musical Style, Performing Forces, and Forms Further development in performers’ virtuosity.Newly important miniature genres and forms such as the Lied and short piano composition.Symphonies, string quartets, concertos, operas, and sonata-form movements continue to be written.More chromatic and dissonant harmonies with increasingly delayed resolutions. ![]() More rubato and tempo fluctuation within a composition.Larger performing forces using more diverse registers, dynamic ranges, and timbres.Homophonic style still prevalent, but with variation.Lyrical melodies, often with wider leaps.Greater use of contrasting dynamics, articulations, and tempos.New emphasis on musical form: for example, sonata form, theme and variations, minuet and trio, rondo, and first-movement concerto form.Question and answer (aka antecedent consequent) phrases that are shorter than earlier phrases.New genres such as the symphony and string quartet.
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