Musical Forms In The Classical And Romantic Era

Musical Forms In The Classical And Romantic Era

Bagatelle

A bagatelle is a short piece of music, typically for the piano, and usually of a light, mellow character. 

Ballet

Ballet as a music form progressed from simply a complement to dance, to a concrete compositional form that often had as much value as the dance that went along with it. The dance form, originating in France during the 17th century, began as a theatrical dance. It was not until the 19th century that ballet gained status as a “classical” form. In ballet, the terms ‘classical’ and ‘romantic’ are chronologically reversed from musical usage. Thus, the 19th century classical period in ballet coincided with the 19th century Romantic era in Music. Ballet music composers from the 17th–19th centuries, including the likes of Jean-Baptiste Lully and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, were predominantly in France and Russia. Yet with the increased international notoriety seen in Tchaikovsky’s lifetime, ballet music composition and ballet in general spread across the western world.

Etude

An étude is an instrumental musical composition, most commonly of considerable difficulty, usually designed to provide practice material for perfecting a particular technical skill.

Impromptu

An impromptu  is a free-form musical composition with the character of an ex tempore improvisation as if prompted by the spirit of the moment, usually for a solo instrument, such as piano.

Intermezzo

Intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work. In music history, the term has had several different usages, which fit into two general categories: the opera intermezzo and the instrumental intermezzo.

Opera Intermezzo

Instrumental Intermezzo

Lied

Lied is a German word literally meaning "song". It usually describes the setting of romantic German poems to music, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert.The poetry forming the basis for lieder often centers upon pastoral themes, or themes of romantic love.

Typically, lieder are arranged for a single singer and pianoo, the Lied with orchestral accompaniment being a later development.

Mazurka

The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the second or third beat.

March

A march, as a musical genre, is a piece of music with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for marching to and most frequently performed by a military band.

Nocturne

A nocturne  is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night.

Polonaise

The polonaise  is a slow dance of Polish origin, in 3/4 time.

Quartet

A quartet is a method of instrumentation (or a medium), used to perform a musical composition, and consisting of four parts. 

Piano Quartet

String Quartet

Oboe Quartet

Quintet

A quintet is a group containing five members. It is commonly associated with musical groups, such as a string quintet, or a group of five singers, but can be applied to any situation where five similar or related objects are considered a single unit. In classical instrumental music, any additional instrument (such as a piano, clarinet, oboe, etc.) joined to the usual string quartet(two violins, a viola, and a cello), gives the resulting ensemble its name, such as "piano quintet", "clarinet quintet", etc. A piece of music written for such a group is similarly named.

String Quintet

Piano Quintet

Requiem

A Requiem , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons.

Rhapsody

A rhapsody in music is a one movement work that is episodic yet integrated, free-flowing in structure, featuring a range of highly contrasted moods, colour and tonality.

Rondo

Rondo comes from the French word "rondeau," which means "round." In music, a rondo is a form that repeats the main theme over and over again. The rondo has developed into a musical form that is often used as the final movement in classical sonatas, symphonies and concertos. As the final movement, it can usually be described as the climatic point in the work, and the tempo is almost always very fast.

Scherzo

A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. Scherzo also frequently refers to a fast-moving humorous composition which may or may not be part of a larger work.The word "scherzo" means "joke" in Italian. Sometimes the word "scherzando" ("joking") is used in musical notation to indicate that a passage should be executed in a playful manner.

Serenade

A serenade  is a musical composition, and/or performance, in someone's honor. Serenades are typically calm, light music.

Sinfonia Concertante

Sinfonia Concertante is a musical form that emerged during the Classical period of Western music. It is essentially a mixture of the symphony and the concerto genres: a concerto in that one or more soloists (in the classical period, usually more than one) are on prominent display, and a symphony in that the soloists are nonetheless discernibly a part of the total ensemble and not preeminent.

Symphony

A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle. Many symphonies are tonal works in four movements with the first in sonata form, which is often described by music theorists as the structure of a "classical" symphony, although many symphonies by the acknowledged classical masters of the form, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven do not conform to this model.

Waltz

A waltz,is dance music in triple time, written in time signature 3/4 beat.