Musical Period Characteristics

BAROQUE (1600–1750)

• Texture: polyphonic (multiple voices at once, in both hands), chordal (like Bach Chorales).
• Ornamentation: trills, upper and lower mordents.
• Harmony: quick harmonic changes.
• Modes: major and minor.
• Cadences: demonstrate pausing/stopping points.
• Mood: consistent (usually a piece is all fast or slow, not mixed).
• Dynamics: terraced (sudden shift from one dynamic level to another), typically not indicated in keyboard music.
• Rhythm: consistent, driving beat.
• Melody: elaborate and not always easy to remember.
• Melody: contains melodic sequences (successive repetition of a musical idea at a higher or lower pitch level).
• Range: limited to the range of a harpsichord.
• Form: binary form is popular in this period (A/B), fugues, dance suites (Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue, Minuet).
• Improvised pieces: preludes, toccatas (free form--they sound "made up").

CLASSICAL (1750–1820)

• Texture: homophonic texture (one voice with accompaniment), lots of scales.
• Bass: Alberti bass or back-and-forth between an octave or fifth.
• Ornamentation: long trills, especially at cadences over a V-I chord. Not as many ornaments as the Baroque period.
• Harmony: slow harmonic changes, simple harmonies. Lots of tonic and dominant chords. Dissonant chords were limited.
• Form: Sonata is a major form, very structured and balanced, clear.
• Mode: Mostly music is major.
• Simple: Baroque music was very complex whereas Classical music was simpler in style and more understandable by the general public.
• Melody: melodies are easier to remember than Baroque melodies. They are also balanced, typically 4 or 8 measures long. More tuneful and balanced.
• Rhythm: Tempo is basically steady and does not change very much during a piece or movement.
• Cadences: very clear, enhanced typically by trills.
• Mood: contrasting moods within a single movement or piece.
• Dynamics: crescendos and decrescendos are now used. The goal is for music to be more natural and expressive, thus these dynamics were used.
• Instruments: Fortepiano, still limited in range as opposed to today's 88-keyed piano. Many pianos did not have pedals (if they did have pedals, it was operated by the knee under the keyboard), so classical music uses very little pedal.
• Action: the instruments had a much lighter touch so we should imitate that as it gives a more appropriate touch to the sound of classical music.
• Genres: sonata, sonatina.

ROMANTIC (1820–1900)

• Emotion: extreme outpouring of emotion (no longer withholding from the Classical style). More imagination, variety, freedom from older forms. Also individualism. Each composer has a style that is theirs.
• Individual emphasis: Each composer has their own style. Great emphasis on performer stars. They wanted to be more unique than ever (think of Liszt).
• Nationalism: Special sense of national pride and wrote music that reflected their homeland (think of Chopin and Poland).
• Virtuoso: technically demanding master and performer. 
• Extremes: miniature and monumental works. Very short and very long pieces. 
• Dynamics: Composers use pp, ppp, pppp and ff, fff, and ffff. Shows a greater range of dynamic contrasts.
• Tempo indications: more extreme tempo indications used: presto and largo instead of "allegro."
• Rhythm: The tempo and rhythm were more free and less strict.
• Rubato: heavy use of this. A slight holding back or pressing forward in tempo (this is the way we perform Romantic music).
• Harmony: Became more complicated as composers used more dissonant, unstable chords. Sometimes composers use notes not found in the major and minor scales of the piece.
• Texture: Although most pieces were still basically homophonic, textures were more thick (more notes being played at once).
• Melody: Tuneful and easy to remember. We always talk about the "singing" quality in Romantic music. Lots of arm weight. There were also typically fewer "runs" than in previous periods and even less ornamentation than Baroque and Classical. 
• Mood: Great variety within a piece.
• Forms: Sonata form was used, but it wasn't as clear as the Classical period.
• Instruments: Piano was created, the modern piano we have today. They expanded the range to 88 keys, added double escapement action to the grand (so we can play repeated notes quickly), the pedals were added and used extensively, becomes a very popular instrument.
• Technique: virtuoso music--more flashy, fast, difficult scales, arpeggios, and octaves than ever before.
• Genres: Pull away from the sonata form mostly, character pieces (short pieces that are descriptive about a person, place, thing, event, or story). Character pieces are a very important type of piano piece.

IMPRESSIONISM (1880–1920)

• Originated in painting (with artists like Monet, Van Gogh).
• Predominantly French style with composers like Debussy and Ravel.
• Like the paintings, it is intended to not give a clear image of something.
• Chords don't function as part of the harmonic progression, but provide color.
• Stacked chords are popular: 9ths, 11ths, 13ths.
• Non-teleological: not goal-oriented (you won't hear a bunch of cadences like you do in previous eras). This makes it feel like time is suspended when listening.
• Pulse of music (and time signature) is vague when listening.
• Whole-tone scale usage and pentatonic scales.
• Words that describe the music: blurry, misty, easy on the ears, dreamy.

CONTEMPORARY/MODERN/20th-CENTURY (1900–present)

• I had a professor describe this era well: "Music was not meant to intentionally be beautiful, but rather expressive." 
• Twelve-tone language (or atonality) by Arnold Schoenberg in Germany in 1920s.
• Free form
• Music not based on any scale, but can use 12-tone row (12 pitches have to be used before repeating any of them).
• Music is called expressionistic. This means that it stresses intense emotion (even neurotic) and has harsh dissonances.
• Neo-classicism, Neo-romanticism.
• Time signatures: constantly changing, if it is even included.
• Piano explorations: Extended piano techniques, external sound effects, playing with digital recordings.
• Chords with extreme dissonance intentional.
• "Chance music": throw a dice and play the order of notes according to what corresponds with the number on the dice.
• Silence in music: John Cage (4:33).
• Rhythm: As complicated as it gets. You name it, it has been done.
• Dynamics: Every dynamic possible to both extremes.
• Melodies: Typically impossible to recall completely if aleatoric (chance) music because of range, difficult rhythm, dynamics, and order of notes.
• Extremely difficult, almost "unplayable" music.