Announcements
- For Classical forms, check out this guide: Classical Era Forms (PDF) (DOCX)
- First Impressions 3 Assignment due this week.
- Quiz 2 will happen during recitation 7B. It will cover content from weeks 4-6. Quiz Information.
Listenings & Readings
Lecture 7: Codifying and Pushing Boundaries of the Classical Style
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik (serenade)
- Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet in Bb major, op. 18, no. 6 (string quartet)
- III. Scherzo
Recitation 7A Listening & Reading (Neff)
Recitation 7A Listening & Reading (Goetjen)
Key Terms
Serenade
A musical genre, the name of which derives from the word sereno (It., ‘calm’). Serenades were originally played or sung in the evening by a lover at his lady’s window, or as a greeting to an important personage, and were frequently accompanied by a guitar or other plucked instrument. In the 18th century, a serenade was a piece of instrumental music of up to ten movements, scored for a small ensemble, usually with a predominance of wind instruments. There are reminiscences of the original connotations of serenade and a plucked instrument in the serenade arias of some operas, e.g., ‘Deh, vieni alla finestra’ (Don Giovanni, Act II).
Instrumental serenades were written by such composers as Boccherini, Michael Haydn, and Dittersdorf. Mozart’s examples (also called Finalmusiken, notturni, or cassations) were generally commissioned for specific occasions, such as the one he wrote in 1776 for a wedding in the Haffner family (the ‘Haffner’ Serenade k250/248b). Most of his serenades begin or close (or both) with a march-like movement, framing a large-scale sonata-form piece, two slow movements alternating with minuets, often a quicker movement such as a rondo, and a very quick finale. They are scored for a variety of combinations: strings and wind (the ‘Haffner’ Serenade), wind instruments alone (k361/370a, k375, k388/384a), string quartet (Eine kleine Nachtmusik), and even double or quadruple orchestra (Serenata notturna k239 and Notturno no. 8). Beethoven’s only serenades are chamber pieces, for string trio (op. 8) and for flute, violin, and viola (op. 25).
In the 19th century, orchestral serenades were composed by Brahms, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Elgar (Serenade for strings), and Strauss, among others. 20th-century composers freely extended the possibilities of the genre, producing such diverse works as Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, scored for 16 solo voices and orchestra, Schoenberg’s op. 24, and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings. (From Oxford Reference.)
String quartet
Chamber music ensemble comprised of 2 violins, 1 viola, and 1 cello. Also, the genre of music composed for this ensemble which usually has 4 movements.
Scherzo
A fast movement, most often in triple meter. Composers sometimes replace a minuet in symphonies and string quartets with a scherzo.
