classical music compositions with multiple sections

(Sixths are closely related to thirds in the same way that fourths are closely related to fifths.) It was during the Renaissance that thirds began to be used more often, particularly in the parallel-thirds and parallel-sixths style of fauxbourdon. This gives early music an open, hollow texture and harmonies that are unfamiliar to the modern ear. Medieval music was based instead on the intervals of the perfect fifth and perfect fourth. One of the most obvious differences that you can hear even if you don’t realize it or can’t explain it in medieval music is the lack of thirds, the interval that modern (triadic) chords are built from. In a fundamental way, the Baroque marked the beginning of our familiar tradition. Most people strongly prefer the musical tradition that they grew up hearing it makes sense to them in a way that unfamiliar traditions do not.

The music of the Middle Ages was modal rather than tonal in other words, it was not based on chords and harmonies in major and minor keys. This is probably because music before this period has an exotic, unfamiliar sound to most modern Western listeners. The Baroque is the earliest period in European music whose music is still widely heard. Musical Background, Development, and Influence The Renaissance Springboard This era thus saw a flowering of secular (nonchurch) musical forms, compositions for specific instruments (previously a rarity), and experimentation with harmony, rhythm, and form as well as affect that greatly and permanently altered the musical landscape. During the Baroque period, although churches were still important employers for many composers, the nobility became much more active patrons of music, and their courts became important venues for performances.

Previously, most composers were employed by the church, which usually, and often severely, limited their freedom to experiment. This new exploration of emotion in music may have had its origins in another important historical influence on the music of this period. Even the more staid religious works often seek to express an affective element of mysticism or massive grandeur. The fantasies and toccatas exhibit a freedom of expression that has very little to do with reason, and there is no mistaking the joy, pathos, or passion expressed in much of the era’s most popular works. Yet Baroque composers also displayed a very strong interest in expressing emotions or affections through music. In particular, the orderly progression of the harmony and the discipline of complex counterpoint are hallmarks of this era. There are discipline and order underlying much of Baroque music, perhaps reflecting the ideals of the age of reason. Many historians believe that this was a critical period that set Europe on its course away from the static or backward-looking viewpoints of the Middle Ages and Renaissance and toward the forward-momentum stance that led inexorably to our modern world.

Impressed with the insights that were gained in those fields, other influential thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke sought to apply similar strict rules of observation and reasoning to philosophy and political science. Brilliant minds such as Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and Francis Bacon were laying the foundations for modern science and mathematics. This was the European period that is often called the Age of Reason. This period is best known for the complex counterpoint of the mature Baroque, as typified by the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. It was during the Baroque that the major/minor tonal system that still dominates Western music was established. It was preceded by the Renaissance and followed by the Classical period. The Baroque period in European music lasted from about 1600 to about 1750. Intro to Baroque from Lumen Learning Music of the Baroque Period

Classical music compositions with multiple sections