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The Great Courses course classical music music

The 30 Greatest Orchestral Works

Lecture 1 - Game Plan and Preliminaries

  • 1700s the orchestra comes into being
  • Composers were writing orchestral music thanks to the concept of orchestration
    • How a composer assigns instruments to the melodic and accompanimental parts of a composition
  • Baroque era
  • Romantic era
    • 1827 to 1900
    • After the death of Beethoven
  • Composers began searching for "expressive originality" at the turn of the 20th century
    • Hyper-romanticism
  • Major musical forms:
    • Ritornello
      • Theme returns over the course of a movement
      • Most common among baroque-era instrumental procedures
    • Theme and variations
    • Minuet and trio
      • Moderate, three-step dance
    • Scherzo
      • Same structure of minuet and trio
      • Removes ritual repetitions
      • Speeds up movements
    • Rondo
    • Sonata
      • Two or more contrasting themes exist
    • Double exposition
      • Sonata for concertos
  • Orchestral genres:
    • Solo concerto
      • Multi-movement work
      • Soloist is accompanied by (or pitted against) an orchestra
    • Concerto grosso
      • Multi-movement work
      • Multiple soloists are accompanied by (or pitted against) an orchestra
    • Symphony
      • Multi-movement work composed for an orchestra
    • Symphonic/tone poem
      • Single-movement orchestral work
      • Tells an extra-musical or programmatic story
    • Suite
      • Concert consisting of a collection of dances
      • Extracted from a longer ballet
  • Terms:
    • Classical
      • Works of art between the 17th and 18th centuries
      • Characterized by clear lines and balanced forms
    • Harmony
      • Art and science of manipulating multiple pitches
    • Homophonic texture/homophony
      • Texture in which the melodic line predominates
    • Melody
      • A succession of pitches
    • Polyphonic texture/polyphony
      • Texture consisting of two or more simultaneous melodies of equal importance
      • Counterpoint
    • Texture
      • Number of melodies present and relationships between them
      • Includes monophony, polyphony, heterophony, and homophony
    • Tonal/tonality
      • Sense that one pitch is central to a section of music