Classical Music Era: Style, Orchestra, and Opera Innovations

The Classical Music Era

Classic is considered to be top-class, first-rate, and of lasting value. It signifies a style that emphasizes grace and simplicity, beauty of line and shape, balance and proportion, order and control. The Classical music period is broadly divided into two categories: the Classical period itself and its precursors/influences. The Classical period (C) is generally considered to have been composed between approximately 1750 and 1820, with key figures like Haydn and Mozart.

Key Stylistic Features

• Style Galant: A courtly style primarily intended to please the listener. Much of the music from this period can be lacking in depth, but it is polished, polite, and extremely elegant.
• Later Classical Music Style: This style matured with grace and beauty of melody, proportion and balance, expressiveness, and formal structure.
• Texture: Predominantly light and homophonic, featuring clear melodies above a chordal accompaniment.

The Orchestra

The orchestra began to grow during this era. Harpsichords helped knit the texture together. Wind instruments, like horns, were used to enrich the texture. The early classical orchestra was small and variable. By the end of the 18th century, a typical orchestra included: 1-2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 kettle drums, and strings.

Opera Innovations

Opera continued to be a significant genre, particularly for the church and in vocal music, attracting considerable interest.

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787)

Gluck was concerned that opera was becoming too stilted, with singers holding excessive importance and music being composed solely to showcase their technical brilliance. His reforms aimed to:

• Make music serve the drama.
• Reduce distractions between aria and recitative for more continuous action.
• Choose and use instruments to suit each dramatic situation.
• Have the overture prepare the audience for the nature of the drama.
• Introduce melodic motifs of the opera.

His opera Orfeo ed Euridice exemplified these reforms. Orfeo's aria, "Che farò senza Euridice," features a homophonic melody with instrumental accompaniment.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

While Gluck reformed opera, Mozart transformed it. A musical genius with a dramatic instinct, his operas portray human nature with lifelike warmth, allowing characters to drive the story forward. He pioneered final scenes where all characters join in an ensemble, singing simultaneously. The orchestra played a crucial role, mirroring the drama of the action.

Notable Mozart operas include:

• The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte): A singspiel, an opera in which singing is interspersed with spoken dialogue.
• Don Giovanni: An opera buffa, a comic opera.