Chamber Music

Chamber Music

Chamber Music, instrumental music for an ensemble, usually ranging from two to about ten players, with one player for each part and all parts of equal importance. Chamber music from about 1750 has been principally for string quartet (two violins, viola, and cello), although string quintets as well as duets, trios, and quintets of four stringed instruments plus a piano or wind instrument have also been popular. It is called chamber music because it was originally meant for private performance, typically in a small hall or a person's private chambers. Public concerts of chamber music were initiated only in the 19th century.

Secular music in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (about 1450 to about 1600) was composed typically for small vocal and instrumental ensembles. Most compositions were vocal pieces in three, four, and five parts. Instrumental groups simply played this vocal chamber music using whatever instruments were desired or were available at the time.

In the baroque era (about 1600 to about 1750) the omnipresent musical texture was that of high melody lines supported by a basso continuo—a bass melody played, for example, by cello or bassoon, with harmonies filled in by a lute, harpsichord, or organ. Two instrumental genres became important during this period: the sonata da chiesa, or church sonata, and the sonata da camera, or chamber sonata. Although the sonata da chiesa cannot be considered chamber music in its strictest sense, since it was intended for public performance, by about 1700 the distinction between the sonata da chiesa and sonata da camera was blurred, since many pieces of each type were played both publicly and privately. The principal chamber music genres were trio sonatas, which were sonatas da chiesa or da camera written for two melody instruments (usually violins, flutes or oboes, often at the players' choice) plus continuo, and solo sonatas, usually for violin and continuo. Trio sonatas, however, might also be played, if desired, by larger ensembles of six or eight players. In addition, chamber cantatas for solo voice and continuo were written, as were vocal duets with continuo, which in fact provided the model for the trio sonata.

The most prominent 17th-century composer of trio and solo sonatas was Italian Arcangelo Corelli, whose works influenced the chamber music of English composer Henry Purcell and, later, of French composer François Couperin, German-English composer George Frideric Handel, and German composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

In the classical era (about 1750 to about 1820) Austrian composer Joseph Haydn developed chamber music as a style distinct from other ensemble music. Important as predecessors of the new style were Viennese light music genres, such as the divertimento and serenade. Played out-of-doors by groups of stringed and wind instruments, these compositions dispensed with the continuo, using the middle-voiced instruments to fill out the harmony. Haydn established the string quartet as the most common chamber music ensemble. His quartets were usually written in the four-movement sonata structure (a fast movement, a slow movement, a minuet, and another fast movement), a form which predominated in the classical era. Chamber music in the classical era, as developed by Haydn and his compatriot Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was also distinguished by finely wrought, complex, intimate interplay between the four instruments. Ludwig van Beethoven, a German composer, greatly expanded the dimensions of the string quartet while preserving its intimate character as well.

Chamber music in the romantic era (about 1820 to about 1900) tended to follow classical traditions. Composers often used the four-movement sonata structure, and the string quartet continued to be a favored combination of instruments. As composers sought to express intense emotion in their works, pieces featuring the piano, such as the Trout Quintet (1819) by Austrian Franz Schubert, and the Piano Quintet in F Minor (1864) by German Johannes Brahms, became popular, since the piano possessed a greater dynamic and expressive range than other chamber instruments. Public performances of chamber music also became common, and composers often created chamber music intended for public performance, thus changing chamber music's original function.

Several trends emerged in 20th-century chamber music. Classical genres such as the string quartet were infused with contemporary idioms and techniques in works of French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, Hungarian Béla Bartók, Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich, and American Elliott Carter. Chamber music ensembles of varied composition—often including voices, harp, guitar, and wind and percussion instruments—became primary vehicles for new music by composers such as Schoenberg, Webern, Russian-born Igor Stravinsky, and French Pierre Boulez. Chamber music, once the domain of amateurs, playing for their own pleasure, has become increasingly popular with concert-hall audiences. Numerous professional chamber music groups flourished in the United States and elsewhere.

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Italian composer and violinist, whose style of playing became the basis for the violin technique of the 18th and 19th centuries, and whose chamber music compositions were far-reaching in their influence. Born in Fusignano, he studied in nearby Bologna and after 1675 lived in Rome. There his patrons included Queen Christina of Sweden and, after 1690, the art patron Pietro Cardinal Ottoboni. The most widely published and reprinted composer before the Austrian Joseph Haydn, Corelli was the first composer to gain an international reputation solely on the basis of his instrumental music. Many elements of his style became commonplace in the 18th century, and his works are early examples of the newly evolved system of major and minor tonality. As the preeminent violin virtuoso of the day, he taught many leading violinist-composers of the 18th century, among them the Italian Francesco Geminiani. Corelli's chamber music includes four sets of trio sonatas (op. 1-4); a set of 12 sonatas (op. 5) for solo violin and continuo (in this case, cello plus harpsichord), the last of which includes the famous variations on La Follia; and a set of 12 concerti grossi (op. 6), among the earliest concerti grossi to be published.

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi

COMPOSITIONS

INNOVATIONS AND INFLUENCE

From about 1750 on, after Vivaldi’s death, Italian composers primarily produced opera. However, for about the hundred years before 1750, Italy had been prolific in the production of music for the violin, the instrument that comes nearest in sound to the human voice. By Vivaldi’s time, the music of his most distinguished predecessor, Arcangelo Corelli, who died in 1713, was starting to seem old-fashioned. Corelli also wrote concerti grossi, but Corelli did little to differentiate the music played by the full orchestra from the music of the soloists. Vivaldi provided contrast between the two.

Vivaldi's concertos provided a model for the genre for composers throughout Europe. He established the standard three-movement format, in which a slow movement appears between two fast outer movements. He was the first composer who consistently used the ritornello (refrain) form that became standard for the fast movements of concertos. The ritornello is a musical theme played by the full orchestra that recurs in different keys throughout the movement. It alternates with passages dominated by the soloist, who introduces new, often virtuosic music. Vivaldi was among the first to introduce cadenzas—passages of extraordinary technical virtuosity—for soloists.

Vivaldi’s Opus 8 concertos entitled The Four Seasons are early examples of orchestral program music—music that describes a nonmusical idea. Each of the four concertos for strings and solo violin in The Four Seasons musically represents a different season of the year. Vivaldi published poems that describe the activities and moods represented by the music. Like much of his music, these concertos are marked by vigorous rhythms and strong contrasts.

L’estro harmonico (The Harmonic Whim), a collection of 12 concertos by Vivaldi for from one to four violins, was published in 1711 and proved highly influential, especially in Germany where it was studied by German composer Johann Sebastian Bach during his formative years. Bach made transcriptions, mostly for harpsichord, of a number of Vivaldi’s concertos and sonatas for violin. For many years Vivaldi was remembered chiefly for the transcriptions made by Bach.

During his lifetime Vivaldi was admired more as a violinist than as a composer. His skills and innovations advanced bowing techniques and string-playing generally. Largely forgotten after his death, the works of Vivaldi were rediscovered toward the end of the 19th century through Bach’s transcriptions. Scholarly interest in Bach led to interest in Vivaldi’s influence on Bach. Manuscripts for a number of Vivaldi’s sacred works were discovered in the 1920s, and a complete catalogue and publication of Vivaldi’s instrumental works was finally undertaken in 1947. Vivaldi’s popularity grew steadily during the last half of the 20th century, when his position in the history of music became firmly established. Interest in his operas and religious music began to increase in the late 20th century.