The concerto in the Classical period

Hello and welcome to today's music lesson. I'm Ms. Mansell and I'm gonna be your teacher today. Let's get started. The outcome for today's lesson is I can identify key features of the Classical concerto and compose an idiomatic cadenza. Let's look at the keywords for this lesson. Cadenza. A solo section in a concerto in which the soloist plays in a virtuosic manner. Sonata form. A common structure for a piece based on an exposition, development, and recapitulation. Balanced phrasing. Where phrases are an equal length and create symmetry. They're often in question and answer form. Melody and accompaniment, or melody-dominated homophony, is a texture in which there is a single clear melody with separate accompaniment. Today's lesson on "The concerto in the Classical period" is in two parts. Part one is the key features of the Classical concerto, and part two is on the cadenza. Let's get started with part one, "Key features of the Classical concerto." In the Classical period, from 1750 to 1810, the concerto shared many features with the Baroque solo concerto, but there were also some key differences. One of the main differences was the change in instrumentation within the orchestra and the solo instruments. How is the instrumentation different in this Mozart concerto from what you would expect in the Baroque era? Pause and have a listen to the clip. What could you hear? Did you hear the clarinet? Solo instruments became more diverse, with piano, violin, cello, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn all common choices in the concerto. The clip features a clarinet as the solo instrument. This instrument didn't exist during the Baroque period but soon became popular for Classical composers. The orchestra was larger in the Classical period, including a larger string section and more woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments. The continuo was no longer used in the Classical period. Generally, the woodwind, brass, and percussion were used to add color and interest to the orchestra rather than being key melodic instruments. In the Classical concerto, the soloist doesn't play in the tutti sections. The orchestra plays alone, often with the first violins playing the main melody. This is very different to the Baroque concerto. Have a listen to the contrast between the tutti and solo sections in a Classical concerto. Pause and have a listen to the clip. Classical concertos usually have three contrasting movements following a fast, slow, fast pattern. The first movement typically uses a structure called sonata form. This is a very common structure in the Classical and Romantic periods, which is based on three sections. Exposition, development, and recapitulation. So, the exposition is the introduction of the main melodic ideas. The development section is a contrasting section and thematic development. And the recapitulation is the original material but slightly developed. Have a listen to this Classical concerto. These two melodies are introduced in the exposition, so pause and have a listen to the exposition. How has contrast then been created in the development section? So pause and have a listen to the development section. You could have said it sounds more dramatic, the music is louder, there are new and different melodic ideas, and it's changed key, it's changed to minor. The original material returns in the recapitulation, but it has been slightly developed. So have a listen to that. So, as a reminder, the exposition introduces the main themes, the development creates contrast and develops those themes, and the recapitulation repeats the main themes and creates a satisfying ending. Let's do a check for understanding. Which part of sonata form introduces the main melodic ideas? Is it A, the exposition; B, the development section; or C, the recapitulation? Which part of sonata form? Well done if you said A, exposition. What happens in the recapitulation? Is it A, new melodic material is used; B, the original melodic material is repeated; or C, the original melodic material is developed. Which do you think? Well done if you got B. The original melodic material is repeated. It's possible it might be slightly developed, but the main development happens in the development section. In the Classical period, melody and accompaniment, or melody-dominated homophony, became the dominant texture, where the melody is clearly separate from a simple accompaniment. This was very different to the multiple polyphonic lines common in the Baroque concerto. What makes the melody stand out from the accompaniment in this example? Pause and have a listen. The melody is clearly separate to the accompaniment through the use of contrasting rhythms, repeated patterns in the accompaniment, contrasting melodic shapes, contrasting pitch, so the melody is much higher than the accompaniment, and contrasting articulation. There are shorter staccato notes in the accompaniment. Melodies were also different in Classical concertos compared to the earlier Baroque concertos. What are the differences here? Have a listen to a Baroque melody and then a Classical melody. What did you hear? Classical melodies typically use less ornamentation, although there is still some. Have shorter phrases, so two, four, or eight bars, rather than long, flowing melodies. Have balanced phrasing. Use gradual dynamic changes rather than sudden dynamics. If you remember, those are called terraced dynamics. This is an example of balanced phrasing from a Haydn concerto. Have a listen. (gentle orchestral music) Each phrase is two bars long, which creates a sense of balance. You can see the phrases there. Many of the phrases also use question and answer, or melodic shapes that complement each other. So here you can see an ascending question with a descending answer. And then you can see an overall descending shape, followed by an overall ascending shape. Some phrases use short sequences to create balance. So here you can see it feels unresolved, and then it feels resolved with the rest of the sequence. Let's do a check for understanding. Which two of these are typical of balanced phrasing? Is it A, use of question and answer; B, long, flowing melodic lines; C, 2-bar, 4-bar, or 8-bar phrases; or D, 1-bar, 3-bar, or 6-bar phrases? Which two of those? Well done if you said A and C. Question and answer and 2-bar, 4-bar, or 8-bar phrases are typical of balanced phrasing. Let's have a look at Task A. So you're going to listen to each example and answer the questions. So, for Example 1, we want you to describe two features of the instrumentation that are typical of Classical concertos. This is the first movement of a concerto. How is the tempo typical of a first movement? We want you to identify the structure that you'd expect to hear and name a potential composer of this piece. For Example 2, you should describe two melodic features that are typical of a Classical concerto. Answer what is the texture, and is this common for the genre? And describe the accompaniment in the first part of the clip. Pause the lesson video and have a go at Task A. How did you get on? So, for Example 1, for two features of the instrumentation that are typical of Classical concertos, you could have said orchestra with woodwind and brass instruments, picked out that there's no continuo, there's a conventional solo instrument, which was the flute, and the first violins were playing the melody. The tempo was typical 'cause it's a fast tempo and you'd expect to hear that in the first movement of a concerto. So you would've expected to hear a sonata form structure. Remember, that's exposition, development, and recapitulation. And for a potential composer, you could have said Mozart, Haydn, or Beethoven as good examples of composers of this type of music. The piece music is actually by Mozart. So, for Example 2, you could have said it has balanced phrasing, it doesn't have much ornamentation, there are question and answer phrases, and there are 2- or 4-bar phrases. In terms of the texture, it's melody and accompaniment, and yes, that's common for the genre. And the accompaniment in the first part of the clip is repeated quavers, major chords, mostly staccato articulation, and quiet dynamics. I hope you got a lot of those features. Let's move on to part two of our lesson, "The cadenza." Virtuosic playing was an important feature of many Baroque concertos. This was taken to even greater levels in the Classical period. An important new feature of the concerto in this period was the cadenza. This is a completely solo section in which the soloist plays complex and virtuosic melodies and patterns to show off their technical skill. They can be improvised or composed, and are normally near the end of the first movement. What features make this cadenza virtuosic? Pause and have a listen. You could have said something like, "It uses complex scalic and arpeggiated patterns, fast runs, a large range, difficult techniques, for example, double stopping, trills and ornamentation." What do you notice about the tempo and sense of pulse in this part of the cadenza? Pause and have a listen. I hope you noticed that the tempo is free. There is no consistent pulse and the performer changes the tempo they're playing a lot. Free tempo is a key feature of the cadenza. It allows the soloist to play expressively and to really show off their abilities. Have a look at this video showing how to write a cadenza for a concerto. I'm gonna have a go at playing a cadenza in the style of a Classical concerto. As we know, this is a really, really typical feature of the Classical concerto, and this is the point in the first movement where the soloist has an opportunity to really show off their technical skills. Sometimes these are composed by the composer, other times the soloist is allowed to improvise them. Now, you want to choose for this whatever instrument you feel most confident playing, because as much as possible you want to be able to show off technically impressive skills, so you want the instrument that you're most comfortable playing. I've chosen to use here my keyboard, and 'cause I'm using some software, I've set it on a flute sound. That's quite a common solo instrument. However, you might choose to use something different, and you might be doing this live or you might be using software. Either way, it's following the same principles. So for the purpose of this, we're gonna work in the key of C major, that means we're just using the white notes. So I've got here on my keyboard, C. (bright music) Up to C, that's my C major scale using just the white notes. And we'll use that just 'cause it avoids any extra complications from using more complex key signatures. Now, there's a few things, a few techniques that are quite common in cadenzas, and I'm gonna practice a few of them before I try and play a cadenza. So the first one is to use scalic runs. This is where we just run up and down bits of the scale. (bright music) And you'll notice there I used the whole range of the lower octave and the higher octave as well. You wanna be using the full range of your instrument. So I've practiced some scalic runs and I'm trying to make them fast and fluent so that they sound impressive and virtuosic. The other thing that is really common is to use arpeggios, and this is where we take the notes of a chord and play them either ascending or descending one after another. So if I've got a C major chord, C, E, and G, (bright music) an arpeggio would just be C, then E, then G. (bright music) Now, I can do rising arpeggios where I do the first version, the root position, C, E, and G. (bright music) And then I do an arpeggio starting on E but still using the same notes. (bright music) And then starting on G. (bright music) I could do it coming down as well. (bright music) So I'm using the notes of the C major scale and I'm ascending them in a pattern or descending them in a pattern like that. I could also do it based on some of the other primary chords in C major, so I could do it based on an F chord. (bright music) On a G chord, so that's G, B, and D. (bright music) So I've got arpeggios and I've got scalic runs. And one really common way to end a cadenza is to use a trill at the end as well. So I'm gonna practice some trills, and a really effective trill to use in this case would be trilling between B and C (bright music) and then ending on C, so I'm gonna practice that a few times. (bright music) And I'm gonna try and build that in at the end of my cadenza. So, I've practiced a few things, now I'm gonna try and put a few together into just a short cadenza. I'm gonna start on C, end on C, I'm gonna have that trill on B at the end, and I'm gonna try and build in some scalic runs and some arpeggios as well. And what I'm really trying to do here is show off my skills. This is a Classical concerto, I've done the first movement, got to the end of the movement, and now I'm gonna show off the range of my skills and really impress the audience who have come to watch, so I'm going for that virtuosic performance, that's what I'm really trying to create here. So let's give it a shot. (bright music) (bright music continues) So that had lots of those features in there, the scalic runs, the arpeggios, tried to create some interesting patterns, and throughout it I had this really free tempo, didn't I? So there was no clear sense of pulse, it got faster and slower, and then built up to that dramatic trill at the end there. So you can have a go at creating a cadenza using some of those features on your instrument and give it your best shot. So, to recap, to write a cadenza, you should create virtuosic patterns based on our arpeggios and scalic runs in the key of C major. Start and finish on C. Use fast rhythms to make it even more virtuosic. Perform with a free tempo, speeding up and slowing down to add expression. And try to show off as much as possible, and then record your cadenza. Which of these is not a typical feature of a cadenza? Is it A, arpeggios; B, balanced phrasing; C, free tempo; or D, scalic runs? Well done if you got B, balanced phrasing, that's not a typical feature of a cadenza. What is the main purpose of a cadenza? Is it A, to develop the melody; B, to change key; C to repeat melodic ideas; or D, to show off? Which do you think? I hope you got D. The main purpose of a cadenza is genuinely for the performer to show off. So let's start with Task B. We want you to perform and record a cadenza in the key of C. The success criteria for this is that it starts and finishes on C. It uses notes from the key of C major. It is virtuosic, using fast rhythms, arpeggios, and scales. It has a free tempo. Pause the lesson video and have a go at performing and recording your credenza. Now let's have a look at analyzing this credenza from a Classical concerto. What typical features does it use? Have a listen to the clip. It uses fast rhythms and patterns, arpeggios, scalic runs, free tempo, and trills. Let's summarize today's lesson on "The concerto in the Classical period." The Classical concerto uses a larger orchestra than the Baroque, with no continuo and a broader range of solo instruments. The first movement typically uses sonata form. That's exposition, development, and recapitulation. The texture is usually melody and accompaniment, with a melody based on balanced phrasing. Cadenzas are an opportunity for soloists to show off their technical skill, with virtuosic playing in a free tempo. I hope you've enjoyed today's lesson.