Chamber music is a form of
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...
that is composed for a small group of
instruments
Instrument may refer to:
Science and technology
* Flight instruments, the devices used to measure the speed, altitude, and pertinent flight angles of various kinds of aircraft
* Laboratory equipment, the measuring tools used in a scientific lab ...
—traditionally a group that could fit in a
palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any
art music
Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...
that is performed by a small number of performers, with one performer to a part (in contrast to
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
l music, in which each string part is played by a number of performers). However, by convention, it usually does not include solo instrument performances.
Because of its intimate nature, chamber music has been described as "the music of friends". For more than 100 years, chamber music was played primarily by amateur musicians in their homes, and even today, when chamber music performance has migrated from the home to the concert hall, many musicians, amateur and professional, still play chamber music for their own pleasure. Playing chamber music requires special skills, both musical and social, that differ from the skills required for playing solo or symphonic works.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...
described chamber music (specifically, string quartet music) as "four rational people conversing". This conversational paradigm – which refers to the way one instrument introduces a melody or motif and then other instruments subsequently "respond" with a similar motif – has been a thread woven through the history of chamber music composition from the end of the 18th century to the present. The analogy to conversation recurs in descriptions and analyses of chamber music compositions.
History
From its earliest beginnings in the
Medieval period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
to the present, chamber music has been a reflection of the changes in the technology and the society that produced it.
Early beginnings
![AntiqueQuartet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/AntiqueQuartet.jpg)
During the Middle Ages and the early
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
, instruments were used primarily as accompaniment for singers. String players would play along with the melody line sung by the singer. There were also purely instrumental ensembles, often of stringed precursors of the
violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the 16th century. At the time the name of this family of instruments was viole da braccio which was used to distinguish them from the viol family (viole ''da gamba''). The standa ...
, called
consorts __NOTOC__
Consort may refer to:
Music
* "The Consort" (Rufus Wainwright song), from the 2000 album ''Poses''
* Consort of instruments, term for instrumental ensembles
* Consort song (musical), a characteristic English song form, late 16th–earl ...
.
Some analysts consider the origin of classical instrumental ensembles to be the
sonata da camera
Sonata da camera is a 17th-century genre of musical composition for one or more melody instruments and basso continuo. It generally comprises a suite of several small pieces in the same mode or key that are suitable for dancing. A significant numb ...
(chamber sonata) and the
sonata da chiesa
Sonata da chiesa (Italian: "church sonata") is a 17th-century genre of musical composition for one or more melody instruments and is regarded an antecedent of later forms of 18th century instrumental music. It generally comprises four movements, t ...
(church sonata). These were compositions for one to five or more instruments. The sonata da camera was a suite of slow and fast movements, interspersed with dance tunes; the sonata da chiesa was the same, but the dances were omitted. These forms gradually developed into the
trio sonata
The trio sonata is a genre, typically consisting of several movements, with two melody instruments and basso continuo. Originating in the early 17th century, the trio sonata was a favorite chamber ensemble combination in the Baroque era.
Basic str ...
of the
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
– two treble instruments and a
bass instrument
Bass ( ) (also called bottom end) describes tones of low (also called "deep") frequency, pitch and range from 16 to 256 Hz (C0 to middle C4) and bass instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range C2-C4. They belong to differen ...
, often with a keyboard or other chording instrument (
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
,
organ, harp or
lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
, for example) filling in the harmony. Both the bass instrument and the chordal instrument would play the
basso continuo
Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...
part.
During the Baroque period, chamber music as a genre was not clearly defined. Often, works could be played on any variety of instruments, in orchestral or chamber ensembles. ''
The Art of Fugue
''The Art of Fugue'', or ''The Art of the Fugue'' (german: Die Kunst der Fuge, links=no), BWV 1080, is an incomplete musical work of unspecified instrumentation by Johann Sebastian Bach. Written in the last decade of his life, ''The Art of Fug ...
'' by
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
, for example, can be played on a keyboard instrument (harpsichord or organ) or by a string quartet or a
string orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...
. The instrumentation of trio sonatas was also often flexibly specified; some of Handel's sonatas are scored for "
German flute
The Western concert flute is a family of transverse (side-blown) woodwind instruments made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist (in British English), flutist (in Ameri ...
, Hoboy
boe
BOE, BoE or Boe may refer to:
Abbreviations, acronyms or initialisms
* Bank of England, the central bank of the United Kingdom
* Bank of English, a representative subset of the 4.5 billion words COBUILD corpus
* Barrel of oil equivalent, a uni ...
or Violin" Bass lines could be played by
violone
The term violone (; literally "large viol" in Italian, " -one" being the augmentative suffix) can refer to several distinct large, bowed musical instruments which belong to either the viol or violin family. The violone is sometimes a fretted i ...
,
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
,
theorbo
The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending ou ...
, or
bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...
, and sometimes three or four instruments would join in the bass line in unison. Sometimes composers mixed movements for chamber ensembles with orchestral movements. Telemann's 'Tafelmusik' (1733), for example, has five sets of movements for various combinations of instruments, ending with a full orchestral section.
Baroque chamber music was often
contrapuntal
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
; that is, each instrument played the same melodic materials at different times, creating a complex, interwoven fabric of sound. Because each instrument was playing essentially the same melodies, all the instruments were equal. In the trio sonata, there is often no ascendent or solo instrument, but all three instruments share equal importance.
![TrioSonata](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/TrioSonata.jpg)
The harmonic role played by the keyboard or other chording instrument was subsidiary, and usually the keyboard part was not even written out; rather, the chordal structure of the piece was specified by numeric codes over the bass line, called
figured bass
Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsic ...
.
In the second half of the 18th century, tastes began to change: many composers preferred a new, lighter
Galant
The galant style was an 18th-century movement in music, visual arts and literature. In Germany a closely related style was called the '' empfindsamer Stil'' (sensitive style). Another close relative is rococo style. The galant style was drawn in ...
style, with "thinner texture, ... and clearly defined melody and bass" to the complexities of counterpoint. Now a new custom arose that gave birth to a new form of chamber music: the
serenade. Patrons invited street musicians to play evening concerts below the balconies of their homes, their friends and their lovers. Patrons and musicians commissioned composers to write suitable suites of dances and tunes, for groups of two to five or six players. These works were called serenades (sera=night), nocturnes, divertimenti, or cassations (from gasse=street). The young
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
was commissioned to write several of these.
Haydn, Mozart, and the classical style
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions ...
is generally credited with creating the modern form of chamber music as we know it, although scholars today such as Roger Hickman argue "the idea that Haydn invented the string quartet and single-handedly advanced the genre is based on only a vague notion of the true history of the eighteenth-century genre." A typical string quartet of the period would consist of
*''An opening movement in
sonata form
Sonata form (also ''sonata-allegro form'' or ''first movement form'') is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle ...
'', usually with two contrasting themes, followed by a development section where the thematic material is transformed and transposed, and ending with a recapitulation of the initial two themes.
*''A lyrical movement'' in a slow or moderate tempo, sometimes built out of three sections that repeat themselves in the order A–B–C–A–B–C, and sometimes a set of variations.
*''A
minuet
A minuet (; also spelled menuet) is a social dance of French origin for two people, usually in time. The English word was adapted from the Italian ''minuetto'' and the French ''menuet''.
The term also describes the musical form that accompa ...
or
scherzo
A scherzo (, , ; plural scherzos or scherzi), in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often ref ...
'', a light movement in three quarter time, with a main section, a contrasting trio section, and a repeat of the main section.
*''A fast finale section'' in
rondo
The rondo is an instrumental musical form introduced in the Classical period.
Etymology
The English word ''rondo'' comes from the Italian form of the French ''rondeau'', which means "a little round".
Despite the common etymological root, rondo ...
form, a series of contrasting sections with a main refrain section opening and closing the movement, and repeating between each section.
Haydn was by no means the only composer developing new modes of chamber music. Even before Haydn, many composers were already experimenting with new forms.
Giovanni Battista Sammartini
Giovanni Battista Sammartini (c. 1700 – 15 January 1775) was an Italian composer, violinist, organist, choirmaster and teacher. He counted Gluck among his students, and was highly regarded by younger composers including Johann Christian ...
,
Ignaz Holzbauer
Ignaz Jakob Holzbauer (18 September 1711 – 7 April 1783) was an Austrian composer of symphonies, concertos, operas, and chamber music, and a member of the Mannheim school. His aesthetic style is in line with that of the ''Sturm und Drang'' "m ...
, and
Franz Xaver Richter
Franz (Czech: František) Xaver Richter, known as ''François Xavier Richter'' in France (December 1, 1709 – September 12, 1789) was an Austro-Moravian singer, violinist, composer, conductor and music theoretician who spent most of his life fir ...
wrote precursors of the string quartet.
Franz Ignaz von Beecke
Franz Ignaz von Beecke (28 October 1733 – 2 January 1803) was a classical music composer born in Wimpfen am Neckar, Germany.
Life
Von Beecke served in the Bavarian Dragoon Regiment of Zollern from 1756, during which time he fought in t ...
(1733-1803), with his Piano Quintet in A minor (1770) and 17 string quartets was also one of the pioneers of chamber music of the Classical period.
Another renowned composer of chamber music of the period was
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
. Mozart's seven piano trios and two piano quartets were the first to apply the conversational principle to chamber music with piano. Haydn's piano trios are essentially piano sonatas with the violin and cello playing mostly supporting roles, doubling the treble and bass lines of the piano score. But Mozart gives the strings an independent role, using them as a counter to the piano, and adding their individual voices to the chamber music conversation.
Mozart introduced the newly invented clarinet into the chamber music arsenal, with the
Kegelstatt Trio
The ''Kegelstatt Trio'', K. 498, is a piano trio for clarinet, viola and piano in E-flat major by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
History
Mozart wrote the piano trio on 10 sheets (19 pages) in Vienna and dated the manuscript on 5 August 1786. Accordin ...
for viola, clarinet and piano, K. 498, and the
Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet, K. 581. He also tried other innovative ensembles, including the quintet for violin, two violas, cello, and horn, K. 407, quartets for flute and strings, and various wind instrument combinations. He wrote six string quintets for two violins, two violas and cello, which explore the rich tenor tones of the violas, adding a new dimension to the string quartet conversation.
Mozart's string quartets are considered the pinnacle of the classical art. The
six string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn, his friend and mentor, inspired the elder composer to say to Mozart's father, "I tell you before God as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by reputation. He has taste, and, what is more, the most profound knowledge of composition."
Many other composers wrote chamber compositions during this period that were popular at the time and are still played today.
Luigi Boccherini
Ridolfo Luigi Boccherini (, also , ; 19 February 1743 – 28 May 1805) was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and ''galante'' style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major Europea ...
, Italian composer and cellist, wrote nearly a hundred string quartets, and more than one hundred quintets for two violins, viola and two cellos. In this innovative ensemble, later used by
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
, Boccherini gives flashy, virtuosic solos to the principal cello, as a showcase for his own playing. Violinist
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (2 November 1739 – 24 October 1799) was an Austrian composer, violinist, and silvologist. He was a friend of both Haydn and Mozart.
(webpage has a translation button)
Life
1739–1764
Dittersdorf was born in ...
and cellist
Johann Baptist Wanhal
Johann Baptist Wanhal (12 May 1739 – 20 August 1813) was a Czech classical music composer. He was born in Nechanice, Bohemia, and died in Vienna. His music was well respected by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. He was an instrumental perf ...
, who both played pickup quartets with Haydn on second violin and Mozart on viola, were popular chamber music composers of the period.
From home to hall
![FortepianoByMcNultyAfterWalter1805](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/FortepianoByMcNultyAfterWalter1805.jpg)
The turn of the 19th century saw dramatic changes in society and in music technology which had far-reaching effects on the way chamber music was composed and played.
Collapse of the aristocratic system
Throughout the 18th century, the composer was normally an employee of an aristocrat, and the chamber music he or she composed was for the pleasure of aristocratic players and listeners. Haydn, for example, was an employee of
Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy
Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy ( hu, Esterházy I. Miklós, german: Nikolaus I. Joseph Fürst Esterhazy; 18 December 171428 September 1790) was a Hungarian prince, a member of the famous Esterházy family. His building of palaces, extravagant clot ...
, a music lover and amateur
baryton
The baryton is a bowed string instrument similar to the viol, but distinguished by an extra set of sympathetic but also pluckable strings. It was in regular use in Europe until the end of the 18th century.
Design
The baryton can be viewed as a ...
player, for whom Haydn wrote many of his string trios. Mozart wrote three string quartets for the King of Prussia,
Frederick William II, a cellist. Many of Beethoven's quartets were first performed with patron Count
Andrey Razumovsky
Count (later Prince) Andrey Kirillovich Razumovskyrussian: Андре́й Кири́ллович Разумо́вский, , german: Andreas von Rasumofsky (2 November 1752 – 23 September 1836) was a Russian Imperial diplomat who spent man ...
on second violin. Boccherini composed for the king of Spain.
With the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of new social orders throughout Europe, composers increasingly had to make money by selling their compositions and performing concerts. They often gave subscription concerts, which involved renting a hall and collecting the receipts from the performance. Increasingly, they wrote chamber music not only for rich patrons, but for professional musicians playing for a paying audience.
Changes in the structure of stringed instruments
At the beginning of the 19th century,
luthier
A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers o ...
s developed new methods of constructing the
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...
,
viola
The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...
and
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
that gave these instruments a richer tone, more volume, and more carrying power. Also at this time, bowmakers made the violin bow longer, with a thicker ribbon of hair under higher tension. This improved projection, and also made possible new bowing techniques. In 1820,
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig, was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ...
invented the chinrest, which gave violinists more freedom of movement in their left hands, for a more nimble technique. These changes contributed to the effectiveness of public performances in large halls, and expanded the repertoire of techniques available to chamber music composers.
Invention of the pianoforte
Throughout the
Baroque era
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including th ...
, the
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
was one of the main instruments used in chamber music. The harpsichord used quills to pluck strings, and it had a delicate sound. Due to the design of the harpsichord, the attack or weight with which the performer played the keyboard did not change the volume or tone. Between about 1750 and the late 1700s, the harpsichord gradually fell out of use. By the late 1700s, the
pianoforte
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
became more popular as an instrument for performance. Even though the pianoforte was invented by
Bartolomeo Cristofori
Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano.
Life
The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death recor ...
at the beginning of the 1700s, it did not become widely used until the end of that century, when technical improvements in its construction made it a more effective instrument. Unlike the harpsichord, the pianoforte could play soft or loud dynamics and sharp
sforzando attacks depending on how hard or soft the performer played the keys. The improved pianoforte was adopted by Mozart and other composers, who began composing chamber ensembles with the piano playing a leading role. The piano was to become more and more dominant through the 19th century, so much so that many composers, such as
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
and
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin (born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin; 1 March 181017 October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leadin ...
, wrote almost exclusively for solo piano (or solo piano with
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
).
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
straddled this period of change as a giant of Western music. Beethoven transformed chamber music, raising it to a new plane, both in terms of content and in terms of the technical demands on performers and audiences. His works, in the words of
Maynard Solomon, were "...the models against which nineteenth-century romanticism measured its achievements and failures." His
late quartets, in particular, were considered so daunting an accomplishment that many composers after him were afraid to try composing quartets;
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
composed and tore up 20 string quartets before he dared publish a work that he felt was worthy of the "giant marching behind".
![BeethovenGhostManuscript](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/BeethovenGhostManuscript.jpg)
Beethoven made his formal debut as a composer with
three Piano Trios, Op. 1. Even these early works, written when Beethoven was only 22, while adhering to a strictly classical mold, showed signs of the new paths that Beethoven was to forge in the coming years. When he showed the manuscript of the trios to Haydn, his teacher, prior to publication, Haydn approved of the first two, but warned against publishing the third trio, in C minor, as too radical, warning it would not "...be understood and favorably received by the public."
Haydn was wrong—the third trio was the most popular of the set, and Haydn's criticisms caused a falling-out between him and the sensitive Beethoven. The trio is, indeed, a departure from the mold that Haydn and Mozart had formed. Beethoven makes dramatic deviations of tempo within phrases and within movements. He greatly increases the independence of the strings, especially the cello, allowing it to range above the piano and occasionally even the violin.
If his Op. 1 trios introduced Beethoven's works to the public, his
Septet, Op. 20, established him as one of Europe's most popular composers. The septet, scored for violin, viola, cello, contrabass, clarinet, horn, and bassoon, was a huge hit. It was played in concerts again and again. It appeared in transcriptions for many combinations – one of which, for clarinet, cello and piano, was written by Beethoven himself – and was so popular that Beethoven feared it would eclipse his other works. So much so that by 1815,
Carl Czerny
Carl Czerny (; 21 February 1791 – 15 July 1857) was an Austrian composer, teacher, and pianist of Czech origin whose music spanned the late Classical and early Romantic eras. His vast musical production amounted to over a thousand works and ...
wrote that Beethoven "could not endure his septet and grew angry because of the universal applause which it has received." The septet is written as a classical divertimento in six movements, including two minuets, and a set of variations. It is full of catchy tunes, with solos for everyone, including the
contrabass
Contrabass (from it, contrabbasso) refers to several musical instruments of very low pitch—generally one octave below bass register instruments. While the term most commonly refers to the double bass (which is the bass instrument in the orchest ...
.
In his 17 string quartets, composed over the course of 37 of his 56 years, Beethoven goes from classical composer par excellence to creator of musical Romanticism, and finally, with his late string quartets, he transcends classicism and romanticism to create a genre that defies categorization. Stravinsky referred to the
Große Fuge
The ''Grosse Fuge'' (German spelling: ''Große'' ''Fuge'', also known in English as the ''Great Fugue'' or ''Grand Fugue''), Op. 133, is a single-movement composition for string quartet by Ludwig van Beethoven. An immense double fugue, it was ...
, of the late quartets, as, "...this absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."
The
string quartets 1–6, Op. 18, were written in the classical style, in the same year that Haydn wrote his
Op. 76 string quartets. Even here, Beethoven stretched the formal structures pioneered by Haydn and Mozart. In the quartet Op. 18, No. 1, in F major, for example, there is a long, lyrical solo for cello in the second movement, giving the cello a new type of voice in the quartet conversation. And the last movement of Op. 18, No. 6, "La Malincolia", creates a new type of formal structure, interleaving a slow, melancholic section with a manic dance. Beethoven was to use this form in later quartets, and Brahms and others adopted it as well.
In the years 1805 to 1806, Beethoven composed the three
Op. 59 quartets on a commission from Count Razumovsky, who played second violin in their first performance. These quartets, from Beethoven's middle period, were pioneers in the romantic style. Besides introducing many structural and stylistic innovations, these quartets were much more difficult technically to perform – so much so that they were, and remain, beyond the reach of many amateur string players. When first violinist
Ignaz Schuppanzigh
Ignaz Schuppanzigh (20 July Michael Lorenz"Four more months for Ignaz Schuppanzigh" 13 August 2012] 1776 – 2 March 1830) was an Austrian violinist, friend and teacher of Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven, and leader of Count Razumovsky's privat ...
complained of their difficulty, Beethoven retorted, "Do you think I care about your wretched violin when the spirit moves me?" Among the difficulties are complex
syncopation
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
s and cross-rhythms; synchronized runs of sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes; and sudden
modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the ''carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informatio ...
s requiring special attention to
intonation. In addition to the Op. 59 quartets, Beethoven wrote two more quartets during his middle period –
Op. 74, the "Harp" quartet, named for the unusual harp-like effect Beethoven creates with pizzicato passages in the first movement, and
Op. 95, the "Serioso".
The Serioso is a transitional work that ushers in Beethoven's late period – a period of compositions of great introspection. "The particular kind of inwardness of Beethoven's last style period", writes Joseph Kerman, gives one the feeling that "the music is sounding only for the composer and for one other auditor, an awestruck eavesdropper: you." In the late quartets, the quartet conversation is often disjointed, proceeding like a stream of consciousness. Melodies are broken off, or passed in the middle of the melodic line from instrument to instrument. Beethoven uses new effects, never before essayed in the string quartet literature: the ethereal, dreamlike effect of open intervals between the high E string and the open A string in the second movement of quartet Op. 132; the use of ''sul ponticello'' (playing on the bridge of the violin) for a brittle, scratchy sound in the Presto movement of Op. 131; the use of the
Lydian mode
The modern Lydian mode is a seven-tone musical scale formed from a rising pattern of pitches comprising three whole tones, a semitone, two more whole tones, and a final semitone.
:
Because of the importance of the major scale in modern music ...
, rarely heard in Western music for 200 years, in Op. 132; a cello melody played high above all the other strings in the finale of Op. 132. Yet for all this disjointedness, each quartet is tightly designed, with an overarching structure that ties the work together.
Beethoven wrote eight piano trios, five string trios, two string quintets, and numerous pieces for wind ensemble. He also wrote ten sonatas for violin and piano and five sonatas for cello and piano.
Franz Schubert
As Beethoven, in his last quartets, went off in his own direction,
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
carried on and established the emerging romantic style. In his 31 years, Schubert devoted much of his life to
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
, composing 15 string quartets, two piano trios, string trios, a piano quintet commonly known as the ''
Trout Quintet
The ''Trout Quintet'' (''Forellenquintett'') is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The piano quintet was composed in 1819, when he was 22 years old; it was not published, however, until 1829, a year af ...
'', an
octet for strings and winds, and his famous quintet for two violins, viola, and two cellos.
Schubert's music, as his life, exemplified the contrasts and contradictions of his time. On the one hand, he was the darling of Viennese society: he starred in soirées that became known as ''Schubertiaden'', where he played his light, mannered compositions that expressed the
gemütlichkeit
''Gemütlichkeit'' () is a German-language word used to convey the idea of a state or feeling of warmth, friendliness, and good cheer. Other qualities encompassed by the term include cosiness, peace of mind, and a sense of belonging and well ...
of Vienna of the 1820s. On the other hand, his own short life was shrouded in tragedy, wracked by poverty and ill health. Chamber music was the ideal medium to express this conflict, "to reconcile his essentially lyric themes with his feeling for dramatic utterance within a form that provided the possibility of extreme color contrasts." The
String Quintet in C, D.956, is an example of how this conflict is expressed in music. After a slow introduction, the first theme of the first movement, fiery and dramatic, leads to a bridge of rising tension, peaking suddenly and breaking into the second theme, a lilting duet in the lower voices. The alternating
Sturm und Drang
''Sturm und Drang'' (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto- Romantic movement in German literature and music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity and, in particul ...
and relaxation continue throughout the movement.
These contending forces are expressed in some of Schubert's other works: in the quartet
Death and the Maiden, the
Rosamunde quartet and in the stormy, one-movement
Quartettsatz, D. 703.
Felix Mendelssohn
Unlike Schubert,
Felix Mendelssohn
Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include sy ...
had a life of peace and prosperity. Born into a wealthy Jewish family in Hamburg, Mendelssohn proved himself a child prodigy. By the age of 16, he had written his first major chamber work, the
String Octet, Op. 20. Already in this work, Mendelssohn showed some of the unique style that was to characterize his later works; notably, the gossamer light texture of his scherzo movements, exemplified also by the ''Canzonetta'' movement of the
String Quartet, Op. 12, and the scherzo of the
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49.
Another characteristic that Mendelssohn pioneered is the
cyclic
Cycle, cycles, or cyclic may refer to:
Anthropology and social sciences
* Cyclic history, a theory of history
* Cyclical theory, a theory of American political history associated with Arthur Schlesinger, Sr.
* Social cycle, various cycles in s ...
form in overall structure. This means the reuse of thematic material from one movement to the next, to give the total piece coherence. In his
second string quartet, he opens the piece with a peaceful adagio section in A major, that contrasts with the stormy first movement in A minor. After the final, vigorous Presto movement, he returns to the opening adagio to conclude the piece. This string quartet is also Mendelssohn's homage to Beethoven; the work is studded with quotes from Beethoven's middle and late quartets.
During his adult life, Mendelssohn wrote two piano trios, seven works for string quartet, two string quintets, the octet, a sextet for piano and strings, and numerous sonatas for piano with violin, cello, and clarinet.
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
continued the development of cyclic structure. In his
Piano Quintet in E flat, Op. 44, Schumann wrote a double fugue in the finale, using the theme of the first movement and the theme of the last movement. Both Schumann and Mendelssohn, following the example set by Beethoven, revived the fugue, which had fallen out of favor since the Baroque period. However, rather than writing strict, full-length
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
s, they used counterpoint as another mode of conversation between the chamber music instruments. Many of Schumann's chamber works, including all three of
his string quartets and
his piano quartet have contrapuntal sections interwoven seamlessly into the overall compositional texture.
The composers of the first half of the 19th century were acutely aware of the conversational paradigm established by Haydn and Mozart. Schumann wrote that in a true quartet "everyone has something to say ... a conversation, often truly beautiful, often oddly and turbidly woven, among four people." Their awareness is exemplified by composer and virtuoso violinist
Louis Spohr
Louis Spohr (, 5 April 178422 October 1859), baptized Ludewig Spohr, later often in the modern German form of the name Ludwig, was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Highly regarded during his lifetime, Spohr composed ten symphonies, ...
. Spohr divided his 36 string quartets into two types: the ''quatuor brillant'', essentially a violin concerto with string trio accompaniment; and ''quatuor dialogue'', in the conversational tradition.
Chamber music and society in the 19th century
![Grün - Chamber Music Concert](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Gr%C3%BCn_-_Chamber_Music_Concert.jpg)
During the 19th century, with the rise of new technology driven by the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, printed music became cheaper and thus more accessible while domestic music making gained widespread popularity. Composers began to incorporate new elements and techniques into their works to appeal to this open market, since there was an increased consumer desire for chamber music. While improvements in instruments led to more public performances of chamber music, it remained very much a type of music to be played as much as performed. Amateur quartet societies sprang up throughout Europe, and no middling-sized city in Germany or France was without one. These societies sponsored
house concert
A house concert or home concert is a musical concert or performance art that is presented in someone's home or apartment, or a nearby small private space such as a barn, apartment rec room, lawn, or backyard."VIDEO: House concert in Royal Oak," '' ...
s, compiled music libraries, and encouraged the playing of quartets and other ensembles. In European countries, in particular Germany and France, like minded musicians were brought together and started to develop a strong connection with the community. Composers were in high favor with orchestral works and solo virtuosi works, which made up the largest part of the public concert repertoire. Early French composers including
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
and
César Franck
César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium.
He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was p ...
.
Apart from the "central" Austro-Germanic countries, there was an occurrence of the subculture of chamber music in other regions such as Britain. There chamber music was often performed by upper- and middle-class men with less advanced musical skills in an unexpected setting such as informal ensembles in private residence with few audience members. In Britain, the most common form of chamber music compositions are the
string quartet
The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...
s, sentimental songs and piano chamber works like the
piano trio
A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music. The term can also refer to a group of musi ...
, in a way depicts the standard conception of the conventional "Victorian music making". In the middle of the 19th century, with the rise of the feminist movement, women also started to receive acceptability to be participated in chamber music.
Thousands of quartets were published by hundreds of composers; between 1770 and 1800, more than 2000 quartets were published, and the pace did not decline in the next century. Throughout the 19th century, composers published string quartets now long neglected:
George Onslow George Onslow may refer to:
*George Onslow (British Army officer) (1731–1792), British politician and army officer
*George Onslow, 1st Earl of Onslow (1731–1814), British peer and politician
*George Onslow (composer)
André George(s) Louis ...
wrote 36 quartets and 35 quintets;
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
wrote dozens of quartets,
Antonio Bazzini,
Anton Reicha
Anton (Antonín, Antoine) Joseph Reicha (Rejcha) (26 February 1770 – 28 May 1836) was a Czech-born, Bavarian-educated, later naturalized French composer and music theorist. A contemporary and lifelong friend of Beethoven, he is now best rem ...
,
Carl Reissiger,
Joseph Suk and others wrote to fill an insatiable demand for quartets. In addition, there was a lively market for string quartet arrangements of popular and
folk tune
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
s, piano works, symphonies, and
opera arias.
But opposing forces were at work. The middle of the 19th century saw the rise of superstar virtuosi, who drew attention away from chamber music toward solo performance. The piano, which could be mass-produced, became an instrument of preference, and many composers, like Chopin and Liszt, composed primarily if not exclusively for piano.
![NerudaQuartet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/NerudaQuartet.jpg)
The ascendance of the piano, and of symphonic composition, was not merely a matter of preference; it was also a matter of
ideology
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
. In the 1860s, a schism grew among romantic musicians over the direction of music. Many composers tend to express their romantic persona through their works. By the time, these chamber works are not necessarily dedicated for any specific dedicatee. Famous chamber works such as
Fanny Mendelssohn
Fanny Mendelssohn (14 November 1805 – 14 May 1847) was a German composer and pianist of the early Romantic era who was also known as Fanny (Cäcilie) Mendelssohn Bartholdy and, after her marriage, Fanny Hensel (as well as Fanny Mendelssohn He ...
D minor Piano Trio,
Ludwig van Beethoven's Trio in E-flat major, and
Franz Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major are all highly personal.
Liszt and
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
led a movement that contended that "pure music" had run its course with Beethoven, and that new,
programmatic forms of music–in which music created "images" with its melodies–were the future of the art. The composers of this school had no use for chamber music. Opposing this view was Johannes Brahms and his associates, especially the powerful
music critic
''The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mus ...
Eduard Hanslick
Eduard Hanslick (11 September 18256 August 1904) was an Austrian music critic, aesthetician and historian. Among the leading critics of his time, he was the chief music critic of the ''Neue Freie Presse'' from 1864 until the end of his life. H ...
. This
War of the Romantics
The "War of the Romantics" is a term used by some music historians to describe the schism among prominent musicians in the second half of the 19th century. Musical structure, the limits of chromatic harmony, and program music versus absolute musi ...
shook the artistic world of the period, with vituperative exchanges between the two camps, concert boycotts, and petitions.
Although amateur playing thrived throughout the 19th century, this was also a period of increasing professionalization of chamber music performance. Professional quartets began to dominate the chamber music concert stage. The
Hellmesberger Quartet
The Hellmesberger Quartet was a string quartet formed in Vienna in 1849. It was founded by Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. and was the first permanent named String Quartet.
Composition
Violinist Leopold Jansa had started a string quartet in 1845. Hellme ...
, led by
Joseph Hellmesberger, and the
Joachim Quartet
Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of t ...
, led by
Joseph Joachim
Joseph Joachim (28 June 1831 – 15 August 1907) was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher who made an international career, based in Hanover and Berlin. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of ...
, debuted many of the new string quartets by Brahms and other composers. Another famous quartet player was
Vilemina Norman Neruda, also known as Lady Hallé. Indeed, during the last third of the century,
women performers began taking their place on the concert stage: an all-women string quartet led by
Emily Shinner
Emily Shinner (7 July 1862 – 17 July 1901) was an English concert violinist and academic, and founder of a string quartet.
Life
She was born in Cheltenham in 1862. Her father, Arthur Shinner, was head of the Cheltenham Original Brewery and a ...
, and the Lucas quartet, also all women, were two notable examples.
Toward the 20th century
![Ferdinand Schmutzer Das Joachim-Quartett](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Ferdinand_Schmutzer_Das_Joachim-Quartett.jpg)
It was
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
who carried the torch of Romantic music toward the 20th century. Heralded by
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann (; 8 June 181029 July 1856) was a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law, intending to pursue a career a ...
as the forger of "new paths" in music, Brahms's music is a bridge from the classical to the modern. On the one hand, Brahms was a traditionalist, conserving the musical traditions of Bach and Mozart. Throughout his chamber music, he uses traditional techniques of
counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
, incorporating fugues and canons into rich conversational and harmonic textures. On the other hand, Brahms expanded the structure and the harmonic vocabulary of chamber music, challenging traditional notions of
tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...
. An example of this is in the
Brahms second string sextet, Op. 36.
Traditionally, composers wrote the first theme of a piece in the key of the piece, firmly establishing that key as the tonic, or home, key of the piece. The opening theme of Op. 36 starts in the tonic (G major), but already by the third measure has modulated to the unrelated key of E-flat major. As the theme develops, it ranges through various keys before coming back to the tonic G major. This "harmonic audacity", as
Swafford describes it, opened the way for bolder experiments to come.
Not only in harmony, but also in overall musical structure, Brahms was an innovator. He developed a technique that
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
described as "developing variation". Rather than discretely defined phrases, Brahms often runs phrase into phrase, and mixes melodic motives to create a fabric of continuous melody. Schoenberg, the creator of the
12-tone system of composition, traced the roots of his modernism to Brahms, in his essay "Brahms the Progressive".
All told, Brahms published 24 works of chamber music, including three string quartets, five piano trios, the
quintet for piano and strings, Op. 34, and other works. Among his last works were the
clarinet quintet, Op. 115, and a trio for clarinet, cello and piano. He wrote a trio for the unusual combination of
piano, violin and horn, Op. 40. He also wrote
two songs for alto singer, viola and piano, Op. 91, reviving the form of voice with string
obbligato
In Western classical music, ''obbligato'' (, also spelled ''obligato'') usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ''ad libitum''. It can also be used, more specifically, to indic ...
that had been virtually abandoned since the Baroque.
![Monet Lavacourt](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Monet_Lavacourt.jpg)
The exploration of tonality and of structure begun by Brahms was continued by composers of the French school.
César Franck
César-Auguste Jean-Guillaume Hubert Franck (; 10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a French Romantic composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher born in modern-day Belgium.
He was born in Liège (which at the time of his birth was p ...
's piano quintet in F minor, composed in 1879, further established the cyclic form first explored by Schumann and Mendelssohn, reusing the same thematic material in each of the three movements.
Claude Debussy
(Achille) Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influential composers of the ...
's
string quartet, Op. 10, is considered a watershed in the history of chamber music. The quartet uses the cyclic structure, and constitutes a final divorce from the rules of classical harmony. "Any sounds in any combination and in any succession are henceforth free to be used in a musical continuity", Debussy wrote.
Pierre Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mont ...
said that Debussy freed chamber music from "rigid structure, frozen rhetoric and rigid aesthetics".
Debussy's quartet, like the string quartets of
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
and of
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...
, created a new tone color for chamber music, a color and texture associated with the
Impressionist movement
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
. Violist James Dunham, of the Cleveland and Sequoia Quartets, writes of the
Ravel quartet, "I was simply overwhelmed by the sweep of sonority, the sensation of colors constantly changing ..." For these composers, chamber ensembles were the ideal vehicle for transmitting this atmospheric sense, and chamber works constituted much of their oeuvre.
Nationalism in chamber music
![KneiselQuartet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/KneiselQuartet.jpg)
Parallel with the trend to seek new modes of tonality and texture was another new development in chamber music: the rise of
nationalism
Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a in-group and out-group, group of peo ...
. Composers turned more and more to the rhythms and tonalities of their native lands for inspiration and material. "Europe was impelled by the Romantic tendency to establish in musical matters the national boundaries more and more sharply", wrote
Alfred Einstein
Alfred Einstein (December 30, 1880February 13, 1952) was a German-American musicologist and music editor. He was born in Munich and fled Nazi Germany after Hitler's ''Machtergreifung'', arriving in the United States by 1939. He is best known for b ...
. "The collecting and sifting of old traditional melodic treasures ... formed the basis for a creative art-music." For many of these composers, chamber music was the natural vehicle for expressing their national characters.
Czech composer
Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...
created in his chamber music a new voice for the music of his native Bohemia. In 14 string quartets, three string quintets, two piano quartets, a string sextet, four piano trios, and numerous other chamber compositions, Dvořák incorporates folk music and modes as an integral part of his compositions. For example, in the
piano quintet in A major, Op. 81, the slow movement is a
Dumka
Dumka ( Santali: ᱫᱩᱢᱠᱟᱹ), the headquarters of the Dumka district and Santhal Pargana region, is a city in the state of Jharkhand, India. It was made the headquarters of the Santhal Pargana region, which was carved out of the Bha ...
, a Slavic folk ballad that alternates between a slow expressive song and a fast dance. Dvořák's fame in establishing a national art music was so great that the New York philanthropist and music connoisseur
Jeannette Thurber
Jeannette Thurber (also known as Jeannette Meyers Thurber; January 29, 1850 in Delhi, New York – January 2, 1946 in Bronxville, New York) was amongst the first major patrons of classical music in the United States. Thurber established the Nati ...
invited him to America, to head a conservatory that would establish an American style of music. There, Dvořák wrote his
string quartet in F major, Op. 96, nicknamed "The American". While composing the work, Dvořák was entertained by a group of Kickapoo Indians who performed native dances and songs, and these songs may have been incorporated in the quartet.
Bedřich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana ( , ; 2 March 1824 – 12 May 1884) was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style that became closely identified with his people's aspirations to a cultural and political "revival." He has been regarded i ...
, another Czech, wrote a piano trio and string quartet, both of which incorporate native Czech rhythms and melodies. In Russia, Russian folk music permeated the works of the late 19th-century composers.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popu ...
uses a typical Russian folk dance in the final movement of his string sextet, ''
Souvenir de Florence
The String Sextet in D minor "''Souvenir de Florence''", Op. 70, is a string sextet scored for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos composed in the summer of 1890 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to the St. Petersburg Chamb ...
'', Op. 70.
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin ( rus, link=no, Александр Порфирьевич Бородин, Aleksandr Porfir’yevich Borodin , p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr pɐrˈfʲi rʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bərɐˈdʲin, a=RU-Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin.ogg, ...
's
second string quartet contains references to folk music, and the slow Nocturne movement of that quartet recalls Middle Eastern modes that were current in the Muslim sections of southern Russia.
Edvard Grieg
Edvard Hagerup Grieg ( , ; 15 June 18434 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the foremost Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use of ...
used the musical style of his native Norway in his
string quartet in G minor, Op. 27 and his
violin sonatas
A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple baroque form with no fixed form ...
.
In Hungary, composers
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (; hu, Kodály Zoltán, ; 16 December 1882 – 6 March 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is well known internationally as the creator of the Kodály method of music ed ...
and
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...
pioneered the science of
ethnomusicology
Ethnomusicology is the study of music from the cultural and social aspects of the people who make it. It encompasses distinct theoretical and methodical approaches that emphasize cultural, social, material, cognitive, biological, and other dim ...
by performing one of the first comprehensive studies of folk music. Ranging across the
Magyar provinces, they transcribed, recorded, and classified tens of thousands of folk melodies. They used these tunes in their compositions, which are characterized by the asymmetrical rhythms and modal harmonies of that music. Their chamber music compositions, and those of the Czech composer
Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janáček (, baptised Leo Eugen Janáček; 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and other Slavic musics, including Eastern European fol ...
, combined the nationalist trend with the 20th century search for new tonalities. Janáček's string quartets not only incorporate the tonalities of Czech folk music, they also reflect the rhythms of speech in Czech.
New sounds for a new world
The end of western tonality, begun subtly by Brahms and made explicit by Debussy, posed a crisis for composers of the 20th century. It was not merely an issue of finding new types of harmonies and melodic systems to replace the
diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, ...
that was the basis of western harmony; the whole structure of western music – the relationships between movements and between structural elements within movements – was based on the relationships between different keys. So composers were challenged with building a whole new structure for music.
This was coupled with the feeling that the era that saw the invention of automobiles, the telephone, electric lighting, and world war needed new modes of expression. "The century of the aeroplane deserves its music", wrote Debussy.
Inspiration from folk music
![Bartok recording folk music](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1a/Bartok_recording_folk_music.jpg)
The search for a new music took several directions. The first, led by Bartók, was toward the tonal and rhythmic constructs of folk music. Bartók's research into Hungarian and other eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music revealed to him a musical world built of musical scales that were neither major nor minor, and complex rhythms that were alien to the concert hall. In his fifth quartet, for example, Bartók uses a time signature of
, "startling to the classically-trained musician, but second-nature to the folk musician." Structurally, also, Bartók often invents or borrows from folk modes. In the sixth string quartet, for example, Bartók begins each movement with a slow, elegiac melody, followed by the main melodic material of the movement, and concludes the quartet with a slow movement that is built entirely on this
elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
. This is a form common in many folk music cultures.
Bartók's six string quartets are often compared with Beethoven's late quartets. In them, Bartók builds new musical structures, explores sonorities never previously produced in classical music (for example, the snap pizzicato, where the player lifts the string and lets it snap back on the fingerboard with an audible buzz), and creates modes of expression that set these works apart from all others. "Bartók's last two quartets proclaim the sanctity of life, progress and the victory of humanity despite the anti-humanistic dangers of the time", writes analyst John Herschel Baron.
The last quartet, written when Bartók was preparing to flee the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
invasion of Hungary for a new and uncertain life in the U.S., is often seen as an autobiographical statement of the tragedy of his times.
Bartók was not alone in his explorations of folk music.
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
's ''
Three Pieces for String Quartet'' is structured as three Russian folksongs, rather than as a classical string quartet. Stravinsky, like Bartók, used asymmetrical rhythms throughout his chamber music; the
Histoire du soldat
' (''The Soldier's Tale'') is a theatrical work "to be read, played, and danced" () by three actors and one or several dancers, accompanied by a septet of instruments. Conceived by Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer C. F. Ramuz, the piece was base ...
, in Stravinsky's own arrangement for clarinet, violin and piano, constantly shifts time signatures between two, three, four and five beats to the bar. In Britain, composers
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
,
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton (29 March 19028 March 1983) was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include ''Façade'', the cantat ...
and
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
drew on English folk music for much of their chamber music: Vaughan Williams incorporates folksongs and country fiddling in his first string quartet. American composer
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
wrote music that was distinctly American. Ives gave programmatic titles to much of his chamber music; his first string quartet, for example, is called "From the Salvation Army", and quotes American Protestant hymns in several places.
Serialism, polytonality and polyrhythms
![Jean-Antoine Watteau - Pierrot, dit autrefois Gilles](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Jean-Antoine_Watteau_-_Pierrot%2C_dit_autrefois_Gilles.jpg)
A second direction in the search for a new tonality was twelve-tone
serialism
In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...
.
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
developed the
twelve-tone method of composition as an alternative to the structure provided by the diatonic system. His method entails building a piece using a series of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, permuting it and superimposing it on itself to create the composition.
Schoenberg did not arrive immediately at the serial method. His first chamber work, the string sextet
Verklärte Nacht
''Verklärte Nacht'' (''Transfigured Night''), Op. 4, is a string sextet in one movement composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1899. Composed in just three weeks, it is considered his earliest important work. It was inspired by Richard Dehmel's p ...
, was mostly a late German romantic work, though it was bold in its use of modulations. The first work that was frankly
atonal
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...
was the
second string quartet; the last movement of this quartet, which includes a soprano, has no key signature. Schoenberg further explored atonality with ''
Pierrot Lunaire
''Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds "Pierrot lunaire"'' ("Three times Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire), commonly known simply as ''Pierrot lunaire'', Op. 21 ("Moonstruck Pierrot" or "Pierrot in the Moonlight"), is a me ...
'', for singer, flute or piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello and piano. The singer uses a technique called
Sprechstimme
(, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice") are expressionist vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, ''Sprechgesang'' is directly related to the operatic ''recitative'' manner of singing (in which p ...
, halfway between speech and song.
After developing the twelve-tone technique, Schoenberg wrote a number of chamber works, including two more string quartets, a string trio, and a wind quintet. He was followed by a number of other twelve-tone composers, the most prominent of whom were his students
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( , ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...
, who wrote the ''
Lyric Suite'' for string quartet, and
Anton Webern
Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern (3 December 188315 September 1945), better known as Anton Webern (), was an Austrian composer and conductor whose music was among the most radical of its milieu in its sheer concision, even aphorism, and stea ...
, who wrote ''Five Movements for String Quartet'', op. 5.
Twelve-tone technique was not the only new experiment in tonality.
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud (; 4 September 1892 – 22 June 1974) was a French composer, conductor, and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as ''The Group of Six''—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions ...
developed the use of
polytonality Polytonality (also polyharmony) is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key ...
, that is, music where different instruments play in different keys at the same time. Milhaud wrote 18 string quartets; quartets number 14 and 15 are written so that each can be played by itself, or the two can be played at the same time as an octet. Milhaud also used
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
idioms, as in his ''Suite'' for clarinet, violin and piano.
The American composer
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
used not only
polytonality Polytonality (also polyharmony) is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key ...
in his chamber works, but also
polymeter
In music, metre ( Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) refers to regularly recurring patterns and accents such as bars and beats. Unlike rhythm, metric onsets are not necessarily sounded, but are nevertheless implied by the perfo ...
. In his
first string quartet he writes a section where the first violin and viola play in
time while the second violin and cello play in
.
Neoclassicism
The plethora of directions that music took in the first quarter of the 20th century led to a reaction by many composers. Led by
Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
, these composers looked to the music of preclassical Europe for inspiration and stability. While Stravinsky's neoclassical works – such as the ''Double Canon for String Quartet'' – sound contemporary, they are modeled on Baroque and early classical forms – the canon, the fugue, and the Baroque sonata form.
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith (; 16 November 189528 December 1963) was a German composer, music theorist, teacher, violist and conductor. He founded the Amar Quartet in 1921, touring extensively in Europe. As a composer, he became a major advocate of the ''Ne ...
was another neoclassicist. His many chamber works are essentially tonal, though they use many dissonant harmonies. Hindemith wrote seven string quartets and two string trios, among other chamber works. At a time when composers were writing works of increasing complexity, beyond the reach of amateur musicians, Hindemith explicitly recognized the importance of amateur music-making, and intentionally wrote pieces that were within the abilities of nonprofessional players.
The works that the composer summarised as ''
Kammermusik'', a collection of eight extended compositions, consists mostly of
concertante works, comparable to Bach's ''
Brandenburg Concertos
The ''Brandenburg Concertos'' by Johann Sebastian Bach (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, BWV 1046–1051), are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg ...
''.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throug ...
was one of the most prolific of chamber music composers of the 20th century, writing 15 string quartets, two piano trios, the piano quintet, and numerous other chamber works. Shostakovich's music was for a long time banned in the Soviet Union and Shostakovich himself was in personal danger of deportation to Siberia. His
eighth quartet is an autobiographical work, that expresses his deep depression from his ostracization, bordering on suicide: it quotes from previous compositions, and uses the four-note motif
DSCH, the composer's initials.
Stretching the limits
As the century progressed, many composers created works for small ensembles that, while they formally might be considered chamber music, challenged many of the fundamental characteristics that had defined the genre over the last 150 years.
Music of friends
The idea of composing music that could be played at home has been largely abandoned. Bartók was among the first to part with this idea. "Bartók never conceived these quartets for private performance but rather for large, public concerts."
Aside from the many almost insurmountable technical difficulties of many modern pieces, some of them are hardly suitable for performance in a small room. For example, ''
Different Trains
''Different Trains'' is a three- movement piece for string quartet and tape written by Steve Reich in 1988.
Background
During World War II, Reich made train journeys between New York and Los Angeles to visit his parents, who had separated. Y ...
'' by
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, a ...
is scored for live string quartet and recorded tape, which layers together a carefully orchestrated sound collage of speech, recorded train sounds, and three string quartets.
Relation of composer and performer
Traditionally, the composer wrote the notes, and the performer interpreted them. But this is no longer the case in much modern music. In ''
Für kommende Zeiten
''Für kommende Zeiten'' (For Times to Come) is a collection of seventeen text compositions by Karlheinz Stockhausen, composed between August 1968 and July 1970. It is a successor to the similar collection titled '' Aus den sieben Tagen'', written ...
'' (For Times to Come),
Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groundb ...
writes verbal instructions describing what the performers are to play. "Star constellations/with common points/and falling stars ... Abrupt end" is a sample.
Composer
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell "Terry" Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his music became notable for it ...
describes how he works with the
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
, an ensemble devoted to contemporary music: "When I write a score for them, it's an unedited score. I put in just a minimal amount of dynamics and phrasing marks ...we spend a lot of time trying out different ideas in order to shape the music, to form it. At the end of the process, it makes the performers actually ''own'' the music. That to me is the best way for composers and musicians to interact."
New sounds
Composers seek new timbres, remote from the traditional blend of strings, piano and woodwinds that characterized chamber music in the 19th century. This search led to the incorporation of new instruments in the 20th century, such as the
theremin
The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named afte ...
and the
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...
in chamber music compositions.
Many composers sought new timbres within the framework of traditional instruments. "Composers begin to hear new timbres and new timbral combinations, which are as important to the new music of the twentieth century as the so-called breakdown of functional tonality," writes music historian James McCalla. Examples are numerous: Bartók's
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115, is a musical piece written by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók in 1937. The sonata was premiered by Bartók and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, with the percussionists Fritz Sch ...
(1937), Schoenberg's ''Pierrot lunaire'', Charles Ives's ''Quartertone Pieces'' for two pianos tuned a quartertone apart. Other composers used electronics and extended techniques to create new sonorities. An example is
George Crumb
George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...
's ''
Black Angels'', for electric string quartet (1970). The players not only bow their amplified instruments, they also beat on them with thimbles, pluck them with paper clips and play on the wrong side of the bridge or between the fingers and the nut. Still other composers have sought to explore the timbres created by including instruments which are not often associated with a typical orchestral ensemble. For example,
Robert Davine
Robert Davine (born Aubrey Robert Davine; April 5, 1924 – November 25, 2001) was an internationally recognized concert accordionist and Professor of Accordion and Music Theory at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. As the chairma ...
explores the orchestral timbres of the
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
when it is included in a traditional wind trio in his Divertimento for accordion, flute, clarinet and bassoon. and
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. He is known for his groun ...
wrote a ''
Helicopter String Quartet
''Helicopter String Quartet'' (screen title: ''Karlheinz Stockhausen: Helicopter String Quartet'') is a 78-minute 1996 Dutch English- and German-language independent underground experimental documentary art film directed by Frank Scheffer.
Syn ...
''.
What do these changes mean for the future of chamber music? "With the technological advances have come questions of aesthetics and sociological changes in music", writes analyst Baron. "These changes have often resulted in accusations that technology has destroyed chamber music and that technological advance is in inverse proportion to musical worth. The ferocity of these attacks only underscores how fundamental these changes are, and only time will tell if humankind will benefit from them."
In contemporary society
Analysts agree that the role of chamber music in society has changed profoundly in the last 50 years; yet there is little agreement as to what that change is. On the one hand, Baron contends that "chamber music in the home ... remained very important in Europe and America until the Second World War, after which the increasing invasion of radio and recording reduced its scope considerably." This view is supported by subjective impressions. "Today there are so many more millions of people listening to music, but far fewer playing chamber music just for the pleasure of it", says conductor and pianist
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim (; in he, דניאל בארנבוים, born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. He has been since 1992 General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeist ...
.
![Amateur music making](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Amateur_music_making.jpg)
However, recent surveys suggest there is, on the contrary, a resurgence of home music making. In the radio program "Amateurs Help Keep Chamber Music Alive" from 2005, reporter Theresa Schiavone cites a
Gallup poll
Gallup, Inc. is an American analytics and advisory company based in Washington, D.C. Founded by George Gallup in 1935, the company became known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide. Starting in the 1980s, Gallup transitioned its bu ...
showing an increase in the sale of stringed instruments in America. Joe Lamond, president of the National Association of Music Manufacturers (NAMM) attributes the increase to a growth of home music-making by adults approaching retirement. "I would really look to the demographics of the
aby Aby or ABY may refer to:
Places
* Aby, Ivory Coast
* Aby Lagoon, a lagoon in Ivory Coast
* Abyy or Aby, Sakha Republic, Russia
** Aby Lowland
* Aby, Lincolnshire, a village in England, UK
* Åby, Norrköping Municipality, Sweden
* Åby, Växjö Mun ...
boomers", he said in an interview. These people "are starting to look for something that matters to them ... nothing makes them feel good more than playing music."
A study by the European Music Office in 1996 suggests that not only older people are playing music. "The number of adolescents today to have done music has almost doubled by comparison with those born before 1960", the study shows. While most of this growth is in popular music, some is in chamber music and art music, according to the study.
While there is no agreement about the number of chamber music players, the opportunities for amateurs to play have certainly grown. The number of chamber music camps and retreats, where amateurs can meet for a weekend or a month to play together, has burgeoned. ''Music for the Love of It'', an organization to promote amateur playing, publishes a directory of music workshops that lists more than 500 workshops in 24 countries for amateurs in 2008 The Associated Chamber Music Players (ACMP) offers a directory of over 5,000 amateur players worldwide who welcome partners for chamber music sessions.
Regardless of whether the number of amateur players has grown or shrunk, the number of chamber music concerts in the west has increased greatly in the last 20 years. Concert halls have largely replaced the home as the venue for concerts. Baron suggests that one of the reasons for this surge is "the spiraling costs of orchestral concerts and the astronomical fees demanded by famous soloists, which have priced both out of the range of most audiences." The repertoire at these concerts is almost universally the classics of the 19th century. However, modern works are increasingly included in programs, and some groups, like the
Kronos Quartet
The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for almost 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classic ...
, devote themselves almost exclusively to contemporary music and new compositions; and ensembles like the
Turtle Island String Quartet
The Turtle Island Quartet is a string quartet that plays hybrids of jazz, classical, and rock music. The group was formed in 1985 by
David Balakrishnan, Darol Anger, and Mark Summer in San Francisco. They released their first album on Windham ...
, that combine classical, jazz, rock and other styles to create
crossover music
Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers who appeal to different types of audience. This can be seen, for example, (especially in the United States) when a song appears on two or more of the record charts which track differi ...
.
Cello Fury and
Project Trio
PROJECT Trio is a chamber music ensemble based in Brooklyn, New York. It consists of Greg Pattillo (flute), Eric Stephenson (cello), and Peter Seymour (double bass). Their extensive repertoire consists of original compositions and arrangements by ...
offer a new spin to the standard chamber ensemble. Cello Fury consists of three cellists and a drummer and Project Trio includes a flutist, bassist, and cellist.
Several groups such as
Classical Revolution Classical Revolution is a chamber music organization known for holding performances of classical music in unusual spaces. Charith Premawardhana founded the organization in 2006 at San Francisco’s Revolution Café. As of 2013, the organization had ...
and Simple Measures have taken classical chamber music out of the concert hall and into the streets. Simple Measures, a group of chamber musicians in Seattle (Washington, USA), gives concerts in shopping centers, coffee shops, and streetcars. The Providence (Rhode Island, USA) String Quartet has started the "Storefront Strings" program, offering impromptu concerts and lessons out of a storefront in one of Providence's poorer neighborhoods. "What really makes this for me", said Rajan Krishnaswami, cellist and founder of Simple Measures, "is the audience reaction ... you really get that audience feedback."
Performance
Chamber music performance is a specialized field, and requires a number of skills not normally required for the performance of symphonic or solo music. Many performers and authors have written about the specialized techniques required for a successful chamber musician. Chamber music playing, writes M. D. Herter Norton, requires that "individuals ... make a unified whole yet remain individuals. The soloist is a whole unto himself, and in the orchestra individuality is lost in numbers ...".
"Music of friends"
![From the Short-tempered Clavichord](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/From_the_Short-tempered_Clavichord.jpg)
Many performers contend that the intimate nature of chamber music playing requires certain personality traits.
David Waterman, cellist of the Endellion Quartet, writes that the chamber musician "needs to balance assertiveness and flexibility." Good rapport is essential.
Arnold Steinhardt, first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet, notes that many professional quartets suffer from frequent turnover of players. "Many musicians cannot take the strain of going ''mano a mano'' with the same three people year after year."
Mary Norton, a violinist who studied quartet playing with the Kneisel Quartet at the beginning of the last century, goes so far that players of different parts in a quartet have different personality traits. "By tradition the first violin is the leader" but "this does not mean a relentless predominance." The second violinist "is a little everybody's servant." "The artistic contribution of each member will be measured by his skill in asserting or subduing that individuality which he must possess to be at all interesting."
Interpretation
"For an individual, the problems of interpretation are challenging enough", writes Waterman, "but for a quartet grappling with some of the most profound, intimate and heartfelt compositions in the music literature, the communal nature of decision-making is often more testing than the decisions themselves."
The problem of finding agreement on musical issues is complicated by the fact that each player is playing a different part, that may appear to demand dynamics or gestures contrary to those of other parts in the same passage. Sometimes these differences are even specified in the score – for example, where cross-dynamics are indicated, with one instrument crescendoing while another is getting softer.
One of the issues that must be settled in rehearsal is who leads the ensemble at each point of the piece. Normally, the first violin leads the ensemble. By leading, this means that the violinist indicates the start of each movement and their tempos by a
gesture with her head or bowing hand. However, there are passages that require other instruments to lead. For example, John Dalley, second violinist of the Guarneri Quartet, says, "We'll often ask
he cellist
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
to lead in
pizzicato
Pizzicato (, ; translated as "pinched", and sometimes roughly as "plucked") is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument :
* On bowed ...
passages. A cellist's preparatory motion for pizzicato is larger and slower than that of a violinist."
Players discuss issues of interpretation in rehearsal; but often, in mid-performance, players do things spontaneously, requiring the other players to respond in real time. "After twenty years in the
uarneriQuartet, I'm happily surprised on occasion to find myself totally wrong about what I think a player will do, or how he'll react in a particular passage", says violist Michael Tree.
Ensemble, blend, and balance
![Bartok 6th String Quartet](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Bartok_6th_String_Quartet.jpg)
Playing together constitutes a major challenge to chamber music players. Many compositions pose difficulties in coordination, with figures such as
hemiola
In music, hemiola (also hemiolia) is the ratio 3:2. The equivalent Latin term is sesquialtera. In rhythm, ''hemiola'' refers to three beats of equal value in the time normally occupied by two beats. In pitch, ''hemiola'' refers to the interval of ...
s,
syncopation
In music, syncopation is a variety of rhythms played together to make a piece of music, making part or all of a tune or piece of music off-beat. More simply, syncopation is "a disturbance or interruption of the regular flow of rhythm": a "place ...
, fast unison passages and simultaneously sounded notes that form chords that are challenging to play in tune. But beyond the challenge of merely playing together from a rhythmic or intonation perspective is the greater challenge of sounding good together.
To create a unified chamber music sound – to blend – the players must coordinate the details of their technique. They must decide when to use vibrato and how much. They often need to coordinate their bowing and "breathing" between phrases, to ensure a unified sound. They need to agree on special techniques, such as
spiccato
Spiccato is a bowing technique for string instruments in which the bow appears to bounce lightly upon the string. The term comes from the past participle of the Italian verb ''spiccare'', meaning "to separate". The terms '' martelé'', ''saltando ...
,
sul tasto
A variety of musical terms are likely to be encountered in printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many European musical conventions. Sometimes, the special mus ...
,
sul ponticello
A variety of musical terms are likely to be encountered in Sheet music, printed scores, music reviews, and program notes. Most of the terms Italian musical terms used in English, are Italian, in accordance with the Italian origins of many Europea ...
, and so on.
Balance refers to the relative volume of each of the instruments. Because chamber music is a conversation, sometimes one instrument must stand out, sometimes another. It is not always a simple matter for members of an ensemble to determine the proper balance while playing; frequently, they require an outside listener, or a recording of their rehearsal, to tell them that the relations between the instruments are correct.
Intonation
Chamber music playing presents special problems of
intonation. The piano is tuned using
equal temperament
An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...
, that is, the 12 notes of the scale are spaced exactly equally. This method makes it possible for the piano to play in any key; however, all the intervals except the octave sound very slightly out of tune. String players can play with
just intonation
In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals
Interval may refer to:
Mathematics and physics
* Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers
** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...
, that is, they can play specific intervals (such as fifths) exactly in tune. Moreover, string and wind players can use ''expressive intonation'', changing the pitch of a note to create a musical or dramatic effect. "String intonation is more expressive and sensitive than equal-tempered piano intonation."
However, using true and expressive intonation requires careful coordination with the other players, especially when a piece is going through harmonic modulations. "The difficulty in string quartet intonation is to determine the degree of freedom you have at any given moment", says Steinhardt.
The chamber music experience
Players of chamber music, both amateur and professional, attest to a unique enchantment with playing in ensemble. "It is not an exaggeration to say that there opened out before me an enchanted world", writes
Walter Willson Cobbett
Walter Willson Cobbett (11 July 184722 January 1937) was an English businessman and amateur violinist, and editor/author of ''Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music''. He also endowed the Cobbett Medal for services to chamber music.
Walt ...
, devoted amateur musician and editor of ''Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music''.
Ensembles develop a close intimacy of shared musical experience. "It is on the concert stage where the moments of true intimacy occur", writes Steinhardt. "When a performance is in progress, all four of us together enter a zone of magic somewhere between our music stands and become a conduit, messenger, and missionary ... It is an experience too personal to talk about and yet it colors every aspect of our relationship, every good-natured musical confrontation, all the professional gossip, the latest viola joke."
The playing of chamber music has been the inspiration for numerous books, both fiction and nonfiction. ''
An Equal Music
''An Equal Music'' (1999) is a novel by Vikram Seth.
Plot
The plot concerns Michael, a professional violinist, who never forgot his love for Julia, a pianist he met as a student in Vienna. They meet again after a decade, and conduct a secret aff ...
'' by
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth (born 20 June 1952) is an Indian novelist and poet. He has written several novels and poetry books. He has won several awards such as Padma Shri, Sahitya Academy Award, Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, WH Smith Literary Award and Crosswor ...
, explores the life and love of the second violinist of a fictional quartet, the Maggiore. Central to the story is the tensions and the intimacy developed between the four members of the quartet. "A strange composite being we are
n performance
N, or n, is the fourteenth Letter (alphabet), letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is English alphabet# ...
not ourselves any more, but the Maggiore, composed of so many disjunct parts: chairs, stands, music, bows, instruments, musicians ..." ''The Rosendorf Quartet'', by
Nathan Shaham
Nathan Shaham (Hebrew: נתן שחם; January 29, 1925 – June 18, 2018) was an Israeli writer.
Biography
Born in Tel Aviv, Shaham was a member of Kibbutz Beit Alfa from 1945-2018, and served with the Palmach in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He w ...
, describes the trials of a string quartet in Palestine, before the establishment of the state of Israel. ''For the Love of It'' by Wayne Booth is a nonfictional account of the author's romance with cello playing and chamber music.
Chamber music societies
Numerous societies are dedicated to the encouragement and performance of chamber music. Some of these are:
* th
Associated Chamber Music Players or
ACMP – The Chamber Music Network, an international organization that encourages amateur and professional chamber music playing. ACMP has a fund to support chamber music projects, and publishes a directory of chamber musicians worldwide.
Chamber Music Americasupports professional chamber music groups through grants for residencies and commissions, through award programs, and through professional development programs.
* the
Cobbett Association The Cobbett Association for Chamber Music Research was founded in 1990, with the objective of disseminating information about lesser known chamber music of merit. It was named after Walter Willson Cobbett, an amateur violinist and author/editor of ...
for Chamber Music Research is an organization dedicated to the rediscovery of works of forgotten chamber music.
Music for the Love of Itpublishes a newsletter on amateur chamber music activities worldwide, as well as a guide to music workshops for amateurs.
* th
Ottawa Chamber Music Society a non-profit organization that encourages public involvement and appreciation of chamber music. The OCMS has organized
Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, the largest chamber music festival in the world, since 1994.
*
Musica Viva Australia
Musica Viva was founded in 1945 by Romanian-born violinist Richard Goldner, with the aim of bringing chamber music to Australia. The co-founder was a German-born musicologist, Walter Dullo. At its inception, Musica Viva was a string ensemble per ...
, a large non-profit chamber music promoter working across Australia that tours local and international chamber music artists, as well as managing chamber music festivals and young artist development programs.
In addition to these national and international organizations, there are also numerous regional and local organizations that support chamber music. Some of the most prominent professional American chamber music ensembles and organizations are:
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Centerbased in New York City
Southwest Chamber Musicbased in Los Angeles
Chicago Chamber Musicbased in Chicago
Canadian Brassbased in New York and Toronto
Juilliard String Quartetin New York
Kronos String Quartetin San Francisco
*
Emerson String Quartet
The Emerson String Quartet, also known as the Emerson Quartet, is an American string quartet that was initially formed as a student group at the Juilliard School in 1976. It was named for American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson and beg ...
in New York
Festivals
Ensembles
This is a partial list of the types of
ensembles found in chamber music. The standard repertoire for chamber ensembles is rich, and the totality of chamber music in print in
sheet music
Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses List of musical symbols, musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chord (music), chords of a song or instrumental Musical composition, musical piece. Like ...
form is nearly boundless. See the articles on each instrument combination for examples of repertoire.
Notes
Bibliography
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Further reading
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The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...
'' (ed.
Stanley Sadie
Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...
, 1980)
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External links
Chamber Music Americaearsense chamberbase an online database of over 50,000 chamber works
Fischoff National Chamber Music Association sponsor of the chamber music competitions and a supporter of chamber music education.
Associated Chamber Music Players (ACMP) New York City
Annotated bibliography of double wind quintet music
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chamber Music
Musical forms
History of classical music
Classical music styles
Musical terminology