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Popular History Of Music
Arabs Or Saracens
UP0N many accounts the influence of the Arab civilization was important in this quarter of the musical world, and it may here well enough en-gage our attention, since its most important aspects are those in which it operates upon the European mind, awakening there ideas which but for this stimulus might have remained dormant centuries longer.
Popular History Of Music
Beethoven and His Works
THE labors of Haydn and Mozart in the rich field of instrumental music were followed immediately by those of Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born at the little town of Bonn, on the Rhine, about twenty miles above Cologne, in 1770.
Popular History Of Music
Beginnings of Instrumental Music
THE beginning of instrumental music, apart from vocal, is to be found in the latter part of the sixteenth century, but the main advances toward freedom of style and spontaneous expression were made during the seventeenth, and, as we might expect, originally in Italy, where the art of music was more prosperous.
Popular History Of Music
Beginnings of Opera in France and Germany
FROM Florence the art of dramatic song spread to all other parts of the world, yet not so rapidly as would have been supposed. For it was not until nearly half of the century had already elapsed that opera made a beginning in France.
Popular History Of Music
Changes in Musical Notation
THE entire movement of musical thought since three or four tones began to be put together into scales, melodies and unities of various kinds, has been in the direction of classification.
Popular History Of Music
Condition of Music at the Beginning of the 17th Century
In the line of instruments the harp had had its day, its never ending tuning having been one of the most operative forces in the development of the ear.
Popular History Of Music
Didactic of Music from the 5th Century to the 14th
THERE is very little in the Roman writers upon music that is of interest. Macrobus, an expert grammarian and encyclopedist living at Rome at the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, wrote a commentary upon the song of Scipio, in which he quotes from Pythagoras concerning the music of the spheres.
Popular History Of Music
Emanuel Bach, Haydn, and the Sonata
NONE of the sons of Bach inherited the comanding genius of their father, although four of them showed talent above the average of musicians of their day, and one of them distinguished himself and exercised an important influence upon the subsequent course of pianoforte music.
Popular History Of Music
First Century of Italian Opera and Dramatic Song
DURING the last decade of the sixteenth century a company of Florentine gentlemen were in the habit of meeting at the house of Count Bardi for the study of ancient literature.
Popular History Of Music
General View of Music in the 18th Century
IT is not easy to characterize simply and clearly the nature of the musical development which took place during the eighteenth century. The blossoming of music was so manifold, so diversified, so irrepressible in every direction, that there was not one single province of it.
Popular History Of Music
George Frederick Handel
THE companion figure to Bach, in this epoch, was that of George Frederick Händel, who was born at the little town of Halle in the same year as Bach, 1685, and died in London in 1759.
Popular History Of Music
Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven Compared
THE three masters, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, in relation to the symphony stand upon a plane of substantial equality, whether we estimate their merits according to the absolute worth of the compositions they produced in this form, or in the value of the additions which each in turn made to the ideal of his predecessor.
Popular History Of Music
Influence of the Christian Church
IT is not easy to define the influence of the Christian Church in this transformation, for the reason that upon the technical side it was slight, although upon the aesthetic side it was of very great importance.
Popular History Of Music
Intro To Popular History Of Music
THE name music contains two ideas, both of them important in our modern use of the term: The general meaning is that of a pleasing modulation of sounds.
Popular History Of Music
John Sebastian Bach
ALL things considered, the most remarkable figure of this period was that of the great John Sebastian Bach, who was born at Eisenach, in Prussia, in 1685, and died at Leipsic in 1750.
Popular History Of Music
Minstrels Of The North
UP0N many accounts the development of minstrelsy by the Celtic singers and harpers was one of the most important of all the forces operative in the transformation of the art from the monody of the ancients to the expressive melody and rich harmony of modern music.
Popular History Of Music
Mozart and His Genius
ONE of the most engaging personalities, and at the same time one of the most highly gifted, versatile and richly endowed geniuses who ever adorned the art of music, was that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791).
Popular History Of Music
Music Among The Ancient Egyptians
BY a curious fortune we are able to form an approximately accurate idea of the musical instruments in use in Egypt as long ago as about 4000 B. C.
Popular History Of Music
Music Among The Ancient Greeks
UPON several accounts the development of the art of music among the ancient Greeks is both important and interesting.
Popular History Of Music
Music Among The Hebrews And Assyrians
SECOND in point of antiquity, but first in modern association, comes the music of the Hebrews, and of the other allied nations of Assyria and Babylon, from whom they learned a part of their art of music.
Popular History Of Music
Music In India, China And Japan
VERY important developments of the art of music took place in India from a remote period, but dates are entirely uncertain.
Popular History Of Music
Musical Instruments: The Violin, Organ, Etc.
The lute belongs to the same class of instruments as the guitar, differing from that, however, in important details of construction. It has a pear-shaped body, composed of narrow pieces of bent wood glued together; the sounding board is flat, and of fir.
Popular History Of Music
Nature Of The Transformation
ACCORDING to the division of the subject in the beginning of this work, the period from the Christian era to that of Palestrina, A. D. 1600, is one of apprentice work, in which the details of art were being mastered, but during which very little music of permanent vaine was produced.
Popular History Of Music
Opera in the 18th Century
UPON the musical side, and in one instance upon the dramatic side as well, there were three great forces in opera during this century. The first of these in order of time was Karl Heinrich Graun (1701-1759).
Popular History Of Music
Piano Play and Virtuosi; The Violinl; Tartini And Spohr
IT was during the eighteenth century that the piano-forte definitely established itself in the estimation of musicians, artists and the common people, as the handiest and most useful of domestic and solo instruments.
Popular History Of Music
Polyphonic Schools of Italy: Palestrina
The most eminent development of the polyphonic school, and at the same time the dawn of a better era in church music, took place in Rome, where the influence of the Netherlandish composer is noticeable.
Popular History Of Music
Progress of Oratorio
The idea of oratorio was not new. All through the Middle Ages they seem to have had miracle plays in the Church, as accessories of the less solemn services, and as means of instruction in biblical history.
Popular History Of Music
Rise of Polyphony and Old French and Gallo-Belgic Schools
WE here enter upon one of the most interesting and important chapters in the history of music. The art of polyphony had its origin at the same period as the pointed arch and the great cathedrals of Europe, which our architects strive in vain to surpass.
Popular History Of Music
Schools of the Netherlands
The schools of the Netherlands came into prominence about 1425, and endured, with little loss of prestige, for two centuries. During this period there was a succession of eminent names in music in these countries, and a great progress was made in polyphony, and a transition begun out of that into harmony.
Popular History Of Music
Schubert And The Romantic
THE first two great figures of the nineteenth century were those of Carl Maria von Weber, whose work will be considered later, and the great song writer, Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828).
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