Classicism in music

In the 17-19 centuries in the culture of European states in place of the pretentious and contradictory baroque style comes a strict rationalistic classicism. Its main principles are aimed at creating ideal, clear, logically completed and harmonious works of art. Classicism in music has brought new trends related to the content and form of works. During this period in the work of composers perfection such genres as sonata, symphony and opera.

The real revolution in the musical art was the reform of K. Gluck, proclaiming three basic requirements for the works: truth, naturalness and simplicity. In an effort to more easily convey to the viewer the meaning of dramatic works, he removes from the scores all the extra "effects": decorations, tremolo, trills. At the same time, the main emphasis is on revealing the poetic image of the work, understanding the inner experiences of the main character. Classicism in music is most colorfully revealed in K. Gluck's opera Orpheus and Eurydice. This work, written in accordance with new ideas, marked the beginning of the reform described above.

Classicism in music reaches its heyday in the second half of the 18th century. During this period, composers Jozef Haydn, Ludwig Van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart create their great masterpieces in Vienna. The main attention in their work they give to the symphonic genre. Joseph Haydn is rightly considered the father of instrumental classical music and the ancestor of the orchestra. It was he who determined the basic laws according to which the development of the symphony must be built, established the order of the arrangement of the sections, gave them a finished form and found the ideal form for the embodiment of the profound content of the works of this genre - the four-part. Classicism in music has also established a new type of a three-part sonata. Works written in this form have acquired noble subtle simplicity, lightness, vivacity, earthly joy and enthusiasm.

Further development of sonata-symphonic works is obtained in the work of WA Mozart. This famous and ardently beloved in Vienna musician, basing on Haydn's achievements, wrote a number of operas, representing for modern culture a huge value: "The Magic Flute", "Don Juan", "The Wedding of Figaro" and others.

The music of the era of classicism was reflected in the work of the great composer L.V. Beethoven - the greatest symphonist of the era. His large-scale works, formed under the influence of the revolutionary events of this period, are permeated with the pathos of struggle, drama and great heroism. They are like the whole of humanity. Ludwig van Beethoven is the author of a number of symphonic overtures (Coriolanus, Egmont), thirty two piano sonatas, five piano concertos and other large-scale works. In his writings, he portrays a bold and passionate hero, a thinker and a fighter, who has a dramatic pathos, while lyrical daydreaming is not alien. The music of classicism in the works of Beethoven has completed its development, remaining for the next generations the ideal of harmony and rational rigor.