Classifying Eras

[DavidW]

For the purposes of cataloging my collection I have run into this problem of dividing into appropriate eras.  I actually have a reason to want to figure this out, but it's an interesting question in of itself.

Tentative Attempt #1:

• Baroque
• Classical
• Romantic
• Modern

Problem #1: the baroque era is so long that it feels criminal to make it one era.  Monteverdi and Bach really sound different.  So would you split it?  And if so around what date or event?

Problem #2: the turbulent period inbetween the baroque and classical eras really shouldn't be lumped with classical should it?

Problem #3: the romantic era evolved very quickly.  Mendelssohn and Wagner hardly occupied the same musical sphere.  Should this era be also split?

Problem #4: the absolute biggest problem is that 20th and 21st century have several styles and schools, it seems disingenuous to lump them all together.  What would be a good way to categorize the music in the 1900-present time?

[bhodges]

Since Nos. 3 and 4 are the major portion of my listening, I'll only comment on those.  For "Romantic," you might want to add "Late-Romantic," just to cover all of those composers.  And depending on how much Wagner you have (and how obsessed familiar you are with him), perhaps he needs his own unique designation. 

For the 20th and 21st centuries, it's tough.  To me the only thing that really makes sense is a date designation, perhaps dividing the century by decades, or by composer's birthdate.  (This is assuming you don't want to do just an alphabetical classification by composers' last names.)  There are just too many styles to try to make sense out of ordering them, especially as the 20th century winds to a close and the next one begins. 

E.g., just yesterday I was listening to music by Derek Bermel (b. 1967), who is absolutely in the "classical music tradition," but his work is infused with jazz, as well as folk music from Europe and Africa.  Jazz, meaning, he's like...Gershwin?  Folk music like...Bartók?  Well...no, but the questions are worth asking, and point out a part of the difficulties.  Bermel would be tough to classify, though.

Where would one put Ligeti, stylistically, for instance?  He's sort of in a class of his own, as are some others.    Or those who combine classical forms with say, minimalism?  (Speaking of which, I suppose you could mark the 1960s as the point at which minimalism really "took off," but even in that arena, Terry Riley is quite different from say, Louis Andriessen.)

Does this help at all? 

--Bruce

[DavidW]

Does this help at all? 

--Bruce

I think you made me realize how truly difficult the task really is!   But I appreciate the input.

[Bulldog]

You could make a few changes:

Early Baroque
High Baroque
Classical
Classical/Romantic Bridge
Romantic
Late Romantic

The rest is beyond anything I'd want to comment on.

[DavidW]

I like that Don.

Back on modernism: an interesting attempt was made on classical.net to split 20th century into some kind of neoconservative music vs tough stuff, but that's incredibly subjective and demonstrated more the bias of the author than a legitimate split of the music.

[Tapkaara]

You could make a few changes:

Early Baroque
High Baroque
Classical
Classical/Romantic Bridge
Romantic
Late Romantic

The rest is beyond anything I'd want to comment on.

I actually like that breakdown quite a bit.

[Bulldog]

I actually like that breakdown quite a bit.

Well, I really wanted something between Classical and Romantic, a category that would cover the likes of Hummel, Spohr, Reicha, Beethoven, Schubert, etc.

[Dana]

Problem #3: the romantic era evolved very quickly.  Mendelssohn and Wagner hardly occupied the same musical sphere.  Should this era be also split?

      How are you distinguishing the classical era from the romantic era? If we're talking about the size of the orchestra, the perception of the musician as artist, and innovative harmonic ideas, than the romantic era clearly began with Beethoven. If you expand that definition to include freedom of form, however, suddenly not only is Beethoven 100% a classicist - his incredible ideas were firmly rooted in sonata and rondo form, among others - but now you've got to include Brahms with the classicists. He's a classical composer through and through, even if some of his techniques were revolutionary, he was still basically a form drone (although, perhaps the best one of all time). And then there's Berlioz, whose revolutionary Symphonie Fantastique succeeded Beethoven's 9th Symphony by only six years, and anticipated Brahms' first symphony by more than 20 years! Then to further complicate matters, there's Mahler and Shostakovich - composers whom I've usually heard referred to as post-romantics. But if we go by any standard of the above definition, they are romantics (personally, I think that the term 'post-romantic' is grossly misused).

      The problem is that composers are self-determining - with a few notable exceptions, most composers didn't decide they wanted to be great classical composers, or romantic composers; they just want to compose, and then they go about doing it the best way they see how. Naturally, they start out composing like their idols, and then start to express their own ideas, which is why transitioning from one era to the next is always messy - in the early 19th century, for example, you've got composers trying to compose like Beethoven and Weber, but trying to be romantic at the same time. Don't attach dates to your eras - attach composers to them.

But then I guess there's Stravinsky to consider. Sigh...

[hornteacher]

I don't know if this would help but when I teach music history to my students I have some of the main periods broken down into different movements:

For Example:

Ancient
Medieval
Ars Nova
Renaissance
Baroque
Rococo
Sturm und Drang
Viennese Classical
Romanticism
Nationalism
Impressionism
Neo-Romanticism
Modernism
Atonalism
Neoclassicism
Serialism
Minimalism
Post-Minimalism

[DavidW]

Dana, very interesting points, and I will be considering along with still mulling over Bruce's post.  Hopefully my brain will not explode!

Now Hornteacher, that looks spectacular!  A division for all the eras, it meets every point I need.

[Todd]

I'm not a musicologist, and I'm lazy, so I break music down into the following:

Early Music
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Modern
Contemporary

Anything more detailed and my eyes start to glaze over, and I tend to avoid a lot of hair splitting.  For instance, I consider Mahler a romantic, even though his impact on "modern" music is undeniable, and one could easily argue that his last works are in fact "modern."

The short of it is that there can never be a truly satisfactory answer for everyone.

[ChamberNut]

Early Music
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Modern
Contemporary

Todd, that's exactly the same way I would have broken it down (how I visualize the categories).

[Gurn Blanston]

      How are you distinguishing the classical era from the romantic era? If we're talking about the size of the orchestra, the perception of the musician as artist, and innovative harmonic ideas, than the romantic era clearly began with Beethoven. If you expand that definition to include freedom of form, however, suddenly not only is Beethoven 100% a classicist - his incredible ideas were firmly rooted in sonata and rondo form, among others - but now you've got to include Brahms with the classicists. He's a classical composer through and through, even if some of his techniques were revolutionary, he was still basically a form drone (although, perhaps the best one of all time). And then there's Berlioz, whose revolutionary Symphonie Fantastique succeeded Beethoven's 9th Symphony by only six years, and anticipated Brahms' first symphony by more than 20 years! Then to further complicate matters, there's Mahler and Shostakovich - composers whom I've usually heard referred to as post-romantics. But if we go by any standard of the above definition, they are romantics (personally, I think that the term 'post-romantic' is grossly misused).

      The problem is that composers are self-determining - with a few notable exceptions, most composers didn't decide they wanted to be great classical composers, or romantic composers; they just want to compose, and then they go about doing it the best way they see how. Naturally, they start out composing like their idols, and then start to express their own ideas, which is why transitioning from one era to the next is always messy - in the early 19th century, for example, you've got composers trying to compose like Beethoven and Weber, but trying to be romantic at the same time. Don't attach dates to your eras - attach composers to them.

But then I guess there's Stravinsky to consider. Sigh...

Dana,
The part that I highlighted is, IMO, the most important part of your whole post. I made a feeble effort to go there when talking about the 'boundaries' of the Classical Era in the Classical Corner. It seems to me that most people I know put way too much emphasis on chronology and nowhere near enough on the music itself. That's why you nearly always see Telemann, for example, classified as a Baroque composer when in fact he was on the cutting edge of style throughout his very lengthy career. He could just as easily be called 'pre-classical', or 'galant'. But chronology has become the main arbiter of style, when it should be music that is the determining factor.




----------------
Listening to:
Christoph Prégardien \ Andreas Staier - D 911 Song Cycle for Voice & Keyboard "Winterreise" Book 1 #11 - Frühlingstraum

[jochanaan]

I'm not a musicologist, and I'm lazy, so I break music down into the following:

Early Music
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
Modern
Contemporary...

That works well enough, except that I'd include Renaissance as a category between Early Music and Baroque.  There was a real stylistic shift between Medieval and Renaissance music, not as radical as the shift in art but nonetheless a shift.

[DavidW]

I think I've decided on

Early Music
Early Baroque
High Baroque
Classical
Classical/Romantic Bridge
Romantic
post-Wagnerian Romantic/neo-*/jazzy
Modernism/Impressionism/polytonal/atonal

I made my 20th/21st century split into basically easy and tough, just like classical.net does because I can't think of anything better that's not overly complicated.

[Opus106]

Neoclassical? Or the Baroque-Classical bridge. You don't want to abandon Bach's sons, do you?

[DavidW]

Neoclassical? Or the Baroque-Classical bridge. You don't want to abandon Bach's sons, do you?

They'll go into classical, it's really classical/rococo/baroque, where the mature works of Haydn and Mozart go into high classical... oh woops I forgot that!

Early Music
Early Baroque
High Baroque
Rococo (Baroque/Classical Bridge)
High Classical
Classical/Romantic Bridge
Romantic
post-Wagnerian pleasures
Modernism crunchiness

Thanks!

[ChamberNut]

For the Bach fans, there are only 3 eras:

Pre Bach

Bach

Post Bach

[DavidW]

For the Bach fans, there are only 3 eras:

Pre Bach

Bach

Post Bach

Oh I thought it was

1. Bach
2. Huh? who cares?

[Dana]

I think I've decided on

Early Music
Early Baroque
High Baroque
Classical
Classical/Romantic Bridge
Romantic
post-Wagnerian Romantic/neo-*/jazzy
Modernism/Impressionism/polytonal/atonal

I made my 20th/21st century split into basically easy and tough, just like classical.net does because I can't think of anything better that's not overly complicated.

Good luck getting those last few into textbooks

      The post-Wagnerian category might be relabeled "Expressionism" - Obviously not all of the music falls strictly into the label in the traditional artistic form, but certainly there are expressionistic elements, which generally hadn't existed before Wagner and Liszt. Even that is pushing it though, I guess.