Galante music
Encyclopedia
A new style of classical music
, fashionable from the 1720s to the 1770s, was called Galante music. It consciously simplified contrapuntal
texture and intense composing techniques that realized a pattern on the page and substituted a clear leading voice with a transparent accompaniment. Progressive musicians of J. S. Bach's own generation were seeking a fresh, immediate emotional appeal.
As early as 1721, the German theorist Johann Mattheson
recognized a modern style, einem galanten Stylo and named among its leading practitioners Giovanni Bononcini, Antonio Caldara
, Georg Philipp Telemann
and operatic composers we might consider baroque: Alessandro Scarlatti
, Antonio Vivaldi
and George Frideric Handel
(Heartz 2003). All were composing Italian opera seria
, a voice-driven musical style, and opera remained the central form of galante music. The new music was not as essentially a court music as it was a city music: the cities emphasized by Daniel Heartz, a recent historian of the style, were first of all Naples
, then Venice
, Dresden
, Berlin
, Stuttgart
and Mannheim
, and Paris
. Many galante composers spent their careers in less central cities, ones that may be considered consumers rather than producers of the style galante: Johann Christian Bach
and Carl Friedrich Abel in London, Giovanni Paisiello
in St Petersburg, Georg Philipp Telemann
in Hamburg and Luigi Boccherini
, quite isolated, in Madrid
.
The rejection of so much accumulated learning and formula in music is paralleled only by the rejection in the early 20th century of the entire structure of key relationships. Not every contemporary was delighted with this revolutionary simplification: Johann Samuel Petri, in his Anleitung zur Praktischen Musik (1782) spoke of the "great catastrophe in music" (Blume 1970).
The change was as much at the birth of Romanticism as it was of Classicism. The folk-song element in poetry, like the singable cantabile melody in galante music, was brought to public notice in Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765) and James Macpherson
's "Ossian
" inventions during the 1760s.
Some of Telemann's later music and of Bach's sons, Johann Quantz, Hasse
, Giovanni Battista Sammartini
, Giuseppe Tartini
, Baldassare Galuppi, Johann Stamitz
, Domenico Alberti
, and early Mozart are exemplars of Galante style.
This simplified style was melody-driven, not constructed, as so much classical music was to be, on rhythmic or melodic motifs
: "It is indicative that Haydn, even in his old age, is reported to have said, 'If you want to know whether a melody is really beautiful, sing it without accompaniment.'" (Blume 1970 p. 19)
The affinities of Galante style with Rococo
in the visual arts are easily overplayed, but characteristics that were valued in both genres were freshness, accessibility and charm. Watteau's fêtes galantes were rococo not merely in subject matter, but also in the lighter, cleaner tonality of his palette, and the glazes that supplied a galante translucency to his finished pictures often compared to the orchestrations of galante music (Heartz 2005).
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, fashionable from the 1720s to the 1770s, was called Galante music. It consciously simplified contrapuntal
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
texture and intense composing techniques that realized a pattern on the page and substituted a clear leading voice with a transparent accompaniment. Progressive musicians of J. S. Bach's own generation were seeking a fresh, immediate emotional appeal.
As early as 1721, the German theorist Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson
Johann Mattheson was a German composer, writer, lexicographer, diplomat and music theorist.Mattheson was born and died in Hamburg. He was a close friend of George Frideric Handel, although he nearly killed him in a sudden quarrel, during a performance of Mattheson's opera Cleopatra in 1704...
recognized a modern style, einem galanten Stylo and named among its leading practitioners Giovanni Bononcini, Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara
Antonio Caldara was an Italian Baroque composer.Caldara was born in Venice , the son of a violinist. He became a chorister at St Mark's in Venice, where he learned several instruments, probably under the instruction of Giovanni Legrenzi...
, Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
and operatic composers we might consider baroque: Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
, Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
and George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
(Heartz 2003). All were composing Italian opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
, a voice-driven musical style, and opera remained the central form of galante music. The new music was not as essentially a court music as it was a city music: the cities emphasized by Daniel Heartz, a recent historian of the style, were first of all Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, then Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
and Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....
, and Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Many galante composers spent their careers in less central cities, ones that may be considered consumers rather than producers of the style galante: Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach
Johann Christian Bach was a composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is sometimes referred to as 'the London Bach' or 'the English Bach', due to his time spent living in the British capital...
and Carl Friedrich Abel in London, Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...
in St Petersburg, Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann
Georg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
in Hamburg and Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No...
, quite isolated, in Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
.
The rejection of so much accumulated learning and formula in music is paralleled only by the rejection in the early 20th century of the entire structure of key relationships. Not every contemporary was delighted with this revolutionary simplification: Johann Samuel Petri, in his Anleitung zur Praktischen Musik (1782) spoke of the "great catastrophe in music" (Blume 1970).
The change was as much at the birth of Romanticism as it was of Classicism. The folk-song element in poetry, like the singable cantabile melody in galante music, was brought to public notice in Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry (1765) and James Macpherson
James Macpherson
James Macpherson was a Scottish writer, poet, literary collector and politician, known as the "translator" of the Ossian cycle of poems.-Early life:...
's "Ossian
Ossian
Ossian is the narrator and supposed author of a cycle of poems which the Scottish poet James Macpherson claimed to have translated from ancient sources in the Scots Gaelic. He is based on Oisín, son of Finn or Fionn mac Cumhaill, anglicised to Finn McCool, a character from Irish mythology...
" inventions during the 1760s.
Some of Telemann's later music and of Bach's sons, Johann Quantz, Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music...
, Giovanni Battista Sammartini
Giovanni Battista Sammartini
Giovanni Battista Sammartini was an Italian composer, organist, choirmaster and teacher. He counted Gluck among his students, and was highly regarded by younger composers including Johann Christian Bach...
, Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini
Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian baroque composer and violinist.-Biography:Tartini was born in Piran, a town on the peninsula of Istria, in the Republic of Venice to Gianantonio – native of Florence – and Caterina Zangrando, a descendant of one of the oldest aristocratic Piranian families.It...
, Baldassare Galuppi, Johann Stamitz
Johann Stamitz
Jan Václav Antonín Stamic was a Czech composer and violinist. Johann was the father of Carl Stamitz and Anton Stamitz, also composers...
, Domenico Alberti
Domenico Alberti
Domenico Alberti was an Italian singer, harpsichordist, and composer whose works bridge the Baroque and Classical periods....
, and early Mozart are exemplars of Galante style.
This simplified style was melody-driven, not constructed, as so much classical music was to be, on rhythmic or melodic motifs
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
: "It is indicative that Haydn, even in his old age, is reported to have said, 'If you want to know whether a melody is really beautiful, sing it without accompaniment.'" (Blume 1970 p. 19)
The affinities of Galante style with Rococo
Rococo
Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...
in the visual arts are easily overplayed, but characteristics that were valued in both genres were freshness, accessibility and charm. Watteau's fêtes galantes were rococo not merely in subject matter, but also in the lighter, cleaner tonality of his palette, and the glazes that supplied a galante translucency to his finished pictures often compared to the orchestrations of galante music (Heartz 2005).
Further reading
- Daniel Heartz, 2003. Music in European Capitals: the Galant Style, 1720–1780 (Norton)
- Robert O. Gjerdingen, 2007. Music in the Galant Style (Oxford University Press)