Classical Concerto

In this assignment I will look at how adaptable the form of the classical concerto was to the compositional aspirations of composers of the Romantic era. I will do this by outlining the form of the classical concerto and looking at the changes between the Classical era and the Romantic era in music. I will then discuss a composer who changed from composing in the classical style to composing in the Romantic period (Romanticism) and why they changed to it. The composer I will look at is Ludwig van Beethoven. I will then look at how this romantic composer handled the form of the concerto and how he changed its classical form to suit his expression and content. This will show that the form of the classical concerto was adaptable to the compositional
The classical concerto is a longer piece of music that has developed into a 3-movement work. A movement is a short piece of music that is combined with other movements which results to a large piece of music for example – A concerto. The first movement has a fast tempo, the second movement has a slow tempo and the third movement, similarly to the first movement, has a fast tempo too. The classical concerto is a piece of music which is composed for an instrumental soloist accompanied by an orchestra. This was the Classical period of music history which began in 1790 until 1820. The classical concerto is written to showcase the composer’s expression, content and musical skills. The soloist can be heard over the orchestra accompanying him/her. “However, it is the contrast of one soloist verses the many other musicians of the orchestra that gives the concerto its unique sound.” Typical instruments which concertos were wrote for during the Classical period were the piano. Instruments that were used in the orchestra were the violin, cello,
Different composers used different numbers of movements. The orchestra was larger. There was a wide dynamic range which suited both lyrical and virtuosic performance. The main Concerto instruments became the piano (which developed significantly between c.1800 and c.1825) and the violin. Capable of full textured music on its own, it was ideal for improvising and the direct expression of personal emotion. The composer wrote out the cadenza. Between the orchestra and the soloist there was more of a competition. Poems were set to music, stories were told by musical themes in a piece of music and melodies were songlike. The number of movements, length of a piece of music were abandoned and instead were replaced with composers composing music with more expressive and experimental aspects. As a result of this, it led to new forms like etudes, variations and character pieces, chromatic harmony, 12 note scale, diminished notes and dominant and sevenths began to be frequently used. The rhythms in a piece of music became more complex and composers used