INSTrumental vs. dramatic vocal composers

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FROM:
​BEETHOVEN

Primarily Instrumental

Through:
​mozart

Both Instrumental and Dramatic Vocal

AND TO:
​VERDI

Primarily Dramatic Vocal (Opera; Operetta; Music Theater)

• Ludwig Von Beethoven (first image) composed primarily instrumental works (only 1 opera).
• Wolfgang Mozart (second image) composed in a broad array of styles and preferred to consider himself primarily a composer of opera.
• Giuseppe Verdi (third image) composed primarily operas.

ancient greek vs. classical vs. modern classical COMPOSERS

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FROM:
​pythagorus

Ancient Greek

Through:
​de Machaut
Desprez
Rameau
Haydn
Liszt

Classical:
Middle Ages
Renaissance
Baroque
Classical
Romantic
​

AND TO:
​john adams

Modern Classical Music

• The Lyre (first image) was used in ancient Greece to accompany chorus music in Greek theater which became the model for opera during the Italian Renaissance. Technically, Pythagoras was not a composer.  He was a mathematician and is credited with having developed the theoretical underpinnings of music and especially of harmony and overtones.
• The modern violin (second image) is used to represent stringed instruments, which were widely used in the Middle Ages (represented by Guillaume de Machaut), Renaissance (represented by Josquin Deprez) , Baroque (represented by Jean-Philippe Rameau), Classical (represented by Franz Joseph Haydn) and Romantic (represented by Franz Liszt) periods.
• Modern classical music often uses electronic instruments (third image). John Adams, the representative composer is an American, born in Massachusetts and currently living in the San Francisco area.

sacred vs. secular composers

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FROM:
​palestrina

Primarily Sacred

Through:
​handel

Both Sacred and Secular

AND TO:
shostakovich

Secular

• The first image is of a chorus in a Catholic mass.  The representative composer is Giofanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, an Italian Renaissance composer of polyphonic music credited with responsibility for the retention of music within the Catholic mass during the Council of Trent Counter-Reformation adaptations.
• The second image is of a chorus performing Handel’s Messiah.  George Frideric Handel was a Baroque composer who wrote in: secular dramatic (opera), secular instrumental and sacred styles.  His famous Messiah was based on a sacred theme but was intended to be performed in a secular concert hall, rather than in a church.
• The third image is of a group of Renaissance musicians (including women who were barred from church music) performing a madrigal, a Renaissance polyphonic secular music that evolved into opera.  Dmitri Shostakovich was a Russian composer of both dramatic (opera) and instrumental music who was subject to intense abuse by Joseph Stalin.  Shostakovich is believed to have been an atheist (i.e., not a composer of sacred music).