classical music

The tradition & historical record

Classical music is a tradition of art music in the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" can also be applied to non-Western art musics. Classical music is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization, particularly with the use of polyphony. Since at least the ninth century, it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical, critical, historiographical, musicological and philosophical practices. Rooted in the patronage of churches and royal courts in Europe, surviving early medieval music is chiefly religious, monophonic and vocal. The earliest extant music manuscripts date from the Carolingian Empire (800–887), around the time which Western plainchant gradually unified into what is termed Gregorian chant. Musical centers existed at the Abbey of Saint Gall, the Abbey of Saint Martial and Saint Emmeram's Abbey, while the 11th century saw the development of staff notation and increasing output from medieval music theorists. By the mid-12th century, France became the major European musical center: the religious Notre-Dame school first fully explored organized rhythms and polyphony, while secular music flourished with the troubadour and trouvère traditions led by poet-musician nobles. ¹

Both the English term classical and the German equivalent Klassik developed from the French classique, itself derived from the Latin word classicus, which originally referred to the highest class of Ancient Roman citizens. In Roman usage, the term later became a means to distinguish revered literary figures; the Roman author Aulus Gellius commended writers such as Demosthenes and Virgil as classicus. By the Renaissance, the adjective had acquired a more general meaning: an entry in Randle Cotgrave's 1611 A Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues is among the earliest extant definitions, translating classique as "classical, formall [sic], orderlie, in due or fit ranke. Also, approved, authenticall, chiefe, principall". The musicologist Daniel Heartz summarizes this into two definitions: 1) a "formal discipline" and 2) a "model of excellence". Like Gellius, later Renaissance scholars who wrote in Latin used classicus in reference to writers of classical antiquity; however, this meaning only gradually developed, and was for a while subordinate to the broader classical ideals of formality and excellence. Literature and visual arts, for which substantial Ancient Greek and Roman examples existed, did eventually adopt the term "classical" as relating to classical antiquity, but virtually no music of that time was available to Renaissance musicians, limiting the connection between classical music and the Greco-Roman world. It was in 18th-century England that the term 'classical' "first came to stand for a particular canon of works in performance." London had developed a prominent public concert music scene, unprecedented and unmatched by other European cities. ¹

The contemporary understanding of the term "classical music" remains vague and multifaceted. Other terms such as "art music", "canonic music", "cultivated music" and "serious music" are largely synonymous. The term "classical music" is often indicated or implied to concern solely the Western world, and conversely, in many academic histories the term "Western music" excludes non-classical Western music. Another complication lies in that "classical music" is sometimes used to describe non-Western art music exhibiting similar long-lasting and complex characteristics; examples include Indian classical music, Gamelan music, and various styles of the court of Imperial China (see yayue for instance). Thus in the later 20th century terms such as "Western classical music" and "Western art music" came in use to address this. The musicologist Ralph P. Locke notes that neither term is ideal, as they create an "intriguing complication" when considering "certain practitioners of Western-art music genres who come from non-Western cultures". Complexity in musical form and harmonic organization are typical traits of classical music. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers three definitions for the word "classical" in relation to music: ¹

"of acknowledged excellence" "of, relating to, or characteristic of a formal musical tradition, as distinguished from popular or folk music" and more specifically, "of or relating to formal European music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, characterized by harmony, balance, and adherence to established compositional forms". The last definition concerns what is now termed the Classical period, a specific stylistic era of European music from the second half of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century. ¹

The Western classical tradition formally begins with music created by and for the early Christian Church. It is probable that the early Church wished to disassociate itself from the predominant music of ancient Greece and Rome, as it was a reminder of the pagan religion it had persecuted and by which it had been persecuted. As such, it remains unclear as to what extent the music of the Christian Church, and thus Western classical music as a whole, was influenced by preceding ancient music. The general attitude towards music was adopted from the Ancient Greek and Roman music theorists and commentators. Just as in Greco-Roman society, music was considered central to education; along with arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, music was included in the quadrivium, the four subjects of the upper division of a standard liberal arts education in the Middle Ages. This high regard for music was first promoted by the scholars Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, and particularly Boethius, whose transmission and expansion on the perspectives of music from Pythagoras, Aristotle and Plato were crucial in the development of medieval musical thought. However, scholars, medieval music theorists and composers regularly misinterpreted or misunderstood the writings of their Greek and Roman predecessors. This was due to the complete absence of surviving Greco-Roman musical works available to medieval musicians, to the extent that Isidore of Seville (c. 559 – 636) stated "unless sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down", unaware of the systematic notational practices of Ancient Greece centuries before. ¹

Medieval music includes Western European music from after the fall of the Western Roman Empire by 476 to about 1400. Monophonic chant, also called plainsong or Gregorian chant, was the dominant form until about 1100. Christian monks developed the first forms of European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the Church. ¹

The musical Renaissance era lasted from 1400 to 1600. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Classical music”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

classical music is broad tradition of Western art music, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 66 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²