Comparative Analysis Of The Representatives Of Baroque Music And Classical Music

In this essay, I was told to choose 2 or more composers from any era and compare their differences. The composers that I have chosen to complete this essay is Ludwig Van Beethoven from the classical era and Johann Sebastian Bash from the Baroque era. They were chosen as they are one of the finest composer in their period and the pieces that they composed remain a master piece up until today. So let’s take a look at the difference between these composers.

First of all, I will start with Ludwig Van Beethoven. Ludwig Van Beethoven born in 1770 and death in 1827, he was a German composer and pianist between the transition of classical era to romantic era. He is best known for his composition which are the 9 symphonies, 5 piano concertos, 1 violin concerto, 32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, a mass , the Missa solemnis and an opera. Since young he was taught music by his father then he briefly learned music from 2 well-known composers which is Hadyn and Mozart. In his early stage of composing, Mozart and Hadyn were a undeniable influences in his music. His work for piano and winds is said to have a strong resemblance to Mozart works for the same configuration but he tilted it with his own distinctive touches. The thing that set the difference between him and his teachers are his later musical development where he used modulation and texture, and characterization of emotion. This changes had also increased the impact of some of his early published piece. In his theme and motifs, some of his music are primarily rhythmic rather than melodic. Since rhythmic pattern can be more easily taken through a succession of different even remote, keys and harmonic regions, this has made Beethoven’s music to be combined with different features of his theme in a wide variety of ways. In his work the 5th symphony, he introduced a striking motif which was taken from the late Haydn symphony and in the very opening bar, he echoed in various forms in all four movement of the symphony and this became the first important occurrence of cyclic form. In his 9th symphony he added a chorus and solo voice in the 4th movement for the 1st time which made the music to be considered a new form of music. Then, he also wrote 1 opera which known as Fidello and it has been said that he wrote beautiful vocal music without considering the limit of the singer and also treating the voice of the singer as a symphonic instrument.

The next composer is Johann Sebastian Bach, he was born in the year 1685 and died in the year 1750 which is the Baroque era. In his early adult year, he was hired for special services at a church and he composed music in which he was to play. It was in his middle adult year, where he wrote most of his organ music. Bach melodies construction was the cornerstone of his music. His melody is always made to be very dense and carefully though through. His ability to make melody was phenomenal as he was able to construct melody in the face of very tight constraints such as when he was writing a canon. For Bach, harmony was an important thing to consider on its own but he did not always follow a flow chart of harmonic progression as he was gift for making streams of chords that led pleasing from one to another, with tension being created and released progressively until the inevitable goal is reached. Other than that, Bach is legendary for his mastery of counterpoint. Bach is much true of a composer who writes absolute music that exist simply for its own sake and communicate nothing more than an aesthetic ideal. Bach was also heavily into imagery in his vocal music and appears to have always given the text of a lot though before setting it into music. In his late adult year, he was in charge of arranging music for the 4 main churches in a town called Thomasschule.

To sum it up, we can say that they are 2 well-known composers from a completely different period and the they both have their own unique way of approaching music as Bach’s music focus on melody and harmony while Beethoven music are more rhythmic rather than melodic. Furthermore, Beethoven music has a very strong characterization of emotion as he was the first composer that had added emotion in to music pieces that he created and that itself became a new form of music.

In my own opinion, from the 2 composers that I have chosen to study, I prefer Beethoven’s music. The reason I choose Beethoven might be because our era is much closer, so his music will be more similar to the music nowadays and also his music is still played by many people up until today. Next, I have also chosen his music as his music left a huge impact on me as I liked it the moment I heard it when I was young from the cartoon version of ‘Mr Bean’ where they played his 5th symphony. His next music that I liked is the Fur Elise, I have forgotten where I heard it from but I will never forget how it sounds like. Other than that, I have also chosen Beethoven’s music as I like music full of emotion and passion of the composer as to me music is something that can really describe your emotion very well and he is the 1st who put emotion into music. Lastly, I have only chosen Bach as the 2nd composer because he was the 1st one to appear in Google when I typed in top composer in his era and I have decided to choose Beethoven music since the moment I receive this assignment as he is the only composer that I know. To end this essay, they are both legendary composers and the music we know nowadays won’t be as good as it is today if not for them but I still prefer Beethoven music among the 2.