Abstract Through an analysis of the music of eight Western classical composers, this paper attempts to understand how their various environments influenced their musical output. The eight composers that this paper studies are: Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn, Richard Wagner, Peter Iljitch Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok and George Crumb. The paper chooses to focus on specific compositions to demonstrate how each artist was affected by the events of his life -- from personal situations such as a family crisis, marriage or the loss of a loved one to broader social/cultural developments in his country or the world.
Outline:
Introduction
Johann Sebastian Bach
Joseph Haydn
Richard Wagner
Peter Iljitch Tchaikovsky
Claude Debussy
Igor Stravinsky
Bela Bartok George Crumb
Conclusion
From the Paper "In Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden (Church Cantata No. 4), written for Easter Sunday, the hymn melody and its verses are used exclusively throughout the piece. The opening measure, in the style of Buxtehude, Bach's mentor, is followed by seven verses, each having its own musical signature. In this opening measure, one can hear that the music is touched by the sorrows of death, but in the third verse, there is an outpouring of joy. This cantata was written in 1724 during a period in Bach's life that was full of musical expression. However, in 1720, his first wife, Maria Barbara died, and in 1721, Bach married Anna Magdalena Wuelken who bore him thirteen children. Thus, through the music of Cantata No. 4, Bach's sadness over the death of his first wife can be sensed; however, due to his strict religious upbringing, his joy can be sensed in the third verse which reflects his knowledge that his late wife is now with God in Heaven."
From the Paper "Bela Bartok was a Modernist giant among the musicians of the twentieth century. He was born in a small Transylvanian village in 1881, and he died in America before the world recognized his stature and the value of his music:
He is a linking figure between Schoenberg's atonal and Stravinsky's neoclassic schools. While they invented, he listened and learned and composed in his Hungarian-inflected voice, which remains to this day an exotic strain amidst the pervading German, French, and Italian accents of Western classical music (Swafford 424).
Bartok was an important Hungarian composer who generated controversy because of battles in his native land over the meaning of being Hungarian. There were separatist and proletarian movements in his time that had aims that came into..."
Abstract This paper looks at the radical changes that took place in Western art music in the early years of the 20th century focusing on the loss of tonality and how the music of various composers of the time reflected the changes. The paper includes sections on Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, and Ives.
From the Paper "Impressionist Claude Debussy was the first composer to successfully assert a French tradition free from Germanic influences in Western music. Debussy's most influential innovation was in his use of chords for tone colour rather than structure, an effect that destroyed the piece's sense of musical destiny through cadence. The overused diatonicity of the Germanic chord system was replaced with whole tone and pentatonic scales, both of which, lacking a leading note, have little sense of musical destination."
