German Songs - Classical Music: Sixteenth Century To The Present

Classical Music: Sixteenth Century To The Present

Germans have played a leading role in the development of classical music. Many of the best classical musicians such as Bach, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Mahler, or Schoenberg (A lineage labeled the "German Stem" by Igor Stravinsky) were German. At the beginning of the 15th century, German classical music was revolutionized by Oswald von Wolkenstein, who travelled across Europe learning about classical traditions, spending time in countries like France and Italy. He brought back some techniques and styles to his homeland, and within a hundred years, Germany had begun producing composers renowned across the continent. Among the first of these composers was the organist Conrad Paumann.

Read more about this topic:  German Songs

Famous quotes containing the words classical, sixteenth, century and/or present:

    Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.
    W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)

    April is in my mistress’ face,
    And July in her eyes hath place,
    Within her bosom is September,
    But in her heart a cold December.
    —Unknown. Subject #4: July Subject #5: September Subject #6: December. All Seasons in One. . .

    Oxford Book of Sixteenth Century Verse, The. E. K. Chambers, comp. (1932)

    All I have to do
    is hear his name
    and every hair on my body
    just bristles with desire.
    When I see
    the moon of his face,
    this frame of mine
    oozes sweat like a moonstone.
    When that man
    as dear to me as breath
    steps close enough to me
    to stroke my neck,
    the thought of jealousy
    is shattered in my heart
    that’s hard as diamond
    sometimes.
    Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)

    The present is never poetic as it serves necessity, necessity, however, is prosaic.
    Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)