Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western MusicRoots of the Classical identifies and traces to their sources the patterns that make Western classical music unique, setting out the fundamental laws of melody and harmony, and sketching the development of tonality between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. The author then focuses on the years 1770-1910, treating the Western music of this period - folk, popular, and classical - as a single, organically developing, interconnected unit in which the popular idiom was constantly feeding into 'serious' music, showing how the same patterns underlay music of all kinds. |
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Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music Peter Van der Merwe Limited preview - 2004 |
Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music Peter Van der Merwe Limited preview - 2004 |
Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music Peter Van der Merwe Limited preview - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
Allegro already bars bass became become Beethoven beginning blues cadence century chant chord chromatic classical close combination common complex composers course culture dance developed diatonic discord dissonance dominant double drone early east effect especially Europe European example fact fifth figure final flat fourth German give Gypsy harmonic Haydn Hungarian important influence instance intervals Italian Italy late later least less Liszt major melody minor mode movement natural nineteenth-century opera original particularly passage patterns pentatonic phrase Piano popular popular music possible probably progression quoted relative repeated rhythm scale semitone sense sequence seventh similar simple Sonata song strain Strauss String Quartet style suites Symphony theme thing third tonality tone tonic tradition triad true tune turn usually variation Wagner waltz Western whole
Popular passages
Page 7 - The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.
Page v - ... he first intended. He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and will have this or that convenience more, of which he had not thought when he began. So has it happened to me.
Page xii - A man coins not a new word without some peril and less fruit; for if it happen to be received, the praise is but moderate; if refused, the scorn is assured.
Page 16 - New ideas are thrown up spontaneously like mutations ; the vast majority of them are useless crank theories, the equivalent of biological freaks without survival-value. There is a constant struggle for survival between competing theories in every branch of the history of thought. The process of "natural selection", too, has its equivalent in mental evolution : among the multitude of new concepts which emerge only those survive which are well adapted to the period's intellectual milieu.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music |
| Author | Peter Van der Merwe |
| Publisher | OUP Oxford, 2004 |
| ISBN | 0191513261, 9780191513268 |
| Length | 576 pages |
| Subjects | › › Music / History & Criticism Music / Instruction & Study / Theory Music / Musical Instruments / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |