Chamber Music Tulsa

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Chamber music: musical compositions for ensembles of from three to eight instruments, traditionally performed without a conductor and usually written for performance in a room or reception hall before a small audience or indeed only for the pleasure of the players. Chamber music could be said to have started with the madrigals and consorts of the 16th century. Most of the instrumental works consisted of fantasies, dances, and suites written in the late Renaissance and the early Baroque periods. Domestic music began to flourish in the aristocratic houses of England, Italy and Germany of the 17th century, and the musicians were often members of the household. During the 18th century, chamber music flourished in literary and artistic circle throughout Europe. Much of it consisted of solo and trio sonatas by such composers as Arcangelo Corelli, often for continuo instrument and strings. From this developed the classic trio with a much more prominent role for the pianoforte. It was left to Joseph Haydn almost to invent the new form of the string quartet, which ideally reflected the 18th century's sense of classical form, with four instruments "conversing" on equal terms. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven further enhanced the form and -- with Haydn gave chamber music the status it has today. They poured their most sustained invention and their most profound ideas into their quartets (and in Mozart's case, quintets)...

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