40 YEARS OF...USCB CHAMBER MUSICTHE HISTORY OF CHAMBER MUSICby Michael JohnsThe term “chamber music” was coinedduring the Classical period but the conceptof art music for a small, conductor-lessensemble, performed in intimate settingswith one player on a part has been an aspectof western musical communication sinceancient Greece. Enjoyed by all strata ofsociety and performed by both amateur andprofessional groups, it has been describedas “music among friends.” From earliestbeginnings to the present it has reflectedthe aspirations, technology, and communityin which it was embedded.Chamber music performance is aspecialized field utilizing different skills thanthose needed for orchestra or solo music. Itrequires the production of a coherent wholeeven as the players retain their individuality.Orchestral music requires subsuming thetemperament of the individual while soloistsmust project an outsized personality. Inchamber music there is a dynamic tension;everyone leads, everyone follows. Thechamber music equilibrium betweenperson/group is what draws both soloistsand orchestra musicians to seek out chambermusic opportunities during their non-worktime.The early Christian period rejected theidea of instrumental music as an art formor leisure pastime because it stimulatedsinful elements such as dance and paganritual. The gradual climb to respectabilityfor instrumental music began in the tenthcentury with roving minstrels. They graduallybecame fixtures at court as troubadours. Bythe late Medieval period consorts of “soft”or “indoor” instruments were being groupedtogether to play music at court.The Renaissance was characterizedby a rebirth of the human spirit and revivalof cultural standards. More music wascomposed during the Renaissance than allearlier periods combined. Musicians becamea professional class but were still dependenton patronage.During the Baroque period the royalcourt became a powerful political entity asexemplified by Louis XIV of France. Under thecourt system arts patronage increased, andalong with the beginnings of an educatedmiddle class, a demand for private andpublic concerts arose. Expanded productionof instruments supported a larger numberof performing musicians, both amateur andprofessional, and advances in precisioncraftsmanship greatly increased the capacityfor nuanced expression. The newly createdharpsichord/piano and violin became theprimary chamber music influencers.The Classical period began midwaythrough the eighteenth century. Musicattempted to emulate the ideals of classicalantiquity with a slimmed-down style basedon balance, tuneful simplicity, and pleasingvariety. Many composers relied on advancedamateur aristocrats who delighted in musicmaking as a means to entertain guests orfamily. The development of chamber musiccan be traced to this employer-composerrelationship: Franz Joseph Haydn, creditedwith creating the modern string quartet,was a liveried employee of Count NikolausEsterházy; Mozart wrote string quartets forFredrick William II, Beethoven wrote themfor Count Andry Razumovsky and PrinceJoseph Lobkowicz. Reflecting both the ethicof the age and the essence of the art, JohannWolfgang von Goethe described a stringquartetperformance as “four rational peopleconversing.” When the European aristocraticsystem began to weaken, composers andperformers were forced to become moreself-sufficient. A growing middle classincreased demand for repertoire and the firstchamber music only performance space,Holywell Music Room in Oxford, England,opened in 1748.The Romantic period brought profoundchanges in socioeconomic, technical, andcultural conditions. Greater leisure time ledto the growth of amateur music-makingsocieties. Professional, touring chambermusic groups raised music-performancestandards and public awareness of thechamber music genre. The twentiethcenturyapproach to chamber musicreflected the chaos of world wars, changingsocietal values, and the quickening pace oftechnology. Artistic creations ranged fromtimeless works seeking inner peace to sharpedgedagitation and raw dissonance. Newinstrumental combinations experimentedwith extended techniques and electronicsounds. In the twenty-first centuryprofessional and semi-professional chambermusic groups, performance venues in bothtraditional and “found” spaces, and localchamber music advocates have steadilyincreased.A musician’s aphorism:USCB Chamber Music follows theconcert model established during the1800’s: performances in an intimate settingwith a small number of performers playingfor an attentive audience. The hushedatmosphere is suggestive of interestedobservers eavesdropping on personalconversations. Guarneri Quartet first violinistArnold Steinhardt expressed the powerfulattraction of chamber music for the artists:“When a performance is in progress, allfour of us together enter a zone of magicsomewhere between our music standsand become a conduit, messenger, andmissionary... It is an experience too personalto talk about...” Although audience membersare one step removed from producing thesound, their presence increases the focusof the performers, and listeners in turnbecome one with the music and enter intoits voiceless dialogue. Experiencing thechamber-music aesthetic has been a valuedand sought-after human pursuit throughoutrecorded history.“ ”A great player can make a poor instrument sound good;a poor player cannot make a great instrument sound good.(Aren’t we lucky that during the last 40 years, we have had over twodozen Stradivari and ennumerable great artists makingbrilliant music for us.)Page 4Page 5
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