Music [1] refers to the art with melody, rhythm or harmony composed of human voices or musical instruments.

Ancient music and sound are different. "Rites and Music": "All voices are born by people's hearts. People move, things are natural, things are moving, and sounds are shaped. The sound is corresponding, so it changes and becomes a square, which is called sound. Listening to its voice is fun, and it is fun to do it. " Later known as "music", it refers to an art that uses organized music to express people's thoughts and feelings and reflect social life. Biography of the Three Kingdoms, Wu Zhi and Zhou Yu: "Yu Shao devoted himself to music. Although there is a fault after the Third Congress, I will know it and take care of it. " "The former Han Pinghua" volume: "The emperor stabbed the door, and the left wing greeted Xu Mai with joy and sent the emperor to Baling Bridge." Wen's poem "Moving Music": "Really, music is the language of people's feelings".

It is impossible to find out when music began to exist in human society. But long before human beings produced language, they already knew how to express their meaning and feelings by using the level and strength of sound. With the development of human labor, the chant of unifying labor rhythm and the cry of transmitting information to each other have gradually appeared, which is the most primitive musical prototype; When people celebrate the harvest and share the fruits of labor, they often beat stone tools and wood to express their joy and joy. This is the embryonic form of the original musical instrument.

Western music

The history of western music refers to the development of western music. The detailed times can be divided into: ancient Greek and Roman music, medieval music, Renaissance music, baroque music, classical music, romantic music, modern music and so on.

Religious music period

Classical music in Europe developed in the Elizabethan period in the Middle Ages, and the music in this period was mainly Gregory religious music.

At that time, people's worship and belief in Christianity was completely different from now. In medieval Europe, the power of the church was higher than that of the state and all social conditions, and religion directly influenced politics and music. So the music at that time was purely for religious purposes, and it was sung in the church without instrumental accompaniment, but the music of this period played a very important role in the later music development.

revive

After 1450, Europe entered the Renaissance. Due to the unstable political situation in Europe at that time, the prestige and power of the church had gradually weakened, and the bourgeoisie began to sprout. In order to adapt to the development of society and people's new ideas at that time, the Renaissance began to spread in various fields of music and culture. During this period, European traditional music began to take shape. At this time, music is not only religious music, but also secular music, and various musical instruments have also been produced and enriched, paving the way for the upcoming Baroque music period.

grotesque

Baroque period (about 1600- 1750) is an important form of early classical music. The music of this period is mainly polyphonic music, which is gorgeous and complicated. Although baroque music broke through the complete order and pure expression of religious music and became richer, in the whole development of classical music, the music of this period was still influenced by many religious music, revealing a rigorous atmosphere. However, compared with the previous music forms, the music in Baroque period was more liberal. The emergence of various types of music and the maturity of musical instruments made the music of this period full of a special atmosphere and was sought after by later generations.

There were many musicians in the Baroque period, who were much more productive than modern musicians. In the baroque era, the most important figures should be Handel, Vivaldi and Bach. Handel and Bach are both famous for keyboard instruments, organ and harpsichord, but their works are slightly different. Handel has made many achievements in opera, while Bach has been focusing on the creation of various instrumental music, leaving a large number of classic instrumental works for future generations. The violin music in this period is close to maturity, and Vivaldi's contribution can not be ignored.

Classical period

The end of the baroque era was marked by Bach's death, followed by the classicism period (about 1750- 1820). Music in this period inherited the achievements of traditional European polyphonic music and melodic music, and established important musical forms such as sonata, concerto and symphony. Chamber music also developed during this period, which played a very important role in the development of music later. The music in the classical period was relatively rigorous, inherited the rationality of the Baroque era, but more integrated with people's emotions, realizing the unity of the two. Therefore, the content of music performance in the classical period is more abundant, and it is perfectly integrated with music art.

In the period of classical music, the three most important representatives were Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Mozart's music is full of gorgeous feelings and always brings people an affinity, which comes from Mozart's pure mentality of creating music. On the other hand, Beethoven experienced more hardships and diseases than Mozart. He wrote all kinds of misfortunes in his life into music, so Beethoven's music brought people more anger, passion and an attitude of fighting against life.

Romantic period

After 1820, with the end of the classical music period, romantic music began to sprout. The music forms in this period are more abundant, which is the period closest to modern times at the peak of classical art, and most of the classical music that is most easily accepted now comes from this period. Romantic music pays more attention to people's spiritual realm and subjective emotional expression, shows more prominent natural scenery, and uses ethnic and folk music more frequently, which can be said to be truly popular.

In fact, in the later works of Beethoven, Rossini and other classical composers, the color of romantic music has been revealed, and musicians born around 1800 have formed the center of early romanticism. Subsequently, romantic music was perfected by musicians who are well known to the world, such as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Chopin and Verdi, and reached its peak in the era of Tchaikovsky, Liszt and Wagner, and they formed the core of romantic music. Of course, the contributions of the late romantic musicians Mahler and Rachmaninov should not be underestimated.

The musical period before the transition from music to The Romantic Period, that is, the early 20th century to The Romantic Period, was a period when classical music gradually evolved into modern music, although it was only a hundred years. In this short period, there have been many musical forms, which can also be called impressionist music, expressionist music and neoclassical music. Expressionist music and neoclassical music are collectively called new music, which generally refers to the new music form discovered after impressionist music. Compared with the classical music in The Romantic Period and before, these music have been fundamentally different, and the transition from classical music to modern music has become an inevitable trend.

Impressionist music

The period of impressionism music was from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, which was the same as the impressionism movement. Impressionist music no longer emphasizes the expression of subjective feelings like The Romantic Period's music, but pays more attention to the creation of atmosphere and color, thus presenting an abstract and surreal color and becoming the beginning of modern music. Impressionist music gives people a vague and chaotic feeling, which is suggestive. The creative themes are often taken from natural scenery, poetry and painting. Debussy and Ravel are representatives of impressionist music.

Expressionist music

Whether expressionist music can be classified as classical music is still inconclusive. This popular music form in the early 20th century is completely opposite to traditional music. Expressionism music ignores the general tonality law of music creation, opposes the objectivity of impressionism, and advocates more direct expression of human spiritual world. This kind of music mainly expresses the subjective self. Expressionist music has no melody, and its rhythm and melody are elusive, which makes people feel anxious, crazy, fearful and uneasy, but it has a strange sense of space and gorgeous colors. The representatives of expressionist music are Schoenberg and his two students, Weber and Weber.

Neoclassical music

Neo-classical music prevailed in the late 1920s, advocating that the creation of music should be objective and serious, and the form of classical music should be integrated by romanticism. Neo-classical music denies both the subjectivity of romantic music and the exaggerated expression of post-romanticism, hoping to reproduce the music of classical period with modern methods. Italian pianist and composer busoni and Russian composer Stravinsky are representatives of neoclassicism.

Concrete music

The so-called "figurative music" is music that records the actual sounds in daily life in advance, such as wind, thunder, bird singing, dog barking, whistle of locomotives, roar of airplanes, etc. , and then edit. This kind of music that nobody played, 1948+00 premiered in Paris in June. The emergence of this kind of music is closely related to the development of recording technology. The founder is Schaefer, a radio engineer of France National Radio. His representative works include Black Etude, Railway Etude, Cookware Etude, Violet Etude, Solo, Ambiguous Concerto, Opera Flo and so on. People in Germany, America, Japan and other countries are engaged in the creation of this kind of music.

Luck music

Accidental music, also known as "opportunistic music", introduces accidental factors into music. The outstanding characteristics of this kind of music are uncertainty and contingency. Performers arbitrarily combine the paragraphs of their works by tossing coins, drawing lots, divination, etc., and determine the pitch, length, timbre and strength at will. Composers of accidental music no longer use traditional notation, but choose music notation to explain that such works have no specific structure, image and tonality, only accidental sound effects.

Accidental music originated in America, and the most famous is American composer Cage. His representative works include Changing Music, Concerto for Piano Orchestra, Fantasy Scenery and Piano Music in 4 Minutes and 33 Seconds, and other woodwind quintets by German composer Stockhausen, such as Rhythm, Piano Music, Suite for a Percussionist, Repetition for Three Performers, etc., which are also quite accidental music.

electronic music

Electronic music is all kinds of music produced by using electronic technology to obtain sound sources, so it is a means of music expression, which breaks through the limitations of traditional musical instruments and people's playing ability and provides convenience for composers to create at will. With the development of science and technology and the appearance of tape recorders, music explorers are still looking for new sounds. A more flexible synthesizer appeared in the United States in the 1950s, and electronic computers entered the field of electronic music in the 1960s. The appearance of integrated circuits has opened up a broad prospect for the continued development of electronic music. Electronic music is not only a means of expression but also a genre. The first electronic music works were symphonic etudes I and II, which were jointly created by Ermushi, a technician of West German Radio, and Bayer, a composer. The most influential is Stockhausen of West Germany, who wrote electronic music etudes I and II, Song of Youth, solo and microphone.

In addition, there are Babbitt of the United States, Sacevski of Ukraine, Masaichi Matsushita of Japan, Dai Minlang, Bettins of the Netherlands, Kudnek and Kajil of Germany. It is also a representative of electronic music.