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The characteristics of music of the classical era (1750-1820)
As said in the previous lesson, the emergence of classicism came together with the homophonic style trend, along with more attention to dynamics in music (in part attributed to invention of the piano, with new possibilities of musical expression), and less emphasis on rhythm. It's like the baroque has fallen into oblivion in the Mozart era, although of course it is not really true since many inventions of baroque, including the concept of tonality, were grasped by the classicism composers, especially with their own emphasis on cadences. Also what's new is the emphasis on melodies, that is the homophonic texture where melody is clearly distinctive and dominant over the accompaniment. This was not the common style in baroque music, where polyphonic melodies of equal importance were interwoven with each other.
Somehow, the very complexities of baroque music were probably hard to develop even further, and perhaps that's why the new generation of composers strived for a 'simpler' form of art. What is also characteristic of the new classical music is the clear division of a musical piece in beginning, middle parts, and end. This was not obvious in baroque music. And that's what is so traditional in classicism - the cadences! The natural falling from a dominant chord to a tonic chord is a perfect cadence that conveys the sense of a conclusion, an end. They were used throughout the music in different forms to state the development of a musical idea, or phrases. This was a mean to punctuate the different sections of music.
What's so special with the dominant and tonic chords, or all the other chords for that matter? Some chords in music, in a given tonality, are sounding more tensed, and other chords sound relaxed, and then there are chords that are somewhere in between. Dominant chord is the one creating tension, and its natural resolution of tension is by going to the relaxed tonic chord. This is just a natural flow of music for our ears. Of course, the different chord progressions can be used to create other musical experience within a musical piece, although the dominant-tonic progression is strikingly punctuating a musical phrase. The listener hears a sort of space, or pause in music. This is a perfect, or a.k.a. closed, cadence.
There are also other cadences in music - open or half cadences are creating tension without resolution, they end pn the dominant chord and therefore there is no relaxation. Open cadences are therefore the weakest ones, although the weakest doesn't mean useless, since they need to be used in the right desired context. Plagal cadences are the ones that go from a subdominant chord (IV) to tonic chord, and are often used in liturgical music, and are for this reason also known as Amen cadence. Then there are the deceptive cadences of all sorts, starting with the tensed dominant chord ut nor resolving to the tonic chord but going to other chord, often the VI/vi that would switch tonality from major to minor or vice-versa. Now, even though all of these cadences were included more or less in baroque music, they are much more dominant in the music of the classical era. Play them on your instrument and listen to some Mozart or Beethoven pieces and you will be able to detect them frequently. Listening to a baroque fugue will not give you the same experience!
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