Many classical songs have short passages that are very exciting, usually in the opening. Beethoven’s fifth, Grieg’s piano concerto in a minor, are examples a lot of people would be familiar with (even if they can’t put a name to the tune).
However, after these short bursts of excitement, the music fades into the sort of slow, sleepy melody typically associated with classical music. You may get another burst of intensity later in the song, but the level of energy and interestingness never remains for more than a minute or so (and usually much less).
Why was it written this way?
The ‘Hooked on Classics’ songs combined some of these best bits into a few songs that were intense and interesting throughout. Karl Jenkin (with Adiemus) composed many songs for orchestra and vocals that were intense and interesting for the entire song, so it is possible to do.
Some possibilities I’ve come up with are:[ol]
[li]Musicians can’t keep up with that pace for very long (physically from the fingering and blowing, or mentally from the intense concentration)[/li][li]Fashion: At the time music was seen as something to soothe away the stress of life, not something to induce excitement or energy[/li][li]The instruments themselves can’t survive that level of use for very long without being damaged (instruments were very expensive then, and the professional-grade ones still are)[/li][li]The soft melody was considered part of the standard formula so composers stuck with it. My understanding is that classical (or “exact music”, as Leonard Bernstein described it) is very formulaic and rulebound.[/li][/ol]
Mostly #4, with an emphasis on the formulaic and rulebound. The basic idea of musical composition is to start with a melody and work out from there to progressively more elaborate variations on it, so it tends to start simple and work its way up to the big finish. Hindemith was considered kind of a rebel because he started at the most complex and worked his way through to a very simple statement of the melody at the end.
And, yes, sometimes composers start off with a bang to wake everybody up, then cool their jets for a while.
The reason, which isn’t on your list of possibilities, is that contrast is an important element of classical music—and many other art forms as well. Even the most berserk action movies, like Mad Max: Fury Road, have some quiet moments.
I also think you’re mis-characterizing the parts (of classical works) that you don’t enjoy. They aren’t all “slow and sleepy.” Just because those parts are boring to you doesn’t mean they’re boring to everybody.
At any rate, there are classical works which are dramatic and exciting from start to finish; Shostakovich’s Festive Overture comes to mind.
You consider the possibility that the musicians can’t keep up that energy for long… but can the audience? If you had a whole symphony that was as bombastic as the opening of the Fifth, the listeners would be exhausted by the end. You can’t compare it to a modern piece being high-energy “for the whole song”, because most modern songs are much shorter. And even on an album or playlist all of whose songs are high-energy, there will be a pause between songs, and they’re likely to be different sorts of energy.
What the others said, especially erysichthon. (Even before I read those responses, I was thinking of answering, “For kind of the same reason that movies aren’t all car chases and explosions.”)
The best symphonies give a slow build, gathering intensity until they reach a climax, then release the tension and begin building again. You don’t need frantic and loud to build musical tension.
In terms of a whole symphony, the structure is such that there are slow parts for reasons others have mentioned. You do need some contrast. But I don’t think the premise is correct for movements. Consider the 4th Movement of Beethoven’s Fifth, or the Fourth of the Fourth Symphony, or the second part of the 4th movement of the Ninth, or the 3rd movement of the Emperor piano concerto. All exciting all the way through.
I don’t buy point 3 in the OP. At least not for Beethoven. He was famous for trashing the relatively feeble pianos of the day.
It’s called dynamics, music is like a living, breathing animal, a star being born, existing, and then exploding, it goes through seasons, and lives a sort of short life.
The commoners were playing exciting jibs and they would dance about and frolic to them. To seem more elite, the composers would have wanted to have avoided anything too bouncy, lest the music seem too low-class.
People would talk during the performance fairly commonly (at least in Opera) and only the rare person would have really appreciated the music for the music itself. For many, even the loud, boisterous segments that are already there would have simply been obnoxious, since it would distract from whatever conversations people were having.
A) I cannot picture composers of art music sitting around contemplating “how to make my music classier so the rubes don’t enjoy it,” even in the days when they were sponsored by kings, dukes, and bishops.
B) Lots of art composers incorporated folk music into their work, including boisterous peasant dances. Off the top of my head: Brahms, Liszt, Mahler, Bartok.
I can easily imagine country western musicians questioning whether they should include rock/pop influences in their music. I can easily imagine people in the early 20th century questioning whether they should include African American influences in their music.
You don’t refrain from incorporating African American influences so that African Americans won’t enjoy it. You don’t include it because you don’t want to piss off the racist rich guys and their wives who you depend on to pay you and promote your music.
Hollywood doesn’t make all the superheroes straight because they want to keep LGBTQ audiences away. They want access to the Chinese marketplace.
I was aware that Mozart did. I may be wrong.
Though, I’d be curious how many non-famous composers did? It could be the ones who were more adventurous and willing to incorporate more things - scandalous or not - that have lasted through the ages.
I don’t listen to heavy metal, but I have the classic rock station on in my car pretty much all the time. Even the hardest rockers have ballads. For every “Welcome to the Jungle” there’s a “November Rain.” If I went to a rock concert and all they did was thrash around for the full set, yeah, I might have audio overload or audience fatigue.
I think this is spot on. It’s the buildup of tension that makes the release even that much better. I love roller coasters, and there’s something to be said for a quick drop ride, but for the longer ones, the small dips and gentle banks help prepare you for that adrenaline-rush massive bang drop. I’m sure I’m not the only one to get all worked up on that slow crank up the hill, as you approach the apex–and then your stomach falls out.
I think the varied tempo of longer classical pieces is just like that.
Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots, famous and obscure. It was and continues to be a ridiculously common practice (although in recent years it’s considered a bit naff to do so unironically). Yes, Mozart did it (one might note his rather famous piano variations on the children’s song “Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman”, better known to us as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”). Vaughan Williams made a significant study of English folk music and incorporated it into his works, and many other nationalist composers likewise used folk tunes. And the further back you go the more common it was; one of the most popular secular tunes, now going on 600 years of use by composers, is L’homme armé. The same Karl Jenkins mentioned in the OP wrote a work based on it about 20 years ago.
To answer the OP: the main reason remains, as already pointed out, contrast. A half-hour piece at fortissimo would be rather dull. Soft passages throw the loud ones into sharp relief, and long crescendos to a climax are much more exciting than just blasting away from start to finish. Even Sousa marches include softer sections to make the loud sections more thrilling. That said, there are plenty of works with long, intense sections. They’re still not at full volume all the way through, but they sure as hell aren’t “sleepy”.
As for the reasons posited by the OP:
Hahahahahahaha…no. Being a professional musician requires an astounding amount of physical and mental stamina, which is one of the reasons constant practice is required. Something like Wagner’s Ring Cycle would wear out the audience before it wears out the orchestra.
Some of it was intended as background music, true. Some of it was for dancing, and quite a lot of it was for church worship. Once you get into the 19th century, however, an increasing amount of it was for dramatic or pure entertainment purposes. Which also correlates with…
No. The danger isn’t that the instruments would spontaneously explode. However, earlier ensembles were smaller and the instruments (on the whole) were quieter. The 19th century also saw the rise of the expansion of the orchestra and the need for louder instruments as audiences and venues changed. In particular the brass section got a lot bigger - and louder.
Nngh. Depending on the time period under discussion there were certainly, if not “rules”, then strong conventions. But composers have always stretched, played around with and openly broken conventions when it suited their purposes, with varying degrees of success. Convention was always driven by demand - it’s not “I can’t write a whole big loud piece because the rules say I can’t”; it’s “I can’t write a whole big loud piece because nobody (and particularly the people who will give me money for it) wants a whole big loud piece.” As noted under #2 it all depended on what the music was for.
There are plenty of pieces written for piano / harpsi that are “intense” (which I’m taking here to mean high tempo + intricate) throughout.
So what kind of music are we saying needs to qualify for the OP? An entire orchestra playing intensely for several minutes? Well it’s obvious why that wouldn’t be popular: it would be assault on the ears. Too much to focus on, too exhausting.
I was just reading Scott McCloud’s Making Comics the other night, and he makes the same point many have above – something dramatic and intense has a much greater impact when contrasted by longer periods of less intense material. Just having intense material dilutes its impact.
That said, I have to dispute the OP’s premise. Only a minute? When’s the last time you heard the opening movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony? It typically runs about 15 minutes, and a lot of it is pretty intense. Wikipedia claims the last quarter is an extended coda. Similarly, although you cite the Fifth Symphony, I don’t think you can say that its intensity only lasts a minute. Most of the first and fourth movements are pretty dramatic, fast, and engaging. Certainly for more than sixty seconds at a time. Or virtually the entire fourth movement of Dvorak’s new World Symphony, or the fourth movement of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade ?