Question:
Which eras are polyphony and homophony from (i.e. medieval, Romantic, Classical,etc.)?
?
2011-06-21 13:13:03 UTC
Studying for Gr.12 music exam =D
Four answers:
wvculturallover
2011-06-21 13:46:59 UTC
Medieval chant....monophonic

Renaissance masses/madrigals Polyphonic

Baroque...mix of homophonic and polyphonic

Classical....homophonic

Romantic....more homophonic than polyphonic



Edit: When answering the question, I tried to give an overview of an entire period. I qualified the Renaissance with its many masses and madrigals as being written in polyphonic style because of the many overlapping melodic lines....masses for divided choirs. These are the surely the major compositional efforts of the era rather than the simpler renaissance dances. The Baroque era with its many contrapuntal keyboard and vocal compositions by Handel and Bach was so important that late 18th century composers such as Mozart studied their works to gain the skill of writing in polyphony. Hence the few fugues written by Mozart. Handel's opera and oratorio arias were homophonic in style but his great choruses often were written in polyphony.

The classical era was more homophonic than polyphonic. I just stated that Mozart studied the works of Bach to learn contrapuntal composition and he used it on occasion, but he is not a good example of a composer who writes frequently in polyphony.



In the Romantic era, the over-all use of polyphony was slight. One doesn't think of the 19th century as the century of fugues and canons. Wagner wrote in a polyphonic style in his Meistersinger overture to show that he was capable of writing in such a learned form, but again, you wouldn't point to the works of Wagner as great examples of polyphony any more than you would Tchaikovsky or Brahms.
joshuacharlesmorris
2011-06-21 14:39:42 UTC
For most musical periods it's not as simple as one or the other. Bach wrote some highly contrapuntal fugues as well as some simply homophonic and monophonic pieces. Even within the same work you often get a mix of homophony and polyphony. The opening to Mozart symphony 40 is homophonic, the third movement of the same symphony is polyphonic.
Raymond
2011-06-21 16:37:56 UTC
Both types of musical textures are used in Western art music since the Middle Ages (e.g. polyphonic organa and homophonic estampies) though ''homophony (a term which first appears in English with Charles Burney in 1776) [became] one of the predominant textures in Western music during the Baroque period in the early 17th century, when composers began to commonly compose with vertical harmony in mind, the homophonic basso continuo becoming a definitive feature of the style.'' (wiki)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homophony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphony



Best,



Raymond
?
2016-09-29 01:26:59 UTC
Homophony


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