50 Moments that Rocked the Classical Music World E-Book

Darren Henley

• Herausgeber: Elliott & Thompson
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 279

Beschreibung

An eclectic, fun and informative guide to the 50 moments that changed classical music forever, from technological advances in music recording and practical innovations, to landmark concerts, the births and deaths of the great composers, and much more. Published in partnership with Classic FM, the book will have a wide appeal to classical music fans of all kinds, seeking equally to educate, inform and entertain, and uncovers a rich and often unexpected history of classical music. Written by the authors of the bestselling The Classic FM Hall of Fame and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Classical Music ... But Were Too Afraid to Ask, 50 Moments that Rocked the Classical Music World is the perfect gift for the classical music aficionado, as well as anyone new to the genre looking to get their first foothold on the mountain of classical music.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Introduction

1 Banging and Blowing: The First Musical Instruments

2 Sing a Song of Christmas: The Development of the Carol

3 Getting it Written Down: The Introduction of Musical Notation

4 Changing the Tune: The First Use of Polyphony

5 The Cruellest Cut: Castrati Come to Prominence

6 Strike Up the Band: The Invention of the Symphony

7 Making it in a Man’s World: Hildegard of Bingen

8 Sharing the Music: The Invention of the Printing Press

9 By Royal Appointment: The Master of the King’s Musick

10 Music and Movement: The First Ballet

11 Baroque ’n’ Roll: A New Musical Era

12 A Capital Hit: Handel in London

13 Religious Change: Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation

14 Words and Music: The First Opera

15 The World’s Greatest Opera House: La Scala, Milan

16 Classic Discovery: Another Era of Change

17 The Instrument-Maker Extraordinaire: Antonio Stradivari

18 Taking the Orchestra to Another Level: Hector Berlioz

19 The World’s First Classical Music Superstar: Franz Liszt

20 Romanticism Arrives: Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’

21 Putting on a Show: The Founding of the Royal Philharmonic Society

22 Beating Time: The Baton and the Conductor

23 Rewriting the Rules: The ‘Tristan Chord’

24 A New World Order: Impressionism and Classical Music

25 A Matter of Record: The Invention of the Gramophone

26 Musical Numbers: The Advent of Serialism

27 We Predict a Riot: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring

28 The Lure of the Silver Screen: The First Film Soundtrack

29 A New Polish: ‘Furniture Music’

30 Making Money and All That Jazz: George Gershwin

31 Back to the Future: The Rediscovery of Vivaldi’s Violin Concertos

32 Silence Is Golden: John Cage’s 4'33"

33 The TV Age: Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts

34 After This Break: Classical Music and Advertising

35 Russian Revolution: The Death of Joseph Stalin

36 The Pianist Who Conquered Russia: Van Cliburn

37 Cartoon Classics: Walt Disney’s Fantasia

38 Less Is More: The Introduction of Minimalism

39 Hitting the Right Note: The 1980 International Chopin Piano Competition

40 The Medium Is the Message: The Invention of the Compact Disc

41 New Ways of Doing Business: The Budget Classical Label

42 On Top of the World: The Three Tenors in Rome

43 Music for the Masses: Classic FM Is Born

44 Classical – But Not as You Know It: Crossover Music

45 Digital Dexterity: Composing on Computer

46 Music as Peace: The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

47 The Next Generation: The Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra and El Sistema

48 Technology Changes Everything Again: The Digital Download Revolution

49 World Wide Web: Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir

50 Could Video Kill the Classical Star? Videogame Soundtracks

Where to Find Out More

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Index

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

This is one of those books that might cause arguments. Not the sort of argument that results in slammed doors, long-term sulks and all-round falling out, but rather the sort of argument that you might have with a close friend over a pint in the pub or while sipping a tall skinny wet latte in Starbucks. It will probably spark more of what you’d think of as an ‘informed discussion’ than an out-and-out row. You see, it’s quite possible that we have set ourselves up for a bit of a fall with the whole concept of this book. Here we are writing the introduction and already we realise that we could be pilloried both for what we choose to include and because of what we choose to leave out.

If the truth be told, the idea of identifying 50 moments that have rocked the classical music world is a wholly subjective exercise. If you were sitting an exam and were asked to ‘List the top 50 biggest changes in the development of classical music’, there would be no definitive right and wrong answers, rather a set of differing points of view. This is the sort of book that critics love to review in the Sunday papers, because they can take issue with the central proposition and then give example after example of things that the author should have written. So, right at the start, we hold our hands up and admit the subjectivity of the book. It’s partisan, and for that we are unapologetic. We realise it is unlikely that we have published a definitive list and that there could ever be complete consensus on how that list might look.

One of the great things about classical music is that it’s a voyage of personal discovery. Even though Classic FM has been broadcasting the world’s greatest music for more than two decades, every day we discover new classical works, exciting young artists and fresh recordings that cast old favourites in a completely new light. So, it’s quite possible that if we had written this book ten years ago, or we were to sit down and write it all over again in ten years’ time, then we might well arrive at a completely different set of 50 moments.

It’s true to say that some of the moments we have chosen might unite pretty much all musicologists in agreement because there is a sense that they are universally regarded as being important factors in the way that music has developed; but other entries in our top 50 choices could bring some classical music experts out in hives. Equally, one or two musical historians will be very cross that their particular musical passions might seemingly have been overlooked altogether.

Those people who earn a living from composing and performing music right now might well take a different view again from those with a more historical perspective, possibly regarding the key points of substantial change in classical music’s development as centring around their particular musical instrument or type of composition.

And then there’s another group: those people who haven’t studied classical music and don’t work in the classical music industry, but nonetheless have built up a good working knowledge of the genre. They know what they like and might be surprised to find that there is less of a reflection of their own personal tastes in this book than they would perhaps like to see.

When you add in that people also tend to regard classical music slightly differently depending on where in the world they come from and which aspects of the genre they have been exposed to during their formative years, then our job is even further complicated.

We believe that each one of these groups is absolutely right in its view of the important bits of classical music – even though they all have slightly differing opinions of exactly what these important bits actually are. At the same time, we’re more than happy to defend our own choices over the following pages.

So, let’s be clear at the start. We have chosen these 50 moments after a huge amount of debate between ourselves. At first, we wondered whether we should include many more examples, but after hours of discussions (some of them over a pint in the pub, but more often while sipping one of countless tall skinny wet lattes in Starbucks) we eventually arrived at these 50 particular moments.

What were the criteria that we used? Well, as with all of our Classic FM books, we have rooted ourselves in the world of Classic FM itself and used this as the starting point for our deliberations. Since we first began broadcasting back in 1992, we have crystallised a very clear idea of what music our listeners want to hear and also what they would rather we didn’t broadcast. Much of this information has been gleaned through extensive research among those people who already tune in to Classic FM on a regular basis as well as among those who are potential future listeners to the station.

We know that there is a great thirst for knowledge among the millions of people who listen to Classic FM across the UK each week. So, this book should very much be seen as a companion to two of our previous books: The Classic FM Hall of Fame and Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Classical Music . . . But Were Too Afraid To Ask. The first of these books was an exploration of the top 300 most popular classical works, as voted in our annual listeners’ poll, while the latter was an introduction to the whole gamut of classical music. We didn’t just attempt to demystify the composers, eras and general musical terminology, but also to lift the lid on attending live concerts and building a collection of recordings for those people starting to find out about classical music for the very first time. If you have already enjoyed reading these two books, you might well see this new addition to your bookshelves as a natural next step along your journey of classical music discovery, as it allows us to pause along the way and delve into those major moments in more detail than we have done previously.

We are unequivocal in our belief that classical music can – and should – be enjoyed by everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from. So, it is inevitable that our own personal choices of the 50 moments that rocked the classical music world will centre on those events that have tended to have a democratising and proselytising effect. For us, each one of the 50 moments that we have chosen marks an important turning point in classical music’s history. Usually, it consists of a radical departure from what had previously been seen as the norm. This change could have come from within the music itself, from the composers or performers, or it could be as a result of external forces, such as a particular technological advance or a new invention.

It’s worth noting at this stage that although we talk throughout the book about particular ‘moments’ in classical music history, it would be fair to say that many of these ‘moments’ are hard to pin down. For example, there wasn’t a particular day in a particular month in a particular year when every composer woke up in the morning and suddenly decided that polyphonic music was the order of the day. Instead, this was a culmination of years of musical development and the growth of a particular sound and style as different composers wrote music that added to the music of the time. But, nonetheless, the introduction of polyphonic music remains a momentous occasion in the overall story of classical music – and so we have chosen to include it here.

We hope that you agree with all 50 of our choices of the moments that rocked the classical music world, but we’re sure you’ll feel that some of your own personal favourites are missing. We would love to hear what you think – you can let us know by going to our website and filling in the online form at www.ClassicFM.com/50moments. Perhaps we will very quickly end up with enough of your ideas to fill the pages of a second volume. In the meantime, happy reading!

BANGING AND BLOWING: THE FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

In the mid-1850s, ancient human remains were discovered in the Neander Valley in Germany, providing evidence of some of the oldest human life known to date. The skeletons of people – soon nicknamed ‘Neanderthals’ after the place in which they were found – have provided a fascinating insight into life as far back as 100,000 years ago. Some of the more recent Neanderthal remains to have been uncovered demonstrate how music has been central to human existence for a great many centuries.

In 1995, Neanderthal skeletons were discovered at Divje Babe in Slovenia. Believe it or not, the leg bone of a young cave bear provided one of the most fascinating insights into the importance of music in the lives of our ancestors. The bone in question had clearly been broken at both ends and contained a series of adjacent separate holes. In other words, it could well have been a very early form of flute. Soon after its discovery, though, a debate raged among scholars as to whether this really was the world’s oldest musical instrument, or whether it was, in fact, just a bone with a few bite marks in it. The debate has continued for many years, with a number of archaeological experts absolutely certain that the object is indeed a flute. If that is the case, then it provides proof that humankind has been making its own musical instruments for around 50,000 years or more.

Whether or not the so-called ‘Neanderthal Flute’ is indeed bona fide (if you’ll excuse the pun), it’s clear that many musical instruments have been around for thousands of years. The flute was definitely one of the earliest ones: even if the discovery in Slovenia was nothing more than an animal’s leg bone, we know for sure that in c. 5000 BC, people in India were making primitive flutes out of wood. They even carved some of them into the shape of animals or birds. But the discovery at Divje Babe was an important moment in the history of classical music, because it encouraged people to question exactly when these instruments first made their imprint on history.

We should emphasise that it’s impossible to pinpoint the exact moment of any early instrument’s ‘invention’. Very early humans probably knew a thing or two about percussion, even if they didn’t yet have drums to hit or sticks with which to beat. And most of the instruments we hear today evolved over time, rather than being the brainchild of one particular man or woman. Nevertheless, the arrival of one instrument on the scene arguably changed the course of classical music more than any other. Prior to the 18th century, ‘piano’ was just an Italian word, meaning ‘softly’ or ‘quietly’. But between 1700 and 1720, ‘piano’ took on a new sense, referring to the instrument that today transcends classical music, pop and rock to be one of the most famous inventions in world history. And, on this occasion, it is justified to refer to it as an invention.

Bartolomeo Cristofori worked for Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici in Florence, where his role was to look after the royal court’s instrument collection. He evidently had a little spare time, though, because when he wasn’t tending to Prince Ferdinando’s harpsichords he was able to invent an entirely new keyboard instrument, which would go on to change classical music for ever. In 1700, Cristofori created the first ever piano – which, crucially, had hammers and dampers, enabling the player to alter the volume of the sound each key made, something that had never before been possible. One of the earliest documents to describe this new instrument was written in 1711, by the journalist and poet Scipione Maffei. He referred to it as a ‘gravicembalo col piano, e forte’ – which translates as ‘a harpsichord with soft and loud’. Hence the instrument eventually gaining the full name of ‘pianoforte’, (meaning ‘soft loud’), which is commonly shortened to ‘piano’.

Given its popularity across the world today, it seems remarkable that the piano was something of a slow-burner in early 18th-century Italy. You might be forgiven for presuming that this major new invention became the must-have instrument for any musical family or royal court, but it actually took quite some time for people to realise the significance of Cristofori’s creation. Within a few decades, though, the piano’s appeal had spread far and wide. In the Classical era, composers such as Mozart and Haydn wrote reams of music for the instrument, and it was often the case that famous composers were equally well known for their prowess as piano soloists.

The piano is unique in having a social history that runs alongside its musical history. By the end of the 19th century, it had become as common in aspirational middle-class households as fine bone china and a copy of The Times newspaper, whereas around the time of its invention, it was a rare and unusual instrument, which therefore cost a vast sum of money and was well out of the reach of the average person. It has become one of the most all-embracing of instruments: the piano is equally at home in a local pub as it is on the stage of London’s Royal Festival Hall. Without doubt, Bartolomeo Cristofori’s clever keyboard invention in 1700 was a moment that would go on to rock the classical music world – and the wider world, too.

SING A SONG OF CHRISTMAS: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CAROL

Many of the 50 moments described over the coming pages are, by definition, very easy to pinpoint: they focus on a precise date in history, when something seismic happened in the classical music world. Others, by contrast, are less simple to whittle down to a single moment, despite the fact that their impact was just as significant, if not more so.

In the case of the first Christmas carol, there’s considerable debate as to when people started singing songs about the birth of Jesus. For Christians, the Gospel of Saint Luke provides the answer in Chapter 2, with angels singing on the night of Jesus’s birth: ‘Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests”’ (New International Version).

However, there is an argument that carols in fact predate Jesus’s birth. The original meaning of the word ‘carol’ was ‘to dance around something’. In the case of the early pagans, that ‘something’ would be a stone circle marking the position of the sun at the winter solstice. Whichever moment carols first started to be sung, it’s clear that they have played a central role in the musical life of cultures across the world for thousands of years.

When it comes to the Christmas carols we know and love today, one of the oldest at the popular end of the repertoire is O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ – or, to give it its original Latin title, ‘Veni, Veni, Emmanuel’. Composed as a 12th-century chant, it wasn’t translated into English until the 1850s, at which point its popularity spread in this country and beyond. But there are many examples of the Christmas carol tradition before this: barely a century after the death of Jesus, the then Bishop of Rome apparently encouraged priests to sing songs about Christmas. It wasn’t until the 13th century, though, that ordinary people were invited into the world of carolling.

Francis of Assisi, who has since been dubbed ‘The Father of Carolling’, didn’t think it right that the only people who sang Christmas carols were priests. He wanted everyday Catholics to participate in this joyful act – which, to be honest, had been a rather solemn affair when left solely in the hands of the priests. As he looked back on that ancient scripture about the very first Christmas, Francis wanted to communicate something of the joy of the season, with ordinary people singing out songs of hope and encouragement. This also inspired his creation of the world’s first public nativity scene, at a church in Italy in 1223 – again, something that would bring the Christian message to the masses rather than keeping it exclusively to church officials. It was at this point that, as far as we’re able to, we can pinpoint a precise moment when the classical music world was rocked – for, in 1223, Francis of Assisi composed the song ‘Psalmus in Nativitate’. Containing accessible music and Latin words, this was probably the first dedicated Christmas carol.

Francis of Assisi was passionate about spreading the word about Christianity. To quote his biographer, the 13th-century writer Thomas of Celano, ‘The Child Jesus was forgotten by the hearts of many. But with the grace of God He was resurrected again and recalled to loving memory in those hearts through His servant, the Blessed Francis.’ All his carols were written in Latin, but the tradition soon spread from Italy to other parts of Europe – most notably, France and Spain. The first song written in England with the express purpose of being a carol dates from the turn of the 15th century, and before long, many fine composers were writing music for the season.

It was soon commonplace for carols to be sung among groups of people – in homes, in streets, wherever members of the public gathered together. Francis of Assisi was a real democratiser of this music, taking it beyond the four walls of the church and encouraging ordinary people to experience carols for themselves. You yourself might have gathered with some of your neighbours at Christmas time, going from door to door singing carols together; this tradition is actually centuries old, and is one of the consequences of St Francis’s desire to spread the Christmas message to as many people as possible.

Perhaps surprisingly, there are occasions throughout history when carols have caused controversy. O Come, All Ye Faithful’, for example, might not be all it seems – certainly not if some research published by a Durham-based academic in 2008 is to be believed. Professor Bennett Zon, Head of Music at Durham University, told the Daily Telegraph that the original Latin version of the carol, Adeste Fideles, might have had a hidden meaning. ‘There is far more to this beloved song than meets the eye,’ he said. ‘Fideles is Faithful Catholic Jacobites . . . The meaning of the Christmas carol is clear: “Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels” really means, “Come and Behold Him, Born the King of the English” – Bonnie Prince Charlie!’

And that’s not all: in the Victorian era, there were concerns that the relatively modern carol ‘While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night’ was too secular in its approach, with simple words that lacked the beauty (and, therefore, holiness) of other sacred songs.

In the last couple of centuries, the tradition of Christmas carolling has developed still further. In many ways, it has come full circle: non-religious carols existed before the birth of Christ, and in the last 200 years lots of secular carols have been composed – from ‘Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly’ to O Tannenbaum’, and ‘Jingle Bells’ to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’. All of these songs owe a debt of gratitude to Francis of Assisi – because, without him, the tradition of singing music together at Christmas time might never have developed in such an all-embracing way.

GETTING IT WRITTEN DOWN: THE INTRODUCTION OF MUSICAL NOTATION

Just like any other form of communication, music is a language. Through it, we can share something powerful that speaks to us very deeply – and the method that enables this to happen is one of the most significant developments in the history of all music.

Whether or not you play an instrument, the chances are that you already have at least a basic understanding of what written-down music looks like. Most commonly, those five horizontal lines (the stave); the hashtag-style sharp and the flat that looks like a wonky letter ‘b’; and the variously decorated notes, all of which give the performer an idea of what they should be playing and how it should sound. And, just as the development of the written word was pivotal to the spread of language, so the invention of notation was a true line-in-the-sand moment in the musical world.

We can be almost certain that music of some form or another has been part of life since the dawn of time. From birdsong right the way through to that innate human tendency to whistle a tune, it’s likely that music has been in existence for as long as humanity. Writing in the Musical Times and Singing Class Circular way back in 1866, one Henry C. Lunn commented, ‘I do not intend to frighten my readers by attempting to discover the origin of music. We have a right to believe it commenced with the existence of man upon the earth.’ But when it comes to notation, as far as we’re able to pinpoint a precise moment in history, we have to turn our attention to the 1st century AD – and to a piece of music known as the Seikilos Epitaph.

This was, quite simply, a song of its day, with both the music and the Greek lyrics notated on a piece of stone. It was discovered in the late 19th century, and for the very first time, human beings could begin to understand the point at which their forebears had first started to communicate music visually. It evidently took quite some time, though, before this primitive form of notation morphed into the traditional ‘five lines with notes’ approach with which we’re so comfortable nowadays. And while we don’t know who to credit for the Seikilos Epitaph, there’s no doubt who was responsible for the style of music notation used across most of the world today.

Guido of Arezzo was an Italian monk, born just before the turn of the 10th century, and he goes down in history as one of classical music’s most influential figures. Quite simply, his new approach laid the foundations for pretty much all the music composed after him. If you’ve ever wondered whom we have to thank for all those notes and dots on the pages of musical manuscript paper, you’ve found your man. Not only was Guido a monk, he was also a respected academic and invented the system of notation that we still use today. His real name was Guido Arentinus, with ‘Arezzo’ coming from the Italian region of the same name, where he lived out the end of his life. Guido was quite the innovator: in addition to coming up with the idea of musical notation, he also challenged the status quo in various monasteries where he was a monk. In his writings, Guido chronicled his attempts to make changes to some of the approaches to liturgical singing. These didn’t always go down well with the powers that be, even leading to him being evicted from the monasteries where he lived.

Fast-forward on a few centuries, and the invention of the printing press enabled a much quicker dissemination of written music (see Moment No. 8), but we needed a system by which the notes could be written down long before this could happen. In the 21st century, notated music is perhaps the most widely understood written language in the world. Those minims, crotchets and quavers are comprehended on a very wide level by people of different races, backgrounds and beliefs. When he devised his own primitive form of notation some 2,000 years ago, Guido of Arezzo could not have begun to imagine the development of his ideas over the centuries that followed – but he would surely be rather proud of where that germ of an idea of his has led.

CHANGING THE TUNE: THE FIRST USE OF POLYPHONY

It would be fair to presume that you, like us, have never flicked through the Musica enchiriadis from cover to cover. This 9th-century treatise contains the first record of ‘polyphony’ – a musical form, the invention of which was a major moment in history, laying the foundations not just for the likes of Bach and Beethoven but for many forms of jazz, pop and rock music, too.

Up until this point, the only known type of music was monophonic. In other words, it had just one, single melodic line, with not much else going on. With the advent of polyphony, music suddenly became rather interesting: two or more melodies could be heard simultaneously, meaning it was possible to add harmonies, embellishments and all sorts of other exciting new ideas to what we might nowadays simplistically call the ‘tune’.

This new form of music was by no means ‘discovered’ in the 9th century, though; rather, it evolved and developed over the best part of six centuries, being widely used within musical circles only from the 1400s onwards. Much of this development took place in the 11th and 12th centuries – a really exciting time, when music, painting and other art forms were gaining new ground and changing at quite a rapid rate. Initially, polyphony manifested itself through chant. Voices would not just sing in unison; instead, one voice would sing a little higher or a little lower than the main melody. Fast-forward on to the end of the 12th century, and polyphony had become more florid. In Paris, the choir of Notre Dame Cathedral was singing an ornate form of music that was the brainchild of a composer by the name of Léonin, who put together the Magnus liber organi (the ‘Great book of organum’ – organum being a form of polyphony).

The 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper once described polyphony as ‘possibly the most unprecedented, original, indeed miraculous achievement of our Western civilisation, not including science’. In fact, the secular nature of its development led to quite some controversy when members of the Catholic Church attempted to introduce polyphonic music to their sung worship. For Christians who had been used to a simple, solemn and uncluttered form of music, the idea of singing different lines, adding in harmonies and welcoming in a form most associated with those outside the Church, was deeply questionable. They also argued that this more intricate style of singing could risk the words becoming lost entirely. As sacred melodies became more layered, with added harmonies appearing around them, there was a fear that the texts being sung to those melodies might have ended up being an irrelevance – not something the Catholic Church wanted to see happening.

Heated debates about the supposedly inappropriate nature of polyphonic music reached their height in Europe in the 14th century. In 1322, Pope John XXII issued a papal bull forbidding its use in church, believing it to be an ungodly form of music. He wrote, ‘There are certain disciples of the new school who, devoting all their attention to measuring time, apply themselves to the making of notes in a different fashion . . . They chop up the chant with notes of short values . . . pollute the melodies with descants and go as far as to muffle the upper voice in the vulgar tongue . . . Under this avalanche of notes, the chaste ascensions and discreet closes of the plainsong, by which the tones themselves are distinguished, become unrecognisable.’

Today, this level of paranoia about polyphonic music seems astonishing, but back then, this was a topic that exercised people very deeply. The Church was worried at the way in which secular music appeared to be taking hold over its own traditions of worship. The Pope was primarily concerned with a movement known as ‘Ars Nova’, which was based in France and which embodied everything the Church feared. Musicians allied with the movement would sometimes encourage people to take a sacred melody and sing a secular text over the top – the ultimate sullying of something holy, as far as Church authorities were concerned.

In 1342, a new pope, Clement VI, was installed at the Vatican, and he brought with him a change of attitude towards polyphony. Clement was himself a fan of this form of music: he didn’t share his predecessor’s fears, and polyphony was therefore free to take hold in the sacred space just as much as it had done in secular circles. Nevertheless, it’s worth bearing in mind that, at this point in history, classical music as we know and love it today was still very much in its infancy. Johann Sebastian Bach would not be born for another 300 or so years, and the world would have to wait even longer before it was graced with the genius of Mozart and Beethoven.

The first real golden age of polyphonic music was not until the 16th century, and was arguably best embodied in England and Italy. The English composer Thomas Tallis is responsible for writing the most famous example of polyphony in the history of choral music. His motet ‘Spem in Alium’ was composed for 40 voices, all singing independent, interweaving lines that together create the most glorious wall of sound. In Italy, meanwhile, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was the greatest example of a master of polyphonic music: you have only to listen to his ‘Stabat Mater’ or the Missa Papae Marcelli to hear this for yourself.

The development of polyphony therefore had huge ramifications in the classical music world. It seems unfathomable for us now to imagine never being able to listen to a harmony, instead enjoying only a single line of plainchant rather than richly textured music. The introduction of polyphony is as important to other musical genres as it is to classical music. Put simply, a world without polyphonic music from the likes of Oscar Peterson, the Beach Boys and Elbow is just as hard to imagine.

THE CRUELLEST CUT: CASTRATI COME TO PROMINENCE

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