Well, keep in mind it wasn't called "Classical" at the time. The label was given to that era (CPE Bach -> early Beethoven, approx 1730-1820, with the rise and dominance of Sonatta form) somewhat later, after classicisim was applied to the whole era, artistically.
The connection to classicism isn't the specifics of following greek or roman musical styles, as aside from the names of the modes and the fact that we know they developed pentatonic scales (from the first 5 distinct pitches of the harmonic series), we know next to nothing about what their music sounded like.
The thing about history is that we were *rediscovering* the ancient greco-roman world for most of the renaissance, along with a few new discoveries as well. But the 18th century was the great application, the enlightenment, where all of the studying of the past finally came to fruition into the invention of something new as opposed to the rediscovery or reproduction of the old. It was the application of classical knowledge to create something new that made the era one of classicism.
That harmonic series connection is important and critical. That classical attitude led to a peak of mathematical perfection in architecture and other art forms. So too in music, where Bach's 12-tone scale achieved a kind of infinite potential but based out of the same circle of fifths that we know through writing that the greeks knew about, but perfected in Bach's rules of diatonicism which allowed for modulations that the modes simply didn't allow for. Add in mathematical perfection in form, through secondary and tertiary form and finally the contained complexity of sonatta form developed by Bach's son and perfected by Mozart, and you have all of the attitude in contemporary work that they associated with that golden age of Greece.
Graceful, mathematical, perfection.
It was always an idealistic connection between classicism and classical Greece, not a realistic or rationalistic one.
Besides, "Ionian" is a mode named for a greek island (and the more influential one at that) just as much as "Dorian" was. Ionian is the mode of the major scale.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 12:10 am (UTC)The connection to classicism isn't the specifics of following greek or roman musical styles, as aside from the names of the modes and the fact that we know they developed pentatonic scales (from the first 5 distinct pitches of the harmonic series), we know next to nothing about what their music sounded like.
The thing about history is that we were *rediscovering* the ancient greco-roman world for most of the renaissance, along with a few new discoveries as well. But the 18th century was the great application, the enlightenment, where all of the studying of the past finally came to fruition into the invention of something new as opposed to the rediscovery or reproduction of the old. It was the application of classical knowledge to create something new that made the era one of classicism.
That harmonic series connection is important and critical. That classical attitude led to a peak of mathematical perfection in architecture and other art forms. So too in music, where Bach's 12-tone scale achieved a kind of infinite potential but based out of the same circle of fifths that we know through writing that the greeks knew about, but perfected in Bach's rules of diatonicism which allowed for modulations that the modes simply didn't allow for. Add in mathematical perfection in form, through secondary and tertiary form and finally the contained complexity of sonatta form developed by Bach's son and perfected by Mozart, and you have all of the attitude in contemporary work that they associated with that golden age of Greece.
Graceful, mathematical, perfection.
It was always an idealistic connection between classicism and classical Greece, not a realistic or rationalistic one.
Besides, "Ionian" is a mode named for a greek island (and the more influential one at that) just as much as "Dorian" was. Ionian is the mode of the major scale.