Casual music

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Opportunity music or Kasualmusik called music, which is composed for a specific occasion and usually only listed once, similar occasional poetry is written for a specific purpose or carried forward.

history

Almost all music up to the end of the 18th century was casual music, i.e. was composed for a specific public or private purpose and for specific performers, such as for liturgical occasions , weddings or celebrations. It was a special honor for musicians, for example, to present a new work on the occasion of a courtly occasion such as the celebration of a victorious battle or a princely wedding.

Since the late 18th century, when a musical repertoire began to form and the educated middle class gained strength, was on the contrary music that transcends time, the ideal of art music . Occasional music, which was often less permanent, seemed to be of less importance.

Since then, the opportunity of the world premiere has been mentioned less often in the printed editions of many works, except for dance music or salon music . In the light music is also a repertoire of music for specific occasions trained.

Political connotations

From the 19th century onwards, music that was composed “for its own sake”, what was called autonomous music , gained importance . As a supporter of the 1848 revolution, the composer Richard Wagner lamented this detachment of the concert system from the social context and coined the term absolute music , which he meant negatively.

The critic and musicologist Eduard Hanslick used the term casual music specifically for political music, from which he had distanced himself after the events of 1848.

In the 1920s, casual music was revalued again under the heading of utility music and ten years later it was again caught up in political instrumentalisation.

When music is classified according to the performance opportunities, it is called functional music .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. For example Ernst Challier (ed.): Catalog of Occasional Music: a classified directory of compositions for occasions of all kinds of vocal and instrumental music in the most varied of instrumentation, Challier, Gießen 1897.
  2. ↑ "We find the first occasional music with political content in 1794 [...]." Eduard Hanslick: History of the concert industry in Vienna. Volume 1, Braumüller, Vienna 1869, p. 170. - "A few months after this patriotic casual music [1848] the composer was executed as a traitor." Eduard Hanslick: From my life. Bärenreiter, Kassel 1987, p. 76.