Chamber music

Today the definition accommodates art music performed by a small group where one performer has only one part to play. Solo instrument performances do not come under its purview.
Chamber music is also known as music of friends due to its very intimate nature. Musicians both professional and amateurs have moved chamber music from the home to the concert hall although down the years, chamber music has been played mostly for personal pleasure. Chamber music requires social and musical skills far different from solo performers or symphonic works.
 
Conversational Music:
Goethe defines chamber music as a rational conversation between four people. This conversational aspect has found its way into the many compositions that characterize chamber music. The 19th century saw dramatic changes in the technology of music that has affected the playing and composition of chamber music.

In the 18th century chamber music was played for the aristocrats and the composers were mostly employees. Count Nikolaus Esterházy was an amateur Baryton player and a music lover and he had Haydn among his employees who wrote string trios specifically for the Count. The King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm II was a cellist. Mozart wrote three string quartets for him. Count Andreas Razumovsky performed many of Beethoven’s quartets on the second violin. The King of Spain played compositions by Boccherini.

The 19th Century:
Stringed instruments saw many changes in their basic structure and around the start of the 19th century luthiers found newer and varied methods of constructing the cello, the viola and the violins. These modifications gave the instruments added carrying power, a rich tone and more volume. Bowmakers found that the violin bow could be made longer and they gave the higher tension a thick layer of hair under it. These changes brought about newer bowing techniques. The chin rest was invented in 1820 by Louis Spohr which gave the violin players a freer left hand which allowed them to be nimble in their movements.

These changes saw very effective results in public performances and it allowed the musicians to widen their range of skills and techniques over and above those that were available for composers of chamber music.

The pianoforte, originally invented by Bartolomeo Cristofori, came under the improvement and modification hammer at the start of the 18th century. But it became a performing instrument only towards the end of the century. This new and improved pianoforte was quickly taken on by many composers including Mozart. The piano went on to become so powerful that composers like Liszt and Chopin began composing exclusively for solos on piano.

Beethoven:
Ludwig van Beethoven is known as the Father of western music and he brought it to new heights when he improved on the existing chamber music in content and execution and in the demand it made to the listeners and the performer. Beethoven’s compositions were considered to be models on which 19th century romanticism was measured for its failures and achievements. Composers were afraid to essay this medium because they found that Beethoven’s compositions were difficult to emulate. Brahms went to the extent of ripping apart at least 20 string quartets before he came up with one which could match Beethoven’s.

Beethoven drifted out on his own with his works. The emerging romantic style was being slowly brought to life by Franz Schubert. His 31 years of music was dominated by chamber music which included a famous quintet for two cells, two violins and a viola, two piano trios, fifteen string quartets, string trios, a piano quintet and an octet for winds and strings. These compositions reflected the contradictions and contrasts of his era and his light mannered compositions were an excellent expression of the Vienna gemütlichkeit in the 1820s.

Brahms:
Brahms was an innovator of musical structure and harmony. His technique did not allow discreet defined phases but it mixed melody motives and ran phases in to one another to create a piece of continuous melody. Arnold Schoenberg called this a developing variation and he used it to put together and create the 12 tone system of composing.  
Johannes Brahms was responsible for the march of Romantic music that took it to the 20th century. Robert Schumann called it an amalgamation of new roads and described it as the bridge between the modern and the classical. He broadened the harmonic vocabulary and structure of chamber music and he challenged the so-called traditional notions of tones. Swafford described this method as “harmonic audacity” and this served as a gateway for more experiments in music which were far bolder than their ancestors.