Rhythm

By Thomas Erma Møller (Translated from Norwegian by Sarah Osa)

Do you enjoy dancing or exercising to music? Do you put music on when you are cooking dinner or relaxing on the sofa? If this is the case, you are probably sensitive to musical tempo and rhythm. The classical composers were too. Some composed music with a brisk pulse and clear rhythmical patterns. Others have composed music where pulse and rhythm were barely noticeable. And some legendary classical compositions are more famous for their rhythm than for anything else 

The classical music which in terms of tempo and rhythm lies closest to today’s popular music is that which is written between 1700 and 1750. This music often has an even pulse and a stable tempo which is retained throughout a whole piece or a part of a piece. Composers of the time used many repetitive rhythmical patterns which contributed to making the music easy to dance to, and this music was in fact often used as dance music. Listen to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, for example, Georg Friedrich Handels Water Music, or Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.

Although orchestral music composed in the second half of the 18th century is less often tied to dance, it often exhibits an even pulse - listen to the rapid parts of a symphony or string quartet by Joseph Haydn or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for instance. The same can be said for Ludvig van Beethoven’s music. Furthermore, he started to shift the pulse and to use more advanced rhythmical patterns. And in his famous “Fate” Symphony (Symphony No. 5), it is the distinct rhythm —ta, ta, ta, taaaaa— which has become the most recognisable to most people and which the entire symphony is built on.

Orchestral music written during the 19th century is rarely suitable for dancing or exercising because the rhythms are so complex while the tempo is more varied, also within the pieces themselves. Most of this music is created for concentrated listening in a concert hall. That doesn’t mean that the the rhythmical element is less important, however — rather the opposite — and one of the composers who created complex rhythms was Johannes Brahms. His Symphony No. 1 begins with the intense hammering of an even pulse, but later features complex rhythmical structures and occasionally several rhythmical layers in conflict with one another. Other composers working during the same period continued to compose pure dance music, such as Tchaikovsky did in his well-known ballets, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

The forward-thinking composers of the 20th century took these advanced rhythms in many different directions. Claude Debussy wrote music which often has a subtle and complex use of rhythmical elements, but often lacks an even pulse and where the rhythmical patterns might be veiled or obscure. This allows the music to float or billow such as in his famed La Mer (“The Sea”). Others wrote equally complex music, but where the rhythmical patterns are often distinct and marked. Igor Stravinsky, Belá Bartók and Serge Prokofiev sometimes wrote music where every instrument is used as a percussion instrument and where strongly defined rhythms might shift the listener’s perception of timing and pulse. This music is not easy to dance to — not even  Stravinsky’s ballets such as The Rite of Spring, Petrushka and The Firebird — but it’s still pretty powerful!

Nevertheless, orchestral music with a fast pulse and distinct and repeated rhythmical elements was still being composed during the 20th century. A good example is Ravel’s Bolero, where the rhythm, at first played only on a snare drum, defines the whole piece, gradually gaining in intensity until its overwhelming conclusion. Also the “theme of invasion” in the first movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad” is accompanied by a distinct rhythmical pattern on a snare drum which gradually increases in intensity. Another example is “Mars, the Bringer of War” from The Planets by Gustav Holst. Here the same rhythmical pattern is hammered out, which contributes to an increasing sense of unease, especially as the beat is the unusual and uneven 5/4.

An even more current example of the fact that also classical music can be based on a fast pulse and a “groove” is much of the minmalistic music which was composed from the 1960’s onwards. Just listen to Steve Reich’s hypnotic Music for 18 Musicians! Some of the same idea can be found in the music of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, but here the composer usually displays a very meditative, calm and relaxed pulse, such as in his Spiegel im Spiegel or Fratres.

Making musical rhythms more advanced has been a primary aim for many composers of classical music. This means that much of the music composed after 1800 is not that easy to dance or exercise to. Still, if one allows a variety of different rhythms fill one’s ears, head and body, it makes for a rich and exciting experience.