Relationship with performers In the development of European
classical music, the function of composing music initially did not have much greater importance than that of performing it. The preservation of individual compositions did not receive enormous attention and musicians generally had no qualms about modifying compositions for performance. In the Western world, before the
Romantic period of the 19th century, composition almost always went side by side with a combination of either singing, instructing and
theorizing. Even in a conventional Western piece of instrumental music, in which all of the
melodies,
chords, and
basslines are written out in musical notation, the performer has a degree of latitude to add artistic interpretation to the work, by such means as by varying their articulation and
phrasing, choosing how long to make
fermatas (held notes) or pauses, and — in the case of bowed string instruments, woodwinds or brass instruments — deciding whether to use expressive effects such as
vibrato or
portamento. For a singer or instrumental performer, the process of deciding how to perform music that has been previously composed and notated is termed "interpretation". Different performers' interpretations of the same work of music can vary widely, in terms of the tempos that are chosen and the playing or singing style or phrasing of the melodies. Composers and songwriters who present their music are interpreting, just as much as those who perform the music of others. The standard body of choices and techniques present at a given time and a given place is referred to as
performance practice, whereas interpretation is generally used to mean the individual choices of a performer. Although a
musical composition often has a single author, this is not always the case. A work of music can have multiple composers, which often occurs in
popular music when a band collaborates to write a song, or in
musical theatre, where the songs may be written by one person, the
orchestration of the accompaniment parts and writing of the
overture is done by an orchestrator, and the words may be written by a third person. A piece of music can also be composed with words, images, or, in the 20th and 21st centuries, computer programs that explain or notate how the singer or musician should create musical sounds. Examples of this range from
wind chimes jingling in a breeze, to avant-garde music from the 20th century that uses
graphic notation, to text compositions such as
Aus den Sieben Tagen, to computer programs that select sounds for musical pieces. Music that makes heavy use of randomness and chance is called
aleatoric music, and is associated with contemporary composers active in the 20th century, such as
John Cage,
Morton Feldman, and
Witold Lutosławski. The nature and means of individual variation of the music are varied, depending on the musical culture in the country and the time period it was written. For instance, music composed in the
Baroque era, particularly in slow tempos, often was written in bare outline, with the expectation that the performer would add improvised
ornaments to the melody line during a performance. Such freedom generally diminished in later eras, correlating with the increased use by composers of more detailed scoring in the form of dynamics, articulation, and so on; composers became uniformly more explicit in how they wished their music to be interpreted, although how strictly and minutely these are dictated varies from one composer to another. Because of this trend of composers becoming increasingly specific and detailed in their instructions to the performer, a culture eventually developed whereby faithfulness to the composer's written intention came to be highly valued (see, for example,
Urtext edition). This musical culture is almost certainly related to the high esteem (bordering on veneration) in which the leading classical composers are often held by performers. The
historically informed performance movement has revived to some extent the possibility of the performer elaborating seriously the music as given in the score, particularly for
Baroque music and music from the early
Classical period. The movement might be considered a way of creating
greater faithfulness to the original in works composed at a time that expected performers to
improvise. In genres other than classical music, the performer generally has more freedom; thus for instance when a performer of Western popular music creates a "cover" of an earlier song, there is little expectation of exact rendition of the original; nor is exact faithfulness necessarily highly valued (with the possible exception of "note-for-note" transcriptions of famous
guitar solos). In Western art music, the composer typically
orchestrates their compositions, but in musical theatre and pop music, songwriters may hire an
arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop songwriter may not use notation at all, and, instead, compose the song in their mind and then play or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written scores play in classical music. The study of composition has traditionally been dominated by the examination of methods and practice of Western classical music, but the definition of composition is broad enough for the creation of popular and traditional music songs and instrumental pieces and to include spontaneously improvised works like those of
free jazz performers and African percussionists such as
Ewe drummers.
History of employment During the Middle Ages, most composers worked for the
Catholic church and composed music for religious services such as
plainchant melodies. During the
Renaissance music era, composers typically worked for aristocratic employers. While aristocrats typically required composers to produce a significant amount of religious music, such as
Masses, composers also penned many non-religious songs on the topic of
courtly love: the respectful, reverential love of a great woman from afar. Courtly love songs were very popular during the Renaissance era. During the
Baroque music era, many composers were employed by aristocrats or as church employees. During the
Classical period, composers began to organize more public concerts for profit, which helped composers to be less dependent on aristocratic or church jobs. This trend continued in the
Romantic music era in the 19th century. In the 20th century, composers began to seek employment as professors in universities and conservatories. In the 20th century, composers also earned money from the sales of their works, such as
sheet music publications of their songs or pieces or as
sound recordings of their works.
Role of women In 1993, American
musicologist Marcia Citron asked, "Why is music composed by women so marginal to the standard 'classical' repertoire?" Citron "examines the practices and attitudes that have led to the exclusion of women composers from the received '
canon' of performed musical works." She argues that in the 1800s, women composers typically wrote
art songs for performance in small recitals rather than
symphonies intended for performance with an orchestra in a large hall, with the latter works being seen as the most important genre for composers; since women composers did not write many symphonies, they were deemed to be not notable as composers. During the Medieval eras, most of the art music was created for liturgical (religious) purposes and due to the views about the roles of women that were held by religious leaders, few women composed this type of music, with the nun
Hildegard von Bingen being among the exceptions. Most university textbooks on the history of music discuss almost exclusively the role of male composers. As well, very few works by women composers are part of the standard repertoire of classical music. In
Concise Oxford History of Music, "
Clara Shumann is one of the only female composers mentioned", ==Modern training==