# Define 'Chamber Music'



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Here's an excerpt from The _String Quartet_, 1750-1797 : _Four Types_ of Musical Conversation by Parker, _Mara-_
"In its original sense, “chamber music” simply meant music which belonged to the nobility at court as opposed to music of the church or theater. This is confirmed in the contemporary writings of Johann Walter (Musicalisches Lexikon, 1732), Meinrado Spiess (Tractatus Musicus Compositorio-Practicus, 1745), and Heinrich Koch (Musikalisches Lexikon, 1802). By the mid-eighteenth century, it also was heard in the common household and served as a form of relatively inexpensive private entertainment. Although our current convention is to use the term to designate a medium which requires but one person to a part, during the 1700s, “chamber music” denoted something different. Eighteenth-century musicians and theorists recognized three functions of music: to enhance worship in church (ecclesiasticus), to heighten the drama in the theater (itheatralis), and to provide entertainment in the court or chamber (cubicularis). This distinction was maintained well into the last quarter of the eighteenth-century, not only amongst theorists but by the general public as well."


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