Chamber music

Concert for Flute by Frederick the Great in Sanssouci

Chamber music is music performed by a small group of musicians — instrumentalists and / or vocalists . When performing a chamber composition, as a rule, only one instrument (voice) plays each part, unlike orchestral music, where there are groups of instruments playing in unison .

In the XVI-XVIII centuries, the term "chamber music" was applied to any secular music and was contrasted with church music. In the future, with the birth and development of symphonic music, chamber music began to be called works designed for a small number of performers and a limited circle of listeners. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the importance of chamber music as "music for the elite" gradually disappeared, and the term retained its meaning as the definition of works intended for performance by small groups of musicians and for a small group of listeners.

A collective performing chamber music is called a chamber ensemble . As a rule, from two to ten musicians enter a chamber ensemble, less often more. Historically, the canonical instrumental compositions of some chamber ensembles have developed, for example, piano trio , string quartet , piano quintet , etc.

There is also the concept of a chamber orchestra - as a rule, this is an abbreviated (no more than 15-20 people) composition of a string orchestra , sometimes with the addition of several wind instruments .