Baroque Flashcards
The Baroque Period
• 1600-1750 • Follows trends in art o Depicts a lot of action – a lot going on in the painting • Baroque comes fro Portuguese barroco • Rise of the professional vocalist • Music begins to highlight the vocalist o Monody • Figured bass • Basso Continuo • Development of tonic, idea of key, multi movement works (17th C.)
Basso Continuo
- Baroque
- Allowed for wide variety of instrumentation
- Flexible and allows to condense large work
- Built from the bass upward
- Music built vertically with focus on the function of chords
- Figured Bass
Ornamentation (Music as a blueprint)
- Baroque
- Embellishments
- Many treaties on how and when to add ornamentation
- Free ornamentation – entire sections to have “improvised” ornamentation
- Scores w/o ornamentation are to be used as blueprints for the music
Opera
• Baroque
• A dramatic work set to music with staging, costume and scenery
• Italian is the primary language
• First Opera emerge in Italy c. 1600
• Predecessor
o Intermedio
o Music added between acts of plays
• May or may not be relevant to the drama
o Intermedio grew to become the main attraction – less focus on the drama
Jacopo Peri
Dafne (1598)
o First opera
o Very little of the operas survived
o IN 1600 he wrote Euridice
Opera components
o Libretto (text)
o Compose overture/prelude
• Sets a mood
• Could be multi-movements to set multiple moods
o Aria, Recitative, choruses, duets, trios, quartets
German Opera (Baroque)
• Experimented with German Opera but it did not work until the 19th C
British Opera (Baroque)
- Developed the Ballad Opera
- A series of popular songs separated by spoken dialogue
- New text replaced on popular tunes
- Similar to a Broadway Musical
French Opera (Baroque)
- Didn’t like Italian Opera – Wanted excitement
- Jean Baptist Lully: one of the Earliest French Composers
- Combined popular Genres to form a new one
- Wanted to turn Opera into a spectacle: Ballet & Stage machinery
- Strong dramatic text
- Very long – 5 acts
Monody
- Baroque
* Solo vocal with accompaniment with simple chordal structure
Florentine Camerata
- • Baroque
- Near the end of the 16th C
- Wanted homophonic form, development of Monody
- Did not want word-painting
- Were attempting to bring music to a higher level
Claudio Monteverdi
- Baroque
- Wrote only vocal works – sacred pieces, 250+ madrigals, operas
- 1607 – Wrote L’Orfeo
- 1608 – L’Arianna
- Maestro di cappella at St Marks in Venice for 30 years
George Fredrick Handel
• • Baroque
• Master of vocal and instrumental works
• Inventor of English Oratorio
- utilized the chorus as large contributor to the works
• Wrote Italian Opera
• Won international renown during his lifetime (His music has never ceased to be performed)
• Devoted 36 years to composing opera’s
• Included Italian, German, and French elements in his opera’s
• Spent time as the Music director of the Royal Academy of Music (joint stock company producing Italian opera’s)
• Water Music (1717 - suite for orchestra or winds), Royal Fireworks Music (1749 - for winds, but originally included strings), Messiah (oratorio), Saul (oratorio), Giulio Cesare (opera)
• Funeral at Westminster Abbey
Recitative
- Baroque
- Secco – Dry
- Accompagnato (Accompanied) -> Dramatic Affect
- Speech set to music – Chords for accompaniment
- Dialogue
- No-form – no repeated text
- It is where the action happens
Aria (Duet,trio)
• Baroque
• Song with full accompaniment
• All action stops
• Characters reflect on what has happened in the recitative
• Da Capo
o ABA
o ‘Afekts” of A&B sections are usually related
Strophic (variation) aria
• Baroque
• Same melody – Varies the rhythm
• Same chords
• Ties the aria together with the Ritornello
• Ritornello (in Aria only)
o An instrumental passage that recurs several times like a refrain
- Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (1607)
Polychoral Music (Cori spezzati)
• Baroque
• Music for multiple choirs placed throughout the church
o Sing Antiphonally
• Could be a combination of vocal an/or instrumental music
• Homophonic (most)
• Music comes off very large/ large scale
Concertato Style
- Baroque (17th Century)
- Combination of voices and instruments where instruments play separate parts (do not simply double the voices)
- Contrasting forces are brought together in harmonious ensemble
Giovanni Gabrieli
- • Baroque
- 1553-1612
- Composer/Organist San Marco Bascillica
- Motets, madrigals, instrumental works (canzonas, sonatas, and organ works)
- Polychoral works
- Most famous piece: En inclesi est
Heinrich Shutz
- Baroque
- German composer of Oratorios – Blends German and Italian elements
- Confined to Gospel subjects (Christmas, Passion(Easter Oratorio))
- Great powers of emotional expression
Sacred Concerto
- Baroque
- Grand Concerto’s_
- Polychoral music in Church
- A composition on a sacred text for voice and instrumental accompaniment
Oratorio
• Baroque
• Starts in Italy then spreads elsewhere -> north
• Sacred counterpart to opera
o Depicts biblical principles without staging
• Large scale vocal (narrative, Dialogue, commentary) work –sacred- designed to be performed without scenery or costume in concert halls/churches
• Native laguage used from where it was written
• Spreads north to southern Germany and North German Compsers
• Historie -> Blended into German service
o Christmas stories, death of Christ
• German Oratorios
o Christmas oratorios
o Passions
o More elaborate than Historie
English Oratorio
• • Baroque
• Handel brings oratorio to England
o Brought because he was broke
• Losing audience to Ballade Opera
o Put on a benefit for himself
• Bishop syas no
• Next performance does not have staging, etc
o Dramatic Oratorios
o Narrative oratorios – Allegorical oratorio
• Innovative use of Choruses to reflect on what has been presented
o Narrative use a tone of word painting
• Oratorio’s: Esther, Saul
• Most oratorios are biblical opera without staging
Cantata
• Baroque
- 17th & 18th centuries
- Italian v
ocal chamber work with continuo, usually for solo voice, consisting of several sections or movements that include:
- recitatives
- arias
- setting a lyrical or quasi-dramatic text
• Sacred music
- Lutheran church music (18th century)
- combined poetic texts with text drawn from chorales or the Bible. Also used:
- recitatives
- arias
- usually one or more choruses
- Famous composers of the style:
- Cesti, Rossi, Carissimi, and Strozzi
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• Subject is tied to what is going on that day – readings for the day – the epistle, and gospel
• Reflects the theology of the time
o Bach and Piety – Pietism
• Chorus – opens and closes the cantata
o Chorale “Pure” Chorale
o Chorale fantasy
• Elaborate dense polyphonic introduction
• When voices enter – 1 sings chorale
• Elaborate ritornellos between each phrase
• Can be referred to as chorale cantata
• Most Bach cantatas end with a “pure” chorale
Johann Sebastian Bach
- Baroque
- Virtuoso organist and keyboard player, a skilled violinist and a prolific composer in every genre of his time except opera.
- Began studying with his father then with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach
- Church organist in Arnstadt (1703)
- 1708: Court musician in Weimer: Organist then concertmaster
- St. Matthew Passion, Brandenburg Concertos, Well-Tempered Clavier, The Art of Fugue, Many Chorales
Dance Suite
• 16th Century – Late Baroque
• Compositions in several movements with each mvt having an individual mood or stylistic rhythm
• Mvts connected by: Key signatures, thematic variations, or melodic ideas
• All mvt’s are in contrasting styles
• Johann Froberger -> Credited with bring dance suite to Germany
o Decides 4 Main dances: Allamande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue,
• Prelude my occur first
• Other dance types may be inserted between Sarabande and Gigue
• Written out for single instrument and Available in Print forms
• Broken Style
Orchestral Suite
- Baroque
- Born out of French Ballet
- Dance music taken from opera and performed independently
- Dances are contrasting
- Performed in Ballroom Setting
- Tend to start with French Overture
- French Overture
French Overture
• Opens an orchestral suite
• Two sections – each played twice
o First section: Homophonic and majestic, marked by double dotted rhythms and figures rushing toward the downbeats
o Second Section: Faster and begins with a semblance of fugal imitation, sometimes at the end it returns to the tempo and figuration of the first section
• Jean-Baptiste Lully’s overture to Armide is an example
Baroque Sonata
• Trio Sonata
o Most common instrumentation after 1670 for both church and chamber sonatas: Three part texture but can have more if more are playing the basso continuo
• Sonata de camera – Chamber Sonata
o Featured a series of stylized dances often beginning with a prelude
• Sonata de chiesa (church)
o Grows out of sonata or canzona
• Instrumental counterpart of polychoral
o Used in church services, Substitute for certain parts of the Mass Proper, or for antiphons for the Magnificat at Vespers
o Trio Sonata in 4 mvts – usually abstract movements
o No reference to dance because it is played in church
Chorale Prelude
• Baroque
• Organ arrangement based on a Protestant chorale tune
• Used for different purposes: Prelude to congregational singing, as a stand alone piece, as an interlude between versus, as a concert piece
• Presented in entirety in one voice or as the basis of polyphonic texture
• Inventor: Sweelnick
o Combined Secular Keyboard with chorale melodies
• J.S. Bach
Prelude/Toccata
• Baroque
• Prelude & Fugue -> AKA Tocatta and Fugue
• Prelude/Tocatta Preceeds the Fugue when the fugue is self-contained
o Written in a fantasy style
o Has a very free sound/style
Fugue
• Composition which is based on a single subject that is imitated through the piece in each part
• Theme originally presented in one voice then imitated in others
• Exposition follows which may use some of the original material
• Episode follows -> all free material
o Modulation may occur
• Followed by subject in any voice
o If presented differently -> answer
Concerta (instrumental)
• Considered the most popular instrumental style of the Baroque Era
o Concerto style and Concerto grew from Poly choral music
• Groups of instruments contrasted each other in texture and style
• Concerto Grosso
• Giuseppi Torelli
o Responsible for 3 mvt concerto (I: Fast, II: Slow, III: Fast)
Antonio Vivaldi
- Baroque
- Known as the “Red Priest”
- 400 Concertos
- Bach arranged some of his works
- Popularized the form of mvts 1 & III of the concerto
Concerto Grosso
Concertino vs Ripieno (tutti)
• Concerto for two groups of instruments that were different sizes
o Group #1 – Concertino -> Group of soloists
o Group #2 -> Ripieno -> Everyone else not in Concertino
o When both groups played together: Tutti
Ritornello Form
• • 18th Century
• Standard form of Fast Movement (I, III) in the concerto
o Not a formal procedure but more of a set of guidelines that offer variety
• Performed by full orchestra or ensemble
• Played between elaborate passages of soloists
• Instrumental refrain
• Full Ritornello: Played by everyone, homophonic texture, 1 key, normally 3 phrases
o Episode: Concertino group or soloist with basso continuo, polyphonic, key modulation
o Ritornello fragment
o Episode
o Cadenza -> return to original key
o Full Ritornello -> stops the mvt in the original key
• Vorderstatz (Introduction)
• Fortspinnung (Spinning out, Continuation)
• Epilogue
Sequence (Baroque)
• The immediate restatement of a motif or longer melodic passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice
Francesca Caccini
- 1550-1618
- singer, teacher, composer
- highest paid musician employed by the grand duke of Tuscany
- prolific composer of dramatic music during her time
- daughter of Guilio Caccini
- wrote music for the ballet “The Liberation of Ruggiero from the Island of Alcina”
Castrati
- Males who were castrated before puberty to preserve their high vocal range
- sang the high parts in some church choirs in Italy, including the papal choir
- sang in operas outside Rome, but almost always in male rather than female roles
- Farinelli
Teatro San Cassiano
- 1st public opera house
- 1637
- Venice
- supported by the paying public, with financial backing from wealthy and prominent families who rented boxes for the season
Francesco Cavalli
- 1602-1676
- leading Venetian opera composer
- student of Monteverdi
- wrote “Giasone” (Jason, 1649)
Anna Renzi
- diva of the Venetian operatic stage in the 1640s
- set the standard for the “prima donna” (It. for “first lady”, the lead soprano in an opera)
Orontea
- written in 1656 by Cesti
- one of the most frequently performed operas of the 17th century
- displayed the changes opera had undergone in half a century
- instead of imitating Greek tragedy, librettist interwove romantic and comic scenes and high and low characters, seeking first of all to entertain
- plot is based on disguise and love at first sight across social levels
Italian opera
- characteristic by 1650 (mid-17th century)
- focus on solo singing
- separation of recitative and aria
- use of varied styles
Francois Couperin
- blended French and Italian tastes
- fan of Lully and Corelli
Jean-Philippe Rameau
- composer and organist
- founded theory of tonal music (Treatise on Harmony)
- fundamental bass
