Composers Flashcards
What is required?
- musical style
- contributions/musical influences
- significant events
- significant publications
- stages or style periods (if applicable)
- innovations
- representative works
Pope Gregory the Great
- revitalized the churches missionary work
- organized and codified the chants that had accumulated
- The Gregorian chant was named in honor of Pope Gregory the Great
Leonin
- produced two part organum, employing discant and organal style
- wrote the Magnus Liber Organi (Great Book of Organum)
Perotin
- Expanded polyphonic technique by composing three- and four part polyphony
Moniot d’Arras
- a monk who lived in France
- among the last composers in the trouvere tradition
- Wrote both secular and sacred music
- his monophonic secular songs used modal melodies and would likely have been performed with an improvised accompaniments
Philipe de Vitry
- a french composer, poet, and bishop
- author of the treatise of Ars Nova
- innovator in the notation of rhythm
- broke free from older patterns and rhythmic modes and used isorhythm
Guillaume de Machaut
- a poet and musician of the French ars nova
- adopted both sacred and secular roles
- wrote both monophonic and polyphonic chansons ; monophonic chansons represent continuation of the trouvere tradition
- completed the first complete polyphonic setting of Mass Ordinary (Mess de Nostre Dame)
Josquin des Prez
- One of the most successful and renowned composer of the Franco-Flemish School
- great master of contrapuntal techniques including imitative counterpoint
- his music is rich in emotional expression, embodying humanism
- focused on linking words with the music, employing vivid word painting
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
A deeply religious man and also the most important Catholic composer of the 16th century
- associated with the Counter-Reformation
- His music exhibits vocal polyphony in a cappella style
- Most known for his sacred vocal works and innovations in polyphony
- Palestrina Style (The style of counterpoint during the Renaissance)
Carlo Gesualdo
An aristocratic Italian composer and lutenist who killed his own wife
- intensely emotional, highly mannered experimental style
- extravagant word painting, abrupt harmonic shifts, and exaggerated chromaticism
- wrote his own texts, often reflecting guilt and remorse
- virtuosic style requires skilled performers
Thomas Morley
English Composer, organist, theorist and music publisher
- best known for his English madrigals, balletts, and canzonets demonstrating both homorhythmic and contrapuntal textures, use of nonsense syllables, easily singable melodic lines
- keyboard virtuosity is demonstrating works such as “Goe from my window” from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
- Influenced by the style of William Byrd
Secular vocal: Madrigals, canzonets, and balletts
Sacred vocal: Burial service and latin motets
Instrumental: keyboard works contained in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
William Byrd
English Renaissance composer and singer in the Chapel Royal
- best known for his keyboard, instrumental ensemble, and sacred vocal works
- composed sacred works in both English and Latin
- composed songs for solo voice accompanied by consort of string ensemble, a distinctly English genre
Claudio Monteverdi
The most important composer of early Italian opera
- embraced elements of Baroque style such as figured bass, major-minor tonality monody, and doctrine of the affections
- used chromaticism as an expressive device
- used word painting in madrigals and operas, and increased emotional intensity through the use of stile concitato
Henry Purcell
Organist, singer, and prolific composer, despite his short life and also the most significant composer of early English opera.
- incorporated many elements of Baroque style, including major-minor tonality, figured bass, ground bass, sequential repetition, ornamentation
- Combined the elemtns of national styles by embracing the influence of: lyric arias (Italian style)
Johann Sebastian Bach
J. S. Bach stands as a towering giant, both for his sheer output and for his contrapuntal genius. Although he is best known as an organist during his lifetime, his music represents the ultimate in Baroque craftsmanship and the culmination of hundreds of years of polyphonic writing.
- Didn’t invent new forms but perfected existing forms of his day including fugues, concertos, and cantatas
- great master of contrapuntal art, demonstrating ultimate control of polyphonic textures
- composed many sacred works for the Lutheran Church
- Italian Influences: Lyricism of operatic arias, dynamic instrumental style
- French Influences: Dance rhythms, French overtures, ornamentation
- English influences: Choral style, English style
Genres and Titles:
Sacred and Secular Cantatas:
Coffee Cantata and Peasant Cantata
Oratorios:
Christmas Oratorio, St. Matthew Passion
Orchestral:
Brandenburg Concertos
Chamber: Sonatas and partitas for violin and cello suites
Musical Offering
Keyboard: Preludes and fugues suites, partitas, variations
Goldberg Variations
Organ:Chorale Preludes, fantasias, preludes, fugues