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Western Music History > Module 5 > Flashcards

Module 5 Flashcards

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1
Q

Baroque period

A
  • Predated the Classical period
  • 1600-1750 AD
  • Gets its name from the Portuguese word from a broken pearl
  • Heavily instrumental at both the highest and lowest notes
  • Regained popularity in the late 1800s and has been played ever since
  • Employed freely changing styles; this also added to the emotion by making passages feel faster or slower; even if the speed of the music was unchanged
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2
Q

Pianoforte

A

-a precursor to the modern piano

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3
Q

Protestant Reformation

A
  • The roman Catholic Church was split dividing music into new genera
  • Which created various Protestant denominations throughout Northern Europe
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4
Q

The Catholic Church

A

-Soon was encouraging musicians and composers to write that could appeal to the masses

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5
Q

Gave birth to the genera of

A
  • Opera
  • Concerto
  • Sonata
  • Cantata
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6
Q

Opera

A
  • Combined music with drama
  • Began in Florence, Italy
  • By combining music with theater, helped unleash dramatic flair and expressive power, and it became popular in Baroque music, historians and Baroque in 1750, with the death of Johann Sebastian Bach
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7
Q

Three important features

A

-Focus mainly on upper and lower tones (played by bass and soprano)
~Those who played in between those ranges improvised their works
- Focus of layered melodies
- Increase in orchestra size

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8
Q

Layered Melodies

A

-The same notes would often be repeated throughout a composition, albeit played by different musicians

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9
Q

Orchestra size

A
  • Since various parts in a given piece of music the size grew substantially
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10
Q

Three popular composers

A
  • Bach
  • Handel
  • Monteverdi
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11
Q

Johann Sebastian Bach

A
  • The most famous composer of the Baroque period and among the most famous of all times
  • During his life, he was more well regarded as an organist, but renounced since then for his work as a composer
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12
Q

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

A
  • The most famous composer of the Baroque period and among the most famous of all times
    -During his life, he was more well regarded as an organist, but renounced since then for his work as a composer
    -His music was considered the pinnacle of Baroque style
    -Beethoven called him the immortal god of harmony
    -During his lifetime, Bach was more famous as a organist than a composer
  • Was a music director at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, a job with little prestige and a huge workload
    -Wrote organ music, orchestral music, vocal music, and more
    -He composed in every Baroque genre except opera
    -Goldberg Variation harpsichord or the Mass in B minor, a powerful sacred choral work written near the close of the Baroque era
    ~These pieces bring together an anthology of the greatest styles, forms, and techniques Bach had learned during his career as a Baroque composer
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13
Q

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

A
  • Wrote his greatest work, Messiah
  • Baroque cosmopolitan
  • Born in Germany, studied in Italy, and made a career in England
  • Was an expert organist and he began his career as a church musician in Germany
  • He cheated fame when he moved to London to compose operas for the public and commissions were royalty, including his music for the royal fireworks
  • Best known for his oratorios, a sacred coral genre; he perfected during the later part of his life
  • The “Hallelujah Chorus’ from Handel’s oratorio Messiah is one of the Baroque greatest hits
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14
Q

Messiah

A
  • Musical counterargument for the Church of England against the Catholic Church
  • Remains one of the most famous works form the Baroque period and itself a great example of a Baroque work.
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15
Q

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

A
  • Catholic priest
  • Remembered for writing some of the first operas in history
  • His operas drew on the tales of the heroes from Greek and Roman mythology, making them a safe bet in a religiously charged environment
  • Was one of the hipsters who started writing baroque opera before it became universally “cool”
  • His opera, L’Orfeo, retells the story of Orpheus innumeracy, its dramatic experimental work that many consider the first great opera
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16
Q

How to describe Baroque music

A
  • “The End of All good music is to affect the soul.” Claudio Monteverdi
  • Through ornate and complex compositions and performances
17
Q

The Doctrine of Affection

A
  • The primary focus of the arts was to awaken the feeling of the soul
18
Q

Composers from this era focused on not their own emotions by instead on general emotions

A
  • Love
  • Joy
  • Sorrow
  • Fait
  • Wonder
  • Desire
19
Q

Emotions

A
  • Were evoked per movement or per short piece
20
Q

Absolute Music

A
  • Making music for music’s sake
  • Not relying on words or passages to determine the rhythms and pitches used
  • Without words, there wasn’t anything specific driving these new emotions
21
Q

Prior to the Baroque Era

A
  • Melodies and harmonies were based on modes

- Were different types of scales

22
Q

Scale

A

-A set of notes

23
Q

Major and Minor Tonalities

A
  • Based on more pleasant modern sounds
  • A few of the older modes have some nasty note combinations when cords are made
    -Offered clear expression of the affections while allowing for embellishments to decorate the melodies without clashing with the harmonies
    -Helps structure the music; without words the structure of music was shifted
    ~Instead of thinking of each part linearly as in a melody; a more vertical approach was taken, focusing on the chords made by combining melodies.
24
Q

Basso continuo

A
  • Bass line and harmony
  • It acted like a curtail foundation, proving support for the melody and helping the music move along
  • The bas line was played by a bass instrument like the bassoon, the cello, or the viola de gamba
25
Q

Harmonic chords

A
  • Were usually played by a harpsichord or Organ, the keyboard player was not give traditional notation
26
Q

Figured Bass

A
  • Is a system of numbers that is included with the bass line and implies certain cords
27
Q

Ornamentation

A
  • Add expression and character to what would otherwise just be an ordinary thing
  • Additional small notes embellished melodies and gave a bit of creative freedom to the performer who use the ornaments to add their signature to the music
  • Performers often elaborate improvisation using ornaments and even improvise their own melodies to further decorate the music
  • Although ornamental melodies enhance and add character to the regular melodic line; they were significant enough to be a key feature of the Baroque period
  • Rhythmic expression as well as they contributed rapid movement into what would otherwise be a plane note
28
Q

Idiomatic writing

A
  • Where the composer could write difficult, highly technical passages to show off the player’s skills and the unique features of the instrument
29
Q

Dynamics

A
  • Is the volume and intensity with which a section of music is played
  • Although they were just barely developed, was a no brainer in terms of writing and playing emotionally-charged music
30
Q

Manipulating rhythm

A
  • Composers emotionally decorated the music

- Composers used driving rhythms and dramatic pauses to intensify the music

31
Q

Monteverdi best job

A
  • Music director at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice

- Besides the sacred music he wrote; he wrote at least three operas plus secular vocal pieces called madrigals

32
Q

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

A
  • Court composer for King Louis XIV, the powerful monarch who built the Palace of Versailles and called himself the Sun King
  • Lully wrote magnificent operas and ballets for the king’s court
  • He also invented a form called the French overture
33
Q

French Overture

A
  • Stately march, like music used to mark the King’s entrance, at a performance
  • That was like playing “Hail to the Chief” to the president to the United States
34
Q

Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

A
  • One of the top names in English musical history
  • As a child he was a choir boy in the Chapel Royal a prestigious group that was basically King Charles II’s personal church choir
  • As an adult he became the organist of the Chapel Royal and a king’s court composer and the organist at Westminster Abbey
  • His vocal music in known for rendering the English language into natural expressive musical rhythms
  • Most famous work is, tragic, mythical opera Dido and Aeneas
35
Q

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706)

A
  • German organist
  • Considered a one hit wonder due to his famous Canon in D major; this elegant piece with a repeating bass line accompanied countless brides down the aisle
  • Was a prolific composer of organ music, who worked as an organist in churches throughout Germany and Austria
  • Ironically his famous Cannon was originally written that not for organ, but for strings
36
Q

During the final years of the Baroque

A

-Musical styles reached a new expressive heights thanks to the era’s three biggest names
~Vivaldi
~Handel
~Bach

37
Q

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

A
  • Italian violinist and priest, who taught music at a girls school in Venice
    -Wrote many of his works where his students to preform, including a cycle, a violin concertos called “The Four Seasons”
    ~Four pieces for orchestra and solo violin; each concerto uses imaginative musical facts to describe a different season of the year

Western Music History (13 decks)

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