Music EC-12 (Music History and Culture) Flashcards
Style and classifications of music
The style of music showcases not only the time and political or spiritual mood of the period, but also the composers and the mindset of the people. Music is meant to be listened to and, as such, can be repeated, expounded upon through different media, appreciated in different ways at different times, accepted as an individualistic part of the hearer, respected as a demonstration of a culture or belief system, and touted as a societal bragging right. Music offers these different abstract feelings, but its primary purpose and people’s eternal fascination falls back on the fact that music is created for people’s enjoyment. The styles of music are usually classified into chronological sections and referred to as Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Twentieth Century.
Quality of Music
Music is difficult to label regarding good and bad as the biggest deciding factor of the quality of music is the listener. Defining any greatness in art by comparing the positive and negative aspects limits the artistic voice of the creator and the imagination of the audience. Critics have been in the business of defining the quality of art for centuries and have often made poor calls due to their inability to accept a new style or the enduring aspect of the composer and the audience reception of that style of writing. For any musician to become accepted, he or she must master a particular style or technique and perform or compose with a kind of genius that inspires others. To be considered great, music must be able to stand the test of time as being an indispensable example of
a kind of work for the period, country, or composer.
Emergence of music
Music as an artistic expression became documented around the Middle Ages. Prior to this time, music was used as an equally contributing part of worship, poetry, and dance and served society by uniting a community to complete necessary labors, soothe mourners, express different emotions, and offer homage to a higher power. The older or ancient forms of musical expression set the foundation for the more disciplined arts of music since there was no musical notation for sharing these ideas until the Middle Ages. The Greeks with their love of the lyre established that musical foundation as surely as they did modern theories regarding culture and philosophy. Greek musical theory introduced intervals, or relationships between pitches, using a tightened string to show how the shortening of the string 3:2 or 4:3 could change the tone when plucked.
Chants
The earliest notated music revolves around religion and worship where early Christians combined the styles of different groups, including Jewish worship, to create their own style. The Medieval Christian style is known as plainchant or simply chant that was monophonic, or written as a single melody with no harmonic accompaniment, written in one of the eight modes, or set scale patterns, as created by the Greeks. The rhythm followed the words themselves and was freely interpreted. Modern Latin masses and other Catholic services demonstrate this style of music. As the sixth-century pope Gregory the Great commissioned to have many of these chants written out, or codified, this body of work used in liturgy has been referred as Gregorian Chant. The secular music of the time did not possess the same haunting quality of the Gregorian Chant and also was not written down until the tenth century.
Secular music
There was a rise in secular music of the tenth century with minstrels, or small groups of people moving across Europe, such as the French troubadours and trouvères, the German Minnesingers and Meistersingers, and the English scops and gleemen. This music, consisting of hundreds of monophonic melodies, was transcribed by monks and scribes and kept locked up in the libraries of scholars until the twentieth century. These secular pieces had lively rhythm even as monophonic tunes and often depicted love as the central theme. These very songs are often credited as the basis for the Western idea of romantic love since the music describes desire, frustration, yearning, and loss. The French musicians of the later Middle Ages described adultery which would later characterize the idea of courtly love.
Polyphony
The music of the Middle Ages consisted of rhythm, melody, and words in a monophonic style, and the ninth century saw borne music that consisted of multiple vocal parts and melodic lines, or polyphony, moving in parallel intervals in the more hollow-sounding fourths or fifths. This style of singing is referred to as organum, which started the musical change still in existence today. The number of moving parts has increased, and the corresponding lines of music have increased in complexity and experimentation. The original melody of polyphony was selected from a chant and was extended and added upon. Languages
were combined for the multiple parts so that French would be the first line and Latin the second. Pérotin with his Sederunt Principes in four parts pushed the musical society forward into fully notated music that combined consonance and dissonance.
Organum
The music theorists of the ninth century church began to experiment with the notion of two melodic lines being sung at the same time at parallel intervals and usually at the fourth, fifth, or octave. The sound created by this style of singing was referred to as organum and was developed over the following hundred years. One and two additional melodic lines moving in conjunction with each other and possibly overlapping were added by the eleventh century where the original chant melodic line was sung slowly on notes held out and called tenor. These additional melodies would cross each other to enrich the sound. The Cathedral of Notre Dame exemplified this music known as Ars Antiqua or “old art.” Eventually this style was replaced by the smoother sounds of the fourteenth century polyphonic music known as Ars Nova.
Guillaume de Machautand
Guillaume de Machaut brought the polyphonic style of music to its full maturity in the fourteenth century with his new art style. Acting as both secretary and court composer for wealthy men, de Machaut composed music that was touted as the premier style and even produced the La Messe de Notre Dame, one of the early polyphonic works for the Ordinary of the Catholic Mass. This Mass combines the tonality of the traditional church modes with a more then-modern minstrel flair. Interestingly, de Machaut embodied the courtly love ideology in his personal life and his more secular music. His works created subtle relationships between the theme and the sound of words, and he brought polyphony to more mainstream musical audiences.
Burgundian School composers
As a time of learning, science, and the arts, the Renaissance altered the artistic and political climate of Europe in the mid- fifteenth century. The transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was bridged by the Burgundian School composers working for the dukes of Burgundy in the Brussels region. Guillaume Dufay, the most notable Burgundian composer, wrote secular and sacred music that had a more limpid sweetness than the music written for centuries before and in three parts instead of four. His sacred work consisted of Masses and motets, shorter sacred works, with an emphasis on the top melodic line and fuller sonorities for his adaptations of church modes. Dufay and other Burgundian composers would incorporate popular music in their polyphonic sacred works, which might combine a motet for the Virgin with a racy melody from a popular song about a mistress. The Church eventually forbade this style in worship.
Motet
As a major musical style between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, the motet has three major classifications. From 1200 to 1450, the motet referred to a tenor serving as the foundation for upper voices and a combination of those voices with the text. From 1450 to 1600, the motet referred to a genre of polyphony setting Latin texts to music. After 1600, the motet referred to a type of sacred music associated with church polyphony. The Renaissance motet focused on Biblical passages and used as ornamentation for the liturgy. After 1600, the motet came to symbolize a sacred vocal work designed for liturgy or devotion. The Catholic and Protestant churches used the motet different, and the style developed separately around the countries of Europe.
Motif
As small as two pitches or as complex as entire phrases, a motive, or motif, is usually a short syncopated melody that is well defined enough to be recognizable even during any variations. The motives allowed for more development of an idea or emotion in a piece. Baroque music incorporated motives to set a continuous pattern in the music with the repeated sequencing and modulation. Beethoven used the motive most recognizably in the Pastoral Symphony. The opening theme introduces three motives that play a prominent role in the piece. The reversal of rhythm, pitch, and contour allows the three motives to be combined and moved around to enhance the quality of the piece. Sonatas will carry motives at the beginning to be repeated in the different sections of the work.
Prince of Music
Flemish composer Josquin Desprez was called the Prince of Music and wrote 13 Masses, 100 motets, and 70 secular vocal works. His sacred polyphony contained four equal parts but with the otherworldly sound of the Burgundian School. He established the use of continuous imitation where voices would pick up the melodic motives of the other parts and incorporated this canon into his works, and the motets allowed Desprez more freedom with melodic experimentation. The secular work of Desprez combined lilting melodies with canonic backgrounds, using lively rhythms and almost jazzy syncopations, as in his “Scaramella” and “El Grillo.” Regardless, his sacred music epitomized music that was pure and spiritual.
Renaissance
While there is debate about the inception of Renaissance music, most authorities will agree 1430 is an approximate beginning so as to match the accepted date for the historical Renaissance period. The ars nova, or new art, of de Machaut and Dufay allowed music to evolve into a newer style which was communicated to other parts of Europe through the travels of minstrels. Composers of the time did not feel that any work over 40 years old was adequate for their audience and sought to create a new birth, or renaissance, of music by connecting music and social aspects of culture such as humanism. These composers sought to explore chromatic and enharmonic styles of ancient music, set popular folk tales to music, rediscover the meter and rhythm of ancient music as in musique mesurée, and allow the syntax and pronunciation of words to be as prominent as the meaning.
Renaissance dance music
As music was shared aurally with little to no training involved, groups would gather together to enjoy the faster paced music used to inspire dances and merriment. This instrumental dance music was prolific in the Renaissance, being composed and frequently improvised by different peoples of many diverse backgrounds. Much of the dance music of the Renaissance is attributed to certain collectors of those folk pieces, such as the dance music of Tielman Susato and the Terpsichore of Michael Praetorius. The work La Spagna is often attributed to Josquin Desprez and typifies the rhythm and sound of the Renaissance dance. The music was modified and improved upon by later composers, and much of the
sprightly rhythms found itself rejuvenated in the Baroque style.
English madrigalists
The English madrigalists of the Elizabethan Age composed interesting secular music written in English, a language that is hard to set to music as it lacks the more singable styles of Italian and Latin, the hearty rhythm of German, and the lyrical quality of French. The madrigal is a poetic musical style or verse form that was usually pastoral and consisted of 2 or 3 stanzas of 3 lines and then a ritornello, or couplet set to different music and usually written in a different meter. The most notable English madrigalists are Thomas Campion, John Dowland, and William Byrd. The music of these madrigalists was often secular but included some sacred works as well, where the music is lively and then somber depending on the topic.
Cantus firmus
The cantus is a plainsong chant and most often associated with sacred music. The cantus firmus is a freely interpreted polyphonic work usually based on an existing melody with variations in the work on meter, rhythm, and wording. This style of music dominated in the vocal music of sacred worship of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and was occasionally used in sixteenth century worship but mostly in instrumental pieces. The fourteenth century saw cantus firmi used in isorhythmic pieces where the pitch of an existing piece was used as the slow-moving tenor line. The speed of this line distinguished the style and subsequent sound of the music, and the use of the cantus firmus in long notes remained a technique into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The highest line of the cantus firmus usually paraphrased an existing melody. Eventually, composers included the melodies of secular music into their cantus firmi.
Baroque Period
Beginning about 1600, the Baroque era represented a musical retreat back to the dependence on words for the meaning of the work and the idea that music should be used to illustrate the words. Opera with is birth in the Baroque era and based on its dependence of the text was created as a model of Ancient Greek drama. The styles were classified as new music, or nuove musiche. The idea for a succinct and expressive kind of sound as a single melody with a harmonic accompaniment became the standard for Baroque music and was first used by the Florentine Camerata. This new texture is referred to as homophony and is an offshoot and compliment to polyphony. With the combination of melody and harmony, the Baroque era serves as the beginning of the musical evolution.
Renaissance to Baroque
Musicians of the Renaissance had one style and one practice whereas the musicians of the Baroque period had three styles and two practices. Renaissance music equally balanced all voices and restrained the representation of words while Baroque music celebrated the polarity of opposing voices and attempted to affect the representation of words. With a modal counterpoint and diatonic melody in a small range, Renaissance music differed from Baroque which had tonal counterpoint and diatonic melody in a wide range. Chords driven by modality were merely by- products in Renaissance music whereas chords driven by tonality were self- contained pieces in Baroque. Renaissance harmony and dissonance were taken in intervals while Baroque harmony and dissonance were taken in chords.
Opera
Operatic works are centered around the recitative, or singing that serves as a speech or declamation, which follows the natural rhythms of the written text. The harmony is used to give the audience the suggestion of changing moods and increase or decrease in tension. Since the opera is primarily sung, it differs from other theatrical productions and dramatic pieces where the music is used as an occasional accompaniment to the story. The musical accompaniment for an opera could include a full orchestra or just a small ensemble depending on the scope of the work and the composer’s preferences. While madrigals would perform mostly for their own amusement, operas are performed for live audiences and can be written by either playwrights or dramatists before being set to music or written by the music composer.
Counterpoint
As a combination of 2 or more melodic lines, counterpoint can also be defined as the technical considerations involved in combining those melodic lines and their resultant sounds. The two lines may be written parallel in thirds but may include fourths for the sake of the key of the piece. The intervals of the work are measured and discerned by the ear, so more movement could be perceived than is actually occurring. Counterpoint as a property of polyphony is defined by its relationship to melody since the melody must have a perceived continuity independent of the rest of the work. The two lines must balance each other so that the audience may focus on one line, then the other, and then perceive the combined sound as one line. While counterpoint has a linear emphasis, harmony has a more vertical emphasis.
Homophonic age
The harmonic principle took precedence over the polyphonic principle in the homophonic age where chords were no longer associated with counterpoint and contrapuntal results. Harmony controls Baroque counterpoint, and the melodies are overlaid onto a strong bass line and interspersed with top voice ornamentation. This harmonic expression was used to maintain the clarity of the tone and base the entire work on the hierarchy of chords and their relationship to the key. The entire grouping of modal scales was discarded for the more robust major and the darker minor tonality. The name Baroque was invoked to suggest a removal of bad taste in music and art, and the period can be divided into the early Baroque with Monteverdi, middle- Baroque with Corelli, and late Baroque with Handel and Bach.
Jean Philip Rameau
The harpsichord was brought to public attention with the choral and chamber music composed by François Couperin, the leading French composer of his time, who is remembered for his vast amounts of harpsichord music written as suites, or “orders” in French, that comprised dance portions and different character pieces called such names as “Butterflies,” “Darkness,” “Goat-footed Satyrs,” and “the Mysterious barricades.” The music was known for its charm and graceful style while being sweetly ornamented and heralded a new direction for keyboard composers. Jean Philip Rameau also contributed to the harpsichord repertoire with his more gallant style of keyboard and chamber music. His work on chord rationalizations and relationships to the harmonic system constitute the majority of the modern study of music theory, and Rameau composed lavish operas and ballets very popular in the time.
Claudio Monteverdi (1 of 2)
The Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi mastered the old Renaissance style and allowed for the transition between the Renaissance and Baroque musical styles. Monteverdi composed music while working as composer, string player, and singer for Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua. His salary was often paid as a result of begging to his royal patrons, and he was included in the duke’s European travels so that he could absorb the different styles as he traveled. Monteverdi wrote madrigals for over 40 years in both Renaissance and Baroque styles, using a more adventurous harmonic sense as he explored dissonance and other unfavored musical practices. While critics hailed his work as insulting, Monteverdi’s popularity rose as audience members attended his performances in droves. Monteverdi invented the string tremolo where the bow rapidly repeats the same note, a technique that later inspired the pizzicato or string plucking.
Claudio Monteverdi (2 of 2)
Monteverdi attended the 1600 production of Euridice, an opera by Jacopo Peri, and was introduced to this greater exploration of opera as a scenery play with characters and plot for his madrigals. His madrigals of 1605 incorporated a more monodic, or homophony created by solo and accompaniment, style where more soloists would be accompanied by a basso continuo, or continuing bass line not written out but understood to follow the chords. These madrigals were more like arias than normal madrigals, and Monteverdi produced his first opera L’Orfeo in Mantua in 1607 which has been touted as the first operatic masterpiece. His orchestras were broadened to include the violin and other strings, records, organ, harpsichord, recorders, cornets, sackbuts, guitars, lutes, and 11 soloists. He also wrote Vespers of the Blessed Virgin and was later accepted as maestro di cappella of the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice.
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi, the “Red Priest,” had originally started out as a violin virtuoso studying for priesthood. He accepted a secular music position in Venice and eventually left the church to be a music director, composer, and violin teacher at La Pietà, a musical observatory and girls’ orphanage, where he composed approximately 400 concertos that tended to sound alike, 49 operas, 90 solo and trio sonatas, and many cantatas, motets, oratorios, and other works. Vivaldi spent much time on the road, creating music that was crisp and driving with intense rhythm. The Four Seasons written in 1725 is probably his best-known work with its four solo concertos with moving melodies. Vivaldi uses flying scales and rhythmic chordal groupings in his work and allows all parts in voice and instruments to be interchangeable. Hi established the formal outline for the concerti grossi.
Concerti grossi
Made up of three movements, concerti grossi serves as an outline for operas and other musical works of three or more movements. The fast-slow-fast progression begins with quick movements with dramatic changes between tutti or ensemble and solo sections as they pass through various keys. At the end of this section, the piece returns to the home key, a style greatly used in Classical sonata formats. The middle section contrasts greatly by using lyrical long-breathed solo melodies similar to opera arias where the soloists were expected to ornament their parts to their own design. The final section retains the speed of the music from the first section with grander flourishes and a more defining end to the piece.
Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons
His best-known work which was rediscovered in the twentieth century and used most often as background music, The Four Seasons is a work made up of four programmatic concertos that follow the text of four separate sonnets. The music allows the sounds of the seasons to be heard, so the audience members can hear birds, breezes, dogs, and other typical outside sounds. Vivaldi’s genius in the Seasons is evident in how he creates the details of each season without allowing the piece to fall apart.
Vivaldi’s 1712 L’Estro armonico, or “the Harmonic Whip,” opens with a concerto grosso that includes a concertino or solo group of violins and cello playing the first and last sections vigorously before the tutti ends the sections. The second section showcases the violin in a siciliano or lilting slow dance. The harpsichord plays throughout the D minor concerto and improvises the basso continuo.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Born into an extraordinary musical family in Eisenach, Germany, in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach influenced the entire musical world with his works and his genius. Starting on violin, Bach spent most of his childhood playing music on the organ under the tutelage of his brother. After singing in the church choir in Lüneburg, Bach stayed on as the church harpsichordist and violinist. A self-taught composer, Bach accepted a position as organist at St. Boniface church in Arnstadt and would include variations in his hymns. With several publications, Bach moved on to Mülhausen in 1706 before accepting a position as court organist and then concertmaster for Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar. While arranging and copying parts of Vivaldi pieces for performances, Bach combined his German style with the Italian energy and rhythm. Bach became Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Cöthen and concentrated on secular music for court.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach as a father and believer
Bach fathered 20 children with wives Maria Barbara, who died after birthing the seventh, then Anna Magdalena Wülken. His children acted as assistants and copyists as well as musicians in their own right. Early Bach pieces written under the patronage of Prince Leopold include The Well-Tempered Clavier and Inventions, but Bach’s organ pieces were often too difficult for most organists to perform. All Bach’s work is religious- based with a foundation of the Lutheran hymn or chorale, and even secular pieces are dedicated to God. The pieces themselves are vocal pictures, such as “Wie zittern un wanken” from the cantata Herr, Gehe nicht ins Gericht (Lord, go not in judgment) where the oboe repeats the same phrase and there is no bass or foundation for the piece. Bach mastered the art of polyphony and counterpoint and is celebrated for his fugues and canons such as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach’s effect on music
Bach’s work was kept on hand by his sons and other music teachers, including Beethoven’s teacher who insisted on using Well-Tempered Clavier. It was Bach’s mastery of counterpoint that greatly affected Mozart, and Haydn was also influenced by Bach’s B minor Mass. Bach contributed to all genre of music in his day except for opera and exemplified his period’s ability to fully convey a certain feeling in his music. Bach left music with such works as his 6 Brandenburg Concertos of 1721, his “Air on a G String,” the 48 preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, the St. Matthew Passion, the B minor Mass, and others, giving audiences everywhere a taste of his genius and his incomparable technique.
Fugue (1 of 2)
A fugue requires between 2 and 6 voices where the first voice is presented as a solo with a basso continuo and then answered or imitated by a second voice. The answering voice could be modified or exact per the composer’s intentions with the piece. The third voice enters with the tonic, and the fourth voice enters with the dominant. This continues until all voices are represented. Each voice continues with a countersubject or free counterpoint and moves to a cadence. The exposition is followed by an episode or motivic subject suggested by the counterpoint, which contrasts the original subject and is achieved by harmonic sequencing. After significant contrast, the fugue subject reappears in the tonic or related key. The final section is an incomplete or complete exposition in the tonic with a pedal point in the bass.
Fugue (2 of 2)
As a conversation or rhetorical discussion, the fugue presents a proposition or topic, then possible contrasts which are refuted, a restrengthening of the original idea, and a conclusion. The finest examples are in Bach’s Art of Fugue where the answering material is derived from the original theme, or continuous expansion. Bach often viewed his fugues as people conversing together like a family or group does with their different voices raised in contribution to the whole. While a fugue is usually monothematic, some fugues can proffer multiple subjects to be discussed where each subject is interjected separately but finally combined and concluded at the same time. Fugues insinuate a fleeing and chasing with the theme and the responses. While Renaissance artists viewed fugue as a kind of imitation, Baroque composers saw the fugue as a total work with its own thematic material.
Fugue in later music
Though Bach’s fugues had established the importance of the ability of the work to stand by itself; later musicians incorporate the fugue into sections of their overall work for a different kind of texture. In the finale of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony K. 551, the final movement of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata op. 106, and Beethoven’s quartets opp. 131 and 133, the fugue as presented in the sonata became the preferred way to resolve the tension and discussion presented in earlier parts of the piece. The nineteenth century saw the fugue as a developmental exercise, but it was included in works by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, and Verdi. Twentieth century neoclassicism revived the fugue as a part of composition within larger works, as shown by Schoenberg, Berg, Bartók, and Shostakovich.
Canon
As an imitation of an entire subject by different voices at fixed intervals of time or pitch, the canon allows the leading voice or dux to precede the following success voices or comes in every detail in a strict canon, while a free canon allows the comes to modify the dux with minor changes and accidentals. Canons can be independent pieces or parts of a larger work, as well as combined with independent lines or other canons. Canons can be classified on the time between each part’s entry (e.g., canon ad minimam or at the half note, canon ad semibrevem or at the whole note) and on the interval between each entry (e.g., canon ad unisonum or at the unison, canon ad epidiapente or at the fifth above). Examples include Bach’s Goldberg Variations and Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch.
Canon transformations
Canons can be transformed through inversion, retrograde, retrograde inversion, augmentation, diminution, and mensuration. Inversion, or canon per motu contrario, per arsin et thesin, occurs when the comes copies the dux but upside down. Retrograde, or canon cancrizans, al rovescio (crab canon), occurs when the comes repeats the dux in reverse. The retrograde inversion, or canon al contrario riverso, occurs when the comes repeats the dux upside down and in reverse. Augmentation occurs when the note-values of the comes are longer by a specific ratio. Diminution occurs when the note-values of the comes are shorter. Mensuration occurs when the dux is interpreted at the same time in different proportions so that the relationship between the different voices shifts due to the different note-values.
Canon endings and combinations
Canons that are finite will have a discernible ending with additional notes on the dux to make up time between the first and final sections or an additional but short coda. Infinite canons, also referred to as perpetual and round, travel back to the beginning with an ending shown by a fermata, or corona. With the modulating or spiral canon, the dux ends in a different key and returns to the original key after 6 statements as shown in Bach’s Musical Offering.
Canons that are combined with other canons are called compound or group canons and can indicate the number of canons in the description. A double canon has two, and a triple canon has three. A two-part double canon has four parts and can be referred to as a four-in-two.
Domenico Scarlatti
As a child of the well-established and prolific Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti studied harpsichord and composition alongside his father and was appointed composer and organist of Naples royal chapel where Alessandro was music director. After writing 2 operas, Scarlatti was removed to Venice for several years before coming back to Rome to write music for exiled Queen Maria Casimira of Poland. Scarlatti was a harpsichord virtuoso in great demand and is said to have competed with Handel at a party. In 1713, Scarlatti was appointed music director at St. Peter’s basilica in Rome and moved to Portugal in 1719 where he discovered his own persona away from his father. Scarlatti gave rise to the rebirth of the harpsichord with his exercises written for Princess Maria Barbara of Portugal. He remained at court in Portugal and then Madrid.
Domenico Scarlatti
(Scarlatti’s contribution to Baroque music)
(1 of 2)
The music of Scarlatti is shown to have a wildness, impulsive melodic changes, mysterious fanfares, and striking chordal and key shifts while bringing a great deal of spirit to the piece on an instrument that does not crescendo. His work prepares for the transition to the Classical period with the contrapuntal style of keyboard music as a new approach to the harpsichord. His works included soaring arpeggios and persistent repetitions of one note while bringing a more Spanish flavor to his compositions as the pounding left-hand accompaniments compare to the strumming of the guitar and the rhythms suggest castanets. All sonatas followed the binary form of 2 large sections repeated and possibly reconfigured in a different key before ending in the home key, similar to Classical sonata format, and is best shown in the Sonata in E major K. 380. The Sonata in E major K. 380
Domenico Scarlatti
(Scarlatti’s contribution to Baroque music)
(2 of 2)
The main theme of the E major is played by itself at the beginning and then repeated in different registers. The theme is redone in an almost jazz-like way as the motive is repeated continuously in the right hand while the chords are played in an almost erratic progression in the left hand. The contrast part from the original theme occurs in a different key and is then followed by an esoteric horn call. This call develops to the end of the section, and the whole first section is repeated. The second section starts with the horn call and transitions back to the original key of the first section. An invigorating music sweep carries the piece to its final cadence.
George Frideric Handel
While his music defines grand majesty, George Frideric Handel was a gluttonous slob who made his audiences revel in the glory of his music. Most well-known for his Messiah, Handel expounded on the music architecture as set forth by Bach to create his own improvisation and, thus, his own mark on music. Young Handel studied at the Halle Lutheran church with FW Zachow who was a well-known composer and organist of the time. After signing up for and dropping out of law school, Handel served as a violinist in the Hamburg opera house and occasionally filled in for the harpsichordist. His Florentine opera Rodrigo was not well- received, but his opera La Resurrezione performed in Rome won him instant fame where he won the moniker “the Saxon.” Handel would engage in private contests of improvised performances, but Handel’s only equal on organ was Bach whom he never met.
