Weeks 1-6 stuff to know Flashcards
- Identify at least 6 characteristics associated with the classical style in music (in HWM).
i. Noble and entertaining
ii. “Natural”
iii. freedom from excessive ornamentation or frills
iv. Short vocal phrases over sparse accompaniment
v. Simplicity
vi. Balance
Identify galant style and Empfindsam style.
Galant
i. Catch-all for everything modern, chic, easy, and sophisticated
ii. Freer, more song-like
Empfindsam
i. Surprising turns of harmony, chromaticism, nervous rhythms, rhapsodically free, speech like melody
- Describe 5 characteristics associated with opera seria.
a. Italian opera
b. Serious themes and subject matter
c. Included and emphasized Da Capo Aria
d. Alternating Recitatives and Arias
e. Three acts
- Who was the most prominent composer of opere serie in late Baroque?
a. Johann Adolf Hasse
- What is opera buffa
i. Full length work w/ 6 or more singing characters
ii. Plots centered on ordinary people
iii. Aimed at middle class audience
iv. Entertained by showing caricatures of nobles
v. Dialogue set in rapidly delivered recitative accompanied by keyboard continuo
What is intermezzo
i. Performed in two to three segments between the acts of a serious opera
ii. Comic characters given own separate story
iii. Alternating recitatives and arias
- What is the genre of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona? When was it composed? What is the plot about?
Genre: Intermezzo
Date: 1733
Plot: Social hierarchy is questioned as Serapina (Soprano) manipulates her master, Uberto (Bass), with his mute valet, Vespone, into proposing marriage to a rival suitor (Vespone in disguise)
Why was the ballad opera a popular genre? How does it satirize opera seria?
a. Popular because the work satired opera seria, and included popular songs, folk songs, etc.
b. The work took the traditional opera’s modern heroes and replaced them with thieves and prostitutes but with the same plot and conflict
- Who was Metastasio and what was his contribution to opera seria? Who was Ranieri da’ Calzabigi?
a. Pietro Metastasio was an italian poet whose works were set to music. His poems were included in Opera Serias by famous composers such as Gluck and Mozart. His works promoted morality and the enlightenment thought (p. 482).
b. Ranieri da’ Calzabigi, was Gluck’s librettist for the opera, Alceste (p. 492
- Name two reform operas by Gluck.
a. Orfeo ed Euridice
b. Alceste
- What are the elements associated with Gluck’s opera reform?
Did away with Aria da Capo
gave greater importance to ensembles and choruses
Added more drama to plot, less virtuosic singing.
Simple rounded binary form?
||: A - B :||: X A - B
I - V mod I - I
Sonata Form
Exposition - Theme 1 (I) - Transition - Theme 2 (V, v, or iii) Development - No one set key - develops from prior material Recapitulation - Restoring of theme 1 & 2 - Restatement of Tonic - I
Domenico Scarlatti
What is the form of this sonata? How many sonatas for keyboard did Scarlatti compose?
Balanced Binary Form
555 sonatas
called them “Essercizi per gravicembalo” (Exercises for Gravicembalo [Harpsichord])
Empfindsam style
” Empfindsam style (or emotional style) included “different and surprising harmonies, chromaticism, and speech-like melodies.” (470)
“ The composer most associated with this style is Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
