Baroque Music: Basso Continuo, Opera, Strozzi, Vivaldi, and Bach

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Baroque music concepts, basso continuo instrumentation, figured bass, opera origins, Claudio Monteverdi, Barbara Strozzi, Antonio Vivaldi, and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Basso continuo

An instrumental bass line and accompanying chord progression played throughout a piece, typically consisting of at least one harmony instrument (such as a harpsichord or organ) and one bass instrument (such as a cello or bassoon).

Harmony instrument

An instrument capable of playing multiple notes at once to produce chords and build harmony, most commonly a keyboard instrument (harpsichord, organ) or a plucked instrument (lute, theorbo).

Bass instrument

An instrument that plays primarily in the lower register to sustain the bass line, such as the cello, viola da gamba, double bass, or bassoon.

Cello (violoncello)

A large, low-pitched member of the violin family (alongside the violin and viola) played sitting down with the instrument held between the legs; the most common bass instrument in a basso continuo section.

Figured bass

A musical notation system in which numbers (figures) are written above or below bass notes to show the keyboard or chord player which harmonies to construct above the bass line.

Theorbo

A large, plucked string instrument in the lute family developed specifically during the Baroque era for playing basso continuo accompaniment.

Giovanni Battista Fontana

An early Baroque composer (1589–1630) who died in the plague of 1629–31; his Sonata Settima features a complex continuo section consisting of harpsichord, organ, theorbo, and cello.

Claudio Monteverdi

An Italian composer (1567–1643) who served as a crucial transitional figure from the Renaissance to the Baroque era and composed the opera L'Orfeo.

L’Orfeo

A 1607 opera by Claudio Monteverdi based on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice; it is recognized as the earliest opera that is still regularly performed today.

Toccata

A fanfare-like instrumental introduction to an opera; in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, it consists of three distinct sections: brass and percussion, followed by strings alone, and returning to brass and percussion.

Ritornello

A small, recognizable recurring musical passage that returns multiple times throughout a composition between contrasting vocal or solo sections.

Aria

A set, melodic musical composition written for a single solo voice, usually featured within an opera.

La Musica

A character in the prologue/Act 1 of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo who represents the personification of music, singing verses about the power of music alternating with repetitions of the ritornello.

Possente Spirto

A virtuoso Act 3 aria from Monteverdi's L'Orfeo that is musicologically significant because Monteverdi notated two simultaneous versions of the melody: a simple version and a highly ornamented, embellished version.

Deus ex machina

Literally 'god out of the machine'; an ancient Greek theatrical technique using a pulley system to lower a god onto the stage (used in Act 5 of L'Orfeo for Apollo), as well as a modern term for an unexpected, overly simple plot resolution.

Barbara Strozzi

A prolific Venetian singer and Baroque composer (1619–1677) who was adopted by her biological father and is credited by musicologists with likely inventing the cantata form.

Che si puó fare

A vocal work by Barbara Strozzi ('What can you do?') built over a repeating descending bass line accompanied by harpsichord, two theorbos, and cello.

Andalusian Cadence

A distinctive repeating four-chord descending bass pattern named after the province of Andalusia in southern Spain, prominent in Strozzi's Che si puó fare and flamenco guitar music.

Baroque Era

The period of Western classical music extending from approximately 1600 to 1750, characterized by the development of opera, basso continuo, and expressive ornamentation.

1685

A pivotal dividing year between the Early and Late Baroque periods, marking the birth year of both Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel.

Harpsichord

A Baroque keyboard instrument whose strings are plucked by internal quills rather than struck by hammers, preventing volume modulation on individual keystrokes; frequently built with one or two manuals.

Cornetto

A hybrid Renaissance and Early Baroque treble instrument constructed of wood with finger holes like a woodwind, but blown using a small, brass-style cup mouthpiece roughly the size of a dime.

Opera

A theatrical classical music genre in which a dramatic story is conveyed almost entirely through singing accompanied by an orchestra, with minimal or no spoken dialogue.

Musical theater

A theatrical genre combining music and stage drama that differs from opera by incorporating substantial amounts of spoken dialogue and frequent choreographed dancing.

Republic of Venice

A sovereign maritime republic founded across 118 islands and 438 bridges that endured for 1,100 years (697–1797) until its dissolution by Napoleon Bonaparte; birthplace of Barbara Strozzi and Antonio Vivaldi.

Antonio Vivaldi

A Venetian virtuoso violinist and Baroque composer (1678–1741), ordained as a Catholic priest and nicknamed 'The Red Priest,' who composed over 500 concertos and heavily influenced J. S. Bach.

Concerto

An instrumental composition written for a solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra, typically divided into three movements following a Fast–Slow–Fast tempo structure.

Programmatic music

Instrumental music written explicitly to depict non-musical scenes, narratives, dramatic stories, or sounds of nature.

The Four Seasons: Spring (La Primavera)

A programmatic solo violin concerto by Antonio Vivaldi opening with a famous ritornello and explicitly imitating natural events like birdsong, running water, thunder and lightning, and a barking dog.

Johann Sebastian Bach

A German Late Baroque composer (1685–1750) regarded as the ultimate master of polyphony, father to multiple prominent composers including C. P. E. Bach, and composer of well over 100 cantatas.

Cantata

A multi-movement vocal composition written for voices with instrumental accompaniment, often sacred in theme for church liturgy, whose musical form was likely originated by Barbara Strozzi.

Ich habe genug

A sacred cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach scored for solo voice, solo oboe, strings, and basso continuo.