Western Music History I - Quiz 3

Monody

One melody plus basso continuo with figured bass

• 2nd music practice musicians advocated for a solo vocal medium that could clearly portray the affections

• 3 types: Arias, solo madrigals, recitatives

Aria

Strophic solo song with verses and choruses (parts that repeat)

Solo madrigal

Same characteristics of the madrigal, through composed with solo voices

Recitatives

Spoken vocal line, through composed, and moves the scene along in operas (packs in information)

Basso continuo

Continuous low bassline with improvised chordal harmonies above it

• Figured bass: numbers with flat or sharp signs below the bass notes indicating the notes

• Typically played by a bowed string instrument playing the bass notes and another improvising the chords (harpsichord, lute, harp)

Prima practica - Stile antico (16th cent.)

• Gieoseffo Zarlino’s theory treatise Le institutioni harmoniche

• Uniting theory and craft of composition

• Using reason and senses to create more “perfect” sounding compositions - Ars perfecta

• Understanding the scientific principles that make music more appealing

• Control of dissonances between beats, entered and left by steps in weak parts of the measure

• Cambiata: dissonance jumps (usually a 3rd) then resolves by a step after

Seconda practica - Stile moderno (17th cent.)

• Any musical technique was valid as long as it served to depict human emotion

• Debate between the composer Claudio Monteverdi and the music theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi

• Seen as the birth of Baroque music

• Exploring a broad variety of emotional states, loosening the rules by which musical composition in Europe had been governed

• Contemporary philosophical and scientific attempt to categorize and explain human emotion, sorting it into what were called “affections.”

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo

• First performed in 1607 for Academia degli Invaghiti

• Libretto written by Alessandro Striggio

• Monteverdi had experience as a Madrigal writer

• Theme: the power of music, Orpheus had the power to enchant with the music he played on the lyre

• Score published in 1609 with uniquely in depth instrumentation and indication of ornaments

Académie royale de musique

• founded in 1669 by king Louis XIV in Paris

• not teaching, but overseeing and controlling

Agréments

• different from Italian fast melodic ornaments

• compensating for the quick decay of plucked stringed instruments

• can’t be precisely notated, varies according to character of the piece

• opportunity for performer to add expressiveness and improv

• ex. trills, mordents, turns

Suite

A collection of dances

• keyboard suites were intended for amateurs to play for enjoyment or for family and friends

• Common order: Prelude, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Gigue + others

• all dances after the prelude have a common form, binary AB

  • A tonic to dominant/relative minor

  • B returns to tonic

Prelude

• no repetitions or notable melodies

• uniquely French genre

• exploring the key and the harmonies

• rhythm not specified, unmeasured

• style brisé (broken style): chords played one note at a time

Allemande

• lit. “German”

• developed from a couple dance based on a repeating pattern of walking 3 steps then lifting the free foot in the air

• by 17th cent. no longer danced and the music became slower and more rhythmically diverse and contrapuntal

• typically in a moderately slow 4/4, always begins with an upbeat, continuous eighth and sixteenth notes

French Overture

• 2 part form: 1- slow duple meter and dotted rhythm; 2- faster compound meter, imitative entrances; first section returns at the end

• over dotting and notes inégales

• became a model for other operas around Europe and other genres (suites)

Notes inégales

“Unequal notes”

• lengthening notes on beat and shortening notes off beat

Over dotting

Playing dotted quarters longer than notated, and the next shorter

Divertissement

Extended scenes at the center or end of every act (of the opera)

• continued tradition of French court ballet

• sequence of colorful songs, choruses, and dances

• airs

Airs (arias)

Syllabic, less ornamented than Italian, repetitive form, tuneful melody

24 Violins of the King

Consisted of 5 sections

• 6 soprano violins (tuned like modern)

• 12 alto/tenor (tuned like violas)

• 6 bass violins (tuned like cello but lower)

Masque

A mix of instrumental numbers, dancing songs, choruses, costumes, scenery, and stage machinery

• Not a unified drama

• long collaborative spectacles similar to French court ballets

• multiple composers collaborated to create the music

Basso ostinato

Repeated (“obstinate”) bass

Opera themes/plots

Mythical/heroic, parallel to order of divine appointed rulers

Henry Purcell

Spent his entire career in service of the English monarchy (James II)

• Choirboy, composer, keeper of the king’s instruments, organ maker

• composed in all genres but focused on vocal music

• known for creating synthesis of French and Italian elements in his music

Ein feste Burg - Martin Luther

• 1529, Holy Roman Empire

• Chorales: congregational hymns in vernacular, sung in church or at home

• writing new religious words for well-known secular songs, adaptations of Gregorian chants, and new melodies in contemporary style

• converting chants in free rhythm into a melody that the congregation could easily sing

• typically AAB form

Vedro ‘l mio sol - Caccini

• c. 1590, Italian

• solo madgrigal (1 voice + accompaniment)

• second practice

• used oratory device of heightened repetition for emotional effect

• claimed to have invented basso continuo

L’Orfeo - Monteverdi

• 1607, Italian

• libretto written by Alessandro Striggio

• Orpheus had the power to enchant with the music he played on his lyre (at a time of big musical experimentation, the affections)

• theme: the power of music

• he was an experienced madrigal writer (use of chromaticism to show emotional impact)

Armide - Lully

• 1686, French

• one of his last operas and considered his greatest work

• overture very pompous and fanfare-like while the King was entering

• produced in Académie Royale

Suite no. 3 in A minor - Jacquet de la Guerre

• c. 1687, French

• Suite

• talented on harpsichord and as a composer

• child prodigy, favorite of Louis XIV

Dido and Aeneas - Henry Purcell

• 1689, English

• considered an opera, a coherent drama

• libretto by Nahun Tate

• mixed French and Italian opera elements

• French: overture style, homophonic choruses, scenes that end in dances

• Italian: aria style, “ground bass” arias

• English: dramatic action within dance scenes, some tuneful English airs, imitation of the style of earlier choruses of masques, recitatives adopted to declamation of English language

• text depiction, stepwise descending motions/chromaticism, musical sighs, literal “drooping”