Baroque Period Quiz

Dates of the Baroque

The baroque period is considered to be between 1600-1750

Characteristics of music in the Baroque, after 1600

include ornamentation, contrast in texture, and expressive melodies. Music with too much decoration. Absolute monarchy, emotion, virtuosity, scientific advances, religious growth and conflict, and the rise of the merchant class.

Shift in musical texture to Homophony

occurred during the late Baroque period, marking a transition from the polyphonic textures of earlier music to a focus on a single melody with harmonic support. During this period, virtuosity became a big change because now there would be instruments playing and only one person singing.

Florentine Camerata

sought to recreate the musical-dramatic art of ancient greeceand is credited with the development of opera as a genre. This group of musicians and intellectuals aimed to combine music and drama, leading to the emergence of early operatic forms.

Recitative

musical declaimation- specific pitches, and rhythms based on speech. forwards the story. It is a style of singing that combines elements of speech and song, allowing the narrative to progress in an opera or oratorio.

aria

a song, usually of highly emotional nature. With specific rhythms, this is the memorable part. reflects on action

Greek mythology as source for opera librettos

inspired many early operas, providing themes and stories drawn from ancient tales and legends.

Claudio Monteverdi

• The first great composer of opera

• Master of the High Renaissance as well as the Early Baroque

• Composed five books of madrigals prior to his first opera

• Served as maestro de capella St. Mark's in Venice

La purpura de la rosa

• The first known opera to be composed and performed in the Americas

• Torrejón y Velasco's only surviving opera

Luther and the idea of congregational participation in music making

Luther emphasized the importance of congregational singing in worship, advocating for the use of vernacular hymns to enhance spiritual engagement and communal participation in church music. Music in Lutheran churches was based on Chorale tunes familiar to the congregation.

Chorales

• A simple, metrical Lutheran melody

cantata- sacred and secular

means 'to sing.' Cantata was originally a short work for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment. The genre eventually developed into a multi-movement work with choir, solo voices, and instrumental accompaniment. 

bach

Bach's early career

• Bach earned his first position as organist in the town of Arnstadt at the age of 18

• He took a new job at Mühlhausen for a year as an organist in the church, built his own orchestra, and then wrote cantatas

Bach's positions

• Bach next moved to the small court at Anhalt-Cöthen to work as Capellmeister

• Bach's last and most important position was as the Cantor and Director of Music in the city of Leipzig at the well-known St. Thomas church

Barbara Strozzi

• Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) was the most-published composer of her time with eight volumes of her own works published. Most of her works were secular cantatas, and unlike many of her contemporaries she did not compose for the stage. She is credited with helping to popularize the cantata genre through her publications. 

Oratorio

• Oratorios are written for chorus, soloists, and orchestra

• Oratorios are always stories from the Bible

Types of oratorios

• Dramatic oratorios: with the singer acting like the characters

• Non-dramatic oratorios: more like a narrator

Bible as source for oratorio librettos

oratorios are always stories from the bible

George Frideric Handel

• Handel moved to Hamburg, where he had a job playing violin in the opera orchestra

• In 1710, he moved back to Germany, having secured a position as Kapellemeister

• In 1711, he traveled to England to compose Italian opera

Handel's shift to Oratorio

• The 1740s saw him abandoning opera composition for Oratorio

Esteban Salas y Castro

• Esteban Salas y Castro was the first known native-born Cuban composer

• His works are heavily influenced by Italian and French Baroque styles

Baroque Suite

• Dances, but people wouldn't dance to them. You would listen

Handel’s Water Music Suite

• Water music was an orchestra that played in boats at the water

Baroque Concerto

Contrast in Baroque Concerto

• The Baroque style in music was, to a great extent, about contrast

Types of concertos

• Solo concertos: In a solo concerto, we typically hear a musical dialogue alternating between the soloist and the larger ensemble

• Concerto grosso: with a small group of soloists and orchestra

Ritornello

• Repeated melodic idea

Antonio Vivaldi

• Virtuoso violinist and composer

• Claimed to have composed 94 operas, but 46 have been identified, with only 20 surviving

• Composed over 500 concerti, of which about 230 are for solo violin

• Many of these concerti were teaching pieces and were composed for the students at the school

Fugue – Exposition, subject, episode

• The Fugue is a highly structured compositional form of imitation

• The Fugue is built upon a musical idea, called the Subject

• The Fugue will be a series of entrances of this Subject

• In order to familiarize the listener with this Subject, it is stated four times in what is called the Exposition

• Anything else that is playing the melody is called an episode