Baroque Music Innovations and Class Logistics

Vocabulary terms and definitions covering course assignment logistics and seventeenth- to eighteenth-century musical developments, including forms, composers, and harmonic principles.

First Draft Deadline

November 15, scheduled so drafts can be reviewed and returned to students before the break.

Final Paper Deadline

Monday the 7th, which is the last day of class.

Course Historical Scope

The historical timeframe covered by the course, which extends up to the year 1800.

1650 to 1750

A hundred-year age of invention and rapid innovation in science and music, marked by the rise of purely instrumental music and the birth of the modern orchestra.

Louis XIV

The French absolute monarch known as the Sun King; a passionate ballet fan whose large-scale royal ballets drove the expansion of multi-violin ensembles.

Jean Baptiste Lully

The musician in charge of the French royal violin band for over thirty years who created a thicker, grander ensemble style for the enlarged group.

Overture

A self-contained instrumental introduction or opening that originated in French royal ballets, was borrowed by opera, and eventually developed into the symphony.

Suite

A musical format created by seventeenth-century musicians wherein sections of various dance music are gathered together, typically in groups of three.

Arcangelo Corelli

The first violin virtuoso, who pioneered the concerto form and created the concerto grosso.

Concerto Groso

A form introduced by Arcangelo Corelli (literally meaning a big concert) that contrasts a small group of instruments against a larger ensemble.

Repieno

The larger ensemble in a concerto grosso that contrasts with the smaller group; the word literally translates to 'the stuffing.'

Antonio Vivaldi

A Venetian composer who expanded Corelli's ideas by creating the solo concerto, pairing a charismatic solo violin against the full ensemble.

Harmonic Progression

A sequence of chords governed by principles of attraction or 'musical gravity,' such as chord five naturally drawing magnetically toward chord one.

Circle of Fifths

A highly popular harmonic sequence that uses the seventh note to trigger chord after chord to shift progressively from chord five to chord one.

Henry Purcell

An English composer who survived the Great Fire of London and the plague, known for constructing works like the 1688 'Evening Hymn' on repeating chord sequences beneath a shifting melody.

Lestro Armonico

Antonio Vivaldi's best-selling 1711 concerto collection, translated as 'The Inspiration of Harmony.'

Chorale

A German Protestant hymn tune used in Lutheran church services that served as the foundational basis for Johann Sebastian Bach's organ works and over 300 cantatas.

Counterpoint

The musical technique of interweaving different distinct tunes or melodic lines simultaneously.

Fugue

The quintessential form of counterpoint (meaning 'flight' in Italian), structured as an intricate canon where a primary theme is layered with variations such as inversions, reversals, half speed, or double speed.