The Enlightenment and Vocal Style

Enlightenment

• intellectual movement of the 18th century with themes

centered on reason, nature and progress

• pursuit of learning and the love of art

• humanitarian movement
  

MUSIC IN THE ENLIGHTMENT

• music serves human needs its for pleasure

• wide audience

• first hearing should be able to understand

• feelings music suggests may change as our emotions change

SOCIAL ROLES FOR MUSIC

Increase in amateur music making

women were welcome to participate at amateur performances and as

singers but to make a profession out of their music they will be

onsidered as “courtesans”)

SOCIAL ROLES FOR MUSIC

Amateur froups formed

to sing choral music for their entertainment

and for public performance

connoisseur

enthusiasm for music as a leisure activity fostered the

development of informed listeners

A preference for the homophonic

audiences and critics praised music

that featured a vocally conceived melody in short phrases over spare

accompaniment.

Periodicity

frequent resting points break the melodic flow into segments

that relate to each other as parts of a larger whole

Galant Style

Charming wtitty sophisticated and comprehensible on the first hearing

Classical

music regarded as classic and timeless,

like Bach, Handel and Mozart; second definition (1900-2000): broader

range of music that was considered timeless; third definition (1960s) -

specific style of the late 1700s (Mozart and Haydn)

classical music

a tradition that covers many centuries and a multitude

of styles

a tradition that covers many centuries and a multitude

of styles

simplicity, balance, formal perfection, diversity within

unity, seriousness or wit as appropriate, and freedom from excesses of

ornamentation and frills

Classical period

the era from about 1730-1850, all-embracing term for

music of the period

Serious Opera

formal, stylized, idealized

Comic Opera

Spontaneous, human, unpredictable

Italian Comic Opera

humurous plots comedic characters

• NAPLES AND VENICE

• more innovation than serious opera because less tradition

• Opera Buffa

• sung throughout

Opera Buffa

• Most famous term referring to comic opera in 18th century italy

• coined by dramatist Carlo Goldoni

• 3 acts, 6 ore more singing characters
  

Italian comic opera

Plot

Comic opera both entertained audiences and taught moral lessons by

humorously exaggerating the weaknesses of different social types—aristocrats

and commoners alike—such as vain women, greedy old men, clever or foolish

servants, unfaithful spouses, pedantic lawyers, self-important doctors, and

boastful military officers.

Italian comic opera

Cast

Comic operas often included a serious pair of young lovers at the

center of the story. They interacted with the comic characters, especially in

romantic complications.

antecedent-pair

establishes

periodic phrasing as the norm

because of the Periodic Phrasing

that’s equivalent to Q&A

Intermezzo

• Italian comic opera with 2-3 segments between the acts of a serious

• three characters

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

was one of the most original

composers of the Interezzo

Opera Seria

standard Form: Focused on heroic stories from

antiquity, pitting love against duty, often featuring

"magnanimous tyrants" to flatter royal patrons (Ex.

Metastasio flatters his patron through his opera

La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus)

Pietro Metastasio

poet who gave opera seria

its standard form; his librettos were set hundreds

of times by composers like Gluck and Mozart.

Aria

• A solo song for voice with orchestral accompaniment

• It’s an outpouring of melody that expresses an emotional state

• In an aria, “I love you” might be sung ten times to accommodate the exapnsion of the idea

• Da Capo Aria - Aria in ABA form; after the B section, the term da capo is wrttien meaning from the beginning and indicates a repetition of the

opening A section

Jean-Jacques Roussea

leader of the Enlightenment in France and a

major influence on Romanticism

France (Opera Comique

native French version of opera with spoken

dialogue

England (Ballad Opera)

spoken dialogue with songs that set new

words to borrowed tunes

Germany (Singspiel)

“German for “singing play” - featured spoken

dialogue, musical numbers, and usually a comic plot centered on

love among common rural folk