From Renaissance to Baroque

• Increase in word painting, and then a decline (some thought that it was “childish”)

• New solo singing style, recitative, joined music and speech (lead to opera)

Music in Venice

• Venice was the self-appointed “Most Serene Republic”

  • Venetian architecture, music, and other art was “colorful”

• 16th century composers divided choruses into “low and high groups of 3 or 4 voice parts each”

  • “Semi choirs” alternated, answered, echoed, etc.

  • This lead to using 2 or 3 whole entire choirs

  • Homophony! compete, then join together for climatically!

Extravagance and Control

• Musical form was (in some way) more controlled and systematic

  • Less traditional in most ways except for this!

Giovanni Gabrieli, Motet, “O magnus mysterium” (c. 1610)

• Most important composers in Venice were this composer (1557-1612) and his uncle Andrea (1510-1586)- both religious organists focusing on the acoustics of St. Mark’s Basilica (echo effects!)

• Part of a larger motet for Christmas

• Two choirs, each w/ 3 voice parts and 4 instrumental parts plus organ

• Homophonic texture, with some elements of polyphony

Style Features of Early Baroque Music

• Baroque music is from ~1600-1750, w/ broad stylistic features throughout

Rhythm and Meter

• More “definite, regular, and insistent”

• Emphasis on meter, often using certain instruments

Texture: Basso Continuo

• Unique Baroque feature, with bass part performed by bass voices, low instruments, and/or an organ/harpsichord

  • Chord instruments reinforces base line with chords!

  • Means “continuous bass”

  • Clarified harmony but changed texture?

• Called continuo today

• Used to end with the bass line being “reinforced” with chords, but later chords were first, THEN polyphony!

• Ground bass form is constructed from the bottom up

  • Repeated single short melody, w/ repeated harmonies above

  • Upper instruments/voices play/improvise different things, adjusted to bass

  • Also called basso ostinato (persistent/obstinate) or just ostinato, which refers also to any short repeated musical gesture (in bass or elsewhere)

Functional Harmony

• Baroque music utilized the modern major/minor modality system

• Chords were standardized with a strong sense of tonality

• Functional harmony- logical and coherent chord progressions, each with a specific relation to the tonic chord

Opera

• Opera is drama presented with singing and music

• Most characteristic Baroque art form? Portrayed individual emotion powerfully and directly

• Opera was once the most popular entertainment form in Italy, and there were 7 opera houses in Venice by 1700

• Standard dualism:

  • Recitative is “the technique of declaiming words musically in a heightened, theatrical manner,” which is named from the Italian word for recitation; singing voice follows “free rhythm of highly emotional speech,” with many ups and downs and minimal accompaniment (used for plot action)

  • An aria is a long musical piece for a soloist, with more melody, consistent rhythm, clear meter, and orchestral accompaniment; tied to controlled emotion, with emotion standing still when music is more elaborate

  • Recitatives need great singing actors, arias need those who can convert notes into emotion

Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

• Music was called “too radical” (the first great to get this comment)

• Career lasted from around age 15-70

• Wrote “the first masterpiece of opera” (also his first opera in general) and many motets, was the choirmaster of Venice’s St. Mark’s Cathedral (prestigious)

• Many works are lost now

The Coronation of Poppea (1642)

• Follows Poppea, mistress of Roman emperor Nero, as she schemes to kill Nero’s wife and advisor in order to become empress- all while her rejected lover is tasked by Nero’s wife to try and kill her

• Recitative includes Nero being seduced by Poppea, vowing to return to her

  • Vocal line follows words in “speech like fragments"

  • Includes an “arioso,” a small aria-like fragment

• Aria includes Poppea celebrating her success with Nero jubilantly, using sections of recitative and word painting

Henry Purcell (1659- 1695)

• English composer, organist at Westminster Abbey and member of the Chapel Royal

• Wrote sacred, instrumental, theatre, and “welcome” music

• Combined native traditions with new, lively, and adventurous French and Italian music

• Wrote the first English sonata

Dido and Aeneas (1689)

• Purcell’s one true opera

• Little over an hour, no virtuoso singing roles

• Based off of the Aeneid, which is a Latin epic poem written by Virgil celebrating the Roman Empire. Trojan prince Aeneas escapes Troy after the horse incident, eventually goes to Italy with help from Jove and falls in love with Queen Dido of Carthage, then leaves her and she kills herself.

• Recitative is Dido talking to a confidant about her planned suicide- this part is dark and decending

• Aria is “Dido’s Lament,” built over an osinato and repeating half steps, including violins and repeated phrases

• Chorus is reminiscent of a slow dance, and is in the general style of a madrigal

The Rise of Instrumental Music

• Instrumental music has three main sources…

  • Dance: opera was linked to ballet, and “suites” were performed (selected sets of dances from operas or ballets)- stylized dances were more intended for listening

  • Virtuosity: for the first time, the works of virtuosos was finally written down sometimes, instead of just being improvised entirely- the violin was a new instrument that had expressive power and required great dexterity (note: this part is kind of exaggerated, as it’s coming from me, a violinist)

  • Vocal music: especially imitative polyphony- as there was the formation of fugue, a big Baroque genre with only one main theme and lots of counterpoint

• There were sets of variations- sectional pieces with short sections of repeated and different elements

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713)

• Violin virtuoso

• Standardization of genres concerto and sonata

  • Baroque sonatas were typically for 1-2 instruments in a high register, and were divided into (usually 4) movements, commonly alternating slow-fast-slow-fast

  • A solo sonata was a work for one high instrument

  • Works for two high instruments plus a basso continuo (often cello) were trio sonatas

• Collections of pieces are each given an opus (“work”) number (Op.)

Trio Sonata, Op. 2, No. 12 (1685), Ciaccona

• Only one movement

• Basso ostinato, but more free

• Imitative polyphony mostly, but also homophony