prelude

• from 1600 to 1750 composers adhered to an innovative set of conventions for organizing music, believed that music should move the listener

• italians devised new idioms, styles and genres, creating a deliberate cultivation of the new

• italy remained the most influential region of europe on musical matters during this period

• new genre: opera

• basso continuo/figured bass - chording instrument plus bass instrument, present in every baroque piece, lots of improvisation

• monody - solo singing with accompaniment

  • basso continuo

  • one emotion at a time

  • sung close to natural speech

  • expressive but goes closely with text

• recitative - part of the opera where the plot moves ahead, meant to imitate speech and advance the storyline

• aria - big disney numbers

mei

• tried to figure out how to harness the power of music like how the ancient greeks did it

• wrote a bunch of giant treatises

• nobody knew what ancient greek music sounded like so they couldn't argue with him

• single melody, simple and accessible to the heart, presented one clear emotion

• worked with the florentine camarata

monteverdi

• wrote vocal music - songwriting, opera, madrigals, motets

• spent a huge chunk of his career as a professional string player

• when a new duke came in he fired all of the musicians and monteverdi had to totally change lanes and committed to composition

• prima practica - renaissance style

• seconda practica - baroque

• artusi hated his use of chromaticism and dissonance and publicly called him out but the controversy ended up boosting his career

• wrote a response - manifesto of seconda practica principles in a book of madrigals with a rebuttal letter included

• make the words mistress of the music and not the servant

• introduced concept of monody

• l'orfeo vs poppea

  • l'orfeo - instruments were more important, performed for nobility, barely an opera, massive instrumentation

  • poppea - performed for the public, lots of instruments with a story that's kind of just an excuse for showy music, opposite plot

public opera

• accessible public art

• underscored the power of the ruling class

• theatrical

• stories meant to reflect prestige - allegories

• couldn't show off too much or it would make the ruler look bad

• had to make up for their lack of nobility and wealth with gravity-defying vocal feats

general characteristics of baroque music

• composers sought musical means to excite or arouse universal emotions and affections

• dissonance - monteverdi referred to it a lot in his first practice, deliberately broke rules regarding dissonance as a way of expressing the text

• music was either very free or very metric

• barlines became a thing

• homophonic, typically consisting of a firm bass and a florid treble, held together by unobtrusive harmonies

• contrast between bass and treble emphasized them and subordinated the inner parts

• thorough bass/basso continuado/figured bass - the composer wrote only melody and bass, leaving it up for interpretation

• score format

• singers were expected to add embellishments in performance; Caccini occasionally wrote his own but followed all the rules

• voices were combined with instruments and roles were assigned to each

• still thought of themselves as working within the system of church modes, but they considered these to belong to one of two large affective areas, known as cantus mollis and cantus durus

  • cantus mollis - one flat key signature, subdued/pleasant emotions

  • cantus durus - no sharps or flats, explored the sharper regions, harsher/intense emotions

• rameau’s treatise on harmony offered the first complete theoretical formulation of the new system

• tonality and theory evolved gradually

early opera

• music was used in many dramas - ancient plays

• pastoral drama

• interest in ancient greek tragedy expressed by humanist values

• mei concluded that ancient greek music consisted of a single melodic line with or without accompaniment

  • talked to bardi and galilei

  • bardi set up an informal academy to talk about ideas (florentine camerata)

• galilei used mei’s ideas to criticize the theory and practice of vocal counterpoint and proposed a revival of the greek ideal of the union of music and poetry through monody

the first operas:

• after bardi, discussions about ancient and modern music continued under jacopo corsi

• set out to recreate greek tragedies in their entirety in modern form

• imitation of speech was most important because how you speak reveals your underlying emotion

• peri invented recitative

  • extreme form of monody

  • sought not merely to imitate speech but to eradicate completely the distinction between speaking and singing

  • monteverdi reserves the most modern style for dramatic dialogue and impassioned speeches

• only a few more operas were written and performed

opera in rome and venice

• in the 1620s, the center for new developments in opera shifted to rome

  • wealthy prelates vied with each other in offering lavish entertainments

• in roman opera, solo singing increasingly fell into two clearly defined types — recitative and aria

• opening of first public opera in venice

• castrati sang in rome but all male roles because women were banned from singing in church

• monteverdi worked at st. mark's and continued to write operas and other dramatic works

• after monteverdi, the leading composer of opera in venice was francesco cavalli

• established the essential structural, poetic, and musical conventions of venetian opera