Chapter 24: Grief in Purcell&Early Opera=

Opera

  • large scale drama that is sung

  • combines vocal and instrumental music

  • plot and action advanced through a musical declamation or speech known as recitative (solo vocal that follows the inflections of the text, results in disjunct vocal style)

  • recitative gives way sometimes to aria

  • may contain ensemble numbers

  • orhcestral overture (the intro movement, oratorio, may introduce melodies from the arias)

    • between scenes, one can find interludes or sinfonias (short instrumental work, facilitate scene changes)

  • solo arias (lyrical songs)’

  • recitatives (speech like declamations of the text)

  • contain ensemble numbers, including choruses (duets, trios, quartets)

  • the text of an opera is called a libretto, the earilest opera libretti were base on mythology, epic poetry and ancient history

    • composer works with a librettist who creates the characters and the story line.

    • give the opportunity to write music for the diverse numbers (recitatives and arias, etc) that have become the traditional features of this art form

Aria

  • recitative gives way sometimes to aria

  • means air or tune, lyric

  • song voice with orchestral accompaniment

  • express intense emotion

  • can be effective even when sang out of context

  • can be detached, becuase they can take place in “stop time”, in which the audience will have the opportunity to dwell on a certain emotion

  • words and sections are repeated

the most important new genre of the baroque era was opera, a large scale music drama that combines poetry, acting, scenery, and costumes with singing an instrumental music

  • could convey strong emotions through music

  • enhances narrative multimedia up to present day

Early Opera in Italy

  • can be seen in Claudio Monteverdi’s work, who recognized the idea of drama through music

  • by the time of Monteverdi’s last opera, the first public opera hoses had opened in Venice (opera moved out of the palace and became public and widespread entertainment)

  • accompanying orchestra became standard as Italian style opera spread through Europe

  • 18 cent — italian opera had gained wide popularity in the rest og Westenr Europe

    • only in France was the Italian genre rejected

Opera in England

  • early 17th cent — the masque, a type of entertainment that combined vocal and instrumental music with poetry and dance, became popular with aristocracy

  • in the common wealth period (1649-60), stage plays forbidden since theatre seen as invention of the devil

    • but play set in music, could be passed off as a concert and not theatre

    • so easily became one of the earliest English operas

      • the most famous = Henry Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas”

DIdi and Aeneas

  • from the work of Henry Purcell (gave England a leading position in Baroque music, earliest English operas composer)

  • base on Virgils Aeneid, the ancient roman epic, that traces the adventure of the hero Aeneas after the fall of troy (a roman epic by Virigil)

  • Aeneas and his men shipwrecked and Dido, the Carthaginian queen falls in love with him but he must depart from her due to a command given to him by the gods. In the last act, the crew is ready to leave Carthage, although aeneas has not yet told Dido of his departure. Upon hearing of his departure, she died

  • purcell begins the act with a tune with horn pipe — a dance form associated with sailors (included scotch snap = short notes occur on beat, reversed rhythmic pattern

  • tune is sung responsorially

    • can see growing chromaticism of the bass line, foreshadows Dido’s Lament

  • wrote masques and operas for several venues (he wrote in many genres, assimilating the Italian operatic style, Majesty of French music

  • scene provides a powerful model for female grief (however this is a model created by men based on male notions of suitable female behaviour)

  • The closing lament of Dido, is a powerful expression of grief that reflects contemporary ideals about womanhood

    • lament unfolds over a five measure five measure ground bass (repeated phrase the descend along the chromatic scale, often symbolic of grief in baroque music, repeated 11 times)

Sounds Obstinate

  • Basso ostinato = idea of unifying a composition with repeating bass line (italian for obstinate)

    • flourished in the renaissance era (in dances where instrumentalists improvised over a repeating bass line)

    • by the barqoue period, it was a standard compositional procedure heard

    • Dido’s Lament, is a example of basso ostinato

  • the use of repeating bass pattern is very common in popular music

    • can hear it in the popular music songs:

      • Memories by Maroon 5

      • Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin

      • both really similar to what is hears in Purcell’s lament aria

    • Standard jazz form with its 12 bar blues, which works on a similar principle, employing repeated bass lines and chord progressions.

Johann Pachelbel

  • another example of Basso ostinato = repeating bass line

  • prolific german composer

  • can be seen —- Canon in D

  • the most obvious structural procedure more readily heard than the imitative canon, is the slow moving basoo ositnato in the low strings

  • can hear eight note bass line 28 times in the whole music work

  • same kind of repeating bass line found in Pachelbel’s canon — one which moves by fourths