prelude

• 1600-1750

  • 1600 was the death of bach

• flamboyant, theatrical, and expressive tendencies of seventeenth century art and architecture

• “long” seventeenth century expands the normal chronological boundaries of a single century-long time period

• diversity of styles

europe in the 17th century

• 1600 - scientific revolution

  • kepler - planets move around the sun

  • galileo - used telescope to discover sunspots jupiter's moons

  • descartes - logical, deductive philosophy

  • newton - law of gravitation

• new thinking about politics

  • advocated democracy in england, supported absolute monarchy in france

  • religious conflict between german protestants and catholics preceded the thirty years' war, which devastated germany

  • english civil war also had religious aspects

• europeans were expanding overseas

  • british, french and dutch established colonies in north america, the caribbean, africa, asia in competition with spain and portugal

  • sugar and tobacco imports - slave trade

• capitalism

  • britain, netherlands, northern italy prospered

  • joint stock company pooled the wealth of many individuals while limiting their risk - formed to finance opera houses in bigger cities

  • rise of opera and public concerts and increased demand from upper classes for music

  • increasingly exaggerated displays of wealth and increasingly dire circumstances for lower classes and oppressed people

• music

  • instrumental music flourished

  • musicians depended on patrons and the types of music that won support varied from region to region

  • italy was the best place for musicians because of a combination of trade and princely courts

  • rulers continued to support the arts for prestige

• patronage

  • louis xiv

    • power and wealth were concentrated in the monarchy

    • louis xiv controlled the arts and used them to assert his glory

    • longest ruler - 72 years

    • france replaced spain as the prominent power on the continent - french music was widely imitated

  • many cities had academies, private associations that, among other functions, sponsored musical activities

  • public opera houses were established in many cities, beginning in venice in 1637

  • tickets and subscriptions

from renaissance to baroque

• golden age of drama - shakespeare to racine

  • collaboration of theatre, painting and music led to the creation of opera

  • painting, sculpture, literature of the time had theatrical qualities and were intended to make people feel

• baroque era of music, art and architecture began in italy

  • bernini - outstanding sculptor of the century, designed st peter's basilica as well as other structures across rome, sculptures make the viewer respond emotionally rather than with detached emotion

• emotion was key to the baroque aesthetic and movement created that - motion depicted in sculptures, active bass lines

• art

  • extreme lighting contrasts

  • realism

  • emotion

  • motion

  • violence

• theory of the affections

  • emotions were thought of as relatively stable states of the soul, each caused by a certain combination of humors in the body

  • once the humors were set in motion by external stimuli via the senses they conveyed their motions to the soul and brought about specific emotions

  • all arts of this period sought to move the affections

  • composers of opera displayed a musical gallery of emotions by writing a series of arias for every act, each aria seeking to render a psychological portrait of a character aroused by a certain emotion

• galileo demonstrated that the senses and the affections were both instruments of learning, so the eyes and ears could be conduits of human behaviour and a new respect for the senses developed

• moving affections in art

  • paintings and operas frequently concentrated on subjects involving physical action and psychological reaction

  • rhythm was used in music to stimulate emotion

  • painting didn't always aspire to be beautiful - rembrandt made physical imperfection acceptable in art

the musical baroque

• music became one of the sister arts when it allied itself inseparably with words during the renaissance and so participated in various aesthetic debates during the 17th century (ex. conservatives vs innovators, design vs colour)

  • text expression - monteverdi believed that the text dictating its musical setting would make it more emotional (second practice)

• monteverdi created new classifications - first and second practices, language for different musical functions (church, chamber, theater, dance), styles implying categories of affections (relaxed, moderate, excited)

• instrumental music classifications - arrangements of movements into sonatas, grouping of sonatas into collections, pairs of contrasting pieces (ex. toccata and fugue)

  • forces in theory that held music together and pushed them apart

drama and architecture

• tension between order and disorder, control and freedom

• complex, asymmetrical structures

• court masques and antimasques written