The Pendulum Clock and Tempo

• The first pendulum clock appears in 1656. It transformed Galileo Galilei’s research into a practical tool.

• Researchers were fascinated by intricate mechanism, laws of motion and gravity as well as the idea and dimension of time.

• The technical term for time in many musical traditions is “tempo” meaning time. Time has its own internal clock only obeying the composer and does not follow the normal division of minutes, or second.

  • It’s only at the arrival of electrical metronomes in the 20th century that music in certain pieces would follow relationship with seconds and minutes.

  • At that time, the definition of musical speeds were always relative and subjective instructions from the composer. Allegro (quickly), andante (moderately) largo (very slow).

Prototype of the Orchestra

• In the middle of the century, Italians grandly influenced the rest of Europe for music. Some composers even changed their names to Italian names to improve their career.

• Today, the Western musical lexicon still includes the names of Italy’s invented forms (concerto, sonata, oratorio, sinfonia, opera) as well as descriptions of tempo (presto, allegro, andante, largo) and techniques of playing (legato, staccato, arpeggio, rubato, pizzicato, forte, piano, crescendo…)

• Opera also started to spread from Venice to Naples, Rome, and then Germany. The first operas performed at the French court were Italian, including Orfeo in (1647). However, French were a little more drawn by ballet because they thought it was patriotic.

• Giovanni Baptista Lully was the musical supervisor of the ballet happening at the French court under Louis XIV since 1653.

  • Louis XIV and his father had already their own groups of strings for their events.

    • At first, it consisted of six four stringed violins (tuned as modern violins), twelve violas, and six cellos. Later his son added more violins.

  • Lully was in charge of this ensemble for the operas and for the ballets. He supplemented the resident strings with the winds, brass and percussions. This accompaniment of ballet with the strings, winds, brass and percussions in the early 16th century can be seen as a prototype of the orchestra whose birth is intrinsically linked to the invention of the violin.

  • These ballets and events in France were not just about partying and pleasure. There were political in the sense that it showed the power of the king Sun.

    • To emphasize the majesty of the occasion, Louis XIV’s long mythological ballets would start with a self contained instrumental introduction or opening, overture in French.

      • It mostly consisted of a mood setting prelude made of two short sections; a solemn one to welcome the arrival of the king in the room, and another, more lively. This structure though will be used as a structural composition tool by other composers in other contexts.

    • The French Overture: mood setting prelude, made of two section; one solemn and rhythmical and one lively.

Arcangelo Corelli and the Concerto Grosso

• Arcangelo Corelli was a violinist and composer from Italy.

  • He was the first famous violin virtuoso in a country that loved violins.

  • He was also famous for his concertos and for creating a new internal drama in the texture of his music.

• The prevailing instrumental style in the half of the 17th century was consort music; a four or five string ensemble playing gently smoothing pieces.

• Consorts were usually made of sopranos, alto, tenor and bass of the same instrument, typically viols, recorders and later violins.

  • Composers would mostly write generic charts without specifying what instrument would play.

  • It was not intended for very skilled musicians and whoever was around would join.

  • The music was relatively simple and no solos were written

    • But eventually, musicians became more skilled in their practice and started to add ornamentations, fast runs and trills. Composers started to write specific parts to show the skills of their soloists.

• Corelli’s biggest innovation is in the dynamic. The manipulation of loud and soft passages.

  • In the 17th century, dynamics was not an easy task to achieve because instruments back then, were not easy to control in this matter.

  • Corelli started to create dynamic contrasts by having two bands of two different size and by switching between the big and the small band throughout the piece.

    • The larger ensemble was called concerto grosso and the small group with the soloists was called concertino. The pieces in which Corelli used that technique ended up being called concerto grosso and subsequently the generic term concerto.

    • Corelli’s typical concerto grosso was divided into three sections of contrasting speed “slowfast-slow” or the opposite, following the fashion of earlier consort suite.

    • In the baroque era, the concerto is characterized by the dialogue of two groups of instrumentalists.

• To his musical texture, Corelli also added the figured bass, a type of musical notation.

  • Instead of writing all the parts of the bass line, Corelli started to write just the note of the chord with instructions about specific notes it should include.

    • This saved a lot of time to write the charts but also gave more freedom to the person playing the bass line because they could improvise between the different notes in the chord. However, composers then had to think of a way to place chords one after the other

Harmony Progression and Chords

• Composers found ways to create peaceful and balanced moods by choosing chords sharing similar notes. Other composers broke that pattern by adding tensions and notes that were outside of the chords, such as Monteverdi. This is consonance versus dissonance.

• Musical notes can be grouped in families called “keys.” Some notes in these families have more power or prominence than others.

  • Composers realized that specific chords could have an influence on others.

  • With the addition of the bass, composers started to experiment with what we call the root of a chord. This root, can greatly change the mood of a chord.

    • The root of the chord could be the first degree of the key itself but it could also shift to another note changing the sound of the chord itself.

    • This greatly changed the way composers worked. They began constructing sequences of chords which position was dictated by the gravitational pull exerted on them by the bass note.

    • These sequences became essential in the music made during the late 17th and early 18th century and this technique is still used today.

• Composers became so crazy about chord progressions that they even started to create pieces with the impression of chords when there was only one solo instrument playing one melody.

  • They would do that by having the instrument play the constituent notes of the chord on a solo violin for example so that listeners would assemble the chord in their head

Antonia Vivaldi and Virtuosity

• With his new style of concerto, Corelli had a huge influence on many other composers. One of them was Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) from Venice.

• Vivaldi adds a sense of drama to his work and showcases the virtuosity of his musicians. He is known to have composed 94 operas but only 20 survived. It is estimated that he composed over 500 concertos for various instruments.

• He took Corelli’s dynamic idea of big/ petit group further by introducing a charismatic solo violin to play against the entire ensemble.

  • This dynamic new style of solo arrives in 1714 with a set of concertos Vivaldi called "La Stravaganza” or “The extravagance” and later, with the most famous piece known today; “The Four Seasons.”

  • The title of the entire work though is called “The Contest between Harmony and Invention.” “The Four Seasons,” besides showing off the the virtuosity skills of the solo violin, also explores the notion that instrumental music can be pictorial or descriptive.

    • Also, Vivaldi uses instrumental parts and techniques to depict nature with the sound of birds, winter, summer, landscapes, rivers, mosquitos… These techniques include, high violin notes plucked (pizzicato) to describe chilly raindrops, or high strings playing extra fast (tremolo) for chattering teeth…

    • The Four Seasons were written between 1716 and 1717. Vivaldi, represents nature with specific singing birds (all characterized individually by species), creeks, a Shepard and its barking dog, insects, hunters, hunter’s preys, winter landscapes…

    • Each concerto is divided into three movements (fast-slow-fast) and is accompanied by a sonnet. Each sonnet for each concerto is also divided into three parts to follow the three movements structure of each concerto. Each concerto lasts between 9 and 11 minutes. The entire work lasts between 40 and 43 minutes.