Baroque Era 16001750

1
Baroque Era (1600-1750)

• Definition of baroque
• extreme ornamentation
• art / sculpture / architecture / music
• used to symbolize wealth and power
• Scientific discoveries
• Galileo / Newton
• Three phases of Baroque Era
• early - emphasis on dramatic contrast /
  homophonic
• middle - use of maj/min scales / music for
  certain instr.
• late (1680-1750) - what we will focus on

2
Characteristics of Baroque Music

• Unity of Mood
• Rhythmic Continuity
• Melodic Continuity
• Terraced Dynamics
• organ, harpsichord, clavichord - good for this
• Polyphonic Texture Favored
• Strong Importance of Chords (Harmony)
• basso continuo
• figured bass
• Continuation of Word Painting

3
Baroque Music

• Baroque Orchestra
• Nucleus
• Basso Continuo - harpsichord cello / bass /
  bassoon
• Upper Strings - 1st 2nd violins, violas
• Woodwinds / Brass / Percussion varied
• Baroque Trumpet - no valves
• Baroque Forms
• movements
• Binary / Ternary
• Continuous / undivided

4
Music in Baroque Society

• Music written to order
• Ruling class
• Opera houses / municipalities
• Churches
• The Overworked Musician
• How to Become a Musician and get a job!

5
More Baroque Forms

• Concerto Grosso
• tutti alternating with soloist or group
• 3 movements (F,S,F)
• Ritornello Form
• ritornello
• Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 - J.S. Bach
• soloists - harpsichord, violin, flute
• dedicated to the margrave of Brandenburg

6
More Baroque Forms

• Fugue
• a polyphonic composition based on one theme
• subject
• answer
• countersubject
• episodes
• pedal point
• variations of subject
• inversion, retrograde, augmentation, diminution
• Little organ Fugue in G minor - Bach

7
The Elements of Opera

• opera - drama sung to orchestral accompaniment
• began in Italy around 1600
• fusion of music, acting, poetry, dance, scenery,
  costumes
• personnel needed to run an opera
• libretto
• serious vs. comic
• voice categories
• coloratura, lyric soprano, dramatic soprano
• lyric tenor, dramatic tenor
• bassobuffo, basso profundo

8
The Elements of Opera

• one to five acts subdivided into scenes
• aria - song for solo voice w/ orchestra
• recitative - vocal line that imitates speech
• duet
• ensemble
• trio, quartet, quintet, etc.
• prompter
• overture / prelude
• Should opera be translated for an audience?

9
Opera in the Baroque era

• the Camerata
• wanted to create vocal style modeled after
  ancient Greek tragedy
• recitative
• homophonic / polyphony rejected
• Euridice by Jacopo Peri (1600)
• earliest surviving opera
• composed for wedding of King Henri IV and Marie
  deMedici
• Orfeo by Claudio Monteverdi (1607)
• first great opera

10
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)

• born in Italy
• Career
• served at the court of Mantua - 21 years
• singer violist
• music director
• wrote Orfeo
• 1613 - music director at St. Marks - 30 years
• composed sacred and secular music - all for
  voices
• wanted to create music of emotional intensity
• use of dissonance / new effects (pizzicato /
  tremolo)

11
Henry Purcell (ca.1659-1695)

• born in England
• Career
• age 10 - choirboy in Chapel Royal
• 1677 - (age 18) composer for kings string
  orchestra
• 1679 - organist at Westminster Abbey
• 1682 - organist at Chapel Royal
• buried under organ at Westminster Abbey
• wrote church music, secular choral music, chamber
  music, songs, music for the stage
• used ground bass (basso ostinato)

12
Henry Purcell

• Dido and Aeneas (1689)
• written for girls boarding school
• relatively short - one hour long
• scored for strings and harpsichord contiinuo
• libretto - (p.163)
• Didos Lament - from Act III
• recitative with basso continuo
• aria with full orchestra
• ground bass
• used to show grief and sorrow

13
The Baroque Sonata

• sonata
• composition in several movements for 1-8
  instruments
• trio sonata - 2 high instruments and basso
  continuo
• originated in Italy - spread to Germany, England,
  France
• sonata da chiesa / sonata da camera
• Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713)
• studied in Bologna - spent most of his life in
  Rome
• friend and music director to Cardinal Ottoboni
• laid foundation for modern violin technique
• double stops / chords
• wrote only instrumental music
• Trio Sonata in B minor, Op.3 No.4

14
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

• born in Venice / father at St. Marks as
  violinist
• age 25 - took holy orders / left ministry after 1
  yr.
• the red priest
• teacher at music school of the Pietà
• virtuoso violinist and composer
• popularity waned / died in poverty
• composed 50 operas and sacred music
• best known for concerti grossi and solo concerti
• La Primavera (Spring) from The Four Seasons

15
La Primavera

• concerto for solo violin and string orchestra
• Baroque program music
• 1. Allegro - birds, streams, storm
• 2. Largo e pianissimo sempre - goatherd w/ dog
• 3. Danza pastorale - bagpipes, dancing nymphs and
  shepherds
• Forms of movements
• 1. ritornello form
• 2. through-composed
• 3. ritornello form

16
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• family of long line of musicians
• J.S. had 20 children
• 9 survived him / 4 became well-known composers
• born in Eisenach, Germany
• first musical training by father and cousin
• age 9 - both parents die / lives with oldest
  brother
• age 15 - leaves bothers home / goes to school,
  supporting himself by singing in church choir
  playing organ violin

17
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• age 18 - becomes church organist at Arnstadt
• conflict with church authorities
• complicated music
• strange maiden
• age 23 - resolves conflict
• gets a better position in Mühlhausen
• marries the strange maiden, his cousin Barbara
• 1708 - court organist at Weimar
• stayed for 9 years / became concertmaster of
  court orch.
• asked to leave when passed over for promotion
• jailed for one month by Duke of Weimar

18
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• 1717-1723 - court conductor for Prince of Cöthen
• not involved in church music
• conducted orchestra of 18 players
• wrote Brandenburg Concertos
• 1720 - Barbara dies / leaving 4 children
• marries 21-year-old singer
• 1723 - cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig
• drawbacks from career move / advantages
• wrote extended compositions for each Sunday and
  holiday
• became director of Leipzig Collegium Musicum
• eminent organist and teacher

19
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• 1740s - eyesight began to deteriorate
• 1750 - goes blind / dies later that year
• Not well-known outside Germany in his day
• Baroque style out-of-date in his late career
• Bachs music largely forgotten
• 1829 - Felix Mendelssohn presents St. Matthew
  Passion
• Bachs music revived ever since

20
Bachs music

• composed all Baroque forms except opera
• bulk of music - vocal - Lutheran
• studied Italian concertos / French dance pieces
• unique combination of polyphonic texture rich
  harmony
• use of musical symbolism
• music to demonstrate a specific musical form
• Art of the Fugue
• The Well-Tempered Clavier

21
Bachs music

• Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
• movements
• instrumentation
• tempi
• form
• key
• other notable features
• Mass in B Minor
• setting of Roman Catholic Mass
• 1733 - wrote Kyrie / Gloria - sent to Catholic
  monarch
• later - completed mass w/ new and re-used music

22
Mass in B minor

• instrument parts
• each section subdivided into arias, duets,
  choruses
• in the Credo
• Crucifixus
• strings, 2 flutes, chorus
• use of ground bass
• Et Resurrexit
• full orch. (w/ oboes, trumpets, and timpani)

23
The Baroque Suite

• set of dance-inspired movements all in same key
• written for solo instr. / small groups / full
  orch.
• related to specific dance types
• examples
• allemande - moderate (Ger.)
• courante - fast (Fr.)
• gavotte - moderate (Fr.)
• sarabande - slow (Sp.)
• gigue - fast (Eng./Ire.)
• usually binary form
• French overture

24
The Chorale and Church Cantata

• Lutheran Church service in Bachs time
• 7 am / lasted 4 hours
• importance of music
• orchestra 14-21 players
• chorus 12 men boys
• single composition could last 1/2 hour
• use of vernacular
• chorale
• one note per syllable / moving in steady rhythm
• sung by congregation
• harmonized by choir
• chorale prelude

25
The Chorale and Church Cantata

• cantata
• written for chorus, vocal soloists, organ,
  orchestra
• German religious text- related to liturgy for
  each Sunday
• recitatives, arias, duets, choruses
• based on a chorale tune
• Bachs cantatas wrote 295 surviving - 195
• Cantata 140 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme
• 7 movements
• mvt. 1 - Chorus w/ orch.
• mvt. 4 - Tenor (solo or unison) w/ strings and
  continuo
• mvt. 7 - Chorus doubled by orch.

26
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

• born in Halle, Germany - not in musical family
• father wanted him to study law
• age 9 - father relented to let G.F. study w/
  organist
• age 11 - could compose and give organ lessons
• age 12 - father dies
• age 17 - studies law at Halle University
• age 18 - leaves university sets out for Hamburg
• became violinist/harpsichordist at Hamburg Opera
  House / age 20 - own opera produced

27
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

• man of temperament and conviction
• age 21 - went to Italy / established his career
• wrote Italian operas
• 1710 - music director for Elector of Hanover
  (Ger.)
• after 1 mo. - asked to leave for London
• Rinaldo
• after 1 year - asked to leave again for London
• (1712-1759) became Englands most important
  composer
• favored by Queen Anne - gave him 200/year
• after death of Anne, Elector of Hanover becomes
  King George I of England - Handels subsidy
  increased to 400/year

28
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

• 1719 - music director of the Royal Academy of
  Music - open for only 9 seasons
• composed a number of operas for brilliant
  sopranos and castrati
• formed his own company
• impresario / composer / performer
• Opera of the Nobility - the opposition
• both companies go bankrupt / Handel has nervous
  breakdown
• recuperates in Germany / returns to England
• produces more operas and adds oratorios

29
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

• 1741 - stops composing opera / focuses on
  oratorio
• oratorios criticized, yet productive
• played organ concertos between acts
• plot against Handel
• suffers another breakdown / recovers / composes
  more oratorios
• 1753 - still active conducting/ giving organ
  concerts
• almost blind / statue erected in public park
• 1759 - 3000 mourners at his funeral in
  Westminster Abbey

30
The Oratorio

• large scale composition for chorus, vocal
  soloists, and orchestra
• no acting, scenery, or costumes - concert-style
• most based on Biblical stories
• choruses, arias, duets, recitatives, interludes
• chorus provides commentary / participates in
  story
• narrator
• longer than cantatas (sometimes over 2 hours)
• first appeared in early 17th century Italy -
  dramatized musical settings of Biblical stories