Vocal Music of the Baroque

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Vocal Music of the Baroque

• Or, the History of Music, part IIIa

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Still, the Italians

• Baroque vocal styles centered on the Italian love
  for Monody
• Remember that word?
• Le nuove musiche the new music
• Basically, a bunch of melody over simple basso
  continuoso
• Monteverdis madrigals displayed this changing
  style

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Baroque Opera Good Times.

• Early operas, Euridice and Dafne, were very
  monodic
• Music took a backseat toward clear speech
• Were often mythological stories, written for
  aristocrats
• Early on, they were still small works

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Monteverdi pops up again

• He became the music director at St. Marks
  Cathedral
• Orfeo, Monteverdis first, was much more
  sophisticated that others
• Orfeo called for a lot of specific
  instrumentation
• His music was much more complex, interesting, and
  entertaining
• Orfeo, again

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Still, further clarification

• About this time was the separation of recitative
  and aria
• Recitative was for words, aria for music
• Venice became the center of opera, building the
  first opera house

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Competing Opera Styles

• Venetian opera used counterpoint and gave the
  orchestra fun stuff
• Neapolitan was homophonic, focused on vocal
  melody
• Eventually, Neapolitan won (except in France)
• Neapolitan style due to Scarlatti

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Yet another style!

• Neapolitan opera became too serious.
• So, opera buffa (comic opera) was born
• This was common-man opera, stories about simpler
  lives and with normal folk performing
• At first, it was low-class, but this changed
  through history

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Frances Turn

• France was the only part of Europe to develop a
  non-Italian opera style
• Lully was the pioneer of said style
• He wrote operas for Louis XIV, so they were
  pompous and refined
• As a whole, they were more colorful and visually
  pleasing, but made less sense

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England? Really?

• Purcell wrote some stuff, but Handel was the big
  guy
• His stuff appealed to all of England, regardless
  of class
• It was influenced greatly by the Neapolitan style
  from Naples, Italy
• The opera Xerxes

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No more opera!

• Cantata was also around
• Italian in design, it was vocal work of
  recitative and aria with continuo underneath
• It told a simple story
• Many composers, including Scarlatti and Bach,
  wrote cantatas
• Cantata

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And more you say?

• Oratorio sacred works with long narrative texts
• It was like opera, but not as fancy
• One of the most famous is Handels Messiah
• Messiah