Instrumental Music

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CHAPTER 34

• Instrumental Music
• in Germany and Austria

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• Although Italy was the fountainhead of Western
  art music during the seventeenth century, other
  countries developed their own distinctive musical
  styles and practices. In German-speaking lands,
  highly contrapuntal pieces and those built upon
  sacred melodies were especially favored.

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Johann Froberger German organist and composer

• Like many Northern musicians, he studied for
  several years in Italy and later served as
  organist at the imperial court in Vienna. He
  composed almost exclusively keyboard music and
  established the dance suite as an important genre
  of music for clavichord and harpsichord.

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• Dance suite An ordered set of dances for solo
  instrument or ensemble, all written in the same
  key and intended to be performed in a single
  sitting. The core dances of the dance suite are
  the
• Allemande in common time at a moderate tempo
• Courante a lively dance characterized by
  intentional metrical ambiguity by means of
  hemiola
• Sarabande A slow, stately dance in ¾ with a
  strong accent on the second beat
• Gigue A fast dance in triple meter with a
  constant eighth-note pulse

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• Program music music in which some external
  influence or non-musical event affects the
  general spirit and the specific details of an
  instrumental composition. In the late
  seventeenth century, both the suite and the
  sonata began to display programmatic elements.
  Through the compositions of Heinrich Biber and
  Johann Kuhnau among others, instrumental music
  was appropriating the expressivity of vocal music.

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Heinrich Biber

• Bohemian-born virtuoso violinist and composer,
  mostly known today for his sonatas for solo
  violin and basso continuo. Among them are his
  famous "Mystery" Sonatas (also known as the
  "Rosary" Sonatas), a set of fifteen sonatas for
  solo violin and continuo that project through
  music a sequence of fifteen miraculous, or
  mysterious, events in the lives of Christ and
  Mary (the annunciation, nativity, crucifixion,
  and so on).

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Scordatura

• Scordatura Tuning a string instrument to
  something other than standard tuning (Italian for
  "mistuning"). The purpose of scordatura is to
  make certain passages easier to play, to produce
  special effects, and to make the instrument sound
  more brilliant by emphasizing the resonance of
  particular strings.

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• Johann Kuhnau immediate predecessor of J.S. Bach
  as cantor at the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, he
  is known today primarily for his set of six
  keyboard sonatas entitled Musical Representations
  of a Few Biblical Histories (1700). The first of
  these sonatas, The Battle between David and
  Goliath, constitutes a prime example of
  programmatic music.

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The North German Organ Traditions

• Exemplified by Buxtehude's organ compositions, it
  is marked by intense counterpoint, the use of
  choral tunes, as well as plenty of virtuosic
  display showing vestiges of improvisation.
• Dieterich Buxtehude Considered the greatest
  north German organ composer. Born in Denmark, he
  served as organist at the church of St. Mary in
  Lübeck for nearly forty years.
• Abendmusik an hour-long concert of sacred music
  with arias and recitatives given during the late
  afternoons of the last five Sundays before and
  during Advent. The Abendmusik at St. Mary's
  Church in Lübeck were particularly popular during
  Buxtehude's time.

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The South German Organ Tradition

• As evident in Pachelbel's organ pieces, it
  tempers the Nordic contrapuntal rigor with an
  increased fondness for lyricism.
• Johann Pachelbel German composer, trained in the
  south German and Austrian organ tradition.
  Although he composed hundreds of vocal and
  instrumental pieces, his fame today chiefly
  resides in his Canon in D Major.

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• Choral fantasia a lengthy composition for organ
  that takes a choral tune as a point of departure
  and increasingly gives free reign to the
  composer's imagination.
• Choral prelude a work for organ that sets a
  Lutheran choral tune, surrounding it with
  counterpoint and florid embellishment. Unlike
  the choral fantasia, in a choral prelude the tune
  is sounded just once.