Baroque Music Part I

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Baroque MusicPart I

• 1600-1750

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The Baroque Style

• baroque equally proportioned
• Has an emphasis on incorporating movement and
  contrast into all art forms.
• Very rich and powerful rulers require derision.

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Baroque Lifestyle

• Absolutism
• A rulers right to have absolute
• power over their subjects.
• A king could throw a worker into jail because
  that worker wanted to quit his job.
• Its still bad to be a peasant

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Baroque Greats

• Scientific Discovery
• Newton
• Galileo
• Music Giants
• Johann Sebastian Bach
• George Frederic Handel
• Antonio Vivaldi
• Henry Purcell

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Characteristics of Baroque Music

• Unity of Mood
• A piece of music usually expressed only one
  feeling throughout the entire piece
• Repeating rhythm and melodies, often through all
  voice parts (choral) and all instrument families.

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Characteristics of Baroque Music

• Music uses relatively small dynamic ranges. This
  is due to physical limitations of instruments.
• Terraced Dynamics- were also used and refer to
  the sharp contrast from loud and soft. Heard
  here
• Such as the harpsichord, clavichord, voice,
  Baroque orchestra.

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Chords and Basso Continuo

• Basso Continuo
• Bass part usually played by two instruments a
  keyboard instrument (harpsichord) and a Bass
  instrument (double Bass, bassoon, cello).
• Has a very rich and grand feel.
• Start example 244

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Basso continuo
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The Baroque Orchestra

• Baroque orchestras are small!
• Usually only 10-40 players
• Basso Continuo Strings
• Brass, Woodwinds, and Percussion used very rarely!

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The Baroque Orchestra
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Baroque Forms

• Movements
• a piece that sounds fairly complete and
  independent but is part of a larger composition.
• Generally broken up by fast, slow, fast.

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Music in Baroqe Society

• Composers made money by having a patron!
• Patron
• someone who supported a composer by paying them
  for their music and requesting new music to be
  composed

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Music in Baroque Society

• Music on demand!
• Main source of entertainment in royal courts.
• One court might have an orchestra, a church
  choir, and opera singers

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Music in Baroque Society

• Music director
• Composer who works for a patron
• In charge of composing all the music at court.
• Rehearsed the orchestra, choir, and all other
  musicians at court.
• Good
• Pay and popularity were high
• Compositions always performed
• Bad
• Still a servant of the patron

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HOT Question What are some modern day examples
of Patron/Musician relationships?
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The Elements of Opera

• opera a drama in which most or all of the lines
  are sung to an orchestral accompaniment and is a
  staged drama.
• aria a song for solo voice(s) with orchestral
  accompaniment. Is an emotional rant that has few
  words.
• recitative a vocal line that imitates speech
  (secco), and may be accompanied by continuo
  (accompanio). Serves to advance the plot.
• libretto the text of the opera. (Comic or
  seria)
• librettist one who writes a libretto (story).

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Early operas

• Based on the Greek myth
• Written for aristocracy
• 1637 first public opera house in Venice, Italy.
  Italy considered home of opera.
• L Orfeo by Claudo Monteverdi, the first opera
  of any mention. Overture heard here

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Early Opera cont

• overture or prelude the orchestral introduction
  to an opera. Generally highlights thematic
  material.
• French opera had mandatory Ballet sections,
  distanced from Italian opera.
• Jean-Baptiste Lully Baroque opera great who
  expanded the orchestra to achieve greater effect.
  Puts the pomp sound in French Grand Overture.
  Excerpt from Armide.