The Baroque Era By Liam Priestnall

Arcangelo Corelli Arcangelo Corelli was born on 17 February 1653 According to the poet Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, who presumably knew the composer well, Corelli initially studied music under a priest in the nearby town of Faenza, and then in Lugo, before moving in 1666 to Bologna. According to the poet Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, who presumably knew the composer well, Corelli initially studied music under a priest in the nearby town of Faenza, and then in Lugo, before moving in 1666 to Bologna. Corelli’s musical education focused mainly on the violin. He was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque era. Died on 8 January 1713.

Continued… The style of execution Corelli introduced when playing the violin was of vital importance for the development of violin playing. It has been said that the paths of all of the famous violinist-composers of 18th-century Italy led to Arcangelo Corelli who was their "iconic point of reference". Corelli used only a limited portion of his instrument's capabilities when both playing and writing. The parts for violin very rarely proceed above D on the highest string, sometimes reaching the E in fourth position on the highest string. Corelli died in Rome in possession of a fortune of 120,000 marks and a valuable collection of works of art and fine violins.

Examples of Corelli’s violin compositions:

Percussion in the Baroque Era Percussion during the baroque era was rarely used and when used did not have much variety. Mainly, the only percussion used was the timpani. The timpani would be limited to the tonic and dominant or sub-dominant notes in a piece and rarely deviate from this rule. Until the late 19th century, timpani were hand-tuned; that is, there was a sequence of screws with T-shaped handles, called taps, which altered the tension in the head when turned by players. Thus, tuning was a relatively slow operation, and composers had to allow a reasonable amount of time for players to change notes if they were called to tune in the middle of a work.

An example of a typical timpani piece in the baroque era: Haydn’s symphony no. 104

Passacaglia The passacaglia is a musical form that originated in early seventeenth-century Spain and is still used by contemporary composers. It is usually of a serious character and is often, but not always, based on a bass-ostinato and written in triple metre. Despite the form's Spanish roots the first written examples of passacaglias are found in an Italian source dated These pieces, as well as others from Italian sources from the beginning of the century, are simple, brief sequences of chords outlining a cadential formula.

Continued… The passacaglia was redefined in late 1620s by Italian composer Girolamo Frescobaldi, who transformed it into a series of continuous variations over a bass. Later composers adopted this model, and by the nineteenth century the word came to mean a series of variations over an ostinato pattern, usually of a serious character. - An example of a passacaglia by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Recitative Recitative is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech. It was used frequently in operas, oratorios and cantatas. Recitative does not repeat lines as formally composed songs do. It resembles sung ordinary speech more than a formal musical composition. In the baroque era, recitatives were commonly rehearsed on their own by the stage director, the singers frequently supplying their own favourite baggage arias which might be by a different composer.

A recitative composed by Handel:

Ground Bass Ground bass is a short, recurring melodic pattern in the bass part of a composition that serves as the principal structural element. With the rise of idiomatic instrumental music in the 16th century, the practice of improvising or composing new melodies above a repeated bass pattern became widely popular, especially in music for the lute and guitar and harpsichord. In the Baroque era the melodic basso ostinato became incorporated into more rigorously structured forms of continuous variation, such as the chaconne and passacaglia. An example of ground bass being used can be heard in “Pachelbel's canon in D”: