  Baroque = “irregularly shaped pearl”  The terms was first used as derogatory to describe the music at that time  The music changed from being flowing, and songlike to being fast, pulsating, and noisy  The term is also used in art history to describe the more elaborate, ornamented, lavish style

 Age of Exploration, Colonization, and Scientific Discovery  Isaac Newton –  Rene Descartes –  Technologies  Telescope, microscope, thermometer, syringe, slide rule, barometer, wind gauge, pressure cooker, tuning fork, and steam engine

 Two Practices, Three Styles  First Practice (Old Style)  The music dominates the text  Second Practice (New Style)  The text dominates the music  Three Styles  Ecclesiasticus (church)  Cubicularis (chamber)  Scenicus seu theatralis (scenic or theater)

 After taking the time to read and explore the writing of the Greeks, composers of the Baroque period being writing for the affections  Affections – rationalized emotional states or passions (anger, fear, happiness, love)  If a listener was unaware of the affections that a composer was using in a song, that person would consider the song grotesque

 Music Theory  Key Tonality  The evolution of the major and minor scales becomes defined and used as the standard in Western music  Rhythm  The pulse of music remained the same as that of the style of the Renaissance  Definitions of tempos begin to appear in musical pieces – allegro, andante, presto, moderato, etc.  Notation  As the printing of music became more refined, bar lines and measures were created to help organize music

 Time signatures begin to be used define the number of beats in each measure  Clef signs begin to be used to define the range of the notes that are used on a staff – also helps determine the instrument that was to be played  F Clef – Modern day Bass Clef  C Clef – Modern day moveable Clef  G Clef – Modern day Treble Clef

 Vocal music and instrumental music continue to be written together and separate  Instrumental music begins to gain ground as an independent musical form  Composers and musicians begin to write and perform instrumental music – compositions and performances begin to accumulate and gain a heightened status

 Monody  Italian solo song that is accompanied  Intermedio  Musical interlude between acts of plays  Opera  Italian drama presented musically  Combined scenery, costumes, literature, acting, with vocal and instrumental music  Teatro – theater, performance venue for operas. Begin popping up in major cities in Italy

 Libretto  A book of text that is set to music  Important in creating operas  Oratorio  Similar to an opera except without stage action, scenery, or costumes  Has a narrator  Mainly deals with religious subjects, in Latin  Oratorio Volgare  Oratorio in the native language

 Dafne – 1598  The first opera ever written and performed  In Florence  Jacopo Corsi ( ) Composer  Ottavio Rinuccini ( ) Librettist  Moral of story – to demonstrate the dangers that await those who scorn love’s power  Story – Dafne, a nymph, complains about a monster hunting their sheep, Apollo slays the monster, makes fun of Cupid, Cupid shoots Apollo with arrow and falls in love with Dafne, Dafne wants to escape so she prays to the gods who turn her into a laurel tree, Apollo grieves for Dafne, declares his love for her in front of the tree, and promises to wear laurel leaves in his hair.

 Claudio Monteverdi   Italian composer  Composed 3 operas, a ballet, 12 volumes of 250 madrigals, 5 volumes of sacred music, and 20 sacred pieces  Famous for integrating the old style and new style of music together – creating a balance  Opera flourishes from Florence, to Mantua, to Rome, to Venice, to Naples, then to Europe

 Alessandro Scarlatti   Composed operas, oratorios, intermedios, and even comedic works  Shifted center of music to Naples  Used the new “Italian Overture” in operas  Italian Overture – orchestral piece played at the beginning of an opera, with no musical relation to the opera, three sections, tempo was fast- slow-fast

 Jean-Baptiste Lully   French composer of Ballets and Operas  Adopted the Italian Opera and created the French Opera  Used the “French Overture” in operas  French Overture – orchestral piece played at the beginning of an opera, with no musical relation to the opera, two sections, tempo was slow-fast

 England  Masque – an aristocratic entertainment blending the art of poetry, dance, song, and instrumental music into a dramatic form with elaborate staging  Henry Purcell   Greatest English composer, composed vocal and instrumental secular and sacred music  Composed the first English opera “Dido and Aeneas” in This opera started with a French Overture

 Germanic Lands  German opera has a slow start, French and Italian operas are popular instead  Singspeil – German opera  Reinhard Keiser   The most important composer of German operas  Russia  Italian operas did not reach Russia until 1730 due to their isolation

 Spain  Pedro Calderon de la Barca   Credited with inventing the Spanish opera  Zarzuela  Spanish opera – Spanish dramatic form with singing, dancing, and spoken language  Spanish America  First opera ever written in America was in Peru in 1658, to honor King Philip V on his 18 th birthday and first year of his reign

 Instrumental Music  Four Principal Styles  Dance music  Improvisatory  Variations  Imitative counterpoint  Dance Music  music for dancing  Allemande – duple meter, moderate tempo  Courante – French dance, triple meter, moderate tempo  Saraband – triple meter, slow tempo  Gigue – duple or triple meter, fast tempo

 Suite  Grouping of dance pieces compiled into a single, complete work  Improvisatory  improvised, made up without preparation  Fantasia – composition evoking free style improvisation  Toccata – sectional composition for a keyboard  Prelude – self contained movement in an improvisatory style

 Variations  a melody that was repeated throughout a song, but the supporting parts of the melody were changed  Imitative Counterpoint  one melody starts at the beginning of a song and then the same melody starts at a different part in the song  Example: canons and rounds

 Sonata  Piece of instrumental music  Cantata  Piece of vocal music  Sonata da chiesa  Church sonata – instrumental church music  Sonata da camera  Court sonata – instrumental court music

 Concerto  Vocal music accompanied by instrumentalists  Concertino  Small ensemble of instruments  Concerto Grosso  Large ensemble of instruments  Strophic  Same music for each stanza of text  Through-composed  New music for each stanza of text

 Arcangelo Corelli   Italian violinist and composer  Famous for composing music mostly for violin

 Antonio Vivaldi   Italian composer, violinist  Composed 49 operas, 90 sonatas, 500 concertos  Expanded the concerto style of music, used fast- slow-fast movements  Well known for “The Four Seasons” and his “Gloria’s”

 Jean-Philippe Rameau   French musician, composer, and theorist  Attempted to compose operas – not very successful  Composed instrumental music, secular and sacred  Studied music theory as a science – believed that all music came from harmony and studied its effects in nature – vibrations (compared to modern day sound waves)

 Johann Sebastian Bach   German composer and great keyboard performer  Musical genius in composition of keyboard music and performance  Composed mainly for instruments, no operas  Baroque period ends at the death of Bach because he begins to incorporate “Classical” features in his musical style

 George Frideric Handel   German composer, but became British citizen  Composed operas, oratorios, instrumental music  Best known for the “Messiah” and “Water Music”  Invented the Organ Concerto