The Baroque Era

Expressing Emotion Expressing emotion was the highlight of the baroque era. Art and music were closely linked to the different affections that humans feel. The affections: Joy, Love, Sorrow, Anger, Fear, Excitement. Descartes: Once these affections were engaged by stimulation to the senses, they conveyed their motion to the soul, bringing out specific emotions.

Expressing Emotion Artists focused on physical action and psychological reaction. Judith Slaying Holofernes – Gentileschi YD781rq50oko1_1280.jpg YD781rq50oko1_1280.jpg

General Characteristics Common goal: Express or represent a wide range of feelings vividly. Rather than expressing personal feelings, they attempted to represent generic human emotions, or the affections. The motion from dissonance to consonance gave meaning to music. Helped release the affections.

Music in Venice We begin to see the rise of musical extravagance. Think wealthy and uppity. Along with music, Venice produced architects whose buildings were built from multicolored materials and varied paints. Explored the idea of “semi-choirs” built from Late Renaissance composers. Now alternated 3 or even 4 whole choirs. Homophony trumped polyphony as full choirs answered one another in call and response. Rise of varied instrumentation – basso continuo.

Rhythm and Meter Rhythms become more definite, regular, and insistent. A single rhythm or similar rhythms can be heard throughout a piece. What does this remind you of? Compare to floating rhythms of Renaissance music as they change from section to section only as the imitative polyphony motifs change. So what brings out this change? We now see the use of bar lines. Music was still written in phrases and not measures until this point. We begin to see the use of meter, and thus metric accents. Giovanni Gabrieli – O Magnum Mysterium

Texture Basso Continuo – A bass instrument and a chordal instrument to accompany baroque music. Often a cello and a harpsichord or organ. Bass part is played in a low instrument as well as a chordal instrument. The latter reinforces the bass line as well as the harmonic structure. Basso Ostinato – A repeated bass line in a piece of music. Bass plays a single short melody many times, accompanied buy the chordal instrument. “Dido’s Lament” by Henry Purcell Listen for the Basso Ostinato. And there’s this…

Functional harmony Renaissance music had still used medieval modes. Baroque musicians developed the modern major/minor system. A sense of tonality grew much stronger. Composers developed a new way of handling all chords. The chords now played a special role in relation to the tonic chord. Now, when a chord follows another, it does so in a purposeful and predictable way. Harmonies no longer tend to wander and detour, but rather give us something to expect.

Greek Tragedy Reborn Early Opera composers hoped to revive ethical power from ancient tragedy. Girolamo Mei ( ) – Main motivator to review Greek Tragedy. Spoke with colleagues in Florence, Italy, to communicate his ideas for modern adaptation of these ideas. Those interested, held an academy (gatherings) at his palace in Florence to gain perspective from musicians on the topic. Vincenzo Galilei was one of them.

Vincenzo Galilei Criticized theory and how chords were put together and proposed the union of music and poetry through the idea of monody. Monody: All styles of solo singing. Argued that the emotional message of the text was impaired by polyphony. Made his case by stating that as some lines ascended, others descended, as well as some moved slowly and others moved quickly, contradicting the emotional message.

Baroque Aria vs. Madrigal Giulio Caccini: Compiled Le Nuove Musiche, a 1602 collection of solo songs (monody) with basso continuo. Contained Arias and Madrigals. Aria: Strophic Madrigal: Through composed Vedro 'l mio sol – Caccini (madrigal) Each line of poetry is set to a phrase, and ends in a cadence. This allows him to shape his melody according to the natural accentuation of the text. Embellishments: Added notes to ornament the melody. It was often expected that singers would embellish the melody themselves; however, he would often notate it do demonstrate exactly how he wanted.

Types of music: Opera A drama presented in music with the characters singing rather than speaking. Combined many different arts: Music, drama, poetry, dancing, scene design, and special effects. Special effect designers, would be tasked with creating brilliant machines, shipwrecks, volcanoes, and all kinds of natural and supernatural phenomena.

Types of music: Opera Originally court entertainments put on to celebrate royal weddings and other occasions of that sort the first public opera house was opened in Venice. Incredible step for the music as an art form movement. Opera was the main form of entertainment. Imagine rock concerts today. Monteverdi – Orfeo

Types of music: Recitative Italian for recitation – a declamation or reading aloud. Technique of declaiming words musically in a heightened, theatrical manner. The singing voice closely follows the free rhythm of a highly emotional speech. Mirrors and exaggerates the natural ups and downs of speech.

Types of music: Recitative Accompaniment is usually kept at a minimum. Allows the singer to interpret the dialogue as he/she pleases. Ensures that the words can be heard clearly. The goal of recitative is to release dialogue quickly and so that they may be heard clearly and be uninterrupted. Overall, think of someone speaking rather than singing in an opera. Text between actors. Handel’s Messiah: Listen for the declamation of the text out of rhythm.

Types of music: Aria Extended piece for a solo singer that has much more musical elaboration and coherence that a passage of recitative. Vocal line is more melodic, rhythm more consistent, and accompaniment is much more involved. Uses: The singer thinks over feelings at their leisure, instead of reacting moment by moment. Like when someone is about to die… Handel – Aria from Alcina Listen for the intricacy of the vocal line and accompaniment.

Claudio Monteverdi Italian Baroque composer Innovative and imaginative. Mainly composed vocal works – madrigals, operas, and sacred pieces. Born in Cremona, Northern Italy By the age of 23, had already composed two collections each of sacred music and madrigals. Became music director at St. Mark’s basilica in Venice in content/uploads/2014/04/inside-of-St-Mark%E2%80%99s- Basilica.jpg content/uploads/2014/04/inside-of-St-Mark%E2%80%99s- Basilica.jpg Through his career, wrote 250 madrigals in 9 collections. Transformed the genre from witty and polyphonic pieces of the renaissance, to powerful language and emotionally charged dissonance. Helped to create the dramatic Baroque style.

Claudio Monteverdi Hor Che'l Ciel e la Terra: Madrigal Listen to the light accompaniment. Through Composed. L’orfeo: Opera What type of accompaniment to you expect to hear from a Baroque composer? Synopsis: Orfeo and Euridice get married. Euridice gets a fatal snakebite; dies. Orfeo travels to the underworld and attempts to bring her back to earth. Hades agrees on the condition that Orfeo will not look back to see if Euridice is following. Of course he does and she is sent back to the Underworld.

Oratorio vs. Opera A sacred drama that combines a narrative, dialogue, and commentary. Often performed in the Lenten season. When is this season in liturgy? Like operas, oratorios contain recitatives, arias, duets, and instrumental preludes. Differences: 1. Subject matter was religious. 2. Seldom staged. 3. Action was described, rather than mimed. 4. Often had a narrator. 5. Chorus could take many different roles, such as participating in dramatic dialogue and meditating on narrative events.

Carissimi’s Jephte Synopsis: Jephte, leader of the Israelites, vows that if the lord gives him victory over the Ammonites in the upcoming battle, he will sacrifice the first thing he sees on his return home. When he arrives home, he first sees his daughter. Oops. She sings songs of rejoicing, until the have a dialogue in recitative, and finds out about her fate. She accepts it and goes up to the mountain and sings a lament.

Johann Sebastian Bach Trained as a Violinist and Organist, but organ music first attracted his attention as a composer. Once traveled 225 miles on foot to hear the famous 70 year-old Buxtehude play. Became a church organist, and composed for them, excelling in chorale settings.

Bach: Toccata and Fugues Toccata and Fugues: A prelude and a fugue. Most of Bach’s compositions in this style were composed for Organ. Technically difficult and virtuosic. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor bywA bywA

Bach: Chorale Settings Wrote over 200 Chorales for Organ. Compiled a manuscript collection called Orgelbuchlein (Little Organ Book), containing 45 short chorale “preludes”. The purpose of these was to introduce the chorale to the congregation before they sang. Durch Adams Fall (Through Adam’s Fall) – Bach Top line carries chorale tune. Bottom parts depict the…fall.

Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Two cycles (books) of 24 preludes, each. Clavier – Keyboard One pair in each of the 12 major and minor keys. Arranged in rising chromatic order from C to B. Arranged to demonstrate the possibilities of playing in all 12 keys. Pedagogical aim as well. Each prelude gives the player a different type of performance convention, as well as various compositional techniques.

Bach: Suites German tradition contains four dance movements: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, and Gigue. H4I H4I

Bach: Concertos Most well known orchestral works are the 6 Brandenberg concertos. Concerto – Main idea comes from a solo instrument, backed by an accompaniment. Dedicated to Christian Ludwig in 1721, Margrave (military commander of Brandenberg). aEbI4 aEbI4

George Frederic Handel Gained immense popularity by being a composer for the people. Not just for a royal court. It is the public the gives popularity, not the court. Music for the Royal Fireworks – Given a public rehearsal in ,000 people in attendance. Stopped London traffic. VE VE

Handel: Royal Academy of Music Academy made up of 60 wealthy gentleman. Main goal was to produce Italian operas. Handel was the music director. His job was to travel all over Europe and recruit singers. Some of Handel’s most famous operas were composed for the Royal Academy. Subjects were usually of various time periods – For example, Roman Heroes, or tales of magic and adventure about the crusades.

Handel: Oratorios Use of chorus: Much more prominence than before. Wrote in a style that was much more simple than Bach. Alternated fugal subjects with blocks of harmony and set held notes against quicker rhythms. Orchestra often doubled chorus parts. Made it much more enjoyable to sing. Is this why they still stand the test of time?

Handel’s Messiah Premiered in Dublin, Ireland. Would be come Handel’s most famous work. Tells the Christian idea of redemption using texts drawn from the bible. Begins with the Old Testament prophecies and ends with his resurrection. Appropriate during the time of Lent. Also performed during Advent. Includes a mixture of compositional writing, from recitatives, to arias, to choral fugues. For Unto Us A Child is Born – Listen for Fugues leading into homophony.

Listening Bach’s St. Matthew Passion Describe what you hear. One half page Instrumentation, dynamics, shape of phrases, tone color, expression, etc… bNs bNs