1. European Music of the 17th Century
Jennifer Rycenga
Guest Lecturer
Humanities 2A
Fall 2010

2. Lady Seated at a Virginal (ca. 1672) Vermeer

3. Lady Seated at a Virginal (ca. 1672) Vermeer
• Music is in the home of the rising middle class
• The bass viol and the keyboard are present
• Good gracious this is an amazing painting! But I have been asked to lecture on music!

4. The Tensions of the Age
The growth of mercantile capitalism and the emergence of Protestant Christianity in the previous century had increased individualism, self-development, and literacy.
The growth of capitalism and increase in state power lead to centralization of power, and an ever-changing set of hierarchies within which an individual located himself/herself.

5. Music in the Tensions of the Age
Early and middle Baroque music shows increasing focus on individuals, especially vocal soloists and virtuoso instrumentalists
At the same time, the adoption of tonality placed pitches in a stricter hierarchic relation to each other than before.
The adoption of more monophonic forms, and emphasis on setting texts in a dramatic fashion, rendered the comprehensibility of the text more crucial.

6. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Composer credited with numerous innovations that launched the Baroque
Best known for his operas and madrigals
In 1605, he consciously and deliberately drew a distinction between the old style and new style of music, which he called “first practice” and “second practice.”
Portrait by Bernardo Strozzi, 1640

7. Second Practice
Monteverdi’s new style, a.k.a. “Second practice,” featured
a continuo bass
more emphasis on the melody in the soprano
more emphasis on the drama inherent in the words (extending to tone painting).
Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals contains pieces illustrating the benefits of his innovations.
Monteverdi around age 30

8. Opera Staging of an opera in Venice during the 17th century
“Opera” is the plural of “opus” or “work,” meaning that there are many individual pieces of music in an opera.
An opera sets a drama entirely (or almost entirely) to music, so that the music is continuous, with little or no speaking.
Opera combines spectacular elements of scenery, dance, costuming, orchestration and other forces: it is, and always has been, an expensive genre!

9. Monteverdi and Opera
Monteverdi is the first composer to write operas that are still performed today.
Most of his operas are on classical themes.
His first opera, L’Orfeo, was written for a royal court
His final two operas - Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea - were written for public opera festivals in new opera houses in the 1640s.

10. Francesca Caccini (1587-ca. 1640)
Soprano and Composer
Daughter of early opera composer Giulio Caccini
Her opera, La liberazione di Ruggiero, is likely the earliest opera by a woman

11. Che Nuovo Stupor Mirate Intorno - O What New Astonishment!
Caccini’s song-like setting shows early Baroque preference for monody over counterpoint.
The anonymous lyrics have the singer taking on the role of a shepherd among those visiting the newborn Jesus

12. Music in the Tensions of Religion
High-church Protestants (Lutherans and Anglicans), because of their emphasis on text and use of the vernacular, and their spiritual trajectory toward individual introspection, encouraged creation of new religious music.
However, Calvinist churches (Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian) insisted that instrumental music did not belong in worship. They also sought to reduce music’s presence and impact in secular society.
Warfare, with its attendant social disruptions and financial drain, slowed musical activity.

13. The Thirty Years War ( ) meant that courts did not have the money or leisure to support musicians.
This especially slowed the progress of German Protestant music in the early decades of the 17th century
War Disrupts Music
Ernest Crofts ( ), Wallenstein:
A Scene of the Thirty Years War

14. Heinrich Schütz ( )
Most acclaimed 17th century German composer
Studied with Monteverdi and Gabrieli
Integrated Italian and Dutch musical ideas into German church music

15. Schütz’s Saul, was verfolgst du mich?
from Schütz’s Symphoniae sacrae, Part III (1650)
Acts 26:14 : conversion of Saul to Paul
German text:
“Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? Es wird dir schwer werden, wider den Stachel zu lücken.”
English translation:
“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It will be hard for you to kick against the thorns.”
• Context at end of a war of religion.
• Note the alternation of choir and solo voices, and use of a dramatic, insistent motif on the repeated name of “Saul.”
• The soloists reference first a recitative style, then a madrigal style.

16. Orlando Gibbons ( )
English composer, contemporary of Shakespeare
Wrote both sacred & secular music
Royal organist for James I, and musical tutor to future King Charles I.
His rich, complex church anthems reveal the high church nature of the Anglican service at this time of transition.

17. Gibbons: O Lord in Thy Anger Rebuke Me Not
Six-part all-male chorus
Text from the then-new King James translation (1611) of Psalm 6:1-4
1. O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. 2. Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. 3. My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long? 4. Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
This Biblical poem often cited by prisoners and the condemned at that time, deeply poignant for his audiences.
Gibbons’ setting, though, obscures the words.

18. John Bull (ca )
English composer, contemporary of Shakespeare
First person in England to receive a doctorate in music (from Oxford)
His music for keyboard is majestic and dramatically structured
Caption on this exquisite portrait reads:
“The bull by force in field doth raigne, But Bull by Skill, Good will doth Gayne”

19. Do Talented Musicians Get More Love?
Worked as a court musician for Elizabeth and James I, as well as a professor at Oxford and Cambridge
In perpetual trouble, he escaped to the Low Countries in 1613, with charges of Catholicism or adultery hounding him.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, said of him “the man hath more music than honesty and is as famous for marring of virginity as he is for fingering of organs and virginals.” (yes, the archbishop may have meant the same puns we can think of here…).

20. John Bull’s keyboard music legacy
He wrote some of the earliest published keyboard pieces
His sweeping “Queen Elizabeth’s Pavan” explores contrapuntal techniques and reveals a world of harmony on the tipping point between modal and tonal worlds.
Once he fled from England to the Low Countries, he worked with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the premier keyboard composer of Northern Europe. Sweelinck considered Bull’s work formative, and included it in his own collection. Sweelinck’s students were among Bach’s teachers.

21. What happened to English opera?
The same thing that happened to English theater: the Puritan revolution squashed both performance and patronage.
In addition to the Puritan revolution, the triumphs of English drama & poetry gave them preeminence over music, which became merely supportive.
The SJSU English department offers evidence of the effects of the Puritan revolution…
From

22. Henry Purcell ( )
Greatest English composer of the 17th century
Wrote for theater; his only opera, Dido and Aeneas (1689) is one of the best operas of the century
Died very young

23. Because England did not develop a great tradition of composers, Purcell’s fame remained pre-eminent in English children’s education. Thus, Purcell’s music can be heard in many movies, and even popular songs like the Who’s Pinball Wizard!
Purcell’s influence

24. Here Comes the Sun King
Louis XIV of France ( , r. from )
Lush patronage of the arts marked his reign, including building the palace at Versailles
Serious and earnest about fulfilling the duties of a monarch
This portrait of Louis XIV as patron
of the arts includes a viola da gamba
in the left-hand corner, the instrument
for which Marin Marais wrote

25. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
Pre-eminent French composer of the 17th century, though he was Italian by birth
A dancer as well as a musician, he made artful adaptations of dances into court music forms
He re-worked Italian opera forms to create a style he felt was better suited to the French language.

26. Lully’s Style Graceful, elegant, rhythmically light of touch
In his operas, he wrote his airs as his teacher and father-in-law, had instructed him, “chiefly to charm the mind and ear, and to let us pass life with a bit of sweetness among the bitterness that we encounter…not to excite anger and other passions.”
Worked in the court of Louis XIV

27. What a Way to Go! (especially for a former dancer)
Lully died from a gangrenous toe. He sustained the injury while conducting a new composition in honor of Louis XIV’s recovery from an illness. Lully hit himself in the foot with the long brass rod that was used in that era by conductors to keep time. In general, fatalities from conducting music are rare!

28. Expert player of bass viol, a. k. a
Expert player of bass viol, a.k.a. viola da gamba (7 strings, fretted, range overlapping that of a cello and bass)
Held office of viol player to the king of France from
His virtuoso skills are showcased in his Piéces de Viol, suites that demonstrate great compositional skill as well as command of the instrument
Marin Marais ( )
Portrait by André Bouys, 1704

29. Rondeau Form
Constant refrain, introduced first, with alternating and expandable new material between: A-B-A-C-A-D-A
or A-B-A-C-A-B-A
• Marais’s Rondeau from the Suite #3 in c minor, from his Third Book of Pieces for Viol.
• This piece: A-A-B-A-C-A-D-A-C-A-E!-A
• The E is an intentional, remarkable surprise