Short Written Assignment: Styles and Practices

Reading Assignment: The Baroque Period

The Baroque Period (1600-1750)

The Baroque Period in music roughly spans the years 1600 to 1750 and is all about affect

or affections (a musical language to depict the affections e.g. joy, grief, and agitation). The

name baroque was first applied to this era long after it was over by historians who wanted

to characterize the period between the Renaissance and the Classical Period. By using the

term “baroque,” historians were calling attention to the extravagant and even bizarre

qualities of the music. The word itself was probably derived from a Portuguese word

meaning “irregularly shaped pearl.” The standard texture of polyphony (referred to as the

stile antico style during the period) now made room for homophony (then known as stile

moderno), in which one voice or instrument was clearly more important than the others.

Putting one voice in the musical foreground meant that a solo singer could portray onstage

the thoughts and actions of a single dramatic character in an opera or oratorio or a soloist

could play accompanied by an orchestra in a concerto.

In the Baroque period, we see three distinct styles of music and two practices:

STYLES PRACTICES

Theater (Opera) Stile Antico (highly polyphonic)

Church Stile Moderno (homophonic w/solo voice)

Chamber

Theater

A whole new relationship between works and music began in Florence, Italy, around 1600.

A group of scholars and musicians calling themselves the camerata (Italian for “a society of

friends”) sought to recapture the spirit of Greek drama by writing melodies for the actors to

sing as they played dramatic roles. From this group, and other Florentine musicians, would

come the genera known as opera. Opera is drama in which all dialogue is sung. There are

two main types of singing contained in operas, recitative and aria. A recitative section is a

type of sung speech that usually contains dialogue, which is highly rhythmic and syllabic.

An aria is a fully developed melody for a vocal soloist, which is accompanied.

The first master of operatic composition was the Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi

(1567-1643).

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Monteverdi’s life spanned the change of style from the Renaissance into the Baroque.

Upon Gabrieli’s death in 1612, Monteverdi took over the post of music director at Saint

Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. His early madrigals are wonderful examples of music in the

Italian Renaissance (stile antico). His operas, however, represent the new style (stile

modern) of the baroque. Monteverdi’s last opera was The Coronation of Poppea. The

story is based very loosely on the Roman emperor Nero, who reigned from AD 54 to 68 and

is remembered throughout history for fiddling while Rome burned. He was a weak, vain

man who pursued many women. Poppea knew how to play to Nero’s passions, and by

careful scheming she was able to dispose of his wife so that Nero would marry her and

make her empress. Many characteristics of recitative and aria can be heard in Monteverdi’s

Coronation of Poppea. Let’s watch the finale to the opera!

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The Cantata

A cantata is a dramatic work for solo voices, sometimes a small chorus, and either basso

continuo or a small orchestra. The same type of vocal styles we heard in opera were used

in cantatas, including recitative to provide clearer dialogue, arioso, and aria. Baroque

cantatas were quite different from operas, however, in that they were short (usually not

more than twenty minutes long), and they were not performed with scenery, costuming, or

stage action. Like operas, they needed to be understood by their audiences and were

generally composed in the vernacular. Cantatas come in secular and sacred forms. The

secular cantata was a popular form of musical entertainment in Italy with works by Giacomo

Carissimi, Antonio Cesti, and Barbara Strozzi. Most performances would have happened at

social gatherings in the homes of wealthy aristocrats.

Like opera, the cantata went through considerable transformations from early to late

baroque, reaching its height in Germany in the works of Dietrich Buxtehude and J.S. Bach.

By Bach’s time, the sacred cantata was performed in churches and often included baroque

elements of recitative, aria, chorus, and instrumental ensemble. Cantatas generally

included several movements that featured a variety of solo singers, and they usually

concluded with a four-part setting of a chorale melody. Let’s listen and follow along in the

score to Bach’s Sleepers Awake, Cantata no. 140 written in 1731.

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Church

The arts served also to project the power of the church, and the same theatricality and

intense artistic expression designed to arouse earthly passions could awaken passion for

religious subjects as well. Churches spent large sums of money on lavish decoration that

would both convey the church’s authority and inspire religious fervor. Filling these brilliant

interiors was the sound of the Baroque organ, an instrument whose powerful resonance

and striking variety of timbres was unsurpassed in creating awe. The renowned organist

Johann Sebastian Bach, whose Toccata and Fugue in D minor is one of the most famous

organ compositions of all-time, made frequent trips to towns and cities around Germany to

test the craftsmanship of newly installed organs.

The fugue is one of the new types of works that Baroque composers began to write for the

organ. The word fugue comes from the Italian word fuga, meaning “flight.” The fugue, as is

true of most musical forms, did not appear fully developed. It evolved from less complex

types of keyboard music. The fugue and its predecessors have one thing in common; they

are contrapuntal, with lines of music often imitating one another.

One of the most important composers in the history of music, and certainly the preeminent

composer of the Baroque period, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) produced what

many regard as the finest pieces of music ever written.

Although well-respected during his lifetime, Bach was generally considered more of a loyal

and industrious church musician than a genius, a point of view that has since dramatically

changed. His work was not revolutionary in itself; rather, he brought such an elevated level

of mastery and sophistication to the prevailing musical trends of the time (use of

counterpoint, harmonic organization, variation of rhythms, forms, and textures, etc.) that the

entire period is said to have reached maturity with Bach. The type of music that Bach wrote

was mostly determined by the position he held. For instance, while at Cöthen, he wrote a

great deal of instrumental music, which was what the Prince wanted. It was there that he

wrote his six Brandenburg Concertos and the suites for solo cello. At Leipzig, his duties

required producing music for church services, and he wrote most of his over 200 cantatas

during his tenure there.

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is a fugue surrounded by a

toccata, which is a free-sounding virtuoso works, usually for keyboard. Both the fugue and

the toccata offer the organist plenty of chances to show off the tremendous tonal

possibilities of the instrument, as well as virtuoso skill as a performer. The third and

concluding section of this work is another toccata that Bach labels recitativo. The word

refers to the free and expressive style of singing. Let’s listen to Bach’s composition and see

if you can hear the three sections.

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Let's now watch a video on Bach from the BBC Great Composers series.

The Oratorio

An oratorio is a dramatic work for chorus, solo voices, and orchestra. Unlike opera, it does

not include scenery, costuming, or stage action. It is similar to the cantata in many ways

except that it is longer and is performed on a much larger scale (most take as long as two

hours or more to perform). The oratorio developed as part of the Roman Catholic Church’s

efforts for reform after the Protestant Reformation. In order to reach out to as many

community members as possible, the Congregation of the Oratory built buildings close to

churches that were used for talks, lectures, and musical performances in which religious

subjects could be taught outside of the services offered by the church. Because they were

intended to teach, many oratorios were based on Bible stories and had a singing narrator to

explain what was happening before and between the other musical selections.

George Frideric Handel (1685-1795) was born in Halle, Germany to a prosperous family.

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His father was a barber-surgeon who did not want his son to be a musician (a common

theme in music history). Eventually, his father relented, allowing Handel to study

composition with Friedrich Zachow, a well-respected teacher and composer. After enrolling

at the University of Halle, Handel determined that his destiny lay in opera. In 1706, he

moved to Italy where he composed his first major works. A visit to London in 1710 left him

enthralled, and he decided to settle there permanently.

Probably the most famous oratorio of all time is Handel's Messiah. It consists of 35 sections

(19 choruses, 16 arias, 17 recitatives, and 2 sections for orchestra alone). It is primarily a

contemplation of Christian beliefs in three parts: the prophecy and Christ’s birth, his

suffering and death, and the Resurrection and Redemption. Let’s listen to the final section

of the Messiah, the "Hallelujah Chorus"!

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Chamber

The Concerto

One of the most important musical forms to emerge during the Baroque period was the

multi-movement concerto; a work featuring an instrumental soloist accompanied by an

ensemble. Two main types of concerti were the solo concerto for solo instrument and

orchestra, and the concerto grosso, played by a small orchestra. Solo concertos were

usually virtuoso showpieces in which soloists were required to perform technically

demanding parts. As well, the solo instrument had to be of sufficient expressiveness and

power to hold its end of the conversation with the ensemble.

Antonio Vivaldi is undoubtedly one of the most significant Baroque instrumental

composers; certainly he was the most prolific of the 18th century in Italy. Sometimes called

the “red priest” because of the color of his hair and his ordination, he spent most of his

career as a music teacher and composer at the PioOspedale della Pietà, a school for

orphaned, abandoned, or illegitimate girls in Venice.

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Vivaldi wrote more than 500 concertos, including 39 for bassoon, 30 for flute, and several

for oboe, and no less than 39 operas, in addition to numerous choral works, cantatas, and

chamber works. In many of these works, he experimented with different sound

combinations between the ensemble and the soloist, establishing a trend for many

generations of composers after him. His masterpiece Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four

Seasons) remains his most imaginative and colorful work. In this concerto, Vivaldi tried to

capture the unique essence of each of the seasons. Let’s listen to the first movement,

“Spring,” which includes musical passages designed to imitate chirping birds.

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The compositional approach in which a composer tells a story, paints a picture, or sets a

mood through music is called program music. The opposite approach is usually referred

to as absolute music. After falling out of favor during the Classical era, program music

gained popularity once again in the Romantic period.

The Suite

A popular form among Baroque composers was the suite, a series of movements based

upon the rhythms and style of a particular dance. The suite could be written for a solo

instrument such as the harpsichord or violoncello or for a small instrumental ensemble.

Dances included the German Allemande, the French Courante, the Sarabande (originally

from Spain), and the English or Irish Gigue (Jig). Many suites also included the Gavotte: a

French folk dance characterized by the raising rather than the sliding of the feet. At times,

non-dance movements such as the Prelude were also employed. This series of movements

was designed to offer interesting contrasts in meter, tempo, and texture. The dance suite

became very popular in the late Baroque. Examples include Handel's two most popular

orchestral suites: Fireworks Music and Water Music. The Fireworks Music suite was first

performed at a large fireworks display, while the Water Music was written for a party held

on the Thames River. Legend has it that the party goers rode on one barge floating down

the Thames, while Handel and the musicians played on another barge immediately

following. Let’s listen to one of the most famous movements from these suites entitled “Alla

Hornpipe” from the Water Music suite.

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