Brief descriptions of the Three Periods of the Baroque
I. Early baroque music (1580–1630)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?
Monody and the Florentine Camerata: The development of monody was one of the defining characteristics of early Baroque practice, as opposed to late Renaissance style (where vocal lines sang independently). The Renaissance polyphony often compromised the meaning and expression of the text. Existing musical genres adopted the style of monody coming out of the renaissance were the madrigal and the motet both of which evolved into solo forms after 1600. The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de’ Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They based their ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek) musical drama that valued discourse and oration. One of the aims of the scholars in the Florentine Camerata was to make the music serve the text. They objected to the obscuring of the text and its meaning which was common in late Renaissance polyphony. The new musical style reflective of the text and was more expressive. To accomplish this, they looked back to the traditions of ancient Greek drama—or at least to their limited understanding of those traditions. The result was the singing style we refer to as monody. Monody had an enormous influence on the emerging vocal genres of opera, cantata, and oratorio of the Baroque period. The term refers to a solo vocal style distinguished by a single melodic line and instrumental accompaniment. Compositions in monodic style could madrigals, motets, or even concertos (in the earlier sense of “concertato,” meaning “with instruments”).
Figure 1. Caccini, Le Nuove musiche, 1601, title page
So monody developed out of an attempt by the Florentine Camerata in the 1580s to restore ancient Greek ideas of melody and declamation style. and early Baroque composer’s endeavored to have the music conform to the natural rhythm and meaning of the text. To summarize – Monody represents a reaction to the complex polyphony of late Renaissance which often minimized the true expression of the text. It could obscure the independent melodic lines.
Basso continuo
Basso continuo parts provided the harmonic structure of the music. The term basso continuo is is often shortened to continuo. The basso continuo style is a supporting harmony for the melody or solo parts of a composition. During the Baroque period this supporting harmony used a “continuo” style during the baroque period. The instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the continuo group. Note that only one person could also play the continuo part.
The basso continuo involved a keyboard instrument such as the harpsichorf and a and a continuo instrument often a cello or bassoon. The bass line – lowest part – is performed by a continuo instrument. In the continuo style is the same as the bass line played by a keyboard instrument. Thus the lowest line is reinforced by both the harpsichord and the continuo instrhument. The harpsichored woudl then improvise the chords (harmony) above this reinforced bass line or continuo.
The chords which the keyboard instrument performs are determined by a figured bass a series of numbers and symbols written beneath the bass line illustrating to the keyboard player which chords or harmonies are to be played.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?post=247&action=edit
Other keyboard instruments could also perform the figured bass or chords such as the organ, lute, guitar, or harp. The instruments performing the bottom continuo (bass) line could be bassoon or even double bass in addition to the cello.
Summary: the keyboard player “realizes” (improvises) a continuo part by playing bass continuo line plus the upper notes to complete chords, either determined ahead of time or improvised in performance. The cello or other bass instrument doubles the continuo line. The keyboard instrument gives added weight to the lowest part. Often the keyboard player fills in the middle parts (chords) using musical judgment in improvising with the figured bass parts. Experienced players often incorporate motives found in the other instrumental parts.
With the end of the Baroque period, the basso continuo fell out of fashion and was rarely heard in the music of the Classical era and beyond. The exception to this was in secco recitative in Classical opera, which continued to make use of sparse, improvised harmony on the harpsichord, though not of the harpsichord-cello pairing of Baroque continuo.
Evolution of Tonality: In the baroque, the use of harmony is directed towards tonality, rather than modality, marking the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque period. Chords, rather than notes, could provide a sense of direction in harmony. The concept is known as tonality.
Claudio Monteverdi furthered the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period.
He developed two individual styles of composition—(prima pratica) the heritage of Renaissance polyphony and (seconda pratica) the new basso continuo technique of the Baroque. With his operas (L’Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea among others), Monteverdi brought considerable attention to this new genre.
II. Middle baroque music (1630–1680) – the centralized court and chamber music
The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what is often labelled the Age of Absolutism, personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music.
The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the cantata, oratorio, and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words. These melodies were built from short melodic ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante. The harmonies, too, might be simpler than in the early Baroque monody, and the accompanying bass lines were more integrated with the melody in anticipation of the aria.
Figure 2. Jean-Baptiste Lully
Integral components of cantatas, operas and oratorios were the recitative and aria.Th simplified melodies and harmonies (Previous paragraph) led to this. Early Roman composers of This style were Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi, who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively. Also included is the Venetian Francesco Cavalli principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners include Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Alessandro Stradella.
Jean-Baptiste Lully: One pre-eminent example of a court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully. He completed 15 lyric tragedies. Instrumental ensembles featured the string-dominated orchestras, a trait inherited from the Italian opera. He introduced these ensembles to the lyric theatre, Upper parts were often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and the bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes.
Figure 3. Arcangelo Corelli
Corelli and Lully:
Arcangelo Corelli a violinist who organized violin technique.and pedagogy advocated particularly for the development of the concerto grosso. Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli publishd widely. His music was performed all over Europe. As with Lully’s stylization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Dynamics were “terraced”, that is with a sharp transition from loud to soft and back again. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. Among his students is Antonio Vivaldi, who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli’s trio sonatas and concerti.
III. Late baroque music (1680–1730)
The legacy of the Late Baroque period is its enormous number of operas (such as Handel’s Serse), oratorios, (two of the greatest being the St. Matthew’s Passion by J.S. Bach, and Handel’s magnificent Messiah). These two oratorios which typify the sense of opulence and splendor associated with this period. Other major musical contributions of the Late Baroque era were various dance forms, such as the minuet, gigue, courante, allemande, and sarabande. These dances reflected movements that were ornamental, another key feature of this particular time in the history of music. A wide range of instruments performed in the Late Baroque period Harmonic accompaniment was usually provided by a harpsichord.
Concerto Grosso: The concerto grosso developed by coreilli was the key instrumental form of the Late Baroque period. It reflected the contrast between two groups of instruments: one – a small body of string soloists, known as concertino, concertato, or concertante; the other – known as the ripieno, formed the larger string section. The two groups would either alternate with one another or, at times, play together. Some of the greatest concerti grossi are those by Corelli, J.S. Bach, and Handel. It was from this early concerto form that the later Classical and Romantic concertos developed.” –In Classical Mood
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Born in Naples Domenico was brother to organist Pietro Filippo Scarlatti and son to the famous composer Alessandro Scarlatti. Domenico himself was a harpsichordist and composer. He was a pupil of his father and in 1701 was appointed organist and composer to the court at Naples.
His works include oratorios, church music, cantatas, around 600 harpsichord pieces (sonatas).
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Born in Eisenach on March 21, the most famous Bach of all was an organist and composer born into a German family of musicians that spanned two centuries. Appointed violinist in the court orchestra of the Duke of Weimar in 1703, but the same year became organist in Arnstadt. In 1705 he took leave to travel to LÄbeck, to hear Buxtehude an influencial artist in his life, play. IN 1708 he returned to Weimar as court organist, remaining there for nine years. In 1717, he was appointed Kapellmeister to the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cūthen. Bach had little opportunity for church music and there he wrote mainly instrumental works. In 1723 he returned to church work when he became Cantor of St. Thomas’s in Leipzig, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 1747 he visited the court of Frederick the Great at Potsdam, where his second son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, was court harpsichordist. Two years later his eyesight failed; an operation in 1750 was unsuccessful, and he spent his last months totally blind until he died on the 28th of July in Leipzig.
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Born in Halle on the 23rd of February, this German-English composer was born to a barber-surgeon who initially opposed his son’s entrance into the musical profession. Handel studied with Zachow in Halle and in 1702 matriculated at the university there to read law, at the same time holding the probationary post of organist at the Domkirche. The next year he left for Hamburg, where he played violin, later harpsichord, at the opera under Keiser, and had the operas Almira and Nero produced in 1705. He also made a great reputation as a harpsichordist. In 1710 he was appointed to succeed the latter as Kapellmeister to the Elector of Hanover, but left almost immediately on leave of absence for London, where Rinaldo was produced with great success the next year. Again in London on leave in 1712, he settled there, never returning to his post in Hanover. Between 1712 and 1715 he produced 4 operas, and in 1713 composed a Te Deum and Jubilate to celebrate the Peace of Utrecht, receiving a life pension from Queen Anne. On her death in 1714 the Elector of Hanover succeeded to the throne as George I, but apparently took a lenient view of his former Kapellmeister’s truancy, for Handel’s pension was soon doubled. As music director to the Earl of Carnavon (later Duke of Chandos) 1717-20, he wrote the Chandos Anthems, Acis and Galatea and the masque Haman and Mordecai.
1720 began Handel’s most prolific period as an opera composer, and over the next 20 years he wrote more than 30 works. Handle increasingly turned to oratorio in the 1730s due to economic constraints of the times. Esther (a revision of the masque Haman and Mordecai), 1732, was followed by Deborah, Saul and Israel in Egypt. His last opera was produced in 1741, after which he devoted his time chiefly to oratorio. His most well know oratorio , Messiah was produced in Dublin in 1742, followed by 12 more. He continued to appear in public as a conductor and organist, playing concertos between the parts of his oratorios, but his health declined and he spent his last years, like Bach, in blindness.
Dances (c.1745)
To see more information about the minuet, gigue and other dances of the time, go to: http://mandry.net/veryan/georgian/gmusic.html
A continuous worker, Handel borrowed from others and often recycled his own material. He was also known for reworking pieces such as the famous Messiah, which premiered in 1742, for available singers and musicians.
The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others advanced the Baroque era to its climax. Through the work of Johann Fux, the Renaissance style of polyphony was made the basis for the study of composition for future musical eras. The composers of the late baroque had established their feats of composition long before the works of Johann Fux.
A continuous worker, Handel borrowed from other composers and often “recycled” his own material. He was also known for reworking pieces such as the famous Messiah, which premiered in 1742, for available singers and musicians.
/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?post=134&action=edit (From Music 101 (Santa Ana)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/wp-admin/post.php?post=133&action=edit (Santa Ana)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-music-rford/wp-admin/post.php?post=801&action=edit (Santa Ana course)
Also revisions by Robert Ford