2. Style Characteristics
• Rise in idealism
(contrasts with “realism” of the Renaissance)
• longing for perfection
• Ornamented artistic style
• Grandiose style and
preference for high drama
• Desire for luxurious lives
• led to higher poverty rates,
higher levels of oppression
3. Advancement in Music
Rise in harmonic understanding
• Figured Bass- special notation accompaniment
• musicians improvised an appropriate harmony
• basso continuo - at least 2 instruments
• Bass line - bassoon/viola de gamba
• Chords - harpsichord/lute/organ
• Major and Minor tonalities are explored
• Tuning system was standardized - Equal temperament - used equal
mathematical “pure” intervals as tuning system
Rise in popularity of instrumental music
Development and advancement of instruments
4. Advancement in Music
• Rise of virtuoso musicians
Vivaldi - virtuosic violinist
Bach/Handel - virtuoso organist
Improvisation played a significant role
• Rise of vocal registers
Castrato = men castrated as boys, sing in higher vocal ranges
• Role of women rose once again
• Doctrine of Affections - adapted from the popularity of text painting
Baroque codification of basic emotional states (or “affections”) aroused
by music.
5. New Secular Vocal
Genres
Monody - “one song”
• developed by the Florentine Camerata (group of writers,
artists, musicians, and humanists)
• solo song with instrumental accompaniment
• high emotional power of text
• The “new music” was considered the “expressive” style
• used the Doctrine of Affections
• one emotional state for the entire duration of the song
• led to opera
Opera
• marriage of all artistic styles (music, theater, poetry, art-set
design/costumes)
6. Opera
Entire drama is performed through music
• Composer: writes music
• Librettist: writes text/lyrics (or libretto)
Recitatives - (plot advancement)
• speech-like sections; frequent use of single/limited notes for lyrics.
• Often performed by one or two characters
• secco - Accompanied ONLY by continuo instruments; moves with great freedom
• accompagnato - Accompanied by full orchestra; moves more evenly
Arias follow recitatives; lyric moments
• popular, more memorable songs
• emotional, melody driven.
• DA CAPO ARIA - ternary (A-B-A) form; conventional and popular aria type
Several ensemble numbers (duets, trios, etc).
• Chorus is used to back up the solo voices OR may function independently
Orchestra performs an overture before the opera. Often introduces melodies/themes from
the opera’s arias.
7. Italian Opera
Opera was born in Italy (First opera house = Venice)
• Combination of Renaissance theatrical traditions & musical experimentation
of the Florentine Camerata
• 3 Acts
• Plots
• Greek mythology (typical subject)
• history (later operas)
• Italian operas gained popularity in Western Europe
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) - singer, gambist
• perhaps greatest Italian composer in Baroque
• wrote nine books of madrigals
• first great master of opera
8. English Opera
• Masque - an early type of entertainment that combined vocal and instrumental
styles with poetry and dance
• England adapted the Italian model for opera and wrote libretto in English
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) - organist
• Dido and Aeneas (1689) among his first written in the English
language
• libretto: Nahum Tate
• based on Virgil’s Aeneid
• Known for its climactic final scene
• recitative “Thy Hand, Belinda”
• aria = “Dido’s Lament” - aka. “When I am laid”
• 5 measure ground bass - ostinato
9. New Sacred Vocal
Genres
Oratorio
• Descended from religious “plays-with-music” of the Counter-Reformation
• Like a sacred opera, but without costumes
• Plots based on biblical stories
George Friderik Handel (1685-1759)
• master of oratorios, cantatas, operas, orchestral suites, concerto grossi, and
chamber music among others.
• wrote his famous Messiah in 1742
Cantata: vocal solo + orchestra + basso continuo (optional chorus)
• sacred vocal composition with instrumental accompaniment
• multi-movement work (12-20 minutes in length)
• based on biblical stories
• many movements are based on chorales
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
• wrote 60 cantatas each year for 5 years, yet only about 150 have survived
10. New Instrumental Genres
Sonata
• secular solo piece
• opposite to cantata (something played; multi-
movement)
Concerto
• orchestral work with a featured soloist or solo group
Baroque Suite
• multi-movement collection of dances of contrasting
character and tempo
Keyboard works
• preludes, toccatas, fugues, and sonatas
11. Concerto characteristics
Solo concerto - solo instrument (violin) with accompanying instrumental group
Concerto grosso - use of small chamber group (concertino) verses a larger
group (ripieno or tutti)
• Bach’s 6 Brandenburg Concertos among the most popular representation of
c.g.
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) - b. Venice, violinist
• wrote operas, concertos, sonatas, and more.
• His best-known work is The Four Seasons
• 4 violin concertos depicting scenes appropriate to each season
• Each concerto (1-4) contains 3 movements (fast, slow, fast)
• example of program music = music intended to evoke something
“extra-musical”... in this case, the mood and character of each
season
• each concerto is accompanied by a line from a poem
• program music was inspired by word painting in Renaissance and
Baroque vocal works
• Use of orchestral ritornello, or repeated sections (refrains)
12. Suite characteristics
Used popular dances from around Europe
• allemande = German, quadruple meter, moderate tempo
• courante = French, triple meter, moderate tempo
• sarabande = Spanish, triple meter, stately tempo
• gigue/jig = English/Irish, 6/8 compound meter, lively tempo
• Optional dances
• overture - opening piece
• minuet
• hornpipe
Forms (binary and ternary)
For solo instrument, chamber group, or keyboard (harpsichord)
13. Keyboard
Popular keyboards
• Organ - produced sound by blowing air into pressurized tubes (or pipes)
• Harpsichord - strings are plucked by quills
• Clavichord - strikes the brass/iron strings with blades called tangeants
Keyboard forms
* Free forms - harmony based with improvisational freedom
• preludes - short piece based on continuous evolution of melodic and
rhythmic figures; usually introduced a group of dance pieces (suites),
chorales, or fugue
• toccatas - virtuosic and sounds improvised
• Strict forms - based on counterpoint (polyphony)
• fugue
Well-Tempered Clavier by J.S. Bach: 2 volumes of organ music
Each volume contained 12 major pieces and 12 minor pieces
14. Fugue
Latin word fuga = flight
flight
• Most were written for the organ (JS Bach was the leading “master” of fugue
compositions)
• Single theme used in entire piece by being presented throughout 2 or more melodic
voices (usually 3 or 4 voices - SATB registers) = IMITATION
Main theme = SUBJECT
EXPOSITION = first large section- is over once all the voices have stated the SUBJECT
in full
• SUBJECT stated first in single voice; tonality established (I)
• SUBJECT stated in a second voice = ANSWER (different register, 5 notes away
V=dominant); meanwhile a counter-theme continues in the first voice
• If there are 4 voices, another statement of SUBJECT and ANSWER occur while
the first two continue to develop
EPISODES = are interludes that help relax the counterpoint.
FINAL STATEMENT = last declaration of SUBJECT and final cadence (tonic chord).
15. Contrapuntal Devices
Ways to alter the subject:
• Augmentation = durations of note values are longer
• Diminution = durations of note values are shorter
• Inversion = subject’s melodic intervals move in
opposite direction (same intervals); “upside down”
• Retrograde = subject’s melody is presented
“backwards”
• Retrograde Inversion = backwards and upside
down
