Donald Grout 'A History of Western Music'
Chapter 9: Music of the Early Baroque Period
I. General Characteristics
A. New Musical Ideas
1. Impulses towards wider range and greater intenisty of emotional content
from Renaissance continued
a. Madrigals of Gesualdo
b. Motets of Giovanni Gabrieli
2. Middle of the 17th c.
a. New resources of harmony, color and form
B. The Two Practices
1. Monteverdi, in 1605, distinguished between two 'practices'
2. Prima prattica:
a. The style of vocal polyphony represented by the works of Willaert
and codified in the theoretical writings of Zarlino
b. Music dominates the text
3. Seconda prattica:
a. The style of modern Italians such as Rore, Marenzio, and himself
b. Text dominates the music
1. Freer dissonance handling
4. Other labels used:
a. Stile antico vs. stile moderno
b. Stylus gravis and stylus luxurians
5. Other classifications
a. Ecclesiasticus: church music
b. Cubicularis: chamber
c. Theatralis: theater
C. Idiomatic Writing for Instuments
D. The Affectations
1. The technique or effort made by Baroque composers to represent a wide range
of ideas and feelings through musical effects
2. In some ways a Baroque extension of the Renaissance musica reservata
3. Affections: states of the soul such as rage, excitement, grandeur,
heroism, etc.
E. Rhythm
1. Two ways rhythm was employed
a. Regular metrical barline rhythm
b. Free unmetrical rhythm used in recitative or improvisatory solo
instrumental pieces
2. Dance music neccesitated regular rhythms, organized into measures of
strong and weak beats (barlines become a regular musical feature in
the 17th c.)
F. Basso Continuo
1. Typical texture of the Baroque period
a. Firm bass
b. Florid treble
c. Unobtrusive interior harmony
2. Monophonic texture was not new
a. 14th c. cantilena style
b. Burgundian chanson
c. Early frottola
d. 16th c. lute songs
e. Elizabethan air
3. New emphasis on the bass
a. Isolation of bass and treble as 2 essential lines of texture
b. Indifference to the inner parts as melodic lines
4. Throughbass notation or basso continuo
a. Composer would write out melody and bass and give shorthand
as to the chord to be played
b. Performer would 'realize' the harmony in the performance
c. Realization sometimes called a ripieno
G. New Counterpoint
1. Basso continuo was not the only Baroque texture
2. Composers continued to write unaccompanied motets and madrigals (although
even these used a basso continuo sometimes)
3. New counterpoint was harmonically governed, individual lines were
subordinated to a succession of chords
H. Dissonance and Chromaticism
1. Triadic harmony redefines dissonance
a. Dissonant tones become non-triadic notes
2. Use of dissonance through ornamentation
3. Rameau's Treatise on Harmony (1722)
a. Explication of triadic harmony
4. Ascendance of tonal system
a. Major-minor tonality replaces the medieval modal system
b. Figured bass precipitated the move from linear-melodic writing
(medieval, Rennaisance) to a chordal-harmonic style
II. Early Opera
A. Forerunners
1. Basic definition of opera
a. Drama which combines soliloquy, dialogues, scenery, action and
continuous music
b. Earliest operas date from the end of the 16th c.
2. Intermedi or intermezzi
a. Musical interludes that would occur between acts of a comic or
tragic play
b. Intermedi were often elaborate productions including choruses,
soloists and large instrumental ensembles
3. Madrigal composers
a. Often wrote music for intermedi
b. Representative techniques of 16th c. madrigals suggesting action
and emotion were antecedents of opera
4. Madrigal Cycles
a. Adaptations of madrigals to dramatic purposes in a series of scenes
b. Composers
1. Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605)
a. L'Amfiparnaso (The Slopes of Parnassus): madrigal comedy
2. Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634)
5. The Pastoral
a. Madrigals, intermedi and madrigal comedies often had pastoral
scenes and subjects
1. This was a favorite literary genre in the Renaissance
2. Becomes predominant form in Italian poetry at the end of the
16th c.
b. Pastoral
1. Poems about shepherds and other rural subjects
2. Loosely dramatic tales of idyllic and amatory character
6. Text Setting
a. Two distinct types of text in the madrigal and intermedi
a. Narrative or dialogue by which a situation developed
b. The outpouring of feelings that arose from the situation
7. Greek Tragedy as a Model
a. Greek tragedy served as a distant model for the kind of dramatic
music literary men of the Renaissance thought would be appropriate
to the theater
b. One group of composers believed only the choruses were to be sung
1. Andrea Gabrieli writes choruses for an Italian production of
Sophocles' Oedipus rex in a homophonic declamatory style that
emphasized the rhythm of the spoken word (1585)
c. Another group Florentine Camerata believed the entire work was sung
B. Florentine Camerata
1. Group of Florentine intellectuals, musicians that created the modern opera
2. Important members
a. Girolamo Mei
1. Scholar who edited a number of Greek tragedies
2. Studied almost every ancient work on music and reported
his research in the treatise: De modis musicis antquorum
3. Giovanni Bardi
4. Vincenzo Galilei
b. Theories
1. Mei concluded that the Greeks were able to achieve powerful effects
with their music because it consisted of a single melody
2. Melody could affect the listener's feelings since it exploited the
natural expressiveness of the rises and falls of pitch and register
of the voice
c. Initial experiments
1. Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621) & Jacopo Peri (1561-1633)
a. Rinuccini's Dafne was produced in Florence as the 1st
dramatic pastoral fully set to music in 1597
2. Rinuccini's L'Euridice
a. Set by Peri and Giulio Caccini (1600)
3. Emilio de'Cavalieri (1550-1602)
a. Produced the sacred musical play Rappresentatione di
anima et di corpo in Rome in 1600
d. Musical styles
1. Caccini and Cavalieri wrote in a style based on the old improvised
air for singing poetry and on the madrigal
2. Peri utlized a new style for dialogue called the stile recitativo or
recitative style
e. Le nuove musiche (The New Music)
1. Collection of Caccini's airs and madrigals publ. in 1602
2. Musical style uses a strongly declamatory style
f. Recitative Style
1. Peri simulated speech by using static basso continuo against
steady vocal motion through consonances and dissonances
2. Voice was liberated from harmony to emulate declamation
g. Monody
1. Used in recitative, aria and madrigal
2. Becomes the central technique of opera music
C. Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
1. L'Orfeo
a. Produced in Mantua in 1607
b. Patterned after the Florence Euridice operas
c. Alessandro Striggio adapts Rinuccini's pastoral into a 5 act drama
d. Important differences with Peri/Caccini versions
1. Monteverdi uses a large orchestra
a. 40 instruments (not all used simultaneously)
b. Strings, flutes, trumpets, sakbuts, continuo inst.
c. 26 brief orchestral numbers including an introductory
toccata and several ritornellos
2. Arianna (1608)
D. Other Opera Productions
1. Over the next 30 years there were few opera productions
a. Marco da Gagliano (1594-1651)
1. Dafne (1608)
2. Il Medoro (1619)
b.Francesca Caccini (1587-1640): daughter of Giulio Caccini
1. La liberazione di Ruggiero dall'isola d'Alcina (1625)
c. Gagliano and Peri
1. La Flora (1628)
2. Opera takes root in Rome in the 1620s
a. Election of Maffeo Barberini as Pope Urban VIII in 1623 was fortuitous for
opera
b. Giulio Rospigliosi was the most prolific librettist of sacred, serious and
comic operas
1. Sant' Alessio (1632): his most famous libretto set to
a. Music by Stefano Landi (1590-1655)
b. Music includes prelude consisting of a slow, chordal introduction
followed by a livlier canzona movement.
1. 2 mov't form later became the accepted pattern
for the 17th c. opera overture
2. Possible antecedent for the French Overture
c. Luigi Rossi (1597-1653)
1. Orfeo (Paris, 1647)
a. Libretto by Francesco Buti
b. Based on the earlier operas of Peri, Caccini and Monteverdi
c. Opera is an example of how librettos had changed during first
half of 17th c.
1. Original myth is now buried under a mass of irrelevant
incidents, characters, spectacular scenic effects and
incongruous scenic episodes.
2. Intrusion of the comic, grotesque and sensational into
a supposedly serious drama was a common practice
of 17th c. Italian librettists.
3. Indicates that drama was no longer primary aim as it had
been with the early Florentine composers
4. Opera designed to provide good opportunities to the
composer and the singers.
E. Venetian Opera
1. Andromeda (1637)
a. 1st Venetian opera production
1. Written and produced by Benedetto Ferrari (1603-1681) and
composer Francesco Manelli
2. Perf. at the Teatro S. Cassiano
a. Paying public was admitted (a first in the history of opera)
b. Previous operas relied on wealthy or aristocratic patrons
2. Opera becomes the center of Venetian musical life
3. Monteverdi
a. Last 2 operas are staged in Venice
1. Il ritono d'Ulisse ((1641)
2. L'incoronazione di Poppea (1642)
a. Monteverdi's masterpiece
b. Smaller orchestra and scenic apparatus than Orfeo
c. Most advanced depiction of emotion and characterization to date
4. Other Venetian composers
a. Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
1. Pupil of Monteverdi
2. Wrote 41 operas
a. Giasone (1649): most famous work
1. Scenes with alternating recit. and arias
b. Other works: Egisto (1643), Ormindo (1644), Calisto (1651)
1. Arias are true set pieces
2. Recit. lacks the variety of Monteverdi
b. Antonio Cesti (1623-1669)
1. Cesti excels in lyrical arias and duets
2. Il pomo d'oro
a. Perf. Vienna in 1667 for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I
b. Festival opera: staged without regard to expense and includes
many non-standard features
1. Unusually large orchestra and many choruses
2. Lavish scenic effects/machinary used to create:
a. Naval battles
b. Storms, shipwrecks
3. Orontea (1649)
a. One of the most popular operas of the 17th c.
1. Rec'd perf. in Venice, Rome, Florence, Milan,
Naples, Inssbruck and elsewhere.
5. Principle features of 17th c. Italian Opera
a. By mid-17th c. main outlines of opera were in place and would not be
changed substantially for 200 years
b. Elements:
1. Concentration upon solo singing and comparative neglect of ensembles
and instrumental music
2. Seperation of recitative and aria
3. Introduction of distinctive styles and patterns for the arias
c. Developments were accompanied by a complete reversal in the relation
of text and music.
1. Florentines considered music as an accessory to poetry
2. Venetians treated the libretto as a conventional scaffolding
for the musical structure.
III. Vocal Chamber Music
A. Background
1. Most secular music produced for amateur and professional performance
was chamber music (except in Venice)
a. Vocal genres still predominated
b. Monodic idioms and basso continuo texture permeated chamber genres
2. Strophic aria
a. Neglected during the period of the polyphonic madrigal but kept alive in
canzonet and other popular forms
b. Became popular form for vocal composition as a way to set poetry without
interfering with the text
c. Basic form
1. Repetition of melody for each stroph/stanza
2. Sometimes minor rythmic modifications are made for each stanza
3. Cacicini used this for a number of his arias in Le nuove musiche
d. Alternative forms
1. New music for each stroph
2. Stophic variation: same harmonic and melodic plan with local
deviations
e. Romanesca
1. Ground bass, basso ostinato
2. Melody changes above, bass give unity to the piece
3. Specific ground bass patterns
a. Chaconne (ciacona)
1. Probably brought to Spain from Latin America
2. Dance song with refrain following pattern of guitar chords
(turned into a bass-line by the Italinas)
b. Passacaglia
1. Originated in Spain as a ritornello (i.e. music played
between strophs of a song)
2. Often in triple meter, in minor mode
c. Standard use of chaccone and passacaglia
1. Used in 4 measure formulas
2. Triple meter, slow tempo
3. By the 18th c. the terms become confused, and almost
synonymous
B. Concertato
1. The practice of writing separate parts for voice and inst. or different
groups gave rise to the concertato medium
a. Contrasting forces are brought into a harmonious ensemble
1. Concertato madrigal: is one in which inst. join voices on an
equal footing
2. Sacred concerto: sacred vocal work with inst.
3. Instrumental concerto: piece for a variety of inst. a subcategory
of which is a piece for one or more soloist
b. Concertato medium is not a style, but a characteristic mingling of
voices with instruments in which the instruments are not merely doubling
the voices but have independent parts
c. Characteristic medium of the 17th c.
2. Monteverdi
a. Books 5,6,7 and 8 (madrigal collections publ 1605, 1614, 1621 and 1638)
1. All the madrigals, beginning with the last 6 of Book Five, have a
basso continuo (some call for other inst. as well)
2. Solos, duets, and trios are set off against the vocal ensemble
3. Instrumental interludes (ritornellos) and introductions
4. Book 7 is entitled 'Concerto'
5. Book 8 Madrigals of War and Love
a. Noteworthy for the variety of forms and types
1. Madrigals for 5 voices
2. Solos, duets and trios with continuo
3. Large works for chorus, soloists and orchestra
4. Two balli (semidramatic ballets)
b. One work in the genere rappresentativo (theater style)
1. Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
a. Text by Tasso (12th c.)
b. Most of the text is narrative, with speeches
by Tancredi and Clorinda
c. Monteverdi sets nar. as tenor recit.,
T. is a tenor and C. is a soprano
d. Instrumentation: string quartet with
bass gamba and continuo
e. Stile concitato ('excited style')
rapied reiteration of a single note, tremolo, etc.
c. Hor che'l ciel e la terra (Now that heaven and earth)
1. 6 voices
2. Two violins
3. Continuo
3. Musical style of Monteverdi and his contemporaries
a. Composite of diverse elements (some 16th c., some new)
1. Monody and madrigal
2. Formal articulation
3. Organized bass and harmonic support
4. Systematic use of ritornellos
5. Varied texture of the concertato medium
b. As a result, representational and pictorial resources were enlarged
and enriched
C. Genres of Vocal Solo Music
1. Monodic forms of the 17th c.
a. Solo madrigals
b. Strophic arias
c. Canzonets
d. Dance-like songs
2. Caccini's Nuove musiche
a. The first important collection of monodies
3. Sigismondo d'India (1582-1629)
a. Composer of solo songs and polyphonic madrigals and motets
4. Cantata
a. Definition
1. Literally a 'piece to be sung'
2. As opposed to a sonata, its inst. counterpart
b. By mid-17th c. cantata becomes:
1. Composition for solo voice with continuo accompaniment
2. Multiscetional with alternating recit. and arias
c. Luigi Rossi
1. First master of the 17th c. cantata
2. Utilized plain strophic songs, strophic variations, arias with
ostinato bass and arias with ABA patterns
d. Other Italian cantata composers
1. Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674)
2. Antonio Cesti
5. Solo songs in other countries
a. Germany
1. Heinrich Albert (1604-1651)
2. Andreas Hammerschmidt (1612-1675)
b. France
1. Air de cour
c. England
1. Nicholas Lanier (1588-1666)
2. John Wilson (1595-1674)
3. Henry Lawes (1596-1662)
IV. Church Music
A. Background
1. Sacred music was generally more conservative than secular genres
2. 17th century innovations nevertheless prominent in sacred composition
a. Basso continuo
b. Monody
c. Concertato medium
3. Stile antico
a. The 16th c. Palestrina style which was still popular in the
Catholic church
b.Gradus ad Parnassum (1725) by Fux codifies Palestrinian counterpoint
B. The Grand Concerto
1. Grand Concerto
a. Origins in Gabrieli and the Venetian school
b. Large choral and instrumental forces employed
c. Orazio Benevoli (1605-1672)
1. Festival Mass for the consecration of the cathedral at
Salzburg (1628)
a. For two 8-part choruses with soloists
b. Each chorus is associated with three different inst.
combinations
c. Each has its own basso continuo
d. 53 staves for the score
2. Benevoli's later works written largely for St.Peter's i
Rome (1640s)
C. The Concerto for few voices
1. Sacred work for one, two, or three solo voices with organ continuo
2. Lodovico Viadana (1560-1627)
a. Cento concerti ecclesiastici (100 Church Concertos)
1. Collection publ. in 1602
2. Concertos for solo voice, combinations of solo voice with
basso continuo
3. Grand concerto often combined with concerto for few voices
a. Monteverdi Vespers (1610)
1. Setting of a complete liturgical Office incorporating
traditional psalm tones
2. Utilizes recit., aria and solo, choral and inst. groupings
into a single cycle of compositions
4. Alessandro Grandi (1575-1630)
a. Contemporary of Monteverdi's notable for his sacred compositions
b. Strongly influenced Schütz
5. Aspects of theater and opera used in sacred concertos
a. Emilio de'Cavalieri
1. La rappresentatione di anima e di corpo
a. 1600 morality play with music produced in Rome
b. Sacred opera
D. Oratorio
1. Sacred works which combined elements of narrative, dialogue and
meditation not intended for stage performance
2. Sacred 'opera'
3. Oratorio librettos
a. Latin
b. Vernacular
4. Giacomo Carissimi
a. Preeminent composer of 17th c. oratorios
b. Jeptha (1650)
1. Latin libretto based on the book of Judges
2. Utilizes a testo (or narrator)
a. Action in oratorio was narrated, not acted out
E. New Styles in Lutheran Music
1. Lutheran composers begin using Italian omodic and concertato techniques
2. Grand concerto in Germany
a. Hans Leo Hassler
b. Michael Praetorius
3. Concerto for few voices
a. Opella nova
1. Publ. by Schein in 1618 and 1626 at Leipzig
2. Subtitled 'Sacred Concertos in the Nowadays Customary Italian
Manner'
3. Lutheran counterparts of Monteverdi's concertato madrigals
4. Consists chiefly of duets and solos on chorale texts
F. Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672)
1. Greatest German composer of the mid-17th c.
2. Personal history
a. Studied with G.Gabrieli in Venice (1609-1612)
b. First publ. work was a collection of 5-part Italian madrigals
c. 1617-1672 Schutz was kapellmeister at Dresden
3. Schütz appears to have written no independent inst. music
4. Compositional output
a. Lost works:
1. The first German opera
2. Several ballets
b. Extant works:
1. German translation of the Psalter (1628)
a. 4-part harmonic settings
2. Cantiones sacrae (1625)
a. Latin motets
3. Psalmen Davids (1619)
a. In the Venetian 'Grand' style
b. Utilizes multiple choruses, soloists and concertato inst.
c. Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Little Sacred Concertos)
1. Publ in 1636, 1639
2. Motets for 1-5 voices with organ accompaniment
d. Musikalische Exequien
1. Publ. 1636
2. Funeral music
3. For soloists and choruses in various combinations w/basso continuo
e. Geistliche Chormusik (Spiritual Choral Music)
1. Publ.1648
2. Collection of German motets
f. Symphoniae sacrae (Sacred Symphonies)
1. Publ. in 3 series in 1629, 1647, 1650.
2. First 2 vol. for small combinations of voices and inst.
3. 1629 collection strongly influenced by Monteverdi and Grandi
g. The Seven Last Words (1645)
1. Oratorio
2. Narrative portions are set as solo recitative (in two instances,
for chorus) over basso continuo
3. Words of Jesus in free and highly expressive monody, always
accomp. by continuo and strings
h. Christmas Oratorio (1664)
1. Large scale work
2. Narrative portions given in rapid recit. over continuo
3. Scenes are treated with arias, choruses and inst. concertato accomp.
4. Schutz wrote three Passions (near the end of his life)
5. Schutz seldom uses traditional chorale melodies, although he sets many
chorale texts
V. Instrumental Music
A. Background
1. More influenced by basso continuo texture than by recit. and aria styles
2. 17th c. instrumental music gradually becomes the equal of vocal music
3. Genres of the period
a. Fugal
1. Pieces in continuous (nonsectional) imitative counterpoint
2. Terms: ricercare, fantasia, fancy, capriccio, fuga, verset.
b. Canzona
1. Pieces in discontinous (sectional) imitative counterpoint,
sometimes with admixture of other styles
2. This genre is replaced by the sonata da chiesa mid-century
c. Dances
1. Pieces using stylized dance rhythms
2. Strung losely together or organized into integrated suites
d. Improvisatory pieces
1. For solo keyboard inst. or lute
2. Toccata
3. Fantasia
4. Prelude
B. Ricercare
1. 17th c. ricercare
a. Short, serious composition for organ or clavier
b. One theme is continuously developed in imitation
2. Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
a. Organist of St.Peter's in Rome from 1608-1643
b. Fiori musicali (1635)
1. Collection of organ pieces for the church services
C. Fantasia
1. Style: a larger piece than a ricercare with more complex formal organization
2. Leading composers
a. Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
b. Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654)
c. Heinrich Scheidemann (1596-1663)
3. Musical definitions in theoretical treatises
a. Athanasius Kircher Musurgia universalis (1650)
b. Michael Praetorius Syntagma musici (1618)
c. Ricercare and fantasia were built on a theme or themes of sustained
legato character, fantasia tending more than ricercare toward
borrowed themes.
d. Themes would be developed in continuous counterpoint as a series of fuga.
D. Canzona
1. Several 17th c. approaches
a. Several contrasting sections, each on a different theme in fugal
imitation
b. Variation canzona: used transformations of a single theme in
successive sections
1. Composers who wrote in this style
a. Giovanni Maria Trabaci (1575-1647)
b. Frescobaldi
c. Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667)
c. A set of thematically unrelated sections, a kind of patchwork
1. Tarquinio Merula (1594-1665)
E. Sonata
1. Vague designation for 17th c. inst. compositions
2. Term eventually comes to refer to compositions whose form was similar
to the canzona
3. Early 17th c. Sonatas
a. One or two melody inst., usually violins
b. Basso continuo
4. Ensemble canzona
a. Written for 4-parts
b. Continuo was optional
5. Idiomatic writing for the intended instrument
6. Composers
a. Biagio Marini (1587-1663)
1. Sonata per il violino per sonar con due corde, Op.8 (1629)
a. One of the earliest sonatas for solo violin and continuo
b. Instrumental 'monody'
c. Similar to canzona as it consists of contrasting sections
d. No literal repetitions
e. Idiomatic violin writing
f. Affetti: improvised embellishments
7. By the mid-17th c. the canzona and the sonata had merged
a. Sonata gradually replaced canzona
b. Eventually known as the sonata da chiesa (sonata for church)
c. Trio sonata: sonata for 2 violins and continuo (keyboard and viol)
F. Variations
1. Basic techniques
a. Melody repeated with little change. Texture and accomp. and register
are changed
1. 'cantus firmus variation'
2. Composers: English virginalists, Sweelinck, Scheidt
b. Melody ornamented for each variation, but remains in top voice
1. Composers: Jan Adam Reinken (1623-1722)
c. Bass or harmonic structure is the constant factor (romanesca)
G. Dance
1. Typical pairings:
a. Sarabande (slow) and gigue (fast)
b. Pavane-galliard
c. Passamezzo-saltarello
2. Suites
a. Banchetto musicale (Musical Banquet)
1. Collection of suites by Schein publ. in 1617
2. Varied melodic idea recurs in every dance
3. 20 suites in five parts (each followes the same pattern)
a. Paduana
b. Gagliarda
c. Courente
d. Allemande
e. Tripla (a triple meter variation of the Allemande)
b. Sometimes suites included a separate intrada (marchlike, festive
introductory piece in lively triple meter)
H. French Lute and Keyboard Music
1. Arrangements of ballet music for solo inst. were very popular
a. Initially for lute
b. Later for harpsichord
c. Sometimes for viol
2. Style brisé
a. Sometimes lute arrangements were transcribed for harpsichord
b. 'broken style' which emulates idiomatic lute writing on the
harpsichord
3. Denis Galtier (1603-1672)
a. La Rhetorique des dieux (The Rhetoric of the Gods)
1. 12 sets (one in each mode) of stylized dances
2. Each contains: allemande, courante, sarabande and others
4. Keyboard composers
a. Jacques Champion de Chambonnieres (1601-1672)
b. Louis Couperin (1626-1661)
c. Jean Henri d'Anglebert (1635-1691)
d. Froberger
1. German who est. French style in Germany
2. Standardizes the allemande, courante and sarabande as standard
components of the dance suite.
I. Improvisatory Compositions
1. Frescobaldi toccatas
Outline compiled and edited by David Papandrew.
Based on Grout/Palisca 'A History of Western Music' (4th Ed.)
|
