Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Classical Music Book

["RENAISSANCE 1400\u20131600 49 See also: Messe de Notre Dame 36\u201337 \u25a0 Missa l\u2019homme arm\u00e9 42 \u25a0 Missa Pange lingua 43 \u25a0 Spem in alium 44 \u25a0 Great Service 52\u201353 \u25a0 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott 78\u201379 bellowing, and stammering, they so that by the 1530s their presence The Council of Trent met 25 times more closely resemble cats in at a polyphonic High Mass became in 18 years to discuss its response to January than flowers in May.\u201d less unusual to congregants. the \u201cheresies\u201d of Protestantism and to clarify Catholic doctrine and liturgy. The reform of notation in the While the contribution of wind 14th century had, for the first time, players to church music would have Cirillo was not always uppermost given composers the ability to set been impressive, the resonance of in a composer\u2019s mind. Franco- down almost any musical idea with a brass ensemble, if badly handled, Flemish musicians often paraded precision. Since then, the Catholic might hinder the clear delivery of their skill in handling complex Church had at times encouraged, the text. The Spanish composer polyphonic structures in and at other times censured, their Francisco Guerrero encouraged his compositions of extraordinary tendency to embellish music and cornett players to improvise florid virtuosity. In a Mass in four parts, add ever-increasing degrees of ornaments but to take turns, as for instance, certain sections might complexity and subtlety. \u201cwhen they ornament together it be written in the manuscript makes such absurdities as would with only three parts notated, so At the end of the 15th century, stop up the ears.\u201d that the singer had to \u201cfind\u201d the the daily Mass was usually sung fourth part by following the logic of to plainchant. However, if the Little thought for the text the other three parts\u2014effectively institution hosting the service had Even when a Mass was sung as solving a riddle. The composer the resources, the Ordinary of the unaccompanied polyphony, the might make the singers\u2019 job even \u276f\u276f Mass (the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, clarity of expression favored by Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei) might be treated to many varieties of embellishment. In the 1490s, several writers noted the presence of a cornett player at High Mass as part of the chapel of Philip IV of Burgundy. They do not mention what he played; his mere presence, as a wind player in the chapel, was enough to be remarkable. Wind players, who had previously improvised, began to hone their skills in reading music and accompanying such choirs, [Palestrina\u2019s] Stabat Mater \u2026 captivates the human soul. Franz Liszt","50 SIMPLIFICATION OF POLYPHONY Musical textures Degrees of Monophony Homophony Polyphony complexity Sung by a single singer Melody supported by chordal Several parts, which are Renaissance or single choir in unison. harmony and solid bass in the independent and of equal composers, aided Examples include plainchant same rhythm. Often used in importance. Forms include the by more precise and most troubadour songs. canon, fugue, and motet. notation methods the singing of hymns. and encouraged by wealthy patrons, produced increasingly multilayered music. harder by writing canonic voices clear that reconciliation between with polyphony and with organ, that moved at different speeds from Rome and the Reformers would let nothing profane be intermingled, the original. The tour de force here be impossible. but only hymns and divine praises.\u201d is Johannes Ockeghem\u2019s Missa Composers needed to respond to prolationum, in which each of Yet the Protestant reforms had this new directive. the four movements of the Mass forced the Roman Catholic Church explores a different canonic to introduce changes to doctrine Enhancing the words scenario. The interval separating and practice, which included Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina the voices of the canon becomes purifying its sacred music. In 1562, had published his first book of progressively longer in each a resolution of the Council of Trent Masses in 1554 and had returned consecutive movement laid down guidelines for musicians. to Santa Maria Maggiore, where This stated: \u201cAll things should he had first served as a choirboy, as Josquin Desprez\u2019s Missa indeed be so ordered that the maestro di cappella (music director) l\u2019homme arm\u00e9 super voces Masses, whether they be celebrated in 1561. The story runs that he musicales provides only one with chant or chorally, may reach anticipated complete papal line of music for an elegant and the ears of listeners and gently censure. Fearing the reduction varied three-voice setting of the penetrate their hearts, when of music in Catholic liturgy to second repeat of the Agnus Dei. everything is executed clearly and plainchant alone (a reform a few The result of three voices singing at the right speed. In the case of zealots had called for), he stood polyphony woven from a single those Masses, which are celebrated ready with a Mass in four voices to melody sung at different speeds is demonstrate that polyphony could extraordinary for its audacity, but The Renaissance fostered the serve the text in a way that would the emphasis is not on easily growth of personality, an idea please even the harshest critics. discernible words. fundamentally opposed to the selflessness and objectivity The Missa Papae Marcelli does An official response appear to date from 1562, the The Catholic Church dealt with the of the old polyphony. year of the Council\u2019s resolution mounting crisis precipitated by Zo\u00eb Kendrick concerning music. It is said that Luther\u2019s reforms with a series the cardinals found this Mass of meetings to decide what the Biographer of Palestrina especially pleasing, approval that official response should be. After gave Palestrina status as the savior many delays, the Council convened of polyphony. It seems, in fact, that in the town of Trent in northern the Mass was probably written for Italy in 1545. By the time of the Holy Week and complied with Pope final meeting (1562\u20131563) overseen Marcellus II\u2019s desire for a restrained by Pope Pius IV, positions had setting that could be clearly reached a deadlock, and it was understood in mind.","RENAISSANCE 1400\u20131600 51 Palestrina\u2019s work fulfils much of Palestrina was even more daring. The German states were greatly what was expected of polyphony While he referred to it as a sacred split in their religious allegiance; in the era after the Council of Trent, piece, he unashamedly embraced the Southern principalities still with his targeted approach to a more passionate style, explaining adhered to Rome. Duke Albrecht V dissonance, clarity of declamation, in his dedication to Pope Gregory of Bavaria, a leading figure of the and refined command of polyphonic XIII that this was in keeping with German Counter-Reformation, for writing. Yet Palestrina did not shy its subject matter. example, employed many musicians away from taking the new precepts including Orlande de Lassus, a to their limits: his Missa repleatur Elsewhere in Europe Flemish composer renowned as os meum in five voices, published Palestrina was one bright star in a a child for the beauty of his singing in 1570, shows complete control constellation of great polyphonists voice. Under generous ducal of the virtuoso \u201ccanonic\u201d style of the Counter-Reformation. In patronage, Lassus directed the favored by the Franco-Flemish Spain, the orthodox zeal of Philip II Hofkapelle, combining voices, composers but with such clear encouraged a strong school of violins, viols, lute, a variety of handling of the text that even polyphonic composition in its brass and woodwind instruments, Cirillo might have approved. cathedrals. Tom\u00e1s Luis de Victoria, and even a rackett (a newly a prolific composer of sacred works, invented, gently buzzing bass In his Canticum Canticorum, was renowned for the intense reed instrument). Such a large composed in 1584, an acclaimed drama of his music. He had been ensemble of almost orchestral cycle of 29 motets based on the a choirboy and organist in \u00c1vila, ambition would have been highly Old Testament\u2019s \u201cSong of Solomon,\u201d before going to Rome, where he unusual for the time. If the Catholic may have studied with Palestrina. Church looked askance at such Palestrina spent five years as Later returning to Spain, he spent instrumentation, its guidelines maestro di cappella (music director) most of his working life at Madrid\u2019s were obviously open to a degree at St. John Lateran in Rome, depicted convent of the Descalzas Reales. of local interpretation. \u25a0 in this 17th-century Dutch print.","52 RMOTHEFAPAKHETEYAIMTUSNSTTSHHW\u2014EEAMNNTATHTETUYORE GREAT SERVICE (c.1580\/1590), WILLIAM BYRD IN CONTEXT A lthough William Byrd is Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth I believed to have been a returned England to Protestantism. FOCUS Catholic for most, if not all, However, Elizabeth was tolerant of English Protestant of his life, he composed music for Catholicism among the country\u2019s church music the Anglican Church in addition to gentry if they were loyal and motets and Masses in Latin for the practiced it discreetly. She BEFORE Catholic rite. He lived through three sanctioned the use of Latin for 1558 John Sheppard eras of religious revisionism in services at the Chapel Royal, and composes his Second Service, England. Under Henry VIII and then a setting for five voices of the Edward VI, the country had been The seeds of Protestantism in \u201cfull\u201d service (rather than Protestant since 1534, but in 1553 England were sown by Martin Luther, the customary short service Mary Tudor acceded to the throne the architect of the Reformation in comprising only settings of the with her husband Philip II of Spain Germany, shown here playing music Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) and reinstated Catholicism. When with his children. and precursor to Byrd\u2019s 10-voice Great Service. c.1570 William Mundy composes his Evening Service In medio chori for a choir in nine parts, expanding to 11 parts at times. AFTER c.1620 Thomas Weelkes publishes Evensong for Seven Voices, a Great Service in up to 10 parts. c.1630 Thomas Tomkins\u2019s Third or Great Service for 10 voices is the grandest work in the genre.","RENAISSANCE 1400\u20131600 53 See also: Missa l\u2019homme arm\u00e9 42 \u25a0 Missa Pange lingua 43 \u25a0 Canticum Canticorum 46\u201351 \u25a0 Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott 78\u201379 To a man thinking about the first publication of Latin \u201csacred William Byrd divine things \u2026 the most songs\u201d in 1575 was lukewarm, perhaps because of the Catholic Born into a large merchant fitting measures come, sentiment of some of the texts. family in London in 1540, I know not how, as if by William Byrd most likely In spite of his Catholicism, gained his musical training their own free will. Byrd\u2019s loyalty to queen and country as one of 10 boy choristers William Byrd appears to have taken precedence at London\u2019s St. Paul\u2019s Church over his religious adherence. In (the Gothic predecessor of composers were permitted to thanksgiving for the victory of the St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral), before use Latin as well as English when English fleet over the Spanish going on to sing for Catholic writing liturgical music. Armada in 1588, Elizabeth ceremonies at the Chapel composed a song titled \u201cLook, Royal under Queen Mary. Byrd flourished under and Bow Down Thine Ear, O Lord.\u201d Later, in 1572, during Elizabeth\u2019s patronage. By 1565, It is thought that she chose William Elizabeth I\u2019s reign, Byrd he was the organist and master Byrd to set it to music. Although became a Gentleman of the at Lincoln Cathedral, where he the anthem is now lost, it would Chapel Royal, a post he held produced his Short Service, have been a clear demonstration for more than 20 years. settings for Matins, Communion, of her high regard for him. and Evensong, amounting to the While Byrd composed greater part of music in English for Last Anglican work much secular music, including the Anglican liturgy. Later, when In 1580, Byrd published his works for virginals, he is best Byrd was a Gentleman of the Great Service, his last work for known for his religious music. Chapel Royal, Elizabeth granted the Anglican rite. A monumental In 1575, he and Thomas Byrd and his fellow composer composition, the Great Service Tallis published a first volume Thomas Tallis, who was also a comprises seven sections for an of Latin motets, Cantiones Catholic, a monopoly on music Anglican celebration of the mass Sacrae (Sacred Songs). After production in England. in English for two five-voice choirs. Tallis\u2019s death, Byrd continued It is not known if Byrd wrote his the series with two volumes of God and queen Great Service with any particular his own Cantiones in 1589 and Concern about Byrd\u2019s religious choir or occasion in mind. However, 1591. Byrd published his last adherence did become an issue, the sheer scale of the piece and the work, Psalmes, Songs, and however, in 1577, when Byrd\u2019s wife, technical requirement of the writing Sonnets in 1611, 12 years Julian, was accused of failing to would have put it beyond the reach before his death in 1623. attend a service by the Bishop of of all but the largest choirs. Some London, John Aylmer, a rigorous hear it as a farewell to colleagues, Other key works enforcer of the Act of Uniformity or a last act of contrition to a of 1559, which aimed to unify the monarch who had chosen to 1589 Cantiones sacrae, Book 1 Anglican Church. From then on, overlook Byrd\u2019s Catholicism. 1591 Cantiones sacrae, Book 2 Byrd did not make a secret of his 1605 Gradualia Catholic faith, and the reception for In 1605, a messenger carrying a copy of Byrd\u2019s newly published Gradualia (a collection of settings of movements of the Mass for the Catholic church year, for three to five voices) was apprehended and thrown in Newgate gaol. The composer, however, avoided imprisonment, facing only pressure in the courts and heavy fines. \u25a0","54 WAALNHLDISTMPHAEEDRARSIIRGOSAFLTSNE\u2026SS O CARE, THOU WILT DESPATCH ME (1600), THOMAS WEELKES IN CONTEXT I n 1544, at a time when England transalpina, a collection of Italian was hungry for Continental madrigals reworked with English FOCUS fashions, the composer and texts, whetting an appetite for Madrigals poet Thomas Whythorne toured homegrown songs sung in parts. Europe and wrote sonnets that BEFORE he later set to music in Songs, the Illustrating the words 1571 Thomas Whythorne first book of English madrigals. Many English collections followed, publishes Songes, the first often arranged for voices and viols collection of English madrigals. In Italy, the masters of the to satisfy a growing middle-class madrigal style included Philippe taste for after-dinner music 1594 Thomas Morley Verdelot and Jacob Arcadelt, whose making. In 1595, Thomas Morley publishes his First Book of works appeared in the earliest book introduced the ballett, a rustic Madrigals to Four Voices, of Italian madrigals, published in madrigal with a fa-la-la chorus the first collection to use the Rome in 1530. In 1588, Nicholas in imitation of an instrumental Italian description of the style. Yonge published his Musica refrain. Thomas Weelkes, among others, began to use musical effects AFTER Madrigal \u2026 music made to illustrate the text\u2014known as 1612 Orlando Gibbons upon songs and sonnets \u2026 \u201cword painting.\u201d In O Care, Thou publishes his First Set of Wilt Despatch Me (1600), Weelkes Madrigals and Motets; it to men of understanding describes the poet\u2019s disturbed includes \u201cThe Silver Swan,\u201d most delightful. state of mind in sliding semitones a short madrigal but one of (chromaticism) at odds with the the best known today. Thomas Morley cheerful fa-la-la refrain. 1620\u20131649 The fashion for In Italy, the madrigals of Carlo the English madrigal waned, Gesualdo da Venosa use extreme giving way to the lute song, harmonic shifts and dissonance to and the style vanished with paint words, while the Madrigali the establishment of the guerrieri et amorosi (1638) of Commonwealth of England Claudio Monteverdi lift the form from 1649. to theatrical heights. \u25a0 See also: Le jeu de Robin et de Marion 32\u201335 \u25a0 Musique de table 106 \u25a0 Die sch\u00f6ne M\u00fcllerin 150\u2013155","RENAISSANCE 1400\u20131600 55 RNTTHHEAVVIOSIESSRFEHEHSAAETSNARTDRA\u2026DSNTGTUEHDPREIEDSLFETIIKEVHEEAANTLL SONATA PIAN\u2019 E FORTE (1597), GIOVANNI GABRIELI IN CONTEXT T he Basilica of St. Mark\u2019s Gabrieli, appointed organist of in Venice provides a St. Mark\u2019s in 1566, and his nephew FOCUS dramatic setting for Giovanni Gabrieli, employed the Renaissance wind bands composers exploring instrumental Venetian ensembles of pifferi timbre and the use of space. The (civic wind players) both to BEFORE Flemish composer Adrian Willaert reinforce a vocal ensemble or for c.1480 A choir book prepared was the first to exploit its potential purely instrumental purposes. as a gift for Isabella d\u2019Est\u00e9 on when he became musical director the occasion of her marriage, there in 1527. His chori spezzati Dramatic impact contains part of the repertoire (\u201csplit choirs\u201d) style divided the In the past, civic trumpeters had of the wind ensemble of the ensemble around the galleries, mostly just sounded the curfew and Duke of Ferrara, one of the giving performances a greater played for dances. As Renaissance most accomplished of the day. theatricality. Learning the chori cities and nation-states jostled spezzati style from Willaert, Andrea for power, the role of their 1582 Florentio Maschera instrumentalists became more publishes the first collection of Renaissance recorders were often important. Music making of the canzoni, Italian instrumental used to accompany songs. This image highest order was encouraged, and pieces for violins, or cornetts from Musica getutscht (1511), a treatise in this Venice became preeminent. and sackbuts. on music theory by Sebastian Virdung, illustrates fingering on the instrument. Giovanni Gabrieli\u2019s Sonata pian\u2019 AFTER e forte (1597), for six trombones, 1585\u20131598 Venetian a cornett, and a viola da braccio cornettist Giovanni Bassano (early violin), was the first work for publishes his book of passaggi, specific brass instruments and the virtuosic ornamented versions first to include dynamic indications of motets and popular songs. of loudness and softness for the players, adding dramatic light and 1661 In England, the shade effects. In the shimmering \u201cSagbutts and Cornetts\u201d of the shadows of St. Mark\u2019s, such an Royal Wind Musick play suites intense sonata might accompany by Matthew Locke for the the consecration of the Host. \u25a0 coronation of Charles II. See also: Canticum Canticorum 46\u201351 \u25a0 Water Music 84\u201389 \u25a0 The Four Seasons 92\u201397 \u25a0 St. Matthew Passion 98\u2013105 \u25a0 Elijah 170\u2013173","56 MAWYALKUET!E, LACHRIMAE (1604), JOHN DOWLAND IN CONTEXT M usical instruments plectrums that then plucked developed rapidly from strings. Zwolle also described the FOCUS the late 14th century dulce melos, a keyboard instrument Renaissance onward, as musicians refined their in which the strings were struck by instrumental music skills and emulated court style to metal mallets, the earliest recorded attract patronage. The first organ use of a piano-style action. BEFORE with pedals and 12-note chromatic 1507 Francesco Spinacino\u2019s keyboard was recorded in the The rise of the lute Intabulatura de lauto is German town of Halberstadt in Beyond these innovations, the more published in Venice\u2014the first 1361. Around 1440, while working portable lute evolved to become printed collections for solo lute. in the Burgundian court, Dutch the emblematic instrument of the organist Arnaut van Zwolle drew a Renaissance. Pietrobono, a much- 1545 The appointment of diagram of the earliest harpsichord, feted musician to the Este family \u201cMark Anthony Gayiardell and with keys that lifted vertical pieces of Ferrara around 1450\u20131470, had George Decombe, viallines\u201d of wood, called jacks, fitted with played virtuosic streams of melody as court musicians marks the (not unlike fast electric guitar solos) debut of the violin in England. Blame not my lute, with a quill plectrum, while an for he must sound accompanist called a tenorista AFTER Of this or that as liketh me; played the slow, accompanying 1611 Giovanni Girolamo For lack of wit with lower parts on another lute. The Kapsberger publishes his the lute is bound addition of gut frets, tied around Libro primo d\u2019intavolatura de To give such tunes as the neck of the lute, facilitated lauto, music for the theorbo\u2014a left-hand speed and accuracy. lute with an extended neck to pleaseth me. hold additional bass strings. Thomas Wyatt A more significant stylistic change occurred when the lutenist c.1630 English composer John put down the plectrum. Stroking Jenkins produces his pavans the strings with the thumb and and In nomines for viol consort fingers of the right hand, the in up to six parts, continuing soloist could play all the voices an English interest in music for of a polyphonic piece. By the late viol consort that lasts into the 15th century, the lute was no longer time of Henry Purcell. simply the companion of minstrels but had moved to the heart of court music and composition.","RENAISSANCE 1400\u20131600 57 See also: Le jeu de Robin et de Marion 32\u201335 \u25a0 Gabrieli\u2019s Sonata pian\u2019 e forte 55 \u25a0 Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70\u201371 \u25a0 Stamitz\u2019s Symphony in E-flat major 116\u2013117 Renaissance consort instruments, including the lute and strings, are shown in Hearing (c.1617\u20131618), a collaboration between Jan Brueghel the Elder and Paul Rubens. The 16th-century lute at first had a lute with nine courses. England (1604) develops the composer\u2019s six courses (a single string for the excelled in the new style of lute own Lachrimae pavan (a dance highest note, then five pairs of playing, which was also popular with stately music often treated to strings tuned in unison or octaves), with amateur players, including instrumental elaboration) to create then gained extra courses in the Elizabeth I, who is shown playing seven melancholy variations, scored bass called diapasons, tuned the instrument in a miniature for a string ensemble with solo lute. diatonically (by steps of one tone). painted by Nicholas Hilliard. Renaissance ensembles usually comprised consorts of the same The English connection Dowland composed around instrument, but Dowland imagined By the turn of the 17th century, 90 works for the lute alone but also for his Lachrimae pavans either six John Dowland was one of a number incorporated the instrument into viols or six violins, including the of composers who were writing for a wider ensemble, known as a bass violin, forerunner of the cello. consort. His collection Lachrimae Dances like the pavan and the triple-time galliard were used by keyboard players and composers to show their skill at improvisation, usually playing \u201cdivisions\u201d (variations) on the repeat of a section. My Ladye Nevells Booke (1591) by the English composer William Byrd contains 10 pavan\u2014 galliard pairs with variations for the virginal, an instrument related to the harpsichord. \u25a0 John Dowland It has been variously claimed Although his son, the composer that Dowland was born in 1563 in and lutenist Robert Dowland, Westminster (London) or Dalkey described his father in 1610 as (Ireland), and his early life remains \u201cbeing now gray, and like the obscure. He spent his late teens in Swan, but singing toward his service to the English ambassador end,\u201d Dowland was, within two in France, where he embraced years, made one of the lutenists Catholicism, later claiming that of King James I of England this conversion prevented his and Scotland. Between that appointment as lutenist at the appointment and his death, in English royal court in 1594. 1625, few compositions survive. Dowland then set off for three years on a European tour, before Other key works finding an appreciative patron in Christian IV of Denmark. The 1597 Firste Booke of Songes relationship later soured, and or Ayres Dowland was dismissed in 1606. 1612 A Pilgrim\u2019s Solace","BAROQ 1600\u20131750","UE","60 INTRODUCTION The earliest surviving Jean-Baptiste Lully\u2019s Danish-German composer Handel premieres his opera, Jacopo Peri\u2019s Le bourgeois gentilhomme Dieterich Buxtehude\u2019s suite of short pieces Euridice, is composed in satirizes social climbing organ prelude Ein feste honor of King Henry IV of Water Music on a France and his marriage and the snobbish Burg ist unser Gott barge on the Thames to Maria de\u2019 Medici. aristocracy of France greatly influences the River, hosted by under Louis XIV. chorale genre. King George I. 1600 1670 C.1690 1717 1610 1689 1714 Claudio Monteverdi\u2019s Henry Purcell\u2019s The publication of Vespers incorporates opera Dido and Aeneas Arcangelo Corelli\u2019s relates the mythical love Twelve concerti grossi, polyphony and monody, affair between the Queen Op. 6, establishes the bridging the concerto grosso as a of Carthage and the style of composition. Renaissance and Prince of Troy. Baroque styles. T he Baroque period of music accompaniment was of particular built their music on major and started dramatically, with significance: in the recitative minor chords. Dramatic and the performance of the sections of early opera\u2014the freely contrasting effects were achieved world\u2019s first opera, Jacopo Peri\u2019s composed expositions of the plot by varying the loudness and tempo, Dafne, staged in Florence in 1598. that connected the arias\u2014the voice moving the music between keys and The opera illustrates the dramatic was accompanied by a single bass instruments, and sometimes adding change in musical style from instrument, such as a cello, and embellishments such as trills. polyphony to something more an instrument capable of playing expressive\u2014a change exploited chords, such as a harpsichord The revolutionary new style to great effect in Monteverdi\u2019s or lute. This accompaniment, and the idea of a drama set to Vespers, which contrasts sections known as the \u201cbasso continuo,\u201d music proved very popular, in the old and new styles. or simply continuo, became a especially among the aristocracy key feature of music in the Early in Italy and France, who employed Key developments Baroque period. a staff of musicians and a resident One of the main features of the composer to provide entertainment Early Baroque period, and one that The importance of the continuo in the courts. In addition to operas, must have been startling at the was that it provided a harmonic they performed instrumental time, was a rejection of polyphony base for the melody. While music, and in the royal court at in favor of a single line of melody Renaissance music had been Versailles, Jean-Baptiste Lully with a simple accompaniment. characterized by polyphony, the assembled an orchestra to provide This \u201cmonody,\u201d as it was called, new style was defined by harmony. incidental music and dances for was an attempt to reproduce the In place of interweaving melodies the performance of the latest style of Classical Greek drama. The based on the ancient Greek scales comedies by playwrights such or modes, early Baroque composers as Moli\u00e8re. This form of light","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 61 Antonio Vivaldi\u2019s Georg Philipp In the last decade Le quattro stagioni (The Telemann handles of his life, J.S. Bach Four Seasons) is published a diverse range of musical genres in writes The Art of with accompanying Fugue, comprising program notes to his celebrated critical acclaim. Musique de table. 14 fugues and four canons. 1717\u20131723 1725 1733 C.1742\u20131750 1727 1733 Fran\u00e7ois Couperin, of J.S. Bach\u2019s sacred The success of the renowned Couperin oratorio St. Matthew Jean-Philippe Rameau\u2019s Hippolyte family of musicians, Passion sets et Aricie challenges publishes four volumes of chapters 26 and 27 the dominance of harpsichord orders in the of the Gospel of Italian opera. Pi\u00e8ces de Clavecin. Matthew to music. entertainment caught on elsewhere of the instrumental chorale prelude, itself had been hijacked, appearing and influenced the development of a sometimes florid setting of a instead as unstaged choral works the musical drama known as a chorale melody, usually for organ. such as the secular cantata and \u201cmasque\u201d in England. the sacred oratorio. High and Late Baroque Since the Reformation, opera As time passed, many elements The Late Baroque period was had been frowned upon by of the Early Baroque period dominated by three composers Protestants, and in the Germanic disappeared. By about 1700, the born in Germany in 1685. The countries, musical activity was period referred to as the \u201cHigh first, Georg Philipp Telemann largely restricted to the Church. Baroque\u201d had begun. What had is often overshadowed by his Gradually, though, a distinctly been a small accompanying group contemporaries but was by far German Baroque style, very for opera singers had taken on a the most prolific. The second was different from the Italian and life of its own as an orchestra of George Frideric Handel, a populist French, evolved from the chorale, stringed, woodwind, and brass who made his name in England the hymn tunes of the Lutheran instruments, playing a new form of with his oratorios and orchestral Church, uniting the harmonic music, the \u201cconcerto grosso,\u201d made music. The third, regarded by treatment of the new style of vocal popular by Arcangelo Corelli and musicians as the greatest of the music with some elements of the Antonio Vivaldi. The continuo, three, was Johann Sebastian Bach: old Italian polyphony. while still acting as the harmonic a conservative composer but a backbone of the orchestra, had also consummate craftsman. During a This hybrid style was more become an independent chamber lifetime of employment by courts suited to the northern European ensemble, playing a form of music and the Church, Bach\u2019s sacred and temperament and soon became known as the \u201ctrio sonata.\u201d Opera secular music represented the high accepted into Protestant church point of the Baroque period. \u25a0 music. It inspired the development","62 EDMOXINAVPEGEENRONISFSFIIETOCFHNEUESNLMTLOASNDT EURIDICE (1600), JACOPO PERI IN CONTEXT T he conditions for the Orpheus and Eurydice climb out birth of opera were of the Underworld in Edward Poynter\u2019s FOCUS right in Florence in painting of 1862. The Greek myth was Early opera the 1590s. Large-scale theatrical a particularly apt subject for opera entertainments utilizing music, because Orpheus was a musician. BEFORE known as intermedi, often c.700 bce Ancient Greek performed as interludes during introduction of recitative (recitar drama incorporates music. spoken plays, were commissioned cantando), the art of speaking in Greek myth identifies Orpheus for dynastic celebrations, such song, that defined opera. as the \u201cfather of songs.\u201d as weddings and baptisms. Their musical sections\u2014songs (or \u201carias\u201d), Florentine intellectual societies, 1598 Peri collaborates with dances, and choruses\u2014were most notably the Camerata de\u2019 Jacopo Corsi on La Dafne, themselves interspersed with Bardi, which met at the house of the first opera, to a libretto by spoken dialogue. It was the patron, playwright, and composer Ottavio Rinuccini, staged at Giovanni de\u2019 Bardi, had included in the Palazzo Corsini, Florence. AFTER 1607 Monteverdi\u2019s first opera, L\u2019Orfeo, is staged in Mantua. 1637 The first public opera house\u2014the Teatro San Cassiano in Venice\u2014opens with Francesco Manelli\u2019s L\u2019Andromeda (now lost). 1640 Monteverdi composes Il ritorno d\u2019Ulisse in patria, his first opera written for a public theater in Venice.","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 63 See also: Le bourgeois gentilhomme 70\u201371 \u25a0 Dido and Aeneas 72\u201377 \u25a0 Orfeo ed Euridice 118\u2013119 \u25a0 The Magic Flute 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The Barber of Seville 148 their humanist debates discussions Singing his works Jacopo Peri about the nature of Greek drama, composed with the which they concluded was sung greatest artifice \u2026 moved Born into a noble family in throughout. Peri wrote La Dafne and disposed every stony 1561, Jacopo Peri grew up (1598) with composer Jacopo Corsi in Florence. As a teenager, and poet Ottavio Rinuccini in an heart to tears. he played the organ and attempt to revive this practice. Severo Bonini sang at various churches and monasteries in the city Elements of opera instruments may also have been before beginning a lifelong While only fragments of La Dafne used. The performance included association with the Medici exist today, Peri\u2019s second work, sections composed by Peri\u2019s rival court as singer, accompanist, Euridice, survives intact. The at court, Giulio Caccini, who had and composer. In 1598, he libretto of Euridice tells the Greek trained several of the singers. produced La Dafne, followed myth of Orpheus, who enters the Caccini even made his own two years later by Euridice Underworld to retrieve his wife musical setting of the libretto for the wedding festivities of Eurydice after her death from and had it printed prior to Peri\u2019s. Maria de\u2019 Medici and Henry IV snakebite. Euridice offers the The publication of these scores of France. Peri also composed standard intermedio combination ensured the opera\u2019s survival. for the musically distinguished of songs alternating with choruses Mantuan court. and instrumental passages, but In Peri\u2019s footsteps these are linked by recitatives\u2014 The new form represented by Peri often collaborated the new style of sung speech. In his Euridice was repeated in Florence with other composers, such as preface to the work, Peri described and emulated elsewhere. In Mantua the brothers Giovanni Battista his intention of \u201cimitating speech in 1607, Claudio Monteverdi, master da Gagliano and Marco da with song,\u201d which was the bedrock of music at the city\u2019s ducal court, Gagliano. While only a small of the new genre. He also listed produced L\u2019Orfeo, which is regarded handful of these works survive some of the instruments played as the first operatic masterpiece. as testament to Peri\u2019s talent, in the original production, such as Monteverdi later composed three they nonetheless laid down harpsichord, chitarrone (bass lute), further works for the Venetian the template that later opera violin, lyre, and lute, although other opera houses\u2014Il ritorno d\u2019Ulisse composers would follow. in patria, L\u2019incoronazione di Poppea, Peri died in Florence in It creates a coherent world, and one now lost\u2014exemplifying 1633. His gravestone in the highly charged with a the new style. Soon Monteverdi\u2019s Florentine church of Santa distinctive atmosphere. followers, such as Francesco Cavalli Maria Novella describes and Antonio Cesti, were producing him as the inventor of opera. It is simple without being operas in Italy and abroad, with vapid, and dignified without the basic construction blocks of Other key works recitatives and arias holding the being portentous. structure together. \u25a0 1598 La Dafne Stephen Oliver 1609 Le varie musiche","MUSIC MUST MOVE THE WHOLE MAN VESPERS (1610), CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI","","66 BIRTH OF THE BAROQUE IN CONTEXT M onteverdi\u2019s Vespers for known as seconda pratica (\u201csecond the Blessed Virgin of practice\u201d), with its emphasis on FOCUS 1610 is one of the most solo voice. In the latter, harmonies Birth of the Baroque influential collections of sacred became more adventurous, with works for voices and instruments greater use of monody, in which BEFORE of the 17th century. No larger choral a melody was underpinned by an 1587 Andrea Gabrieli work had been written before, and instrumental \u201ccontinuo,\u201d or bass publishes Concerti, a collection none as long nor as innovative line, in the form of the organ, of sacred ceremonial music appeared again until J.S. Bach\u2019s harpsichord, or lute. The bass for voices and instruments, Passions and Handel\u2019s oratorios lines also became more melodic. introducing the cori spezzati in the 18th century. Embellishments, which had (\u201cseparated choirs\u201d) style. previously been improvised by the Choral leap performer, were more elaborate and 1602 Lodovico Viadana Written for vespers, the early often fully notated by the composer. publishes Concerti evening service in the Catholic ecclesiastici for one to Church, in particular vespers These developments led to the four voices, the earliest in honor of the Virgin Mary, distinct musical characteristics composition with a basso Monteverdi\u2019s Vespers marks the of the Baroque period, in which continuo\u2014a chordal transition from the old polyphonic irregularity and extreme expression instrumental accompaniment. (\u201cmany voices\u201d) style known as sometimes disturb the smooth prima pratica (\u201cfirst practice\u201d) of the musical flow, compelling the December, 1602 Giulio Renaissance, in which all voices attention of listeners. Contrasts of Caccini premieres Euridice are equal, to the freer Baroque style melody, texture, timbre, tempo, and based on the same libretto rhythm abound in Baroque music. as Jacopo Peri\u2019s Euridice, Cremona Cathedral, where the In addition, instruments assumed a introducing stile recitativo (a young Monteverdi is thought to more important role and their music declamatory style between have studied composition under the was more idiomatic, reflecting speaking and singing), choirmaster Marc\u2019Antonio Ingegneri. greater technique and better-made, inspired by the dramas more reliable instruments. of the Ancient Greeks. 1607 Monteverdi composes his groundbreaking first opera, L\u2019Orfeo, based on the Greek legend of Orpheus. AFTER 1619 Heinrich Sch\u00fctz, a pupil of Giovanni Gabrieli, publishes Psalmen Davids, a collection of psalm settings. He goes on, in 1629, to produce three sets of Symphoniae Sacrae, which give equal importance to voices and instruments.","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 67 See also: Plainchant 22\u201323 \u25a0 Magnus liber organi 28\u201331 \u25a0 Messe de Notre Dame 36\u201337 \u25a0 Missa Pange lingua 43 \u25a0 Canticum Canticorum 46\u201351 The end of all good music new style called concertato style, is to affect the soul. contrasting multiple choirs and instrumentalists, developed in Claudio Monteverdi Venice and spread to Germany. In England, this new trend was reflected in the verse-anthem, in which \u201cverses\u201d for solo voices alternated with choral passages. The new style was taken up in A virtuosic vespers Claudio Monteverdi most forms of music. The greater Monteverdi\u2019s Vespers was one of use of figured bass (numerals and the first pieces of sacred music Born in Cremona in 1567, symbols, indicating the harmonies to exploit the rich possibilities of Monteverdi began composing to be played by the continuo player) seconda pratica, but the composer music while still a teenager, lent themselves to opera and did not forget the advantages of producing a collection of oratorio. In vocal music, the melody prima pratica and set the texts that three-part motets and a projected the thoughts, emotions, are strictly liturgical in traditional book of madrigals. These actions, and reactions of a plainsong. The usual musical achievements enabled him character in an opera, or even sequence for the vespers service to leave Cremona to become in an accompanied song. consisted of eight movements, a string player at the court starting with an opening \u201cversicle\u201d of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga The new emphasis on character that began with the words \u201cDeus in Mantua, where he was led to the development of the in adjutorium meum intende\u201d (\u201cGod influenced by the court\u2019s accompanied sonata (including the make speed to save us\u201d). The maestro di cappella (music trio sonata, comprising two violins original 1610 edition of Vespers director), Giaches de Wert, and a cello), the solo recitative and contains 13 movements, and and started writing operas. aria, and the concerto\u2014indeed, includes a version of the Magnificat In 1607, his first opera, L\u2019Orfeo any musical form showcasing one for six voices and organ. In addition was performed in Mantua, particular performer among a to music for vespers itself, the followed by L\u2019Arianna in 1608. group. This stylistic development volume includes an a cappella (\u201cin emphasized contrast, allowing the chapel,\u201d or unaccompanied) After Gonzaga\u2019s death for wider emotional expression in Mass setting\u2014Missa in Illo in 1612, Monteverdi went to vocal music and for more rhythmic Tempore\u2014based upon a motet of Rome, where he presented variation in expressing and the same name by the Renaissance his Vespers to the Pope. The projecting the text. It stimulated composer Nicolas Gombert. (Mass following year he became experimentation among composers, and vespers were the two services maestro di cappella at St. who explored increasing of the Roman Catholic liturgy most Mark\u2019s, Venice. His final opera instrumental virtuosity. elaborately set in late 16th- and L\u2019incoronazione di Poppea was early 17th-century Italy.) performed in 1642, the year Sacred music before he died. While the old polyphonic style Within the 13 movements continued to be widely used in of Vespers, Monteverdi sets five Other key works European church music during the psalms that honor the Virgin Mary, first half of the 17th century, a together with Ave Maris Stella 1605 Fifth Book of Madrigals (Hail Star of the Sea), an eighth- 1607 L\u2019Orfeo century hymn to Mary that 1640\u20131641 Selva morale e precedes the Magnificat in the spirituale official set of daily prayers, and 1642 L\u2019incoronazione di the Magnificat itself. Monteverdi \u276f\u276f Poppea","68 BIRTH OF THE BAROQUE uses plainsong (single line when they had slightly different unaccompanied Latin chants, meanings and usage from today. associated today with monks Until around 1650, \u201csonata\u201d was and monasteries) as the basis of used interchangeably with the seven sections. The repeated \u201ccanzona,\u201d an instrumental return to plainsong provides a composition employing repetition, compositional thread that connects while \u201cconcerto\u201d simply meant the very different Renaissance and an ensemble piece for voices early Baroque styles. It also helped and instruments. ensure that his work would not alienate the Church. Monteverdi dedicated and presented Monteverdi\u2019s intentions his Vespers to Pope Paul V, a member It is not known whether Monteverdi Sacred concertos of the powerful Borghese family, expected to hear the Vespers In addition to Monteverdi\u2019s five possibly in the hope of commissions. sung as a complete work. There is psalm settings, the Ave Maris Stella little evidence that any of the 1610 setting, and the Magnificat, he set creating an other-worldly effect. For publication was actually performed four antiphons\u2014short sentences example, the first singer\u2019s \u201cgaudio\u201d during his lifetime and it is not sung or recited before or after a (joy) is echoed as \u201caudio\u201d (I hear). known whether the vesper psalm or canticle. The first two Devices such as repeated phrases movements were ever performed (non-liturgical\u2014not part of the for emphasis might have appeared together. Some scholars have service) antiphons come from the in an opera. suggested that Vespers is simply Old Testament\u2019s Song of Solomon. a collection of religious settings They are Nigra Sum, sed Formosa The vesper settings are honoring the Virgin Mary, (I am Black but Comely) and Pulchra completed by the Sonata sopra which were published together Es (Thou Art Fair), sung by two Sancta Maria (\u201cSonata on [the for convenience. The publication sopranos whose lines interweave plainsong] Holy Mary, Pray for Us\u201d). may have been intended by the as if in a love duet. Together, the four antiphons and composer as two works\u2014Vespers the Sonata were described by and Mass\u2014complete in their own In the third antiphon, Duo Monteverdi as \u201csacred concertos.\u201d right, and also as a compendium Seraphim, two angels call across \u201cSonata\u201d and \u201cconcerto\u201d are terms of sacred music from which to the heavens, and in the fourth, that date from the 18th century, draw movements for different Audi Coelum (Hear, O Heaven), occasions when expert singers the endings of the words sung by and instrumentalists were one tenor are echoed by another, The Family in Concert, c.1752, Music in Venice opening of the world\u2019s first by the Venetian artist Pietro Longhi, opera house, the Teatro di who specialized in contemporary Few other cities in Europe have San Cassiana, in 1637. domestic scenes. a longer or more glorious musical tradition than Venice. In the In the 19th century, Rossini Baroque age, it was a major center saw some of his greatest of the arts and a powerful trading triumphs in Venice, while hub, with a great tradition of Wagner, a regular visitor who church and state ceremonies later died in the city, composed requiring music. The fame of Tristan und Isolde here, and Venetian composers, such as Verdi premiered Rigoletto (1851) Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, and La traviata (1853) at Teatro Monteverdi, and Vivaldi, rivals La Fenice, the chief opera house that of the city\u2019s artists\u2014Bellini, from 1792. In the 20th century, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, and Stravinsky\u2019s The Rake\u2019s Progress Tiepolo. Opera first found a mass (1951) and Benjamin Britten\u2019s following in the city, with the The Turn of the Screw (1953) were also premiered here.","I would rather be some performances contrast large BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 69 moderately praised for choirs with smaller ensembles using the cori spezzati (separated From the Renaissance the new style than choirs) technique to create a to the Baroque greatly praised for \u201cstereo\u201d effect. Instruments are only specified for certain sections The Monteverdi the ordinary. of the work: the opening fanfare Vespers builds on Claudio Monteverdi borrowed from Monteverdi\u2019s opera traditional Gregorian Orfeo of 1607; the Sonata; and plainchant structure. available, such as at a court like sections of the Magnificat. Mantua, St. Peter\u2019s in Rome, or It adds virtuoso music St. Mark\u2019s in Venice. A minimum Voices and instruments for solo singers, creating of ten voices is required to perform Contemporaries were sometimes Vespers, and instrumental and critical of Monteverdi\u2019s change in a more emphatic, vocal parts require enormous style from the traditional prima expressive effect. dexterity. For the more \u201cchoral\u201d pratica to the more operatic sections, such as Laudate Pueri, seconda pratica technique he This freer expression is Dixit Dominus, and the closing used in the sacred concertos and supplemented by movement of the Magnificat, also in his madrigals. They may have found this sort of writing too improvisational flourishes A page from a manuscript shows ostentatious for religious music. and dramatic devices. Monteverdi\u2019s handwritten notation for L\u2019incoronazione di Poppea (\u201cThe One writer, Giovanni Artusi, A greater emphasis on Coronation of Poppea\u201d) of 1642, his attacked the Baroque style, harmony leads to a freer last work before his death in 1643. quoting madrigals by Monteverdi compositional technique. in support of his arguments. He found the use of dissonance, unorthodox key changes, and irregular cadences objectionable. However, Monteverdi did not see the two techniques as radically different: they were both ways of setting a text expressively and of being faithful to it. \u25a0 The ultimate effect is a grand public sound \u2026 \u2026 that builds upon traditional structures to create a new choral style.","70 FLGTRUIOTELOLNLDEYCROHMEFEMAPRSURIOSTINNISCCTWIEAHINOETSFH JLEEABNO-UBRAGPETOISISTEGELNUTLILLYHOMME (1670), IN CONTEXT T he 1670 com\u00e9die-ballet grandeur, is told through a mixture Le bourgeois gentilhomme, of spoken dialogue written by FOCUS devised by the French Moli\u00e8re, interspersed with lively French Baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Lully and orchestral interludes and dances the playwright and actor Moli\u00e8re, by Lully. The choruses and solo BEFORE represents the high point of this arias were the work of both men. 1626 Les vingt-quatre violons specifically French genre. It was du roi, the King\u2019s orchestra, the culmination of a series of Dramatic skill is founded\u2014an ensemble in comedy-ballets by the two men Lully was a skilled musician, which Lully later performs. who were known as Les deux dancer, and actor, and this is Baptistes (Moli\u00e8re\u2019s real name evident in his compositions. 1647 The premiere is held of being Jean Baptiste Poquelin). The Instead of merely accompanying Luigi Rossi\u2019s opera Orpheus, com\u00e9die-ballet genre mixed spoken the singers, Lully\u2019s orchestra the first opera commissioned drama with music and dance, enhances the drama of his works, by the French court. ballet having long been enjoyed commenting on the actions of the at the court of King Louis XIV. characters and creating a sense AFTER of place and occasion. His earlier 1691 Henry Purcell composes The story of Le bourgeois Ballet des Muses (1666) anticipated his opera King Arthur, with gentilhomme, the foolish Monsieur the rise of the concerto, by pitting \u201cshivering\u201d effects in the Jourdain, who has delusions of solo instrumental passages against violins, allegedly influenced alternating orchestral responses. by Lully\u2019s opera Isis. I do not believe there is any sweeter music under the Examples of virtuosity and 1693 Marc-Antoine heaven than Lully\u2019s. complexity are often evident Charpentier\u2019s opera M\u00e9d\u00e9e Madame de S\u00e9vign\u00e9 in Le bourgeois gentilhomme, is indebted to Lully\u2019s style. particularly in the quickfire French aristocrat (1626\u20131696) exchanges between characters, 1733 Jean-Philippe Rameau\u2019s in the whirling violin and flute Hippolyte et Aricie is the first ornamentations of the Spanish French opera to depart from tunes, and in the stately flourishes Lully\u2019s style and the first of the overture. Over the course of piece of music to be described five acts, Lully uses every tool at as \u201cBaroque.\u201d his disposal, from popular dance forms, such as jigs and minuets, to drinking songs and even a","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 71 See also: Le jeu de Robin et de Marion 32\u201335 \u25a0 Euridice 62\u201363 \u25a0 Hippolyte et Aricie 107 \u25a0 Orfeo ed Euridice 118\u2013119 \u25a0 The Magic Flute 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The Barber of Seville 148 \u25a0 Der Freisch\u00fctz 149 \u25a0 La traviata 174\u2013175 \u25a0 Tosca 194\u2013197 A skilled violinist, Lully performed the timing of both singers and method of musical direction that in his own works. He is thought to be orchestra. Indeed, there is an precipitated his untimely demise. the man holding the violin in Fran\u00e7ois etching of Lully\u2019s later opera, In March 1687, he died from a Puget\u2019s painting of 1688. Alceste, premiered in 1674, that gangrenous wound that developed shows a man \u201cbeating time\u201d on after a blow to his toe while grandiose \u201cTurkish\u201d march with the floor with a staff. Unfortunately beating time as he conducted lively percussion. Although Lully for Lully, it was this vigorous his own Te Deum. \u25a0 was not the innovator of musical \u201corientalism,\u201d he is widely credited Jean-Baptiste Lully with spreading its influence in the 18th century. His use of a scene- Born into which point he gallicized his setting overture\u2014an orchestral, a family of name. Lully\u2019s monopoly on marchlike introduction usually Florentine French opera enabled him to to allow for royal pageantry and millers in 1632, produce multiple works of his homage to be paid\u2014became Giovanni own creation. His prolific output a standard musical feature for Battista Lulli before his early death in 1687 almost all subsequent operas. began his rise through French also included chamber music society when he gained a and sacred works. Enter the conductor position as a servant at the Lully\u2019s increased instrumentation, French court at the age of 14. Other key works with five-part strings, woodwind, He attracted the attention of and percussion, meant that Louis XIV, with whom he later 1663 Miserere mei Deus Le bourgeois gentilhomme was danced in courtly spectacles. 1674 Alceste one of the earliest pieces of music By 1661, he had been placed 1677 Te Deum to require a conductor to coordinate in charge of court music, at 1686 Armide","GENIUSHE HAD A PECULIAR ETONEGXPLREISSSHTHWE ENOERRGDY OSF DIDO AND AENEAS (c.1683\u20131689), HENRY PURCELL","","74 BAROQUE OPERA IN ENGLAND IN CONTEXT T he greatness of Dido and Puritans show disdain for the Aeneas by Henry Purcell flamboyantly dressed Cavaliers in a FOCUS (1659\u20131695) lies in the 17th-century tavern scene. Cromwell Baroque opera in England perfection of its characterization closed many inns and theatres, which and musical depth. Although he called bastions of \u201clascivious mirth.\u201d BEFORE conceived on a miniature scale, it 1617 Lovers Made Men, a is the most significant early English tradition could develop, due to the masque by Ben Jonson, is set opera and a masterpiece of the exile of the future King Charles II to music by Nicholas Lanier in entire Baroque musical era. following the defeat of the Cavaliers the Italian recitative style. (Royalists) in the English Civil War In the late 17th century, when (1642\u20131651) and the establishment 1656 The Siege of Rhodes, by Dido and Aeneas was composed, of a Protectorate under the rule of five composers, is considered opera was still in its infancy in the Puritan Oliver Cromwell. During the first English opera, but is England. It had evolved in Florence this period, English composers called \u201crecitative music\u201d to in the 1590s from a form of private were often not exposed to foreign avoid the Puritan ban on plays. entertainment organized by groups influences and their music tended of artists and musicians known as to retain a strong national identity. c.1683 John Blow\u2019s Venus \u201cacademies\u201d (see pp.62\u201363). From Forms such as the verse anthem, and Adonis is premiered at there, it had spread throughout Italy in which solo voices and choir sang Charles II\u2019s court. with performances in one or other alternate verses, were favored in of the many small courts. Only in Anglican liturgy. Secular music 1685 Albion and Albanius, 1637, with the opening of the Teatro included \u201ccatches\u201d\u2014simple, often with a libretto by John Dryden di San Cassiano in Venice, was bawdy rounds or canons, usually set to music by Louis Grabu, is opera performed for a wider public. sung in taverns\u2014which had no the earliest full-length English The new genre had reached direct continental equivalents. opera to survive in its entirety. Germany by this time and France by the 1640s, quickly taking root A mysterious genesis AFTER in both countries. The Restoration of the monarchy 1705 Jakob Greber\u2019s Gli amori under Charles II in 1660 brought d\u2019Ergasto is the first Italian In England, opera advanced England closer to Europe and its opera produced in London. more slowly, partly because of a musical repertoire. This would have prejudice against sung drama in a influenced Purcell as he developed 1711 Handel premieres the country where spoken drama was his skills composing masterly Italian opera Rinaldo, his first dominant. England also lacked a work for the London stage. royal court around which operatic Dido and Aeneas is one of the most original expressions of genius in all opera. Gustav Holst","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 75 See also: Euridice 62\u201363 \u25a0 Orfeo ed Euridice 118\u2013119 \u25a0 The Magic Flute 134\u2013137 \u25a0 The Barber of Seville 148 \u25a0 La traviata 174\u2013175 \u25a0 Peter Grimes 288\u2013293 anthems and songs from the age some suggest that it was Henry Purcell of 16. Many of these early works commissioned originally for the show the depth of imagination that court of Charles II. There is, Born in 1659, when court life would later make Dido and Aeneas however, no evidence of any was about to be restored with such a powerful work. performance in the proposed period the accession of Charles II, (1683\u20131684). Priest himself was a Purcell was a thoroughly Surprisingly little is known choreographer and dancing master trained musician. In his about the creation of Dido and who knew Purcell from stage relatively brief career, he Aeneas. The earliest surviving productions on which they had acquired the range of skills manuscripts date from several both worked. John Blow\u2019s Venus needed to succeed in every decades after Purcell\u2019s death, and Adonis, the model for Dido and available genre. He was a boy and some material, such as music Aeneas and also an opera with a chorister in the Chapel Royal, for his librettist Nahum Tate\u2019s prologue and three acts, had been and, as an adult, held a series prologue, has been lost. There is revived by Priest and his pupils and of court appointments, writing also a mystery about when and premiered at court around 1683. music for state occasions in where the work was first performed. addition to works for church Although it was staged at Josias The continental influence and chamber, songs, and Priest\u2019s Boarding School for Young While Purcell drew on the style harpsichord suites. As the Ladies in Chelsea in the late 1680s, of his English predecessors and organist of Westminster contemporaries such as Matthew Abbey from 1680, he worked Dido entertains Aeneas in a scene Locke and Blow, European musical close to London\u2019s West End by an unknown 18th-century Italian models are evident in Dido and and wrote incidental music artist. While based on Virgil\u2019s epic Aeneas and other works. During for dozens of plays. He also poem, Purcell\u2019s opera used witches, his years in exile, Charles II had \u276f\u276f collaborated on a series of rather than gods, to separate the lovers. dramatic or semi-operas with substantial musical content, including King Arthur and The Fairy Queen. He died in 1695 during the composition of The Indian Queen, leaving his brother to complete the work. Other key works 1691 King Arthur 1692 The Fairy Queen 1694 Come, Ye Sons of Art 1695 Funeral music for Queen Mary","76 BAROQUE OPERA IN ENGLAND As a child, Purcell served as a A musical revival (\u201cThe king\u2019s 24 violins\u201d) at chorister of the Chapel Royal at the court of Louis XIV. It played Hampton Court, England, a training The creative foundations for for church services and court ground for young musicians. England\u2019s music and drama were occasions, performing birthday in a poor state when Charles II odes by Purcell and others. The came to the throne in 1660. The post of \u201cMaster of the King\u2019s Puritans had closed London\u2019s Musick\u201d was reinstated with theatres from around 1642 and, the reappointment of Nicholas abhorring music in places of Lanier. Foundations such as the worship, had even disbanded Chapel Royal, which trained cathedral choirs. Charles\u2019s professional musicians, were interest in the arts and his also renewed. New theatres subsequent support for them were opened and thrived, was part of a wider policy of producing what is now called encouraging entertainment. Restoration drama\u2014often bawdy comedies\u2014for which This influenced music in songs and incidental music several ways. Charles created a were required, frequently royal string orchestra modeled on supplied by Purcell himself. the Vingt-quatre violons du roy acquired a taste for French and counterpoint, as well as a structural the classical hero of Virgil\u2019s epic Italian music. Such preferences device by which sections are poem, the Aeneid. Having escaped influenced aspiring musicians repeatedly built up from a short from the burning city of Troy at the eager for royal patronage. aria, followed by a chorus, and end of the Trojan War, he had sailed then a dance. The opera included with his followers to North Africa. French influences are noticeable several dances, a feature common There he woos the Carthaginian from the start of Dido and Aeneas. for French and English operas of the queen Dido\u2014a wary widow who Act One starts with a typical time. Such dances would no doubt finally submits to his advances. French overture, its slow, stately have pleased the dancing master, Wicked witches plot against her, introduction based on intense Priest, when the opera was staged however, sending an imp in the dotted rhythms (which divide at his school. likeness of Mercury to call Aeneas the beat between a long note and away to his glorious destiny as the a short one). The second part of Equally noticeable is the impact founder of Rome. In despair at his the overture is fast, using imitative of Italian opera\u2014and specifically of departure, Dido commits suicide. Didone, another opera about Dido As poetry is the harmony and Aeneas by Francesco Cavalli. Purcell masterfully employs of words, so music is Both operas employ a ground bass stirring motifs and deft word- that of notes; and as or passacaglia, in which the bass painting to express the fluctuating poetry is a rise above line is repeated throughout with moods that shape the action. changing melodies and harmonies Throughout the opera\u2019s varied prose \u2026 so is music the above it. Purcell uses this to great movements, Purcell\u2019s text and exaltation of poetry. dramatic effect for two of Dido\u2019s music work together in perfect Henry Purcell arias, including her lament, which synergy to evoke the necessary comes close to the end of the score emotions of sadness, joy, or the and provides a natural climax to evil intent of the witches\u2014music the whole drama. and poetry \u201cwalking hand in hand support each other,\u201d an ideal Purcell Dramatic effects expressed in the dedication of his As it has survived, Dido and semi-opera Dioclesian (1690). Aeneas consists of three short His use of melismas\u2014setting acts telling the story of the arrival one syllable on several notes\u2014is in ancient Carthage of Aeneas, striking, enhancing the effect of","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 77 descriptions of \u201cvalor,\u201d \u201ctorment,\u201d Compositional devices\u00a0in\u00a0 and Dido \u201clanguishing\u201d in grief in Dido\u2019s Lament her recitative \u201cWhence could so much virtue spring.\u201d Purcell also A five-bar bass \u201cRemember me\u201d motif intentionally creates dissonance repeated throughout lends a sense (disharmony between notes) in suggests inevitability. of yearning. the string parts during Dido\u2019s lament, to express the queen\u2019s extreme anguish in one of the most moving musical statements of grief ever composed. The last death scene is remarkable, too, in an era when operatic heroes or heroines seldom perished. In Cavalli\u2019s Didone, Dido is saved from herself and marries someone else. A lasting legacy Appoggiatura Falling phrases and Little is known about performances (short \u201cleaning\u201d note) dissonance to of Dido and Aeneas in Purcell\u2019s lifetime. It was revived on the suggests sobbing. indicate anguish. London stage in 1700 and again in 1704, yet these productions seem Queen Mary until 1694. Theatre and Aeneas suggests, however, to have been the last until the work dominated Purcell\u2019s last years. that, but for his early death at the late 19th century. Increasingly Here the chief form was that of age of 36, Purcell could have laid performed ever since, it is now dramatic or semi-opera. This very the ground for an English operatic regularly presented by schools and English type of entertainment tradition. That space would amateurs as well as in the world\u2019s comprised a play with interludes of eventually be filled by the German- great opera houses. songs, dances, and choruses at the born George Frideric Handel, who ends of acts; these had little direct would compose his own operas in The accession of William III to connection to the play and were London between 1711 and 1741. \u25a0 the throne in 1689 diminished performed by a separate company court patronage, although Purcell of singers and dancers. The best Music is yet but in its wrote fine odes for William\u2019s consort known examples are King Arthur nonage, a forward child, (1691), to a text by the poet John which gives hope of what it Dryden, and The Fairy Queen may be hereafter in England, (1692), whose spoken text is an when the masters of it shall adaptation by the actor-manager find more encouragement. Thomas Betterton of Shakespeare\u2019s A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream. Henry Purcell Purcell\u2019s other works ranged from church and chamber music to songs and formal odes. His Dido The score of Dido and Aeneas uses a simple bass line which may have been provided by cello, bassoon, double bass\u2014or bass viol, as shown here by Dutch artist Caspar Netscher (1639\u201384).","78 BCTHHAWEUROLCIBNHJGEESCOTFISOCNFHOOTRITSHTEERS CHORALE PRELUDE, EIN FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT (1690), DIETERICH BUXTEHUDE IN CONTEXT W hen, in 1517, Martin organ piece to introduce the melody Luther penned the of the chorale so that people would FOCUS 95 theses that would know what tune to sing. Lutheran hymn tunes trigger the Reformation, his main objections had little to do with Signature trait BEFORE music: they rather concerned The chief pioneer of the chorale 1529 Martin Luther composes the selling of indulgences and the prelude was Dieterich Buxtehude. the hymn Ein feste Burg. question of papal authority. As His practice was to present the the Reformation got underway, chorale melody in an ornamented 1624 Samuel Scheidt however, church music was to be version in one single upper voice, publishes his Tablatura nova, profoundly affected. For centuries, projected by the right hand on a a collection of keyboard singing in church had been the separate manual (organ keyboard), music containing eight sets preserve of monks and trained while the left hand and pedals of chorale variations. singers and, being in Latin, it was provided an accompaniment, incomprehensible to the average normally on softer-sounding stops. AFTER person in the congregation. Buxtehude drew some influence 1705\u20131706 J.S. Bach walks from the works of earlier composers, from Arnstadt to L\u00fcbeck\u2014a Luther placed particular such as the keyboard variations of distance of 235 miles (378 km) emphasis on congregational the Dutch organist Jan Pieterszoon to meet and hear Buxtehude. participation and on the use of the vernacular, so that everyone could [I wanted] to comprehend 1726 J.S. Bach completes understand what they were hearing one thing and another the final chorales in his and singing. The chorale\u2014a about his art. Orgelb\u00fcchlein (\u201cLittle Organ congregational hymn\u2014was key J.S. Bach Book\u201d), his largest collection to this. Luther himself composed of chorale preludes. many of the earliest chorales, of which perhaps the most famous is 1830 Felix Mendelssohn his Ein feste Burg, based on Psalm bases the finale of his 46\u2014\u201cA mighty fortress is our God, \u201cReformation\u201d Symphony a tower of strength never failing.\u201d (No. 5) on Luther\u2019s Ein feste Burg. By the Baroque period, chorale melodies formed the basis for many different genres of music in the Lutheran church. One of these was the chorale prelude, a short","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 79 See also: Plainchant 22\u201323 \u25a0 Magnus liber organi 28\u201331 \u25a0 Great Service 52\u201353 \u25a0 Pi\u00e8ces de clavecin 82\u201383 \u25a0 St. Matthew Passion 98\u2013105 \u25a0 The Art of Fugue 108\u2013111 \u25a0 Elijah 170\u2013173 An Allegory of Friendship by Dutch them, or is presented as the first them imitatively, while at other artist Johannes Voorhout shows (and \u201cstrongest-sounding\u201d) of a times opting for a chordal approach. Buxtehude leaning on his elbow. collection of four notes. In this manner the tune is Among the other musicians is the presented once from beginning harpsichordist Johann Adam Reincken. The accompaniment in the to end. This particular style of left hand and pedals is generally setting influenced J.S. Bach, Sweelinck (1562\u20131621) and his pupil in two- or three-part harmony, who followed a similar model Samuel Scheidt (1587\u20131654), but sometimes using motifs from the in his Chorale Preludes. \u25a0 while Scheidt often presented chorale melody and interweaving the tune of the chorale in slower, position of organist at St. Mary\u2019s unornamented notes and wove the Dieterich Buxtehude in L\u00fcbeck. Tradition held that variations around it, Buxtehude new organists should marry a made the chorale melody itself the It is uncertain exactly when daughter of their predecessor, clearest and most ornamented line, and where Dieterich Buxtehude an obligation that Buxtehude with the variations being simpler. was born, but by his early fulfilled within weeks of taking childhood, his family was living up office. He retained his role as Buxtehude\u2019s prelude on Ein feste in Helsingborg (in modern-day organist of L\u00fcbeck until his Burg ist unser Gott, composed Sweden), from where they later death in 1707. around 1690, is a perfect example moved to Helsing\u00f8r in Denmark. of this approach. The right hand It was there that Buxtehude Other key works presents a spontaneous-sounding learned his musical craft from solo melody that follows the contour his organist father. 1680 Membra Jesu Nostri of the chorale tune. The chorale c.1680 Praeludium in C major itself is made clearer by the fact After working at his father\u2019s 1694 Trio Sonatas, Op. 1 that each of its notes is either former church in Helsingborg held for longer than the decorative, and then at St. Mary\u2019s church in improvisatory notes that connect Helsing\u00f8r, in 1668 Buxtehude accepted the prestigious","80 OTHFEONUERWTIOMREPSHEUS CONCERTI GROSSI, OP. 6 (1714), ARCANGELO CORELLI IN CONTEXT T he Italian term \u201cconcerto\u201d the modest setup of a small was initially used to group of soloists and a string FOCUS describe any music for ensemble with continuo (bass The concerto grosso voices and added instruments, with line), as developed by the Italian a distinction evolving in the early composer Arcangelo Corelli around BEFORE 17th century between concerti the turn of the 18th century. 1610 The publication of ecclesiastici (church music) and Giovanni Cima\u2019s Sonate concerti di camera (chamber Corelli\u2019s early Concerti Grossi were a Tre for violin, cornet, and music). By the late 18th century it premiered in Rome\u2019s Palazzo Pamphilj, continuo\u2014an early example had evolved into the much grander a dazzling example of Italian Baroque of secular Italian chamber showcase for virtuosity that is architecture that reflected the order music for three instruments. familiar today, but its roots lie in and playfulness of the music. 1675 The first performance of Alessandro Stradella\u2019s Sonata di Viole No. 25, which contrasts a soloist with an ensemble. Corelli is likely to have heard this during his time in Rome. AFTER 1721 J.S. Bach puts together his Brandenburg Concertos, several of which experiment with the instrumentation of both solo and ensemble groups. 1741 Handel\u2019s Twelve Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, are published, in direct homage to Corelli\u2019s Concerti Grossi.","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 81 See also: The Four Seasons 92\u201397 \u25a0 Musique de table 106 \u25a0 Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor 179 It is wonderful to observe The music ranges from serene Arcangelo Corelli what a scratching of Corelli adagios (in slow time) wrought there is everywhere\u2014nothing with exquisite suspensions, to Born into a prosperous family allegros (fast time), peppered in the small Italian town of will relish but Corelli. with quickfire exchanges between Fusignano, in 1653, Corelli Roger North the large and small ensembles. was accepted into Bologna\u2019s Corelli\u2019s use of harmony in these Accademia Filarmonica Writer and musician concerti was in keeping with a orchestra at the age of 17. (1653\u20131734) more general shift in Italian His mastery of the violin, Baroque music away from the combined with the rigor Corelli\u2019s masterful Op. 6, Concerti myriad lines of Renaissance of his teaching methods and Grossi, published posthumously polyphony toward the use of his many pupils, who included as a set of 12, epitomize the form. chord sequences and cadences Antonio Vivaldi and Francesco to create a stable tonal center. Geminiani, caused his Each of Corelli\u2019s concerti reputation to grow. consists of four to six movements, Corelli\u2019s work immediately played by a trio concertino\u2014three attracted the admiration of patrons In the mid-1670s, Corelli soloists comprising two violins and fellow musicians. Among the moved to Rome, where he and a cello continuo\u2014and the Op. 6 concerti, No. 8 in G minor, entered the service of Queen ripieno, a larger string ensemble subtitled \u201cFatto per la Notte di Christina of Sweden, who with harpsichord accompaniment. Natale,\u201d was commissioned by his had a home in Rome, and later Confusingly, Corelli often expanded patron of the 1690s, Cardinal Pietro served as Music Director to the concertino section to four Ottoboni. Known as the Christmas Cardinal Pamphili. His last musicians. The basso continuo Concerto, the work has enjoyed patron was Cardinal Pietro (cello and harpsichord) provided long-lasting popularity. Ottoboni, who was himself a continuous musical framework, a musician and librettist. or foundation, over which the Harmony and balance melody and harmony of both the Although Corelli had previously Corelli died in 1713. Despite soloists and the accompanying written for the concertino his relatively modest output, group, or ripieno, were constructed. combination of instruments in his most active composing his 48 trio sonatas, it is impossible years coincided with a boom Dynamic expression to dismiss the Concerti Grossi in music publishing at the By employing these contrasting as a mere inflation of these turn of the 18th century. As instrumental forces, Corelli small-scale chamber works. a result, his influence spread explored the possibilities for Some performances involved as across Europe, even during dynamic expression, enlivening many as 80 musicians\u2014a huge his lifetime. the exchanges between the number, especially in Corelli\u2019s day, sections through dramatic when orchestras more usually Other key works juxtapositions\u2014often enhanced numbered around 20 musicians. when the concertino ensemble 1694 12 Trio Sonatas, Op. 4 joins in with the ripieno sections. In 1789, more than 70 years 1700 12 Violin Sonatas, Op. 5 after Corelli\u2019s death, the English musician, composer, and music historian Dr. Charles Burney wrote of the Concerti Grossi: \u201cThe effect of the whole \u2026 [is] so majestic, solemn, and sublime that they preclude all criticism.\u201d Even today, their melodies continue to resonate. \u25a0","82 FSTTRHHTEEEYNLPUCEENSHRITFMAIENNUCDGSTTIOITOFCANRLTOIEHAAFENTMEUSIC PI\u00c8CES DE CLAVECIN (1713), FRAN\u00c7OIS COUPERIN IN CONTEXT U ntil Fran\u00e7ois Couperin\u2019s technical virtuosity and the formal Ordres, or suites, French modulation of melodies, rather than FOCUS keyboard music had largely changes of mood and feeling. French Baroque taken the form of Baroque popular harpsichord music dances, such as the allemande, Ornamental flourishes courante, and sarabande. However, Although he used the sonata BEFORE in part due to his connections at structure in his music, Couperin 1670 Jacques Champion de the French court, Couperin was concentrated on grace and gesture, Chambonni\u00e8res publishes also familiar with Italian music, swayed by the prevailing French Les pi\u00e8ces de clavessin (\u201cPieces including the sonata, a piece in view of music as a sophisticated, for Harpsichord\u201d), the first major several movements for a small elegant, and even frivolous pastime. French work on harpsichords. group of instruments, which Many of his works have descriptive involved no dancing or singing. titles, which he claimed were ideas 1677 Nicholas-Antoine that occurred to him as he was Leb\u00e8gue writes Les pi\u00e8ces Sonatas of this period usually writing. The careful balance he de clavessin, the first dance had a two-part structure, with each struck between the lighthearted suites published in France. half repeated. As seen in the more French sensibility and the more than 500 sonatas of Domenico formal, structured Italian approach AFTER Scarlatti, they tended to focus on gave his work wide appeal. 1725 J.S. Bach includes Les bergeries (from Sixi\u00e8me I like better what The keyboard works were Ordre 1717) in his Notebook touches me than written entirely for harpsichord or for Anna Magdalena under what surprises me. spinet. On these instruments, the the title of Rondeau. Fran\u00e7ois Couperin player has no control of volume. Couperin incorporated subtle 1753 C.P.E. Bach pens volume Pi\u00e8ces de clavecin (1713) embellishments into his music to 1 of Versuch \u00fcber die wahre control its flow and intensity and, Art das Clavier zu spielen, unusually for the period, expected a treatise influenced by performers not to add to, or Couperin\u2019s L\u2019art de toucher le improvise around, what he had clavecin (\u201cThe Art of Playing written. Furthermore, he published the Harpsichord\u201d). detailed instructions for these \u201cornaments,\u201d marking the notes precisely as they should be played, thereby codifying such signs for","See also: Micrologus 24\u201325 \u25a0 Scarlatti\u2019s Sonata in D minor 90\u201391 \u25a0 BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 83 Musique de table 106 \u25a0 Clementi\u2019s Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor 132\u2013133 Fran\u00e7ois Couperin later generations. His style was a complete course, but advice for not to everyone\u2019s taste\u2014while J.S. the player on body postures and Even within the dynasty of Bach arranged some of Couperin\u2019s technical issues. It included a great musicians into which works, he is said to have found series of eight preludes for study he was born in 1668, Fran\u00e7ois them overly fussy. and fingerings for some of Couperin was extraordinary. Couperin\u2019s published pieces. Appointed on the death of Such reliance on ornamentation his father, Charles, to take tends to mean that Couperin\u2019s Particularly forward-looking over the role of organist at music translates less well onto the are his suggestions that children St. Gervais Church in Paris modern piano, which, with its fuller should master a few pieces before at the tender age of 11, he and more sustained sound, makes learning to read music and that went on to become one the decoration too prominent. This, practice should be supervised. of the most sought-after coupled with his dislike of overt These ideas anticipated some performers and teachers in virtuosity and harmonic daring modern approaches to music France. In 1693, Couperin (such as sudden key changes or education, such as the Suzuki was appointed by Louis XIV clashing notes), may explain why method in the mid-20th century. \u25a0 as organist at the Royal his music has been eclipsed by Chapel. He became court Scarlatti\u2019s in the concert hall. A young girl learns to play the harpsichordist to Louis XV in harpsichord in The Music Lesson 1717 and composed works for Although not the first treatise on by Jean-Honor\u00e9 Fragonard. Fran\u00e7ois the royal family. He died in keyboard playing, Couperin\u2019s L\u2019art Couperin taught music to Louis XIV\u2019s Paris in 1733. de toucher le clavecin was one of children at Versailles. the most important, offering not Couperin\u2019s series of Ordres for keyboard are considered some of the most significant contributions to Baroque harpsichord music. Players of the instrument today still study L\u2019art de toucher le clavecin in order to inform their performances. Other key works 1713\u20131730 24 Ordres (in four books) 1714\u20131715 Les concerts royaux (The Royal Concerts) 1724\u20131725 Apoth\u00e9oses","LIKE ISWHAT THE ENGLISH BSOEMAETTHINTGIMTHEEYTCAON WGEAOTRERGEMFURSIIDCE,RHIWCVHA3N4D8\u2013EL350 (1717),","","86 AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE IN CONTEXT U ntil the late 19th century, Handel is the greatest England was often known composer that ever lived \u2026 FOCUS as the land without music. An international style Even though London had a thriving I would uncover my concert life, with the earliest head and kneel down BEFORE tradition of public concerts in 1660s Following the Europe, the fashion was to promote on his tomb. restoration of the monarchy in foreign composers and performers Ludwig van Beethoven England, Charles II reinstates rather than native musicians. Both music to the English court. Handel and Johann Christian Bach of some of the florid excesses of He favors the French style (known as the English Bach) moved High Baroque counterpoint that and particularly promotes to London to make the most of its were favored by Bach. dancing, a passion he acquired opportunities, and composers during his exile in France. such as Mozart and Haydn often Handel was soon appointed visited the city as well-paid and director of music to the Duke of 1670s A group of professional feted musicians. Chandos, who introduced him to musicians called the Music other members of the English Meeting open a concert hall Music as pleasure aristocracy. While employed by the near Charing Cross, London. When Handel arrived in London in duke, Handel honed a new, more 1711, he already had a distinctive forthright style, which can be heard AFTER style that was rooted in his North in his Chandos Anthems and the 1727 Handel composes the German upbringing and influenced masque Acis and Galatea. It was anthem Zadok the Priest for by his time in Italy. He had met also at this time that he wrote George II\u2019s coronation. Arcangelo Corelli and Domenico Esther, the first of his English Scarlatti in Italy and achieved oratorios, a genre for which he 1800s Composers turn away success with Italian operas and would become renowned. from an international style to religious works there. He was also highlight the individuality of familiar with the work of Jean- nations, finding inspiration Baptiste Lully, who dominated in folk dance rhythms and French music, and England\u2019s Henry nationalist themes. Purcell. This cosmopolitanism appealed to London concert-goers, who welcomed Handel\u2019s avoidance George Frideric Handel Born in Halle, in northeastern there for the rest of his life. Germany, in 1685, Handel received He later found fame with his his earliest musical training from oratorios, especially Messiah, a local organist. While still a and set a seal on his career with teenager, he moved to Hamburg the Music for the Royal Fireworks to work as a composer and from in 1749. Handel died a wealthy there went to Italy. He developed man and was buried with the his dramatic talent in the comic great and the good in London\u2019s operas Rodrigo (1707) and Westminster Abbey. Agrippina (1709) and the psalm setting Dixit Dominus (1707). Other key works Returning to Hanover in 1725 Rodelinda, HWV 19 1710, Handel became Kapellmeister 1742 Messiah, HWV 56 (music director) to the Elector of 1749 The Music for the Royal Hanover (later George I of Great Fireworks, HWV 351 Britain and Ireland). He relocated 1751 Jephtha, HWV 70 to London a year later and lived","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 87 See also: Gabrieli\u2019s Sonata pian\u2019 e forte 55 \u25a0 Euridice 62\u201363 \u25a0 The Four Seasons 92\u201397 \u25a0 The Magic Flute 134\u2013137 \u25a0 Elijah 170\u2013173 \u25a0 La traviata 174\u2013175 \u25a0 The Ring Cycle 180\u2013187 \u25a0 Tosca 194\u2013197 Handel presents Water Music to very different from the hunting founded a century later) under George I in a painting by the Belgian horns familiar to English audiences. a charter from the King. It was a artist Edouard Hamman. According to Along with bassoons and trumpets, commercial venture, formed as newspaper reports, the whole river was these helped the music carry in a joint-stock corporation, with filled with small boats and barges. the open air. the aim of commissioning and performing new Italian operas in In 1717, George I asked Handel Essentially, Water Music is a Britain. Handel was one of its three to compose the music for a barge blend of popular European styles. composers as well as its musical \u276f\u276f trip down the Thames. The music It starts with an overture in the needed to be sensational: the uneven rhythms of the French style, I should be sorry if I only King wanted to make a big public incorporates dances that were entertained them. I wish to statement to draw attention away fashionable across Europe at the from his son, the Prince of Wales, time, and includes the most English make them better. who was forming an opposing of music\u2014the hornpipe\u2014which George Frideric Handel political faction. Handel had to became the signature tune of balance a desire for novelty with the work. the need for broad popular appeal. While a concert in a barge with Opera in London some 50 performers was a novelty In 1719, the Duke of Chandos and in itself, Handel added to the his friends, taking advantage of occasion by importing Bohemian the growing interest in opera in horn players, whose elegant England, inaugurated the Royal fanfares would have sounded Academy of Music (unrelated to the conservatoire of the same name","88 AN INTERNATIONAL STYLE Public music and director. He traveled to Europe He saw men and women concert-going to engage the finest orchestral where others have seen only musicians and the most celebrated London was the first city to singers, including the Italian historical-mythical busts. establish public concerts with castrato Senesino, and the Paul Henry Lang paying audiences. The trend soprano Francesca Cuzzoni. began around 1672, when the Music critic violinist and composer John Handel understood the Banister organized a paying audience\u2019s continual hunger for was unusual at the time. He also concert in his own house. By novelty. When London audiences understood the importance of the time Handel arrived in became used to these artists, spectacle, and a number of his London, there were purpose- he brought in another soprano, operas required elaborate stage built venues for chamber Faustina Bordoni, who built a rival machinery. In Alcina, which was music concerts. In addition, fan base among the audience, written for the new opera house theatres in Drury Lane and reinvigorating interest in the opera at Covent Garden, the stage the Haymarket offered Italian for a few more seasons. The high directions include \u201cwith lightning and, later, English opera to fees paid to such luminaries may and thunder, the mountain London\u2019s beau monde. have been part of the reason that crumbles, revealing Alcina\u2019s the company went out of business delightful palace.\u201d Such stage From around 1740, pleasure in 1728 with debts of around effects attracted audiences just gardens sprang up across the \u00a320,000 (over $5.5 million today). as much as the music. capital, most famously in Vauxhall. Here visitors Master of stagecraft A new direction would stroll, dine, and be Handel wrote a series of 13 operas When Italian opera went out entertained by live music from for the Royal Academy of Music, of fashion in London after the wind bands and orchestras. which had 235 performances in his extraordinary success in 1728 A rehearsal of Handel\u2019s Music lifetime. Masterpieces in the Italian of John Gay\u2019s The Beggar\u2019s for the Royal Fireworks in style, they included Giulio Cesare Opera, which satirized the form, Vauxhall Gardens, in 1749, in Egitto (\u201cJulius Caesar in Egypt\u201d, Handel used his skills to create attracted some 12,000 people, 1724) and Alcina (1735). Although and popularize oratorios in English. each paying two shillings he used the operatic conventions of Starting with Deborah (1733), and sixpence, and causing the day\u2014recitatives and arias\u2014to these thrillingly dramatic works for a three-hour traffic jam on unfold the narrative, he gave the solo singers, chorus, and orchestra London Bridge. operas a dramatic structure that told biblical stories with English- language librettos, but were The band plays music from Handel understands performed unstaged in theatres. To an illuminated bandstand in effect better than some extent influenced by operatic London\u2019s Vauxhall Gardens, UK, traditions, and even Greek tragedy, while visitors stroll and dance any of us\u2014when he Handel developed a directness of in the open air. chooses, he strikes like style and a new kind of robustness that appealed to British audiences. a thunderbolt. The public flocked to hear works Wolfgang Amadeus such as Messiah (1742), Samson Mozart","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 89 Some of the dances in Water Music Minuet English hornpipe Bourr\u00e9e French court dance in Bouncy, moderately paced A lively French dance dance in duple time (two triple (waltz) time. with folk roots. beats to the bar). Gigue Sarabande A lively Baroque A slow stately dance dance (jig) of Italian or French origin. of Spanish origin. Handel knew how to please an audience. Water Music contains popular dance forms from different parts of Europe. (1743), and Belshazzar (1745). Lenten period, when its depiction Louis Fran\u00e7ois Roubiliac\u2019s memorial Messiah was so popular that men of adultery caused consternation. to Handel stands above his tomb in were asked to attend performances Works such as this were essentially Westminster Abbey, UK. Just three without their swords to create more operas in English and are usually days before his death, Handel said room for the audience. performed as such today. that he wished to be buried there. Handel often presented these National yet international works himself, renting theatres and During a period when music was hiring performers, and often netting considered ephemeral and works a good profit. When a rival company were seldom heard in the years provided stiff competition, Handel after their first performances, wrote a number of organ concertos Handel was considered a major which he performed as interludes composer in his lifetime. He was during the performances. Unusual probably the first composer whose as this was, it provided a rare work did not suffer a fall in popularity opportunity to hear his great after his death. In England, he keyboard virtuosity in public helped to broaden interest in and was therefore something music beyond the confines of the of a marketing masterstroke. aristocracy and created a national musical identity in an international The Handelian oratorio became style that lasted until Edward so popular that Handel wrote Elgar in the late 19th century. His secular works in the same style. anthem Zadok the Priest, composed He designated Semele (1744), for the coronation of George II, is which was based on classical still used in the crowning of British mythology, as a musical drama monarchs today. \u25a0 \u201cafter the manner of an oratorio\u201d and even presented it during the","90 PBDJREUOSOTNTFROIONATUTGENHWXDEPRIIETNCAHTNTEANAIRNTNTGIYOENN,IOUS SONATA IN D MINOR, K. 9 \u201cPASTORALE\u201d (1738), DOMENICO SCARLATTI IN CONTEXT T he Italian virtuoso originality of their content belies harpsichord player and their seemingly mundane and FOCUS composer Domenico practical purpose. Italian Baroque sonata Scarlatti published his first edition of Essercizi per gravicembalo A contemporary of both J.S. BEFORE (\u201cExercises for Harpsichord\u201d) in 1738. Bach and George Frideric Handel, 1701 Baroque composer As the title of the collection suggests, Scarlatti\u2019s dazzling skills on the Arcangelo Corelli publishes the 30 sonatas were intended to his Violin Sonatas, Op. 5\u2014 be \u00e9tudes (studies) for students A family poses with their harpsichord an early example of solo of the harpsichord\u2014although by in a 1739 work by Cornelis Troost. The instrumental writing. Scarlatti\u2019s own admission, the instrument\u2019s popularity would soon wane in favor of the piano. 1709 Antonio Vivaldi publishes Twelve Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, Op. 2, again showcasing the virtuosic abilities of a solo instrument. AFTER 1784 Mozart publishes Piano Sonata No. 1, K279, following in Scarlatti\u2019s footsteps with his focus on solo keyboard writing. 1795 Beethoven publishes Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 2, continuing Scarlatti\u2019s experimentation with the genre.","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 91 See also: Pi\u00e8ces de clavecin 82\u201383 \u25a0 Musique de table 106 \u25a0 Clementi\u2019s Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 5 132\u2013133 \u25a0 \u201cEroica\u201d Symphony 138\u2013141 For bold playing of the their sonatas tended to consist Domenico Scarlatti harpsichord \u2026 [s]how yourself of three to four movements of more human than critical, and contrasting moods. However, The son of the prolific Scarlatti\u2019s sonatas for the solo opera composer, Alessandro thus increase your own harpsichord\u2014at that point, a Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti pleasure. \u2026 LIVE HAPPILY. relatively neglected instrument\u2014 was born in Naples in 1685. typically follow a two-part, single- A talented musician himself, Domenico Scarlatti movement structure, often pivoting he followed his father into a around a central \u201ccrux,\u201d or pause, musical career of wide-ranging and tending to be of shorter commissions and royal proportions, lasting only around patronage. At 16 he became three to four minutes in total. composer and organist to the royal chapel in Naples before keyboard were legendary, his The Pastorale going on to serve the exiled dancing fingers described by one Although he was influenced by Polish queen, Maria Casimira, astonished British observer as the sarabandes and courantes in Rome. He later became resembling \u201ca thousand devils.\u201d (both courtly dances) of his maestro di cappella (music Scarlatti allegedly once had a contemporaries, Scarlatti\u2019s music director) at St. Peter\u2019s. public contest of keyboard skills of this era is unique in its use of with Handel, a musical duel that, folk idioms taken from his Iberian In 1721, Scarlatti joined by all accounts, ended in a draw. surroundings. The Sonata K9 in the Portuguese court in Scarlatti put his talents to use at D minor is nicknamed the Pastorale Lisbon, where he gave music the highest level of royal service, (Pastoral). This is in part due to the lessons to Princess Maria tutoring Maria Barbara when she deceptive simplicity of its melody Barbara. When the princess was both princess of Portugal and but also owing to the traditional married Fernando VI of Spain, later queen of Spain. It was her music it evoked, including elements she summoned Scarlatti to aptitude for the instrument and her of Spanish folk dance music such be her music tutor. He served continuous employment of Scarlatti as the strumming, percussive the queen until his death in that provided the conditions for his effects of Spanish guitar. This Madrid in 1757. Scarlatti is groundbreaking Essercizi. addition of country stylings to the mainly known for his 555 formal courtly influences was to keyboard sonatas, although Scarlatti\u2019s sonata style continue to define Scarlatti\u2019s music. he also produced a huge The term \u201csonata\u201d derives from the He broke down the expectations of quantity of chamber and Italian verb suonare, meaning \u201cto Baroque chamber music convention, sacred vocal music. sound,\u201d and generally denotes solo experimenting with dissonance instrumental music\u2014that is, music and syncopation in his later sonatas. Other key works which is \u201csounded\u201d as opposed to sung (or \u201ccantata\u201d). In the early It is such playful \u201cjesting with 1724 Stabat Mater for 18th century, Italian composers art\u201d that places Scarlatti as a 10 voices such as Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio master of both Baroque music 1757 Salve Regina Vivaldi, and Tomaso Albinoni and the evolving classical style. had written widely for solo Scarlatti helped pave the way instruments\u2014the violin being a for the still more radical sonata particularly popular choice\u2014but experiments of Mozart and Beethoven that followed and that further emphasized the importance of freestyle, expressive melody lines over the more formal structure of Baroque music. \u25a0","SPRING IT GAIETYHAS COME, AND WITH THE FOUR SEASONS (1725), ANTONIO VIVALDI","","94 ITALIAN BAROQUE SOLO CONCERTO IN CONTEXT FOCUS Italian Baroque solo concerto BEFORE 1692 Giuseppe Torelli, based in Bologna, publishes the first of three collections of concertos that give a new prominence to the solo violinist. 1707 Concertos published by the Venetian Tomaso Albinoni use the three-movement (fast\u2013slow\u2013fast) structure that will become the standard. 1721 J.S. Bach\u2019s six Brandenburg Concertos use the structure and principles standardized by Vivaldi in his concertos. AFTER 1773 Mozart composes his first violin concerto using the three-movement structure. I n Italy, in the 1720s, Vivaldi fluidly to describe works written The Ospedale della Piet\u00e0, a was best known as a composer for combined ensembles, whether foundling hospital on the Grand Canal of operas, but in northern of voices and instruments or in Venice, where Vivaldi became violin Europe\u2014as well as after the comprising different groups of master in 1703. The ospedale had an composer\u2019s death\u2014his fame instruments. In Rome, for example, all-female choir and orchestra. rested on his concertos, a form he Arcangelo Corelli wrote concerti shaped, developed, and made his grossi for an ensemble of two violinist and composer Giuseppe own, perhaps most famously in violins and keyboard. These Torelli wrote works for solo violin Le quattro stagioni (The Four instruments could be joined by a and a larger instrumental ensemble, Seasons) of 1725. larger string ensemble, the role of while in Venice, wealthy amateur which was more to augment than Tomaso Albinoni composed Since Vivaldi\u2019s day, the word to stand in musical contrast to the beautiful oboe concertos. Written \u201cconcerto\u201d has found a clear smaller group. for one or two oboes and a larger meaning as a piece for one or ensemble, they were among the more instrumental soloists and The concerto develops first notable solo works written an orchestra: a solo concerto It was in Northern Italy, and Venice for the instrument. showcases one musician; a in particular, that the concerto concerto grosso (\u201cbig concerto\u201d) started to take the form that Vivaldi In the works of both Torelli and has two or more. Before Vivaldi, would come to use. In Bologna, Albinoni, a contrast was starting to however, the term was used more emerge between the solo sections","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 95 See also: C.P.E. Bach\u2019s Flute Concerto in A major 120\u2013121 \u25a0 Saint-Sa\u00ebns\u2019 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor 179 \u25a0 Ravel\u2019s Piano Concerto in D for the Left Hand 266\u2013267 and the parts played by the larger helped to change the course of He can compose a ensemble, as if two voices were musical history. Yet he was never concerto more quickly being heard simultaneously within a revolutionary. Instead, he took than a copyist can write. the same piece. These were the existing trends and modified them, Charles de Brosses foundations upon which Vivaldi creating a new musical language built his body of work. that exhilarated both musicians French scholar and politician and contemporary audiences. Many Slightly younger than Albinoni, of his borrowings were from opera, or musical idea played, repeated, his fellow Venetian, Vivaldi wrote his another genre that found new life in and modified over the course of first known concertos when he was the Baroque period and with which the movement by the orchestra. in his mid-20s. Overall, during the Vivaldi was heavily involved as a next 40 or so years, he would write composer. Following in Albinoni\u2019s Typically in Vivaldi\u2019s work, around 500 concertos, many of footsteps, he took the basic fast- a fast movement starts with the which were published in collections slow-fast structure of the operatic orchestra making a full statement such as Il cimento dell\u2019armonia e overture and transformed it into of the ritornello. This gives way to a dell\u2019inventione. Others were sold the standard three-movement solo section, in which the musician in manuscript\u2014a form that the structure of the concerto: a fast merely receives background commercially minded Vivaldi found first movement, filled with musical accompaniment from the orchestra. was more profitable. Of these action as solo and ensemble The full orchestra then returns, concertos, more than 200 were for sections alternate with one another, restating part of the ritornello in solo violin; Vivaldi himself was a followed by a slow, more meditative a new key. Ritornello and solo renowned and flamboyant violinist. middle movement, succeeded by sections then alternate, typically \u276f\u276f Others were for solo bassoon, cello, a renewed burst of activity in the flute, oboe, mandolin, and recorder. final movement. Vivali wrote nearly 50 double The ritornello concertos (composed for two solo Within the fast movements, Vivaldi instruments), along with other borrowed the key structuring variations, including one concerto device from opera\u2014he used the that included solo parts for 16 ritornello (\u201clittle return\u201d), a refrain different instruments. Through his astonishing oeuvre, Vivaldi Antonio Vivaldi Vivaldi was born in 1678, the son other concertos, as well as of a violinist in the orchestra of some 50 operas and numerous St. Mark\u2019s in Venice. He initially religious vocal works, sonatas, trained for the priesthood and and cantatas. His popularity was ordained in 1703, but he soon had declined by the late 1730s. ceased to practice as a priest. His He died in Vienna in 1741, break as a musician came when while trying to restore his he was appointed violin master fortunes, and was buried in at Venice\u2019s Ospedale della Piet\u00e0. a pauper\u2019s grave. Vivaldi\u2019s first published Other key works collection of concertos, L\u2019estro armonico (\u201cHarmonic Inspiration\u201d), 1711 L\u2019estro armonico, Op. 3 printed in 1711, made his name 1714 La stravaganza, Op. 4 internationally known, especially 1725 Il cimento dell\u2019armonia e in Germany, where the young J.S. dell\u2019inventione, Op. 8 Bach was one of its admirers. He 1727 La cetra, Op. 9 went on to compose hundreds of","96 ITALIAN BAROQUE SOLO CONCERTO The concerto four to six times, culminating in The score of \u201cSpring\u201d from The a final orchestral restatement of Four Seasons, part of L\u2019estro armonico The main attraction of the the ritornello. (Harmonic Inspiration), a collection of concerto for composers 12 concertos whose lively flamboyance and musicians is the sheer The solo sections, meanwhile, transformed the stately form. dramatic potential of the can also be seen in opera. Baroque form, as soloist and orchestra operas gave new prominence to the moods and states of mind, as alternately compete and aria, which allowed singers to show their titles made clear\u2014for collaborate with one another. off the power, range, and expressive example, Il piacere (Pleasure), Many composers have been nature of their voices. Similarly, L\u2019inquietudine (Anxiety), L\u2019amoroso inspired to write concertos the solo sections of concertos (The Lover), and Il riposo (Rest). by the talents of particular allowed instrumental soloists to Le quattro stagioni, however, along performers, such as the display their virtuoso skills. In an with a cycle of three concertos cellist Anton\u00edn Kraft, for age characterized by theatricality, called La Notte (Night), took this whom Haydn wrote his Vivaldi brought a dose of dramatic a step further, and used the music Cello Concerto No. 2 in D virtuosity to the concerto. to relate a simple musical narrative and Beethoven his Triple known as a \u201cprogramme,\u201d a form Concerto. Mozart wrote his Four Seasons that was taken up by many famous Horn Concertos for Vivaldi allowed his theatricality composers in the Romantic era. the horn player Joseph free rein in The Four Seasons, first Leutgeb. Concertos soon published in Amsterdam in 1725. In the published version, Vivaldi became a showcase for Earlier versions of the pieces had made the programme explicit by virtuoso performers, such been circulating for a number of including four sonnets of unknown as the violinist Paganini and years in manuscript form, and were authorship, often theorized to have the pianists Liszt and Chopin. already widely known and admired. been written by Vivaldi himself. Around the turn of the 20th These sonnets each tell the story century, Rachmaninov wrote Le quattro stagioni represented of one of the four seasons. The his piano concertos\u2014and the first four in a collection of 12 sonnet for spring, for example, Dvorak and Elgar their much- violin concertos entitled Il cimento starts by describing how birds loved cello concertos. Later, dell\u2019armonia e dell\u2019inventione (\u201cThe salute the new season \u201cwith joyous fans of the concerto grosso Contest of Harmony and Invention\u201d), song\u201d and how brooks fanned by included Michael Tippett in all written between 1723 and 1725. soft breezes flow \u201cwith sweet his Fantasia Concertante on Many of Vivaldi\u2019s concertos sought murmurings.\u201d All this Vivaldi a Theme of Corelli. to evoke or describe particular Violinist Nigel Kennedy records The Four Seasons with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1989. The recording sold more than two million copies.","BAROQUE 1600\u20131750 97 describes musically in the first Painting pictures with music movement of the \u201cSpring\u201d concerto, where the opening ritornello is a dance representing the celebratory joy of returning spring, succeeded by three solo violins conveying birdsong and other characteristics of the season. High praise Spring Summer In Italy, Vivaldi\u2019s popularity Three solo violins mimic chirruping Tranquil sounds speak of summer heat, had waned by the end of his life birds and babbling brooks. An upbeat with buzzing insects, a cuckoo, and due to rising interest in a new third movement suggests a spring a lark. Minor chords and dramatic Neapolitan style of opera. North festival with dancing. undertones convey a summer storm. of the Alps, however, Vivaldi\u2019s concertos, and Le quattro stagioni Autumn Winter in particular, made him one of the The fast first movement captures Fast violins convey chattering most famous composers of the the drama of a harvest festival. The teeth and stamping feet, and rapid day. Vivaldi\u2019s patrons included the orchestra is interrupted by a solo violin scales and dissonance suggest Bohemian nobleman Count Wenzel representing a \u201cswaying drunkard.\u201d winter chills and gales. von Morzin, to whom Vivaldi dedicated Il cimento dell\u2019armonia commanded a performance of to his earliest biographer, Johann e dell\u2019inventione, the collection the \u201cSpring\u201d concerto, played by Nikolaus Forkel, it was this that contained Le quattro stagioni. an orchestra assembled entirely experience that taught him the \u201cI beg you not to be surprised,\u201d of musically gifted nobles and importance of \u201corder, coherence, he wrote, \u201cif among these few and courtiers. Another lover of the and proportion\u201d in music. feeble concertos Your Illustrious \u201cSpring\u201d concerto was philosopher Grace should find the Four Seasons Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who According to modern scholars, which, with your noble bounty, in 1775 arranged the piece for Forkel\u2019s assessment may be Your Illustrious Grace has so long unaccompanied flute. an exaggeration, but Vivaldi\u2019s regarded with indulgence.\u201d influence on Bach is clearly evident Influence on composers in, for example, Bach\u2019s use of the Another illustrious endorsement Most remarkable, however, was ritornello form. Equally evident is came from King Louis XV of the legacy of Vivaldi\u2019s concertos the fact that Vivaldi gave the three- France, who in November 1730 to his fellow musicians. One movement (fast-slow-fast) concerto notable devotee was J.S. Bach. a place among the most important Vivaldi played a splendid His patron, the Duke of Saxe- music forms, inspiring countless solo \u2026 Such playing has not Weimar, returned from a trip to the future composers from Bach, been heard before and can Netherlands with a copy of Vivaldi\u2019s Haydn, and Mozart to Beethoven first concerto collection, the L\u2019estro onward. Moreover, the concerto never be equalled. armonico (\u201cHarmonic Inspiration\u201d), was a major influence on another J.F.A. von Uffenbach published in Amsterdam. Bach emerging form, one that soon transcribed six of the concertos became the supreme form of German traveler for solo harpsichord, and according instrumental expression for (1687\u20131769) composers\u2014the symphony. \u25a0","MUSICTHE END AND FINAL AIM OF ALL GLORY OF GODSHOULD BE NONE OTHER THAN THE ST. MATTHEW PASSION (1727), JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH"]