The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi, who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and the VenetianFrancesco Cavalli, who was principally an opera composer. The middle Baroque had absolutely no bearing at all on the theoretical work of Johann Fux, who systematized the strict counterpoint characteristic of earlier ages in his Gradus ad Paranassum One pre-eminent example of a court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully.
He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the king and to prevent others from having operas staged. Musically, he did not establish the string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition violins, violas—in hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins had been used in the ballet from the time of Louis XIII.
He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and the bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes. Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of the concerto grosso.
Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of the church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church.
Entirely outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as theAbendmusiken, which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his contemporaries as the equivalent of operas. Through the work of Johann Fux, the Renaissance style of polyphony was made the basis for the study of composition.
A continuous worker, Handel borrowed from others and often recycled his own material. He was also known for reworking pieces such as the famous Messiah , which premiered in , for available singers and musicians. These four dance types allemande, courant, sarabande, and gigue make up the majority of 17th-century suites; later suites interpolate one or more additional dances between the sarabande and gigue:.
Skip to main content. Search for:. History of Baroque Music and Origins. Baroque music Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately to The Baroque style is characterized by exaggerated motion and clear detail used to produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture , painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music.
In music , the Baroque style makes up a large part of the classical canon, such as Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi. Baroque , a term originally applied to the art and architecture of the time, means overly elaborate or ornate. Baroque music was filled with musical flourishes either through improvisation or by composer's design. Flutes with a soft tone; Baroque flutes are wooden.
Use of monody — a single melodic line. Baroque Music. Baroque music is a heavily ornamented style of music that came out of the Renaissance. There were three important features to Baroque music : a focus on upper and lower tones; a focus on layered melodies; an increase in orchestra size.
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known in his day as an organist. Why is it called baroque? About the Baroque Period. What makes a painting Baroque? Baroque painting is the painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement, which began in Italy in the 17th century.
In its most typical manifestations, Baroque painting is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows. How would you describe baroque music? As part of the effort to imitate ancient music, composers started focusing less on the complicated polyphony that dominated the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and more on a single voice with a simplified accompaniment, or monody.
If music was a form of rhetoric, as the writings of the Greeks and Romans indicate, a powerful orator is necessary—and who better for the job than a vocal soloist?
The best philosophers agree, and the very nature of our voice, with its high, low and middle ranges, would indicate as much. Along with the emphasis on a single melody and bass line came the practice of basso continuo , a method of musical notation in which the melody and bass line are written out and the harmonic filler indicated in a type of shorthand.
As the Italian musician Agostino Agazzari explained in Since the true style of expressing the words has at last been found, namely, by reproducing their sense in the best manner possible, which succeeds best with a single voice or no more than a few , as in the modern airs by various able men, and as is the constant practice at Rome in concerted music, I say that it is not necessary to make a score… A Bass, with its signs for the harmonies, is enough.
But if some one were to tell me that, for playing the old works, full of fugue and counterpoints, a Bass is not enough, my answer is that vocal works of this kind are no longer in use. Different instrumental sounds After being ignored for decades, Baroque music has become increasingly popular over the last fifty years. As part of this new interest, scholars and musicians have spent countless hours trying to figure out how the music might have sounded to 17th and 18th century audiences.
While we will never be able to recreate a performance precisely, their work has unearthed several major differences between Baroque and modern ensembles:. Before , however, there was no pitch standard. The note to which Baroque ensembles tuned, therefore, varied widely at different times and in different places.
As a result, the music notated on a score might have sounded as much as a half tone lower than how it would traditionally be performed today. The harpsichord was the primary keyboard instrument and an important member of the continuo group , and instruments important in the 16th and 17th centuries like the lute and viol , still continued to be used.
Variations in instruments still popular today also gave the baroque ensemble a different sound. String instruments like the violin, viola and cello used gut strings rather than the strings wrapped in metal with which they are strung today, for example, giving them a mellower, sweeter tone.
Mechanical differences between baroque and modern instruments also suggest that the older instruments would have sounded differently, so ensembles like Music of the Baroque often adjust their technique to allow for this. Because baroque and modern bows are structurally different, for example, string players using modern bows often use a gentler attack on the string and crescendos and diminuendos on longer notes.
While forms from earlier eras continued to be used, such as the motet or particular dances, the interest in music as a form of rhetoric sparked the development of new genres, particularly in the area of vocal music. Many of the forms associated with the baroque era come directly out of this new dramatic impulse, particularly opera, the oratorio and the cantata. In the realm of instrumental music, the notion of contrast and the desire to create large-scale forms gave rise to the concerto, sonata and suite.
Opera: A drama that is primarily sung, accompanied by instruments, and presented on stage. Operas typically alternate between recitative , speech-like song that advances the plot, and arias, songs in which characters express feelings at particular points in the action. Choruses and dances are also frequently included. The advent of the genre at the turn of the seventeenth century is often associated with the activities of a group of poets, musicians and scholars in Florence known today as the Florentine Camerata.
When the first public opera houses opened in Venice in , the genre was altered to suit the preferences of the audience. Solo singers took on a sort of celebrity status, and greater emphasis was placed on the aria as a result. Recitative grew less important, and choruses and dances virtually disappeared from Italian opera.
The financial realities of staging frequent opera productions also had an effect. The spectacular stage effects associated with opera at court were greatly downplayed, and librettos were constructed to take advantage of stock scenic devices.
By the early 18th century particularly in Naples , two subgenres of opera became evident: opera seria , in which the focus was on serious subject matter and the da capo aria , and opera buffa , which had a lighter, even comic tone and sometimes used duets, trios and larger ensembles.
The Italian tradition of opera gradually dominated most European countries. Oratorio: an extended musical drama with a text based on religious subject matter, intended for performance without scenery, costume or action. Oratorio originally meant prayer hall, a building located adjacent to a church that was designed as a place for religious experiences distinct from the liturgy.
Although there are late sixteenth century precedents for the oratorio in the motet and madrigal repertoire, the oratorio as a distinct musical genre emerged amidst the excellent acoustics of these spaces in the early s. By the middle of the 17th century, oratorios were performed in palaces and public theaters and were growing increasingly similar to operas, although the subject matter, division into two parts rather than three acts and absence of staged action still set it apart.
The oratorio grew in popularity in other parts of Europe as well. In Protestant Germany, dramatic music composed for use in the Lutheran church gradually became fused with elements of the oratorio, especially in the inclusion of non-Biblical texts. The oratorio passion, as it came to be called, culminated in the great works of J. Other well known examples outside of Italy include the English oratorios of George Frideric Handel , who popularized the genre in London as a result of the English distaste for Italian opera.
Cantata: an extended piece consisting of a succession of recitatives and set pieces such as arias, duets and choruses. Originating in early 17th century Italy, the cantata began as a secular work composed for solo voice and basso continuo, most likely intended for performance at private social gatherings. Many of these works were published, suggesting that they were performed by professional musicians and amateurs alike.
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