Baroque Period

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Baroque is a term borrowed from architecture and is used to describe the characteristics of musical style roughly contemporaneous with this in the 17th and first half of the 18th-centuries. The style applied to, for example, Monteverdi, Lully, Purcell, Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel and J.S. Bach. The term probably derived from 'barroco', which means an irregularly shaped pearl. The emphasis is on "irregular", as the Baroque implied a departure from the symmetry and harmony of the Renaissance. In architecture, this resulted in buildings conceived on a grand scale, using the richest materials and featuring willfully complex, dramatic designs. Baroque period began in Italy in the early of 17th-century. Grandiose concepts, magnificent effects, contrasts ornate design and an overall theatrical quality characterized the drama, painting, architecture and music. In musical context, Baroque is a much less precise term, often used to suggest little more than an ornate and rather theatrical style.

The Baroque style was of concertato style, with a concept in which different media were in opposition to one another. At the heart of the new style was the development of the basso continuo (figured bass), a system of notation for the secondary instruments. Therefore, lower part in most baroque ensemble music were with the basso continuo, usually played by the combination of two kinds of instruments (cello, viola and bassoon) and a keyboard instrument with figured bass (usually a harpsichord) or lute. The first masterpiece in the new genre was Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo in 1607, which was composed for the Gonzaga family at Mantua. This was produced on an entirely different scale from the earlier experiments. Monteverdi employed a full orchestra consisting of some 40 instruments.

The modern concept of major and minor tonalities finally replaced modality. Composers began to indicate keys in their composition and/or titles, for example, Mass in B minor by J.S. Bach. Contrapuntal is a new emphasis on homophony in music, where a single melodic line was supported by harmonic material. Another concept was the relative prominence of the bass. Composers began to indicate tempo (allegro, adagio, etc.) and dynamics (p, f, etc.). Improvisation played a more important part in performance than any other time, for example, improvising melodic ornaments, variations on a theme, cadenzas and the realization of figured basis developed with elaborate contrapuntal material. New forms in this period include: opera, cantata, oratorio, instrumental sonata, suite and concerto, which was popular throughout the period.

 

Opera was the most exciting new art form of the age, consolidating the reputation of the Italian regions as the cultural focus of Europe. The principal contrapuntal form (or rather a style of writing music) to emerge in the period was the fugue, composed in all instruments and choral media. The Siege of Rhodes, which was first performed in 1656 and was described by its authors as ‘a story sung in recitative music’, has been tentatively acknowledged as the earliest English opera. In truth, this and most of its immediate successors might be defined more accurately as "semi-operas". Purcell wrote several semi-operas, among them The Fairy Queen and King Arthur, and he also produced the first English opera of genuine merit with his Dido and Aeneas in 1689. There was a great development of instrumental music taking place from 1600. The aim was to exploit the new potential or possibility of solo musical instruments, particularly of the keyboard variety. The profusion of notes capable of execution on these instruments had led to the composition of long-ranging fantasy.

In the hands of J.S. Bach, the fugue became one of the most satisfying and perfect idioms in all music. It was often the custom to have a prelude before the fugue, which took the form of a fantasy. Domenico Scarlatti wrote many splendid pieces for the harpsichord, which have been called sonatas. There were also chorale preludes, which is a decoration of hymn tunes in free improvisation, for the day before the service began. The proto type of chamber music is found in the trio sonatas. The seeds of the symphony were in the Italian operatic overture. Another instrumental form was the suite - this is a collection of pieces based on dance rhythms. The suite was one of the most important forms of instrumental music during the 17th and 18th- centuries. The four most important types of dances that appear in a suite of the baroque era are the Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue.

The orchestral form that becomes the showpiece of the first half of the 1700’s was the concerto grosso. At first the concerto grosso contained a large number of movements, but with Vivaldi, the succesion of 3 movements - quick, slow, quick, was established. The Baroque era was the age of showmanship - the virtuoso. For the first time, both singers and instrumentalists were really encouraged to stretch their talents to the limit. Increasingly the recitative, which carried the story line of the play, was interrupted by more and more arias – often complex, beautiful, set-piece melodies in which the singers could show off their skills. By the middle of the 18th-century music was to turn away from the great achievements of the instrumental polyphony and begin a new style of the so-called Classical Era.