Baroque

1600-1750

Composers:

Early Baroque

Late Baroque

Corelli

Andrea Gabrieli Monteverdi

Purcell

Giovanni Gabrieli

Scarlatti Vivaldi

Bach

Handel

Characteristics of Baroque music:

Melody	long, expanding, unwinding
Rhythm	repeats rhythm patterns
Dynamics	either loud or soft, no crescendos or decrescendos
Harmony	major/minor system that was new in Early Baroque
Form	Binary form Ritornelllo form Fugue

Texture of Baroque music is polyphonic.

Important innovations of the Early Baroque:

1. opera

2. instrumental music

3. major/minor system

History

Germany	30 years war between Protestants and Catholics
England	Puritans in control. They did not believe in music.
France	Louis XIV divine right of kings Palace at Versailles outside Paris
Italy	Place where music thrived in the Early Baroque
Science
Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity, invented calculus
Philosophy
Man has faith in science to explain all things.
Music
Opera	Drama set to music Opera combines the arts. Music, instrumental and vocal Visual arts in. the costumes and scenery Drama in the acting and plot Involves the whole community with crowd scenes and choruses Elaborate machines were invented to move scenery around
Oratorio	Like an opera with a religious subject. It has a plot, several acts and implied action although there is no scenery and costumes. Handel wrote oratorios. His most famous one is The Messiah
Concerto	A work in several movements for orchestra plus soloist.
Concerto grosso	A work in several movements for orchestra plus small group of soloists.
Movements	A movement is a self-contained section of music that is part of a larger work. A Baroque concerto has three movements. The first movement is a fast tempo, the second slow, and the 3rd is fast again.
Ritomello form	Ritomello means return. Many concerto movements are in this form. In the ritomello, a musical idea keeps recurring throughout the movement in different keys, coming in for the last time in the original key.
Fugue	A fugue is a polyphonic composition based on a theme called the subject. Bach wrote many fugues for organ and harpsichord.
Suite	A Suite is a set of dances, a popular form in the Baroque period. The typical Baroque suite has four main dance movements that occur in order with other dances sometimes interspersed between them. The four dances are: Allemande Courante Sarbande Gigue Bach wrote a set of French Suites and a set of English Suites
Binary form	A two-part form. AABB A is a section of music that s repeated, B is played and also repeated. Scarlatti wrote hundreds of short sonatas for the harpsichord in Binary form.