Baroque Period, 1600-1750

What are the characteristics of Baroque period?

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.

Why is the Baroque period important?

The Baroque Period was an important time when the innovation of new musical styles blossomed. These musical styles are crucial because they shaped music. For instance, minor and major tonalities first came out during this time.

What was it like living in the Baroque period?

European nations became involved with foreign trade and colonization, and the growth of a new middle class breathed life into an artistic culture long dependent on the whims of church and court. Life during the Baroque period was based on one's class. At the top were the nobility, living lavishly (refer to picture to the right).

What is an example of instrumental baroque music?

The rise to prominence of solo sonatas for keyboard instruments begins late in the baroque period, including those for organ (Bach) and harpsichord (Handel, Domenico Scarlatti). Other famous examples of solo sonatas include Bach's works for unaccompanied violin and cello.

What ended the Baroque era?

Many musicologists hold the view that the Baroque ended with the deaths of Bach and Handel, 1750 and 1759 respectively. The reality is more like a gradual end as the Rococo period was a transition beginning 10 years or so earlier.

Characteristics

Increased interaction between vocalists and instrumentalists burgeoned as the late Renaissance bled into the early Baroque period. The Venetian School, represented by the likes of Claudio Monteverdi, developed the mass to include more instrumentation and even additional choirs, resulting in a “polychoral” compositional style. Himself a singer, Monteverdi composed some of the finest examples of choral music in his Vespers and Eighth Book of Madrigals. Meanwhile, as the seventeenth century progressed, Henry Purcell would continue to develop verse anthems. His anthem My heart is inditing of a good matter was composed in honor of King James II.

The motet continued to expand throughout this period: first into separate movements, then into a new form altogether – the concert-length oratorio. Often based on sacred subjects or Biblical narratives, oratorio might be thought of as a sort of “religious opera”. Handel’s Messiah and Israel In Egypt are thought to be among the finest examples of this form in the Baroque period. A discussion of choral music in the Baroque era would be amiss without mention of Vivaldi, a composer perhaps best known for his concerti but who also composed a large body of sacred choral works. He wrote four settings for the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo alone, the most famous of which is the Gloria in D.

BAROQUE CHORAL FORMS

Anthem

The anthem tradition begun in Elizabethan England by Gibbons, Byrd, Tallis and others continued in the Baroque, reaching its highest state in the anthems of Purcell and Handel. The Baroque anthem was more elaborate than that of the Renaissance, utilizing recitatives, instrumental accompaniments with continuo, independent instrumental sections and interludes, and elaborate solo passages.

Cantata

Derived from the Italian word cantare meaning "to sing," the cantata developed in the seventeenth century as an extended piece of accompanied secular music with recitatives and arias. In Germany, the Lutheran chorale formed the basis for extended treatment in the "chorale cantata," a sacred work written for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, and brought to its highest development by J.S. Bach.

Madrigal

In the Baroque era, the madrigal continued to be popular and came to embody the "new style" in the form of the continuo madrigal developed by Monteverdi, using figured bass, and incorporating sections for solo, duet, or trio with continuo and contrasting sections for instruments with those for choir.

Magnificat

A musical setting of the canticle of the Virgin Mary found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Polyphonic settings were written as early as the fourteenth century. The Magnificat is a part of the Catholic service of Vespers and the Anglican service of Evensong. Monteverdi, Hassler, Purcell, and most importantly Bach, wrote significant settings of this text.

Mass

During the early Baroque, the mass tended to be a conservative musical form, similar in style to the Franco-Flemish mass of the sixteenth century. As the seventeenth century progressed, masses began to incorporate concertato style and to have instrumental accompaniments. These developments led to the five masses of J.S. Bach, whose B Minor Mass is one of the towering monuments of Western music. Unlike his other masses, the B Minor Mass is two hours in length and divides the ordinary into twenty-five separate movements characterized by a wide range of expressive and musical devices.

Motet

The motets of the Venetian school were written in concertato style, exploiting the colors of contrasting choral and instrumental forces. Schutz, Monteverdi, and Lully wrote motets that included a wide variety of forces, textures, and emotions. This led to the multi-movement motet of the late Baroque, exemplified by the works of Bach and Buxtehude.

Oratorio

The setting of a sacred or heroic text for chorus, soloists, and orchestra. The details of the story are conveyed through recitative. Similar in character to opera, an oratorio is not staged, nor are the singers costumed. The first important composer of oratorio was Carissimi. The Baroque oratorio reached its highest point in the works of Handel.

Passion

The passion is a musical setting of the events at the end of Christ's life, from the Last Supper to the Crucifixion. The story is carried in recitatives sung by the Evangelist. Other soloists perform recitatives and arias, and the role of the chorus varies from the singing of chorales, more complex contemplative choral sections, and turba sections in which the chorus assumes the identity of the crowd.

Te Deum

The opening words of this text, "Te deum laudamus," mean "We Praise Thee, God." It is sung at the Roman Catholic office of Matins, at Anglican Morning Prayer, and for other festive sacred and secular occasions. Purcell and Handel each wrote significant musical settings of the Te Deum.

Vespers

Evening worship in the Roman Catholic rite. Vespers includes a series of psalms, a hymn, and the Magnificat. Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 utilized choir, instrumentalists, and was written in concertato style. It is the most important Baroque example of the

form.

BAROQUE CHORAL MUSIC EXAMPLES:

G.F. Handel's Zadok the Preist, Coronation Anthem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI0YOPoj4t0

J.S. Bach, Cantata 147, Jesus bleibet meine Freude:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=sMUSdRVm0RQ

Claudio Monteverdi, Cruda Amarilli:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKTQQ28sSNo

J.S. Bach, Magnificat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=2IzGe3zOnts&t=39s