AA module 11

• Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750.
• This era followed the Renaissance, and was

  followed in turn by the Classical era


  Baroque music
• The word “baroque” comes from the Portuguese word

  barroco meaning misshapen pearl, a negative description of the ornate and heavily ornamented music of this period.
• The Baroque period saw the creation of 


  tonality
• During the period, composers and performers

  used more elaborate musical ornamentation,

  made changes in musical notation, and developed

  new instrumental playing techniques.
• Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of

  instrumental performance.
• established opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto,

  and sonata as

  musical genres
• The bourgeoisie continued to gain importance in

  the cities. The absolute monarchy is the most

  widespread form of government in Europe. The

  king is the chief of state and doesn’t have to be

  accountable to anyone in his decisions.
• The music served the biggest European monarchies,

  the aristocrats and the Church, that used it as a demonstration of their power. The role of a

  musician is reduced to a servant of his patron.
• The Baroque is

  characterized by:

  many adornment,

  movement,

  contrast and

  “horror vacui"
• “horror vacui”


  fear of empty space
• In painting the Baroque

  artists achieve

  perfection: Velázquez

  manages to paint moving

  air and Europe

  surrenders to

  Rembrandt.
• In architecture they

  abandon the straight line,

  the curved lines

  prevailed.
• In sculpture, they search the movement and continue with the religious theme.
• The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late

  Renaissance Florence who

  gathered under the patronage

  of Count Giovanni de’ Bardi to

  discuss and guide trends in the

  arts, especially music and

  drama
• In reference to music, they

  based their ideals on a

  perception of Classical

  (especially ancient Greek)

  musical drama that valued

  discourse and oration.
• The early realizations of these

  ideas, including Jacopo

  Peri’s Dafne and L’Euridice,

  marked the beginning of

  opera, which in turn was

  somewhat of a catalyst for

  Baroque music.
• is the first opera in the history

  Dafne
• developed

  two individual styles of

  composition – the heritage of

  Renaissance polyphony (prima

  pratica) and the new basso

  continuo technique of the

  Baroque (seconda pratica).


  claudio monteverdi
• The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what is often labeled the Age of Absolutism, personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe.
• The realities of rising church

  and state patronage created the

  demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand

  for chamber music.
• 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.

  Arcangelo corelli
• This music uses the basso continuo (or figured bass) that is a support of chords to the

  melody where an instrument (generally the harpsichord) produces these chords in a

  constant manner. These results in a new texture: the melody with accompaniment.