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The History of Music,
Second Edition
The Baroque Era
Teacher’s Guide
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The History of Music, Second Edition
The Baroque Era
Table of Contents
Tabl
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................3
LEARNING OBJECTIVES..................................................................3
TARGET VOCABULARY...................................................................3
DISCUSSION STARTERS...................................................................3
REVIEW QUESTIONS.....................................................................4
TRANSCRIPT............................................................................7
©2005 Clearvue
6465 N. Avondale Avenue
Chicago, IL 60631
800-253-2788 • 773-775-9433
[email protected]
clearvue.com • PowerMediaPlus.com
The History of Music, Second Edition
The Baroque Era
Introduction
The baroque era gave rise to some of the most notable musicians of all time, including Claudio
Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach. Each of these
composers contributed to the development of music during this time and experimented with both
old and new styles.
Opera was born during the baroque era, giving rise to the opera houses that quickly became popular gathering places. Such vocal techniques as recitative and bel canto added variety to the musical landscape; instrumental music often involved the harpsichord, a metallic-sounding keyboard
instrument in which quills are plucked by corresponding strings.
By the end of the baroque period, the lavish—and sometimes even garish—music that dominated
the era began to give way to simpler, lighter music. Nevertheless, the music of many of the composers from the baroque era has withstood the test of time and remains popular to this day.
Learning Objectives
After completing the program and participating in discussion and activities, students will be able
to:
• Describe the social role music played in the baroque era;
• Discuss the music of famous baroque composers, including Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi,
George Frideric Handel, and Johann Sebastian Bach;
• Compare and contrast such musical styles as opera, recitative, aria, concerto grosso, and
sonata; and
• Explain the differences in various compositional approaches used during the era.
Target Vocabulary
opera
recitative
aria
bel canto
harpsichord
tonality
oratorio
baroque
Claudio Monteverdi
toccata
polyphonic
concerto grosso
castrato
homophonic
Antonio Vivaldi
Messiah
basso continuo prelude
A Musical Offering
sonata
George Frideric Handel Johann Sebastian Bach
concertato
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Giovanni Gabrieli
fugue
The W
Well-Tempered Clavier
Domenico Scarlatti
harpsichord
coupling
counterpoint
chorale prelude
mass
Discussion Starters
1. Compare and contrast music from the baroque era and music from earlier eras. What styles endured over long periods of time? Which styles were newly fashionable during this time? What musical trends from other eras reappeared during the baroque era? Why were these styles popular?
2. Discuss the ways in which opera made music a part of social life. Who composed famous or notable operas? What were some of the most popular operas of the baroque era? Describe the sights
and sounds of an opera.
3. Ask students to describe the life and music of a famous composer from the baroque era. (Good
examples would be Antonio Vivaldi, Claudio Monteverdi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Domenico Scarlatti, or George Frideric Handel.) What style(s) was this composer known for? What kind of lasting
impression did he leave? Did his music remain popular after the baroque era? Why or why not?
3
Review Questions
Use these discussion topics and questions to review the program material.
1. What was the inspiration for the development of opera? [In the early 1600s, a group of
Florentine intellectuals came together to plan a revival of Greek drama. To heighten the dramatic impact, they wanted the characters to sing instead of speak their parts. But they wanted
the words to be understood. They devised a technique that bridged song and speech, with simple
instrumental accompaniment. When one composer finally set a full-length drama to music, opera
was born.] Who did opera appeal to? [Although opera was attractive in theory, it was monotonous
in practice. It appealed mainly to intellectuals or aristocrats who liked to be known for supporting
new movements in the arts.] What kinds of story lines were popular in operas? [Ancient myths
were favorite subjects for the lavish productions these aristocrats financed. A special favorite was
the story of Orpheus, the musician. Ancient myths, with their heroism, grandeur, and excitement
were also popular with baroque composers. They used common formulas understood by both musicians and listeners to represent the strong emotions they were trying to express.] Describe the
famous opera composed by Claudio Monteverdi. [Monteverdi's opera Orfeo was the first opera
to win artistic and public acclaim. This opera used the story of Orpheus and introduced flowing
melodies to replace dry, speech-like singing. Monteverdi's operas generally used large casts, elaborate costumes, special effects, and a whole orchestra.] How did opera figure into social life?
[The general public (not just the aristocrats) began to flock to performances, and opera spread
quickly throughout the major Italian city-states.] Why was Venice important in the development
of opera? [Venice was the center of adventurous musical activity. Venice's first public opera house
was built in 1637, by which time the new art form was a popular sensation. During the next sixty
years, 350 new operas were performed in Venice alone.]
2. What new styles resulted from the development of opera? [A rapid, conversational type
of singing, called recitative, moved the opera's story along. The action would stop periodically
for a flowing melody called an aria, in which a character would express feelings related to that
moment in the plot. Singers also developed their technique to equal the flexibility and tonal
purity of a musical instrument. This was the art of bel canto, literally meaning "beautiful singing."
Singers were also expected to show off their skill by embellishing the written music with elaborate vocal displays.] What is a castrato and what role did he play in the opera? [Leading roles
were written for a special type of voice called a castrato. Talented boys were castrated before
puberty so that their voices, instead of deepening, developed purity and strength. Their artistry
and that of the prima donnas, the leading ladies, were opera's main attractions.] What are the
two major, conflicting views on opera? [Operas tend to feature lavish—even garish—stage effects
that call for complicated machinery. Some feel the story loses its importance. As such, some see
opera as a spectacular setting for singing and some see it as a drama heightened by music. This
conflict has continued since the baroque era.] Describe the opera houses of the 1600s. [Opera
houses in the 1600s were social centers. Audiences talked, ate, gambled, and carried on during
the show, pausing only to hear their favorite arias.]
3. What grand effect did Giovanni Gabrieli master? [The basilica of St. Mark's cathedral in
Venice provided a setting for musical experiments because of the church's unusual design. Gabrieli
arranged choral and instrumental groups at different sides of the cathedral, having them play
both alternately and together. Though not the originator, Gabrieli became the master of these
grand effects. Gabrieli was one of the first composers to specify dynamic gradations—or levels of
loudness—in his music, and to call for specific instrumentation. His music, based on an expansion
of the motet idea, used vivid contrasts instead of complex polyphony.] Why was this era called
the "baroque" era? [The novel effects mastered by Gabrieli heralded a new set of artistic and
4
musical values based on sharp contrasts and vigorous expression, unlike Renaissance music. The
new style, which gained ascendance around 1600, was given its name decades later: baroque,
implying "flamboyant" or "overly ornate."]
4. How was baroque era music different from Renaissance music? [Baroque composers introduced elements of contrast in their music. Contrasts of loud and soft or fast and slow, such
as those introduced in St. Mark's basilica in Venice, were used to produce the desired effects.
Another element of contrast used a flowing, melodic line and a strong, supportive bass line;
this sound broke away from the smooth blend of sounds and colors considered ideal during the
Renaissance. Most Renaissance music was polyphonic; that is, it gave equal importance to each
voice line. Baroque music was moving toward homophony: music that is based on one melody
with harmonic accompaniment. There was particular emphasis on the soprano and bass lines. A
keyboard player improvised the harmonic support—the basso continuo—which included the alto
and tenor lines.] Describe some of the characteristics of baroque music. [Regular phrases and
emphatic rhythm—characteristic of baroque music—create a stronger sense of tonality. Baroque
composers divided tonality into contrasting types: major, representing happy, and minor, representing sad. The whole language of baroque music was designed to highlight contrasts.]
5. How did instrumental music develop during this era? Why? [During the baroque period,
amateur and semi-professional ensembles sprouted in towns all over Europe. Instrumental music
began to develop its own forms and styles. Brass ensembles played canzones and suites—pieces
consisting of short movements in alternating moods and tempos, drawn from popular dance music.
Stringed instruments reached maturity at this time. Dynasties of violin makers in Italy—the families of Stradivari, Amati, and others—built instruments that are still prized and played today.
The violin was often featured in sonatas.] What is a sonata? [The sonata is a piece in several
movements usually for one or two solo instruments. The ever-present basso continuo played on a
harpsichord and was reinforced by a low-pitched instrument, such as a cello. Thousands of sonatas were composed during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. What is a concerto
grosso? [A concerto grosso is a piece for a larger instrumental group with a role assigned to a
smaller group within it. The music alternated between the smaller group and the larger group,
a technique clearly derived from the work of Gabrieli and his colleagues in Venice. The concerto
grosso is a type of concertato, the word that encompasses all pieces that alternate between larger and smaller groups. With music moving outside the Church and court, composers responded to
the enormous demand for new works by producing hundreds of operas, sonatas, choral works, and
concertos.]
6. Why did some composers live with wealthy aristocrats? [Some composers were supported by
the Church, and others were supported by wealthy aristocrats in whose homes they lived as servants. They were subject to the whims of their patrons, with hardly any job security or bargaining
power. Many composers developed their skills by studying with older composers, copying works by
hand, and performing other laborious exercises until they could write music as quickly and naturally as a literate person writes words. Their patrons expected them to provide the kind of everyday household music that we expect from the radio.]
7. Who was Jean-Baptiste Lully? [Lully was born in Italy, the center of musical activity in the
seventeenth century. Like many other Italian composers of the time, he traveled and helped
spread the new music abroad. Lully settled in France, where he adapted Italian opera to the
French taste for pageantry and ballet.] Who was Domenico Scarlatti? [Scarlatti was an Italian
composer who spent many years in Portugal and Spain. There, he composed some 550 sonatas for
the harpsichord.]
8. What is the harpsichord? What kind of sound does it produce? [The harpsichord was the
5
most popular keyboard instrument of the time. When a player presses a harpsichord key, quills
pluck the appropriate strings, creating a somewhat metallic sound. No matter how hard the key is
pressed, the loudness of the note does not vary. Different dynamic levels are produced by a mechanism that increases the number of strings that sound when keys are struck. Called coupling, this
technique can be used for a whole passage but not for a single note. Harpsichord music, therefore, was characterized by contrasts in dynamic level rather than by gradual dynamic changes,
which were introduced later. Domenico Scarlatti's many sonatas for harpsichord explored nearly
every facet of the instrument's artistic capabilities.]
9. Describe Antonio Vivaldi's contributions to baroque music. [During the early 1700s, there was
no body of music that was considered "classic." Antonio Vivaldi worked rapidly to fill the continual
demand for new works. In Venice, the city of opera houses, Vivaldi's operas were performed more
often than anyone else's. Vivaldi's most lasting works were concertos, in which he effectively highlighted various solo instruments featured against larger ensembles. He composed more than 450
concertos, usually in three movements—two fast ones separated by a slow one. The brilliance and
clarity of his compositions were supported by a streamlined rhythmic insistence that strongly reinforced the tonal center.]
10. How did Renaissance styles influence baroque styles? [Especially in religious music, the new
baroque styles did not displace older Renaissance techniques. Many composers mastered both the
old and the new. But the older styles were influenced by the new—the emotionalism of opera,
the element of contrast, and the new clearer tonality—culminating in the style of the northern
baroque.]
11. What are toccata and counterpoint? [Toccata, a form that originated in Italy, was especially
popular with German composers of organ music. In a toccata, impulsive flights of fancy alternate
with rigorous passages of counterpoint. Counterpoint is the technique for weaving polyphonic
lines together.] What is a prelude and fugue? [The toccata was the predecessor of another type
of keyboard music that flourished in Germany: the prelude and fugue, a pair of compositions in
which a free, improvisatory piece is followed by a strict contrapuntal piece.] What is a chorale
prelude? [Favored by German organ composers, the chorale prelude is a uniquely Lutheran form
in which familiar religious melodies were woven among florid contrapuntal patterns.] What is a
Mass? [The Mass was another earlier form modified by baroque practices. Reaching beyond its
religious origins, the Mass expanded into a standardized musical form of grand proportions.] What
is an oratorio? [The oratorio is a religious drama without costume or scenery. The story was told
rather than acted, as in opera. The recitative—or narration—alternated with operatic-style solo
arias and full choruses. The oratorio was developed in Italy and flourished in Germany. It achieved
its most lasting impact in England.]
12. What was George Frideric Handel best known for? What were the names of some of his
most memorable compositions? [Handel elevated the oratorio to a national art form in England.
He was a German composer who studied in Italy, where he mastered Italian opera style. After
moving to England, he composed more than forty operas in thirty-five years. But, during the
1730s, his audiences began to lose interest in Italian opera. This motivated Handel to experiment
with oratorios in English. His experiments were so successful that he soon regained popularity. Of
his twenty-six English oratorios, one, called Messiah, is the most popular oratorio ever written.
Handel was not only the wealthiest, most world-famous composer of his time, but he is also one
of the few whose music has never gone out of fashion.]
13. Describe the life of Johann Sebastian Bach. [Bach descended from a long line of hard-working
German musicians and spent most of his adult life as a music director and teacher in Lutheran
church schools. He rehearsed the choir, played the organ, and wrote music for services, as
6
exercises for his students, or occasionally for his own amusement while trying to support his large
family. Several of his twenty children became musicians.] Describe Bach's musical style. [A perfectionist with a German fondness for the older, contrapuntal styles, Bach developed his technique by studying the music of others and integrating it into his own language. Often he would
rearrange the music of other composers, improving structural details as he went along. He produced more than a thousand works, in all forms and styles except opera: religious choral pieces,
organ solos, keyboard works, suites and sonatas for solo instruments and ensembles, works in the
concertato style, and more. Bach is considered among the greatest of all composers because his
music fulfilled the artistic potential inherent in the styles, forms, and techniques of his time.
Bach often approached composition as a chance to explore a single musical problem, exhausting the possible solutions. For example, he wrote a series of twenty-four preludes and fugues for
keyboard—one in each major and minor key—to challenge himself while honing his skills.] What
is The Well-Tempered Clavier? [Bach wrote a complete set of pieces based on the principle of
exploring a single musical problem. This piece, called The Well-Tempered Clavier, consists of
forty-eight pairs of pieces and is a masterwork of keyboard literature.] What was Bach's tribute
to Frederick the Great? [When Frederick the Great of Prussia received Bach on a visit, he presented the composer a theme of his own, challenging Bach to improvise on it. Bach developed
it into A Musical Offering, more than a dozen examples of a complex counterpoint, a tribute to
Frederick the Great and his theme.]
14. How did the baroque era end? [By the end of the period, the spirit of the time was moving
music toward greater simplicity. Other composers, among them some of Johann Sebastian Bach's
own sons, were forming their reputations with a light, breezy style. Although the year of Bach's
death, 1750, is generally considered the end of the baroque period, his work—which was of little
interest to the musicians who immediately followed—went into eclipse for more than half a century.]
Transcript
Introduction
Hello, I’m Megan Keith. Welcome to The History of Music, an introduction to the Western classical music tradition. Part Three of our series covers the time from 1600 to 1750, after Europe had
been transformed by the revolutionary ideas of Renaissance thinkers, as well as by the religious
upheavals that influenced change within the once all-powerful Catholic Church. This time came to
be known as the baroque era.
Like many words we come across every day, the meaning of baroque varies, depending on who is
using the word, and how it is being used. The people who first used baroque to describe the new
artistic style meant it in a negative sense, implying that the style was overly ornate and flamboyant. However, artists and composers began to embrace the term, and today we think of baroque
as heroic, dramatic, and extravagant.
As the program begins, we will learn how the grandeur and excitement of ancient Greek and
Roman myths inspired baroque music. This is especially true in the development of opera, where
experiments led to new singing techniques, including the introduction of bel canto, which is the
art of using the voice to replicate the flexibility and tonal purity of instruments.
The Church also influenced musical change. Using the unusual design of the basilica of St. Mark’s,
Giovanni Gabrieli experimented with acoustics and incorporated the use of divided choruses and
different levels of loudness. While Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic, baroque music
7
focused on homophony, or music based on one melody with harmonic accompaniment.
The baroque era also heralded the development of new instrumental styles and forms, including
the sonata, the concerto, and various types of keyboard music.
Of course, any discussion of baroque music would not be complete without covering the contributions of two renowned composers: George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Enhancing music’s expressive nature and embracing musical experimentation, the baroque era has
influenced every music period since the mid-eighteenth century, including the music we listen to
today.
Program
Renaissance thinkers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries often turned for inspiration to the
cultures of ancient Greece and Rome as they tried to bring humanism into the arts. This fascination with antiquity was still evident in the early 1600s, when a group of Florentine intellectuals
came together to plan a revival of Greek drama.
To heighten the dramatic impact, they wanted the characters to sing instead of speak their parts.
But they wanted the words to be understood. They devised a technique that bridged song and
speech, with simple instrumental accompaniment. Several composers attempted pieces in this
style.
When one composer finally set a full-length drama to music, opera was born. But the new singing style, attractive in theory, was monotonous in practice. It appealed mainly to intellectuals or
aristocrats who liked to be known for supporting new movements in the arts. Ancient myths were
favorite subjects for the lavish productions these aristocrats financed.
A special favorite was the story of Orpheus, the musician. Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo—the first
opera to win artistic and public acclaim—used this story, introducing flowing melodies to replace
dry, speech-like singing.
Monteverdi’s operas also used large casts, elaborate costumes, special effects, and a whole
orchestra. With the general public—not just the aristocracy - flocking to performances, opera
spread quickly throughout the major Italian city-states, achieving its greatest impact in Venice,
which was the center of adventurous musical activity. Venice’s first public opera house was built
in 1637, by which time the new art form was a popular sensation. During the next sixty years,
three hundred and fifty new operas were performed in Venice alone.
The new works were very different from the early Florentine style. A rapid, conversational type of
singing, called recitative, moved the story along. The action would stop periodically for a flowing
melody called an aria, in which a character would express feelings related to that moment in the
plot.
By now, singers had developed their technique to equal the flexibility and tonal purity of a musical instrument. This was the art of bel canto, literally meaning “beautiful singing.” Singers were
expected to show off their skill by embellishing the written music with elaborate vocal displays.
Leading roles were written for a special type of voice called a castrato. Talented boys were castrated before puberty so that their voices, instead of deepening, developed purity and strength.
Their artistry and that of the prima donnas, the leading ladies, were opera’s main attractions.
Lavish—even garish—stage effects that called for complicated machinery were featured. The story
lost its importance, giving rise to a conflict that has continued ever since—between those who see
8
opera as a spectacular setting for singing and those who view it as drama heightened by music.
The opera house in the 1600s was a social center. Audiences talked, ate, gambled, and carried
on during the show, pausing only to hear their favorite arias. But opera was not the only musical
activity flourishing in Venice.
The basilica of St. Mark’s also provided a setting for musical experiments, encouraged by its artloving administrators. The church’s unusual design created acoustic effects that had long challenged composers. Giovanni Gabrieli arranged choral and instrumental groups at different sides of
the cathedral, having them play both alternately and together. Though not the originator, Gabrieli
became the master of these grand effects. Gabrieli was one of the first composers to specify
dynamic gradations—or levels of loudness—in his music, and to call for specific instrumentation.
His music, based on an expansion of the motet idea, used vivid contrasts instead of complex
polyphony.
These novel effects heralded a new set of artistic and musical values based on sharp contrasts and
vigorous expression, unlike Renaissance music. The new style, which gained ascendance around
1600, was given its name decades later: baroque, implying “flamboyant” or “overly ornate.”
Ancient myths, with their heroism, grandeur, and excitement, were popular with Baroque composers. They used common formulas understood by both musicians and listeners to represent the
strong emotions they were trying to express.
Seventeenth-century musicians believed that a short piece of music, or a selection of a larger
piece, could express only a single mood or emotion. Its impact was strongest, they felt, if a section depicting one particular mood was heard following another with a different feeling. Contrasts
of loud and soft or fast and slow, such as those introduced in St. Mark’s basilica in Venice, were
used to produce the desired effects.
Baroque composers introduced another element of contrast in their music by using a flowing,
melodic soprano line and a strong, supportive bass line—breaking away from the smooth blend of
sounds and colors considered ideal during the Renaissance. Most Renaissance music was polyphonic: that is, it gave equal importance to each voice line.
The opposite of this—music that is based on one melody with harmonic accompaniment—is called
homophonic. Baroque music was moving toward homophony, with emphasis on the soprano and
bass lines. A keyboard player improvised the harmonic support—the basso continuo—which included the alto and tenor lines. Regular phrases and emphatic rhythm—characteristic of baroque
music—create a stronger sense of tonality.
Baroque composers divided tonality into contrasting types: major, representing happy, and minor,
representing sad. The whole language of baroque music was designed to highlight contrasts.
During the baroque period, amateur and semi-professional ensembles sprouted in towns all over
Europe. Instrumental music began to develop its own forms and styles. Brass ensembles played
canzones and suites—pieces consisting of short movements in alternating moods and tempos,
drawn from popular dance music. Stringed instruments reached maturity at this time. Dynasties of
violin makers in Italy—the families of Stradivari, Amati, and others—built instruments that are still
prized and played today.
The violin was often featured in sonatas. The sonata is (was) a piece in several movements usually for one or two solo instruments. The ever-present basso continuo played on a harpsichord and
was reinforced by a low-pitched instrument—such as a cello. Thousands of sonatas were composed
during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
9
The concerto grosso, a piece for a larger instrumental group with a role assigned to a smaller
group within it, was also popular. The music alternated between the smaller group and the larger
group, a technique clearly derived from the work of Gabrieli and his colleagues in Venice. The
concerto grosso is a type of concertato, the word that encompasses all pieces that alternate
between larger and smaller groups.
With music moving outside the Church and court, composers responded to the enormous demand
for new works by producing hundreds of operas, sonatas, choral works, and concertos. The pieces
were written for the moment, with little thought to their lasting value. Composers set themselves
standards of craftsmanship comparable more to the way we think of the work of a shoemaker or
potter than that of an artist.
Composers were supported by the Church or by wealthy aristocrats in whose homes they lived as
servants. They were subject to the whims of their patrons, with hardly any job security or bargaining power. Many composers developed their skills by studying with older composers, copying
works by hand and performing other laborious exercises until they could write music as quickly
and naturally as a literate person writes words. Their patrons expected them to provide the kind
of everyday household music that we expect from the radio.
Jean-Baptiste Lully was born in Italy, the center of musical activity in the seventeenth century.
Like many other Italian composers of the time, he traveled and helped to spread the new music
abroad. Lully settled in France, where he adapted Italian opera to the French taste for pageantry
and ballet.
The Italian Domenico Scarlatti spent many years in Portugal and Spain, where he composed some
five hundred and fifty sonatas for the harpsichord, the most popular keyboard instrument of the
time. When a player presses a harpsichord key, quills pluck the appropriate strings, creating a
somewhat metallic sound. No matter how hard the key is pressed, the loudness of the note does
not vary. Different dynamic levels are produced by a mechanism that increases the number of
strings that sound when keys are struck. Called coupling, this technique can be used for a whole
passage but not for a single note. Harpsichord music, therefore, was characterized by contrasts
in dynamic level rather than by gradual dynamic changes, which were introduced later. Scarlatti’s
many sonatas for harpsichord explored nearly every facet of the instrument’s artistic capabilities.
By the early 1700s, Venice was no longer an important commercial center, but its musical life
remained as vigorous as ever. Venetians, rich and poor, seemed to have an insatiable appetite for
music.
At that time, there was not a body of music considered “classics,” so composers—Antonio Vivaldi
among the most successful—worked rapidly to fill the continual demand for new works. In this
city of opera houses, Vivaldi’s operas were performed more often than anyone else’s. But Vivaldi’s
most lasting works were concertos, in which he effectively highlighted various solo instruments
featured against larger ensembles. He composed more than four hundred and fifty concertos, usually in three movements - two fast ones separated by a slow one. The brilliance and clarity of his
compositions were supported by a streamlined rhythmic insistence that strongly reinforced the
tonal center.
Especially in religious music, the new baroque styles did not displace older Renaissance techniques. Many composers mastered both the old and the new. But the older styles were influenced
by the new—the emotionalism of opera, the element of contrast, and the new clearer tonality—
culminating in the style of the northern baroque.
Organ music in Germany, where the older styles persisted longest, featured another type of
10
contrast: free expression counterbalanced by disciplined order.
The toccata, a form that originated in Italy, was especially popular with German composers of
organ music. In a toccata, impulsive flights of fancy alternate with rigorous passages of counterpoint. Counterpoint is the technique for weaving polyphonic lines together. The toccata was
the predecessor of another type of keyboard music that flourished in Germany: the prelude and
fugue, a pair of compositions in which a free, improvisatory piece is followed by a strict contrapuntal piece.
German organ composers also favored the chorale prelude, a uniquely Lutheran form in which
familiar religious melodies were woven among florid contrapuntal patterns.
The Mass was another earlier form modified by baroque practices. Reaching beyond its religious
origins, the Mass expanded into a standardized musical form of grand proportions.
The oratorio, a religious drama without costume or scenery, also developed at this time. The story
was told rather than acted, as in opera. The recitative—or narration—alternated with operaticstyle solo arias and full choruses. The oratorio was developed in Italy and flourished in Germany,
but it achieved its most lasting impact in England, where it became a national art form through
the works of George Frideric Handel.
Handel was a German composer who studied in Italy, mastering Italian opera style. Moving to
England, he composed more than forty operas in thirty-five years, achieving great popularity. But,
during the 1730s, his audiences began to lose interest in Italian opera. This motivated Handel to
experiment with oratorios in English. His experiments were so successful that he soon regained
popularity. Of his twenty-six English oratorios, one, called Messiah, is the most popular oratorio
ever written. Handel was not only the wealthiest, most world-famous composer of his time, but
he is also one of the few whose music has never gone out of fashion.
In 1685, the year of Handel’s birth, another composer was born in this house in a small town in
east Germany. Unlike his world-traveling contemporary, this composer spent his whole life in and
around his birthplace. Johann Sebastian Bach, descended from a long line of hard-working German
musicians, spent much of his adult life as a music director and teacher in Lutheran church
schools. He rehearsed the choir, played the organ, and wrote music for services, as exercises
for his students, or occasionally for his own amusement while trying to support his large family.
Several of his twenty children became musicians.
A perfectionist with a German fondness for the older, contrapuntal styles, Bach developed his
technique by studying the music of others and integrating it into his own language. Often he
would rearrange the music of other composers, improving structural details as he went along.
Bach accepted that his life’s duty was to satisfy his superiors, please his colleagues, and contribute to the glory of God. But his high standards and stubborn nature often brought him into conflict with others.
He produced more than a thousand works, in all forms and styles except opera: religious choral
pieces, organ solos, keyboard works, suites and sonatas for solo instruments and ensembles, works
in the concertato style, and more.
Bach is considered among the greatest of all composers because his music fulfilled the artistic
potential inherent in the styles, forms, and techniques of his time. In this sense, Bach’s works
represent the last word in baroque music.
Bach often approached composition as a chance to explore a single musical problem, exhaust11
ing the possible solutions. For example, he wrote a series of twenty-four preludes and fugues for
keyboard—one in each major and minor key—to challenge himself while providing a series of exercises.
Later, he wrote another complete set on the same principle. The Well-Tempered Clavier, fortyeight pairs of pieces, is a masterwork of keyboard literature. When Frederick the Great of Prussia
received Bach on a visit, he presented the composer a theme of his own, challenging Bach to
improvise on it. Bach developed it into A Musical Offering, more than a dozen examples of complex counterpoint—a tribute to Frederick the Great and his theme.
Despite his intellectual approach, Bach’s music was passionately expressive, with an emotional
range more profound than any before or—many believe—since. Though he was not unknown in his
time, Bach was regarded by his colleagues as merely a highly skilled technician—someone concerned with overly complicated techniques no longer in fashion.
By now, the spirit of the time was moving music toward greater simplicity. Other composers,
among them some of Bach’s own sons, were forming their reputations with a light, breezy style.
Although the year of Bach’s death, 1750, is generally considered the end of the baroque period,
his work—which was of little interest to the musicians who immediately followed—went into
eclipse for more than half a century. But ever since its revival during the 1800s, it has proved to
be perhaps the most durable music of all time—music that renews itself with every generation.
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