Download Music of the Baroque

Pachelbel
Vivaldi
Bach
Handel
Baroque Music

Like painters of Baroque, musicians of
the Baroque style welcomed the
strange, luscious, ornate, and
emotionally appealing.
Gentilleschi’s
Judith Slaying
Holofernes
How Music Was Changed
Before
Baroque
During and
After
Baroque
• Music was composed in a general
sense, to be played by any instrument,
or sung by anyone.
• Instruments were designed for only one
key. They had to be retuned for a
musical piece in a different key
• Music was composed for specific
instruments, and for specific types of
voices (alto vs. soprano).
• Musical instruments were redesigned to
play in multiple keys, to accommodate
the need for musical exploration.
Baroque Forms
Cantata
 Opera
 Concerto
 Fugue

Canon—musical
composition in which each
successively entering
voice presents the initial
theme usually transformed
in a strictly consistent way
 Gigue—lively dance
movement (as of a suite)
having compound triple
rhythm and composed in
fugal style

Doctrine of Affections
(first truth of Baroque music forms)
The "Doctrine of the Affections" was first suggested at
the end of the Renaissance when a group of musicians
attempted to restore what they perceived to be the pure
word-to-music relationships advocated by classical Greek
philosophers such as Plato.
Baroque interpretation:
Artists said that the motif of a composition was a
statement of an emotional state of being. It was believed,
for example, that sadness, or euphoria was expressed by
certain combinations of notes.
Second “truth” of Baroque music:
•all parts of the music must be
subservient to a fundamental bass line.
(Listen to the deep bass line in
Pachelbel’s Canon in D)
solo: lute, harpsichord, organ
ensemble: solo with continuo, chamber
group with continuo
orchestra: more than one player on a
part
Johann Pachelbel
1653-1706
Johann Pachelbel was an early Baroque
composer. He held a variety of positions.
He taught Bach’s older brother. He was
a court organist and composer. Johann
Pachelbel's is the stylistic ancestor of J. S.
Bach's. Bach’s son named Pachelbel as a
composer whose works his father had
admired.
Pachelbel’s
Canon and Gigue in D
Canon and gigue in D (for 3
violins and basso continuo; also
in organ edition) was composed
in the late 1600’s. It has
become enormously popular in
the last 20 years and is
frequently heard.
Antonio Vivaldi



Antonio Vivaldi was born
on March 4, 1678 in
Venice, Italy.
Violinist and composer
who also became a
priest in 1703. He was
known as the "Red
Priest" because of his
red hair.
He wrote hundreds of
concertos, chamber
works and operas in the
Baroque style.
The Four Seasons
In 1725 the publication Il
Cimento dell' Armenia e
dell'invenzione (The trial of
harmony and invention), opus
8, appeared in Amsterdam.
This consisted of twelve
concertos, seven of which were
descriptive.
Concerto and The Four Seasons
Vivaldi was a master of the Baroque
concerto, a musical form in which a small
group of instruments plays in concert (or
“conflict”) with a larger orchestra.
 The Four Seasons is one of the earliest
examples of "Program Music" (music that
evokes scenes). Vivaldi's music is unique
because of his use of melodic invention
and originality, along with an incredible
amount of excitement.

The Four Seasons
Concerto 1 "Spring/La Primavera"
Concerto 2 "Summer/L'Estate"
Concerto 3 "Autumn/L'Autunno"
Concerto 4 "Winter/L'Inverno“
Three movements each (fast-slow-fast):
allegro=fast tempo
largo=slow tempo
Concerto 4 "Winter/L'Inverno“
As a descriptive basis for his Four
Seasons, Vivaldi took four Sonnets (a
type of poem), apparently written by
himself.
 Each of the four sonnets is expressed
in a concerto, which in turn is divided
into three phrases or ideas, reflected in
the three movements (fast-slow-fast) of
each concerto.

Concerto 4 "Winter/L'Inverno“

Allegro non molto [FAST]
Shivering, frozen mid the frosty snow in biting, stinging
winds;
running to and fro to stamp one's icy feet, teeth chattering in
the bitter chill.

Largo [SLOW]
To rest contentedly beside the hearth, while those outside
are drenched by pouring rain.

Allegro [FAST]
We tread the icy path slowly and cautiously, for fear of
tripping and falling.
Then turn abruptly, slip, crash on the ground and, rising,
hasten on across the ice lest it cracks up.
We feel the chill north winds coarse through the home
despite the locked and bolted doors…
this is winter, which nonetheless brings its own delights.
The Four Seasons Experience
Listen to a selection from each
Concerto. As you listen to each, write
down descriptive words, or draw images
that correspond to the music.
 Try to decide which season is described
in each selection.

Vivaldi transformed the tradition of
descriptive music into a typically
Italian musical style with its
unmistakable timbre in which the
strings play a major role.
Johann Sebastian Bach
March 21, 1685
July 28, 1750
Regarded as perhaps the greatest composer of all time
Bach was known during his lifetime primarily as an
outstanding organ player and technician.
The youngest of eight children born to musical parents,
Johann Sebastian was destined to become a musician.
He traveled little, never leaving Germany once in his life, but
held various positions during his career in churches and in the
service of the courts throughout the country.
During the years Bach was in the service of the courts, he was
obliged to compose a great deal of instrumental music: hundreds
of pieces for solo keyboard, orchestral dance suites, trio sonatas
for various instruments, and concertos for various instruments
and orchestra.
The Nikolaikirche in Leipzig. It was home of
Bach’s first cantata performance.
Bach brought to majestic fruition the style of the late
Renaissance.
By and large a musical conservative, he achieved
remarkable heights in the art of fugue, choral
polyphony and organ music, as well as in
instrumental music and dance forms.
His adherence to the older forms earned him the nickname
"the old wig" by his son, the composer Carl Philip Emanuel
Bach, yet his music remained very much alive and was known
and studied by the next generation of composers. It was the
discovery of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 by that initiated
the nineteenth century penchant for reviving and performing
older, "classical" music. With the death of Bach in 1750,
scholars conveniently end Baroque music.
George Frederic
Handel
Born: Halle, February 23,
1685
Died: London, April 14, 1759
Born in the same year and country as Bach ,
playing the violin, harpsichord, oboe, and organ by the age of eleven.
Drawn to the theater from an early age, Handel went to Hamburg in 1703
and began composing Italian operas.
He traveled to England where the Queen gave the him an annual stipend
of £200 in hopes of keeping him in London as court composer. Handel
never returned to Germany.
He remained in England for the rest of his life, becoming a naturalized
citizen in 1726 and Anglicizing his name to George Frideric Handel.
composed much wonderful instrumental music, including many fine
organ concertos, a good amount of keyboard music, and celebratory
music such as the suite of airs and dances. Handel's genius is nowhere
more evident than in the sublime music he provided for his most famous
oratorio, The Messiah
Water Music was written to accompany
a royal barge trip down the Thames in 1717.