Download Chapter Five: Baroque Art and Music

Chapter 7:
Introduction to Baroque Art and Music
The Baroque Era (1600-1750)
• First appeared in Italy
• Baroque: Excessive ornamentation in the visual arts
and a rough, bold instrumental sound in music
– Energetic detail
– Grandiose, flamboyant
– Drama created through contrast
Baroque Architecture and Music
• Construction on the grandest scale
– Saint Peter’s in Rome
• Space filled with abundant, even excessive,
decoration
Baroque Music
• Grandiose music composed for such vast spaces
• Compositions for “colossal” forces
– Baroque orchestra of King Louis XIV sometimes had as
many as 80+ players
– Some sacred choral works required 24, 48, or even 53
separate lines or parts
• Love of energetic detail within a large-scale
composition
• Highly ornamental melody above a solid chordal
foundation
• Abundance of melodic flourishes
Arcangelo Corelli –
Sonata for Violin and Basso Continuo, Opus 5, No.1
• Bass provides the structural support while the violin
adds elaborate decoration above
Baroque Painting and Music
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Large and colorful paintings
Overtly dramatic
Drama created by means of contrast
Pure shock created by presenting gruesome events
from history or myth in a dramatic way
• Music also highly dramatic
• Doctrine of the Affections:
• Different musical moods could
and should be used to influence
the emotions (affections) of the
listener
• Drama of the stage joined with
music to create Opera
Characteristics of Baroque Music
• Remarkable variety of musical style
• Introduction of many new musical genres:
– Opera, cantata, oratorio, sonata, concerto, and suite
• Two elements remain constant
– Expressive, sometimes extravagant melody
– Strong supporting bass
Expressive Melody
• Use of soloist to communicate raw individual emotion
• All voices not created equal
– Emphasis on the highest and lowest sounding lines
– Middle lines fill out the texture
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Monody: “Solo song”
• Solo singer supported by a bass line and a few
accompanying instruments
• More elaborate, showy, style of singing
• Music reinforces the text
Rock-Solid Harmony
• Provides strong harmonic framework for elaborate
melodies
• Basso continuo (continual bass): A small ensemble of
at least two instrumentalists who provide a
foundation for the melody heard above
– Usually a low string instrument and a harpsichord
• Figured bass: Numerical shorthand places below the
bass line
– Basis for improvised chords
Elements of Baroque Music Melody
• Two different melodic styles
– Somewhat mechanical instrumental style, full of
figural repetitions
– More dramatic, virtuosic style of singing marked by
flourished and melismas
• Melody expands lavishly over long musical spans,
not short symmetrical phrases
Elements of Baroque Music Harmony
• Chord progressions that we hear today originated in
the Baroque
• Music built around stock chord progressions
– (I-VI-IV-V-I)
– Melody unfolds while the chord progressions repeat
• Modern “two-key” system: Major and Minor
Elements of Baroque Music Rhythm
• Uniformity rather than flexibility
• Meter and certain rhythmic patterns are established at
the beginning and continue to the end
• Strong recurring beat (groove)
• Rhythmic clarity and drive
• Rhythmically propulsive
Elements of Baroque Music Texture
• Homophony: Basso continuo provides a wholly
chordal framework
– Many 17th-century composers rebelled against the
predominantly polyphonic, imitative texture of the
Renaissance
• Hostility to Polyphony gradually diminished
• Polyphony: Counterpoint
– New genre of the Fugue
– Bach and Handel
Elements of Baroque Music Dynamics
• Early 17th-century, composers began to write
dynamics in their music
• Use of two basic terms: piano (soft) and forte (loud)
• Sudden contrasts of dynamics rather than gradual
crescendos and diminuendos
• Terraced dynamics: Shifting of volume suddenly
from one level to another
– Similar to contrasts between major and minor