Download Baroque Opera, etc. Florentine Opera • At the end of the 1500s, a

Baroque Opera, etc.
Florentine Opera
• At the end of the 1500s, a group of Florentine noblemen wanted to bring back ancient
Greek tragedy.
• Calling themselves the Camerata, they created the stil rappresentativo, or theater style.
• This was a new style of singing of drama, and, consequently, became the earliest operas.
• This new form of music developed because composers of the polyphonic madrigal style
were looking for ways to convey dramatic expression.
• This new "theater style" became prevalent and was used consistently in opera.
Roman Opera
• In the 1630s, Rome became the center of opera.
• Roman opera differed from the Italian form in that it focused more on religious subjects
than on Greek mythology.
• Roman opera also employed the use of its chorus to a greater extent.
• The aria and the recitative were beginning to become more distinct and greatly differed
from one another.
• The intermezzi, a comedic interlude between acts, would be the model for the future
comedic opera style.
Venetian Opera
• Venice became the center of Italian opera in the early to mid 1600s.
• In 1637, the first public opera house, the Teatro San Cassiano, opened its doors in the
city of Venice.
• The Venetian opera had its own special attributes. It used less choral and orchestral music and placed more emphasis on formal arias as well as on elaborate stage machinery.
• The bel canto, or "beautiful singing" style, started to appear. This style placed more focus
on vocal elegance than on dramatic expression.
• Two final characteristics of Venetian opera were its complex and improbable plots and
the prototype of its overture, which was a short instrumental fanfare performed
at the beginning of the opera.
Neapolitan Opera
• European opera was dominated by the Neapolitan opera form during the later 1600s
and early 1700s.
• During this period, operas became more artificial and formalized from the dramatic
standpoint.
• An A-B-A sectional structure, called the da capo aria, and a siciliana, another aria in a minor key with six-eight meter and slow tempo, were widely used.
• As far as other components of the Neapolitan opera, the orchestra's role was greatly
diminished and the chorus was almost nonexistent.
• Recitatives were now being used, although they did not hold the same level of importance as the aria.
• recitativo secco, or dry recitative, had a declamatory melody with sparse continuo accompaniment
• recitative accompagnato, used an orchestral accompaniment
Sacred concerto/Grand concerto/Motet & Oratorio
Sacred Concerto…Oratorio
• stemmed from the Venetian (polychoral) school
• use of name concerto for accompanied vocal music (to distinguish it from a capella )
persisted throughout the baroque period
•
• Composers include Schütz,Viadana, Grandi, etc.
• oratorio was sacred opera without staging, used a narrator to tie the story together (a
narrative libretto), used chorus as commentary, tended to use chorus more than
opera did (important oratorio composer from 17th century was Carissimi).
The roots of oratorio
• The laude were hymns of praise and devotion in the Italian language) 16th-century Oratorian laude (assoc. with Neri) were like madrigale spirituale but included elements of dramatic dialogue
• The Grandi motet, O quam tu pulchra es is an example of the laudi style
• The oratorio was named for the performance location in the oratory (prayer room)
Dramatic dialogue?
• Composers began to render, for example, the direct speech of Christ with a bass voice,
narration with a tenor voice, scene with instrumental pieces, and commentary
with choruses.
• The narrator was called testo meaning text.
• Opera composers begin to write oratorios by 1640. The style of the oratorio would
continue to parallel contemporaneous operatic style. Oratorio at this point was
hardly more than a cantata on a larger scale.
Italian Oratorio
• Carissimi's Jephte (before 1650) features elements of operatic technique and cantata. The
daughter's lament is a recit. with arioso sequences
• The oratorio was popular in Rome because opera was not allowed, oratorio gave composers outlet for their dramatic impulses. An outstanding master of oratorio at
century's end was A. Scarlatti.
English anthem
• English counterpart to cantata was anthem
• both replaced the Mass setting as the principal musical constituent of the service.
• Handel's early Anglican church music was cantata-like. (Chandos anthems)
• Handel's later oratorios--Saul, Israel in Egypt (1739) were modeled after the English ode,
and the choral music style of Purcell.
The Messiah (1741)
• is not an oratorio, but oratorio-like featuring a pastiche of texts selected by librettist
Charles Jennens
• Handel incorporated the elements of his dramatic opera style in his oratorio style.
• He wrote [1] a new kind of oratorio--written for the concert hall, not the church.
Probably most importantly, [2] he broadened the function of the choir. His was a
[3] richer orchestration. He provided [4] more complex characterizations based
on multiple arias showing different aspects of the characters.
In Venice
• the oratorio was ignored.
• In its place, the sacred concerto was preferred
• Schütz was the greatest German composer (trained in Italy) of the mid-17th century
• Influenced by the Venetians, he composed many concerted motets (including three sets
of Symphoniae Sacrae, 1629, 1647, 1650)
• His oratorios (Historia) are not related to the contemporaneous Italian oratorio as
much as to the German Passion motet.