Survey
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
* Your assessment is very important for improving the workof artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Introduction to Music: Musical Eras Baroque Period: The English word baroque is derived from the Italian barocco, meaning bizarre, or rough and imperfect pearl, though probably exuberant would be a better translation more accurately reflecting the sense. The usage of this term originated in the 1860s to describe the highly decorated style of 17th and 18th century religious and public buildings in Italy, Germany and Austria. Later, during the early-to-mid 1900s, the term baroque was applied by association to music of the 17th and early 18th century. During the era of Baroque music, European civilization emerged to preeminence on the planet, which was to endure into the twentieth century. The era of Baroque music was an age of spectacular progress of knowledge. It was the age of the scientific discoveries of Galileo and Newton. There was a new and vibrant intellectual, artistic and social atmosphere, which in so many ways signaled the birth of modern Europe. The flourishing of an autonomous European culture also produced a musical language, which we hear today as familiar. Music from the Baroque period is the earliest European music, which we still generally recognize such as the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. Most of the Baroque musical instruments and forms which evolved during the Baroque period survive today, particularly as they were embodied in the most familiar European art music, the music of the Classical and Romantic periods of the nineteenth century. The Baroque composer thought of himself as a craftsman rather than as an artist. Unlike later European art music, a great deal of Baroque music was written on demand for specific occasions, and musical scores were often treated with the care we would accord to yesterday's newspaper. Key elements of the Baroque The two most universal stylistic elements of Baroque music are continuo, also called thorough bass, and ornamentation. Both involve the difference between what the composer wrote down and what the performer played. The continuo, typically consisting of a harpsichord and a cello, provided the rhythmic and harmonic foundation of Baroque ensemble. It was usually written as a bass line with numbers under each note to designate the harmony, much like a modern jazz chart, and the performers decided how to fill out this "figured bass". Ornamentation is the embellishment of the musical line, with devices such as trills, mordents and grace notes. Ornaments were rarely written out, and often were not even indicated, but simply left to the taste of the performer. The Baroque Musical Aesthetic Baroque thinkers conceived of music as rhetoric, but they added to this a rationalist belief in the objective, scientifically definable nature of the emotions. Baroque composers used varied musical descriptions of a given emotion as building blocks of a particular piece. Emotions such as of love, hate, joy, sadness, anger, fear, or exaltation. Baroque musicians were not concerned with expressing their own feelings and emotions, rather they sought to describe with objectivity, feelings and emotions, which were distinct from what they actually felt. The ultimate goal of Baroque music, a goal attained then as now when Baroque music is properly performed. Composers' and performers' skillful and accurate musical depictions of objectively described emotions did and still do evoke emotional, feeling responses in its listeners. Baroque music stirs "the passions of the soul". A distinctive feature of Baroque music is that each piece (or single movement within a multi-movement piece limits itself to only one of the emotions. Baroque thematic development is thus quite different from the later Classical thematic development, which juxtaposed themes of contrasting emotional content in the same piece. Baroque Musical Instruments: The Voice The human voice is the oldest and, in some ways, the most natural of musical instruments. The singing voice of Baroque singers was not the natural untutored voice. Rather it was highly trained, and trained for a musical sound which is in many ways quite different from that which today's opera singers seek. Instead of the uniformity of tone color for which today's voice strives across the vocal range, the Baroque voice accentuated the difference in tone color between the lower and higher registers. Generally, the qualities most valued in the Baroque voice were agility, purity and clarity, even at the expense of the power which characterizes today's operatic voice. Baroque Musical Instruments: Strings The principal ensemble instruments in Baroque music, as in all subsequent European art music, are the unfretted bowed, string instruments of the violin family. Violin making reached its highest point during the Baroque period. Indeed, the best violins in the world today were made then in Cremona, a town in the Po River valley of northern Italy. The names of Cremona's great violin-making families, such as the Stradivari and Guarneri, are familiar today because their instruments continue to be the most prized by our greatest violinists. All the modern members of the violin family were available to Baroque composers, that is, the violin, viola, cello and double bass. Baroque composers responded to the new refined instruments with music that demanded great virtuosic and expressive skill. The Baroque period also inherited from the Renaissance a gamut of fretted, bowed instruments. The most important among these was the viola da gamba, or gamba, an instrument with the approximate range of a cello. The gamba was most often used as a continuo instrument, and it disappeared by the end of the eighteenth century. There has recently been a revival of this instrument resulting from an increased interest in the performance of Baroque music using the instruments of the period. Woodwinds & Brass The main woodwinds, the recorder, oboe, and bassoon were common instruments during the Baroque era. The recorder was the only one of these instruments, which did not survive the transition to the Classical period. Baroque woodwinds were all made of wood, even the flute, and had few or no keys, unlike their nineteenth century descendants. These instruments generally have a softer sound than their modern counterparts. The main brass instruments of the Baroque era were the and french horn. These instruments in the Baroque period were known as "natural" trumpets and horns because they had no valves. Valves, were a nineteenth century invention which increased the number of pitches easily available to the player, caused a revolution in the music that could be performed by trumpets and horns. Because of their technical limitations in the Baroque period, these instruments were used essentially for orchestral color. Keyboards & The Baroque Orchestra The two principal keyboard instruments of the Baroque era, the harpsichord, a plucked keyboard instrument, and the organ. The lute, like the harpsichord, was used as a solo and accompanying instrument and enjoyed four centuries of favor, from the later Middle Ages until the end of the 17th century. Although a primitive piano was invented during the Baroque period, it remained a curiosity until the middle of the eighteenth century. The Baroque Orchestra The orchestra settled into a recognizable entity of instrumentalists in the 18th century. It was much smaller in scale than the modern orchestra and generally the musical scores were adjusted to accommodate the number of players available. They were mainly, and sometimes exclusively, composed of string players. Woodwinds usually played the same notes as the strings, but occasionally the woodwinds and brass were given short passages for color contrast. Instrumental Music Most instrumental music was played in chamber settings during the Baroque period, given the patronage of the aristocracy and the lack of public performing spaces until the 18th century. Instruments were built to sound full and rich, but in small sized halls. The full development of instrumental music, that is, music without a text and with no purpose other than being listened to, was a particular achievement of the Baroque era. Renaissance instrumental music did not stand alone, but rather provided a background for singing or dancing. Baroque dance forms, which evolved from Renaissance music, include the allemande, gavotte, and gigue, each with its own identifiable rhythmic individuality. The rise of the virtuoso style, easily recognizable in the solo concerto, also served to enhance the importance of instrumental music. Audiences loved to applaud virtuosity and improvisation, when performers of the day, like today's jazz musicians, were expected to fill out the score, offering their own extemporaneous creation. Questions & Discussion 1-What does the English word baroque mean and what is the origin? Italian barocco, meaning bizarre, or rough and imperfect pearl 2-What are the two most universal stylistic elements of Baroque music? The continuo, also called thorough bass, and ornamentation. 3-The embellishment of the musical line, with devices such as trills, mordents and grace notes. Ornamentation 4-What are the principal ensemble instruments used in Baroque music? Unfretted bowed, string instruments of the violin family. 5-What are the two principal keyboard instruments of the Baroque era? The harpsichord, and the organ. 6-What was the Baroque musicians major concern when composing or performing the music? Not expressing their own feelings and emotions, rather they sought to describe with objectivity, feelings and emotions, trying to evoke those emotions in the listeners.