Unit 2 Flashcards
(47 cards)
Baroque
Abnormal, exaggerated, in bad taste.
Applied as a derisive term by post-term critics because of the overly ornate art of the late term.
The first part of the common practice period.
Until 1750
First practice
Style and practice of sixteenth century polyphony.
Counterpoint rules could not be broken.
Dissonances had to be carefully controlled and restricted.
Second practice
Claudio Monteverdi believed counterpoint rules could be broken for dramatic effect.
Uses unprepared dissonances to express words.
Music had to serve the text.
Basso continuo
Thorough bass.
Specified only melody and bass with figures to indicate chords other than root position.
The foundation is shown through the figured bass.
It holds up the chords.
Figured bass
Part of the basso continuo
Improvised performance through realizing the bass
There is a code under the bass
It led to thinking in terms of chords instead of intervals
Played by two instruments: usually a keyboard and a low string instrument
Opera
Italian word for “work”
Union of verified play, drama, and music
Continuous or near-continuous singing.
Staged, with scenery, consumes, and actions.
Libretto
…
Intermedia
The most direct antecedent.
Musical entertainment before, after, and between the acts of plays.
There were usually six for each play.
Subjects were pastoral, allegorical, or mythological.
Monody
The term for accompanied vocal melodies of this era, including the type described by Galilei.
The solo melody was ideal for emotional expression.
Monophony
L’Eruidice
Music by Peri, libretto by Rinuccini, and directed by Cavalieri.
The settings by Peri and Cavalieri are the earliest surviving complete operas.
The story demonstrates music’s power to move the emotions.
Orfeo (Orpheus) causes denizens of the underworld to weep through his music. He persuades the underworld to restore his wife, Euridice, to life.
Recitative
Peri invented this new idiom.
A speech-song that was halfway between oratory and song.
Notes of the basso continuo are held while the voice moves freely through consonances and dissonances.
The voices simulates the free declamation of poetry.
Consonances occur on all stressed syllables.
Aria
Strophic form.
Tuneful and rhythmic
Introduced by a brief sinfonia, an ensemble piece that serves as a prelude.
The ritornello is an instrumental refrain that follows each stanza.
Monteverdi
He created the first work to show the full opt entail of opera.
L’Orfeo
The first work to show the full potential of opera.
Monteverdi specified instruments in his score.
The arias are strophic, but strop he’s are varied to reflect the text
Recitative style varies depending on the situation in the drama.
Castrato
Men who had been castrated before puberty sang treble parts in church because women were not permitted to sing in church.
In Rome, women were not permitted on stage, so they sang the treble roles.
Castrati later sang outside of Italy as well, but only in male roles.
Cantata
Originally simply “piece to be sung”
By the mid-seventeenth century, secular composition on a lyrical or quasi-dramatic text, usually for solo voice with continuo, and contains several sections, including recitative and aria.
Strozzi
Venetian singer and composer
Studied with Cavalli
Supported by her father and wealthy patrons
Published eight collections of music in the mid 17th-century, for a total of over one hundred works
Published more cantatas than any other composer of the time.
Sacred concerto
Large-scale:
For major feast days at large churches
Many voices and instruments, sometimes in cori spezzati (divided choir)
Used for setting of Vespers, psalms, and movements of the mass.
Small scale:
For solo singer(s) with organ and often one or two violins.
Oratorio
Religious dramatic music incorporating narrative, dialogue, and commentary.
Text was Latin or Italian.
Developed in Rome in the 17th century.
Different from Opera: almost never staged, used a narrator, and the chorus took on different roles and functions.
Schütz
Studied with G. Gabrieli in Venice
In the service of the elector’s court in Dresden.
Composed in all genres.
Used Italian monody to portray the text.
Wrote O Lieber Herre Gott
Passion
Settings of the story of Jesus’ crucifixion
were the most common type of historia
Frescobaldi
The most important composer of toccatas.
His keyboard music was renowned in his lifetime, and his compositional style became the model for subsequent generations.
Chorale prelude
Settings of chorales.
Lully
Appointed the court composer of instrumental music and direct of the Petits Violons.
Appointed Superintendent of Music for the King’s Chamber
Granted exclusive right to produce sung drama in France, and established the Academie Royale de Musique
He insisted on uniform bowing and coordination of ornaments, and established a long tradition of conductors excursions dictatorial control over orchestras.
