Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ğ1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

Outlines:
  - Opera in the Late Seventeenth Century
  - Other Vocal Music
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century
Other Vocal Music
  1. Secular Vocal Music in Italy

    1. A. The Cantata
      1. Evolved from its roots in monodic strophic variations into a genre with many short, contrasting sections alternating recitatives and arias for solo voice with continuo.
      2. The texts were love poems, dramatic narratives, or soliloquys.
      3. It was performed for small audiences in rooms without stages or scenery.
      4. Because of their small scale, cantatas attained an elegance and refinement that would not be possible in opera.
      5. Alessandro Scarlatti composed over six hundred—CHWM, ex. 10.4a, Lascia, deh lascia (Cease, O cease)
        1. Expressive dissonances beyond the norm for his generation.
        2. Full da capo aria (Ex. 10.4c)

  2. Vocal music in Other Countries

    1. France
      1. Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1634–1704) composed both secular cantatas and sacred oratorios in the Italian style.
      2. Louis Nicolas Clérambault (1676–1749) published cantatas with French-style recitatives and Italian-style arias.

    2. Germany: Keiser and others wrote sacred and secular music in Italian and German.

    3. England
      1. Purcell published many vocal pieces (solos, duets, trios) as Orpheus Britannicus, 1698.
      2. John Blow published a set of songs in 1700 titled Amphion Anglicus.
      3. The catch, or round, with humorous texts was popular for group singing.
      4. After 1660 special occasions were celebrated with large choral works.

  3. Catholic Church Music

    1. Contrapuntal music in Palestrina's style continued throughout the Baroque period.

    2. Sacred works in the new style, with concertato style and multiple choirs, were composed alongside Stile antico works.

    3. Bologna
      1. Basilica of San Petronio was a center of church music composition.
      2. Maurizio Cazzati (ca. 1620–1677) published collections of sacred vocal music in stile antico and stile moderno.

    4. Catholic Church Music in German-Speaking Countries
      1. Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna were centers of Catholic church music.
      2. Maurizio Cazzati (Ca. 1620–1707) and Antonio Caldara composed Masses (ca. 1670–1736) and motets in a variety of styles.

    5. Church Music in France
      1. Marc-Antoine Charpentier introduced the Latin oratorio, combining Italian and French styles with a prominent role for the chorus.
      2. Solo motets for voice and continuo set biblical texts and were cultivated at the royal chapel of Louis XIV.
      3. Grand motets with preludes, vocal solos, ensembles, and choruses, were also performed at Louis XIV's court.
      4. Petit motet was the French equivalent of the sacred concerto for few voices, for example, those of François Couperin (1668–1733) from Matins and Lauds collected in Leçons de ténèbres.

  4. Lutheran Church Music, 1650–1750

    1. After the Thirty Years'War Lutheran churches regained their pre-war musical forces.

    2. Chorales continued to be the basic Lutheran genre.

    3. Abendmusiken, public concerts following church services in Lübeck during Advent
      1. Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637–1707), worked at the Marienkirche there
      2. Long, quasi-dramatic affairs with recitatives, strophic arias, chorale settings, and instrumental sections
      3. Influenced musicians from all over Germany, including J. S. Bach

    4. There were two conflicting viewpoints in Lutheran church music.
      1. The orthodox view was that all available resources should be used.
      2. The Pietists preferred simpler music for personal devotion.

    5. The Lutheran church cantata (see vignette in CHWM) resolved the conflict between Pietism and Orthodoxy.
      1. Poets wrote sacred poems for musical settings.
        1. Texts were based on the church calendar and often came from the day's readings.
        2. The poetic forms invited da capo aria settings.
        3. Several poets wrote cycles for the entire church year.
      2. Musical elements included chorale, solo song, recitative and aria.
      3. J.S. Bach would become the greatest master of the church cantata.

    6. Passions
      1. Lutheran Germany preferred the historia, which set a biblical narrative, over the oratorio.
      2. The most important type of historia was the Passion, which set the suffering and death of Christ according to Gospel accounts.
      3. Oratorio Passion employs recitatives, arias, ensembles, choruses, and instrumental movements.

© 2002 W. W. Norton & Company | Credits