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, 400Ð1450 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:
  - Characteristics of Baroque Music
  - Early Opera
  - Vocal Chamber Music
  - Instrumental Music
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 9: Music of the Early Baroque Period
Vocal Chamber Music
  1. Chamber music for voice was more common than opera

  2. Strophic Aria Types

    1. Repeating a melody with only minor rhythmic variations for each stanza

    2. Strophic variation: composing new music for the first stanza and then changing it for each stanza to reflect the meaning and inflection of the text

    3. Using a standard formula, such as the romanesca (see etude, p. 191, in CHWM)
      1. Associated with the poetic form called ottave rime
      2. Some romanesca compositions use a repeating bass line (ground bass, or basso ostinato).
      3. Chaconne (chacona, ciaccona)
        1. Dance song with a refrain
        2. Repetitions of a simple pattern of guitar chords
        3. Probably originated in Latin America then came to Europe via Spain
      4. Passacaglia (pessecalle, passecaille)
        1. Originated in Spain as a pattern of chords played between the strophes of a song (i.e., a ritornello)
        2. Evolved into a variety of four-bar bass formulas repeated continuously
        3. Usually in a triple meter and minor mode
      5. By the eighteenth century the terms passacaglia and chaconne became confusing because of their similarities

  3. Concertato Medium

    1. From the Italian concertare, to reach agreement: mingling of voices with instruments that are playing independent parts

    2. Concerto: diverse and sometimes contrasting forces brought together to form an ensemble

    3. Concertato madrigal: voices and instruments working together equally

    4. Sacred concerto: sacred vocal work with instruments

    5. Instrumental concerto: a piece for a variety of instruments, sometimes with one or more soloists

  4. Monteverdi's Fifth through Eighth Books of Madrigals (1605–1638)

    1. These mirror the developments in instrumental participation in vocal music.

    2. Performing forces
      1. All include a basso continuo
      2. Many include other instruments
      3. Instruments play ritornellos and introductions.

    3. Book Seven, called a concerto, contains "Madrigals and other kinds of songs".

  5. Cantatas (literally, a piece "to be sung")

    1. By the mid-seventeenth century the term was applied to any composition for solo voice with continuo on a lyrical or quasi-dramatic text.

    2. Cantatas consisted of several sections, including both recitatives and arias.

    3. The leading composers were Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674), and Antonio Cesti.

    4. Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677)
      1. Born in Florence
      2. Lived in Venice
      3. Giulio Strozzi, probably her father, founded an academy partly to give her an outlet for her musical works.
      4. Published eight collections of vocal music, including cantatas such as NAWM 57, Lagrime mie.

  6. Church Music

    1. Venice
      1. The Church of St. Mark continued to be the center of Venetian culture and the location of civic ceremonies.
      2. Venetian church music glorified the state and was independent of Roman rules.
      3. St. Mark's was the most prestigious place for a musician to work.
      4. Divided choirs (cori spezzati) were popular there.
      5. Giovanni Gabrieli composed for up to five choruses, each with a different combination of voice ranges, and with instrumental accompaniment, such as his polychoral motet / grand concerto, In ecclesiis (NAWM 58).
      6. Gabrieli's students spread his style to northern Italy, Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia.

    2. Sacred genres
      1. Grand concerto: a sacred work for very large, sometimes colossal, performing forces
      2. Concerto for few (one–three) voices with only organ continuo was more common.
      3. Monteverdi's Vespers (1610) uses all the styles of its time.
      4. Motets in the new style, for example, NAWM 60, O quam tu pulchra es, by Alessandro Grandi (ca. 1575/80–1630) combine elements from theatrical recitative, solo madrigal, and bel canto.

    3. Oratorio
      1. Began in Rome as sacred dialogues combining narrative, dialogue, and exhortation
      2. Influenced by opera but not staged
      3. Called oratorio because they were performed in the oratory, the part of the church where lay societies met to hear sermons and sing devotional songs
      4. Librettos in Latin (oratorio latino) or in Italian (oratorio volgare, i.e. vernacular)
      5. Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674) was the leading composer of Latin oratorios.
        1. NAWM 61, Historia di Jephte, exemplifies mid-century oratorio.
        2. Text is based on the Bible—Book of Judges—but librettist takes liberties with the words.
        3. A narrator (storicus or testo) introduces the story and narrates events.
        4. Choruses tell part of the story.
        5. The excerpt in NAWM is a lament sung by the daughter who is about to be sacrificed due to her father's promise to God.
      6. Similarities to operas: use of recitative, arias, duets, and instrumental sections
      7. Difference from operas: use of sacred subjects, narrators, dramatic, narrative and meditative roles for the chorus, and the lack of staging or acting.

  7. Lutheran Church Music

    1. Lutheran composers continued to compose music based on the chorale but also composed in monodic, concertato, and grand concerto techniques.

    2. Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630) composed concertos for few voices for German churches.

    3. Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) was the greatest German composer of the mid-seventeenth century.
      1. Studied in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli
      2. 1617–72, worked at the chapel of the elector of Saxony in Dresden
      3. Also spent some time in Copenhagen
      4. His only surviving compositions were sacred.
      5. His Psalmen Davids (1619) is a grand concerto with multiple choruses, soloists, and concertato instruments (in German).
      6. His Concertato motets for one to five solo voices with organ were published in Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Little Sacred Concertos) during the Thirty Years'War.
      7. His Symphoniae Sacrae (Sacred Symphonies), published in 1629, 1647, and 1650 were his most important works.
        1. These were concertato motets influenced by Monteverdi, Grandi, and G. Gabrieli.
        2. The last collection uses the fuller forces available after the end of the Thirty Years' War, for example, NAWM 62, Saul, was verfolgst du mich

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