StudySpace: The Enjoyment of Music: Essential Listening Edition

Key Points

• The most important vocal genres of the Baroque were opera , oratorio, and cantata.
• An opera is a large-scale music drama that combines costumed staging with singing and instrumental music. Opera began in Italy around 1600 and soon spread to France and England. There, its greatest proponent was Henry Purcell, who wrote Dido and Aeneas.
• The principal components of opera are the orchestral overture, solo arias (lyrical songs), recitatives (speechlike declamations), and ensemble numbers, including choruses.
• An oratorio, such as George Frideric Handel's Messiah, is a large-scale drama with a religious or biblical text performed by solo voices, chorus, and orchestra. It is not staged or costumed.
• Cantatas are multimovement works with solo arias, recitatives, and choruses, all with orchestral accompaniment. Lutheran cantatas, like those of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, are generally unified by a chorale, or hymn tune.

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