Vivaldi was a prominent composer in late Baroque Italy who wrote over 500 concertos, most notably The Four Seasons. He helped popularize the solo concerto form which alternated between a solo instrument accompanied by orchestra and full orchestra sections. In France during this period, Couperin wrote keyboard suites comprised of dances and character pieces that featured ornamentation. Rameau was an influential opera composer and theorist who incorporated Italian styles like da capo arias into French opera, while still retaining French elements like overtures and recits with shifting meter.

1. Music in the Baroque Era: Part IV
1600-1750

2. The Late Baroque Era
in Italy and France
1700-1750

3. ITALY

4. Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
• violin teacher
• operas performed
throughout Europe
• operas, cantatas, sacred
vocal, sonatas, 500
concertos (200 for solo
violin)
• solo concerto
– ritornello form
• alternating solo & ritornello
sections
– ritornello: a tutti section from
a concerto
– solo: a section of a concerto
featuring a soloist
accompanied by an orchetra
– “Spring” from “The Four
Seasons”
– Concerto in a minor

5. France

6. François Couperin (1668-1733)
• court organist, harpsichordist
• wrote keyboard suites (orders)
comprised of dances and character
pieces
– Vingt-cinquième ordre
• La visionaire
• La muse victorieuse
• character piece: piece with a
descriptive title, usually the name
of a person, place, or expressive
characteristic of the piece
• ornament—small stereotyped
melodic figures consisting of short
notes that decorate a longer one
(distinguished from
embellishments, which must be
written out)

7. Jean-Phillipe Rameau (1683-1764)
• early career—organist
– keyboard pieces, motets, cantatas
• Theory of Harmony
– chord progressions, not voice-leading, as
basis of all musical composition
– tonic, dominant, subdominant
• later career—opera composer
– Hippolyte et Aricie (start video at 3’33’’)
– Les Indes Gallantes
• Rameau and Lully operas
– similar
• French overture/prologue
• recits have metrical shifts to imitate text
• dance
• ornamentation, not embellishment
– different
• Rameau influenced by Italian music
– da Capo aria/melismas