Wk 7 baroque instrumental music, late 17th vocal, early 18th cenury

Vocal Music for
Chamber and Church in
the Early Baroque
Chapter
11

Prelude
 Religious differences: Protestant northern Europe, Catholic
south
• reflected in seventeenth-century music
• new genres emerge: sacred vocal concerto and oratorio
• expanded genres in instrumental music
• early seventeenth-century music truly experimental
• common language created by midcentury

Vocal Chamber Music
 Secular works in the concertato medium
• solo voice, small vocal ensemble with basso continuo
 madrigals, arias, dialogues, and duets
 opera innovations popularized through solo song
• strophic arias, variety of treatments
 melody repeated, rhythmic modifications
 strophic variations:
 new melody or same bass line
 same harmonic and melodic plan, vary surface details
 also favorite techniques for instrumental compositions

Concertato Medium
Le concert, a painting
by Nicholas Tournier
from the early
seventeenth century,
illustrates the new
concertato style of
mixed voices and
instruments — in this
case, solo voice with
bass viol, spinet,
violin, and lute.
(Louvre, Paris,
Réunion des Musées
Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY.)

Vocal Chamber Music (cont’d)
 Secular works in concertato medium (cont’d)
• Monteverdi’s concerted madrigals, last four books
 instrumental accompaniment, basso continuo, some with other instruments
 solos, duets, trios set off against vocal ensemble
 instrumental introductions, ritornellos
 Concerto (1619), Book 7
 strophic variations, canzonettas, through-composed madrigals
 Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Madrigals of Love and War, 1638), Book 8
 madrigals for five voices with continuo
 solos, duets, trios with continuo
 large works for chorus, soloists, and orchestra

 Basso ostinato, or ground bass
• repeated bass pattern, melody above changes
 most in triple or compound meter, two, four or eight measures long
 tradition in Spain and Italy, popular songs and dances
 Guárdame las vascas (NAWM 68b)
 romanesca
 Ruggiero: epic poetry sung, repeating melodic formulas with standard
harmonization
• descending tetrachord ostinatos: sorrowful affections

 Cantata
• new genre of vocal chamber music, seventeenth century
• developed from strophic aria and dramatic madrigal
• voice and continuo
 intimate poetic text
 several sections, recitatives, arias, ariosos
• leading composers: Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi, Barbara Strozzi

 Cantata (cont’d)
• Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677)
 born in Venice, daughter of poet, librettist
Giulio Strozzi
 student of Pier Francesco Cavalli
 supported by her father, noble patrons,
publications
 among most prolific composers of vocal
chamber music of the century
 major works 1644 to 1664: published eight
collections of vocal music
• Lagrime mie (NAWM 77), Strozzi
(1659)
 successive sections: recitative, arioso, aria
 focus on unrequited love
 changing figurations capture moods, images
of text
Female musician with viola da
gamba, almost certainly a
portrait of Barbara Strozzi
around 1637, painted by
Bernardo Strozzi (perhaps a
relative).

Catholic Sacred Music
 Catholic composers adopted theatrical idioms
• sacred concertos incorporated basso continuo, concertato medium,
monody, operatic styles
• church’s message conveyed: dramatically effective
• stile antico: Palestrina’s contrapuntal style
 coexisted with stile moderno
 modernized: basso continuo added, major-minor tonality
 codified, Johann Joseph Fux treatise: Gradus ad Parnassum (Steps to
Parnassus, 1725)
 influential textbook next two centuries

Catholic Sacred Music (cont’d)
 Large-scale sacred concerto
• polychoral music of Giovanni Gabrieli, Sant Mark’s in Venice
 performance forces grew to grand proportions (grand concerto)
 two or more choirs, vocal soloists, instrumental ensembles
 separated spatially: groups answered each other antiphonally
• major feast days in wealthier churches
 Gabrieli’s polychoral motets, St. Mark’s in Venice
• two or more choirs, vocal soloists, instrumental ensembles, one or more
organs playing continuo
• In ecclesiis (In churches; NAWM 78), published 1615
 four soloists, 4-part chorus, 6-part instrumental ensemble, organs
 modern arias, instrumental canzonas; Renaissance imitative polyphony
 massive sonorous climax

 Small sacred concerto
• one or more soloists, organ continuo
• written for small churches
• Alessandro Grandi (1586–1630), Monteverdi’s deputy
 solo motets in new styles of monody
 O quam tu pulchra es (NAWM 79), published 1625
 elements from recitative, solo madrigal, lyric aria
 changing styles reflect moods of the text

 Oratorio
• dramatic sacred dialogue: elements of narrative, dialogue, commentary
 performed in the oratory
 genre developed in Rome
• recitatives, arias, duets, instrumental preludes and ritornellos
 religious subject matter
 seldom if ever staged
 action described rather than mimed
 often a narrator, storicus (“storyteller”) or testo (“text”)
 various roles of the chorus
• Giacomo Carissimi: leading composer of Latin oratorios
 Jephte (ca. 1648), exemplifies midcentury Latin oratorio
 libretto: biblical text, paraphrasing and added material
 various styles: narrator in recitative, solo arias, duets, choruses
 final scene (NAWM 80)

Lutheran Church Music
 Sacred music in Austria and Catholic southern
Germany, strong Italian influence
• Italian composers active in Munich, Salzburg, Prague,
Vienna
• stile moderno, using chorale tunes
• polyphonic chorale motets, motets on biblical texts
without chorale melodies

Lutheran Church Music (cont’d)
 Henrich Schütz (1585–1672)
• master at applying new Italian styles to church
music
 1609: studied in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli
 1615–1672: chapel master at Saxon court in
Dresden
 renowned for capturing meanings of text
 seldom used chorale melodies; texts from Bible,
other sources
 1627: wrote first German opera
 major works: Psalmen Davids, Cantiones
sacrae, Symphoniae sacrae, Musikalische
Exequin, Passions
• early sacred works, series of collections
 Psalmen Davids (Psalms of David, 1619)

Lutheran Church Music (cont’d)
 Henrich Schütz (1585–1672) (cont’d)
 Symphoniae sacrae (Sacred Symphonies, 1629)
 concerted Latin motets: various small combinations of voices and instruments
 combines recitative, aria, concerted madrigal styles
• Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Small Sacred Concertos, 1636 and 1639)
 Thirty Years’ War, reduced court chapel
 one to five solo voices without continuo
• Symphoniae sacrae II and III, 1647 and 1650
 sacred concertos in German
 after Thirty Years’ War, full musical resources
 Saul, was verfolgst du mich (NAWM 81), large-scale concerto
 two choirs doubled by instruments, six solo voices, two violins and continuo
 polychoral style of Gabrieli, dissonance of Monteverdi

Instrumental Music
in the Seventeenth
Century
Chapter
12

Prelude
 Rise of instrumental music, cultivation of new instruments
• new roles for instruments, new genres, new styles
• written music for instruments alone, publications
 Elements borrowed from vocal idioms
• use of basso continuo
• moving the affections
• focus on soloist
• virtuosic embellishment, stylistic contrast
• styles: recitative, aria

Prelude (cont’d)
 Instrumentation
• modern organs, double-manual harpsichords
• improved wind instruments
• violin family inspired new idioms, genres, formal structures
 seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: age of great violin makers of
Cremona
 Nicolò Amati, Antonio Stradivari, Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri
• prevalent types of instrumentation
 solo lute and keyboard
 keyboard instruments: organ, harpsichord (clavecin in French)
 ensemble music: chamber and orchestral music
 Italians undisputed masters and teachers of instrumental chamber music

Prelude (cont’d)
 Categories based on compositional procedures
• variations
 varying an existing melody set of variations or partitas, or work based on
traditional bass line or harmonic progression, partita, chaconne, or passacaglia
• abstract works
 improvisatory works: toccatas, fantasias, or preludes
 continuous works: ricercari, fantasias, fancies, capriccios, or fugues
 sectional works: canzonas or sonatas
• dance music
 dances, stylized dances; alone, paired, grouped into suites

Variations
 Partite (“divisions” or “parts”)
• sets of variations
• later applied to dance suites
 Chaconne and passacaglia
• chaconne: derived from chacona
 lively dance-song imported from Latin America
• passacaglia: from Spanish passacalle
 ritornello improvised over simple cadential progression
• bass harmonic progressions
 traditional or newly composed
 four measures, triple meter, slow tempo
• earliest known keyboard variations by Girolamo Frescobaldi
• by 1700, terms interchangeable

Abstract Instrumental Works
 Improvisatory genres
• toccata, from Italian toccare (“to touch”)
 principal genre of lute and keyboard music
 established as “warm-up” piece in sixteenth century
 scalar, florid passages
 harpsichord as chamber music; organ as church music

(cont’d)
 Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643)
• best known for his keyboard music
• organist at St. Peter’s in Rome
• published keyboard collections dedicated to various
patrons
• compositions model for later composers
• major works: keyboard toccatas, fantasias, ricercares,
canzonas, partitas, Fiori musicali, ensemble canzonas and
other vocal works
 Frescobaldi Toccata No. 3 (1615; NAWM 82)
• succession of brief sections, each subtly varied
• virtuoso passage work, ideas passed between voices
• sections end with weakened cadence, sustains momentum
• beat modified according to mood, character

(cont’d)
 Continuous genres
• ricercare and fugue
 serious composition for organ or harpsichord
 one subject (theme) continuously developed in imitation
 Frescobaldi’s Mass for the Madonna in Fiori musicali (NAWM 83),
ricercare
• fugue: term applied in Germany, early 17th century
 genre of serious pieces
 one theme in continuous imitation
• fantasia
 imitative keyboard work, larger scale than ricercare
 Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621)
 leading fantasia composer, Dutch organist
• English consort fantasias
 music for viol consort, fancy

(cont’d)
 Sectional genres
• sonata (Italian for “sounded”)
 one- or two-melody instruments (violins) with
basso continuo
 exploited idiomatic possibilities of a particular instrument
 imitated modern expressive vocal style
• ensemble sonatas
 Sonata pian’ e forte from Gabrieli’s Sacrae symphoniae
 among first instrumental pieces to designate specific instruments
 cornett and three sackbuts; violin and three sackbuts
 earliest instances of dynamic markings in music
 Sonata IV per il violino per sonar con due corde, from
Op. 8 (NAWM 84), published 1629
 early example of “instrumental monody”
• by mid-seventeenth century, canzona and sonata merged: sonata

St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice
Interior of the
eleventh-century
church of Saint
Mark
(architecturally
known as a
basilica), where
Venetian
composers
cultivated a style
of composition and
performance
involving multiple
antiphonal choirs
(cori spezzati) of
voices,
instruments, or a
combination of the
two.

Music for Organ
 1650–1750: golden age of organ music in Lutheran areas
of Germany
• Dieterich Buxtehude (ca. 1637–1707)
 one of best-known late seventeenth-century Lutheran composers
 influenced J .S. Bach and other composers
 organist at St. Mary’s Church in Lübeck, prestigious post in
northern Germany
 composed organ pieces, sacred concerted music
 played organ solos as preludes to chorales, other parts of service

Buxtehude
A painting by Johannes Voorhout (1647–1723) belonging to the genre known as a “Music Company” (ca.
1674) that shows a group of friends making music. It includes the only known portrait of composer Dieterich
Buxtehude, pictured with his hand to his head in front of a sheet of music. The instruments being played,
probably by friends in Buxtehude’s circle, are viola da gamba, harpsichord, and lute, although the elegantly
dressed lutenist at whom Buxtehude gazes may represent an allegory of the pleasures of friendship and
music. The man standing on the left in the feathered hat is the painter himself.

Music for Organ (cont’d)
 1650–1750: golden age of organ music in Lutheran areas of
Germany (cont’d)
• functions of organ music
 prelude to something else, chorale settings, toccatas or preludes with fugues
• Buxtehude toccatas
 freestyle short sections alternate with longer ones in imitative counterpoint
 great variety of figuration, full advantage of organ’s idiomatic qualities
 virtuosic display: keyboard and pedals
 free sections simulate improvisation
 contrasting irregular rhythm with driving 16th notes
 deliberately using irregular phrases, inconclusive endings
 abrupt changes of texture, harmony, melodic direction
 e.g., Buxtehude’s Praeludium in E Major (NAWM 95)
 free sections frame fugal sections
 seventeenth-century “toccata,” “prelude,” “praeludium,” include fugal sections

F12-05
Organ built in 1695 for
Saint John’s church in
Hamburg, now in a church
at Kassel. The elaborate
carving of the chest
encasing the pipes and
the decorative angels are
typical of the Baroque
organ. The tall pipes in the
center and around the
sides of the upper half of
the instrument produce
the deepest notes, played
by the pedals.

Music for Organ (cont’d)
 1650–1750: golden age of organ music
in Lutheran areas of Germany (cont’d)
• chorale settings
 organ chorales: tune enhanced by harmony
and counterpoint
 chorale variations (chorale partita) based on
chorale tune
 chorale fantasia: fragmented chorale melody
into motives
• mid-seventeenth-century chorale prelude
 short piece with entire melody presented
once in recognizable form
 single variation on a chorale, different
variation techniques

Music for Lute and Harpsichord
 Lute music flourished in France, early seventeenth century
• Denis Gaultier (1603–1672): leading lute composer
 published instructional collections for amateurs
• clavecin (harpsichord) displaced lute as main solo instrument
 important composers: Jacques Champion de Chambonnières, Jean-Henry
D’Anglebert, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, François Couperin
 all of them served Louis XIV
 printed collections marketed to well-to-do amateurs
• systematical use of agréments, ornaments
 fundamental element of all French music
 proper use was a sign of refined taste
• lute style influenced harpsichord music
 style brisé (“broken style”): technique of breaking up melodies

Ornaments
Table of ornaments from Pièces de clavecin (1689) by Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, showing
for each ornament its notation, name, and manner of performance.

(cont’d)
 Dance music
• core of lute and keyboard repertoire
 arranged ballet music
 original music in dance meters and forms
 meant for entertainment of small audience
 phrase patterns match many dance steps
• binary form
 two roughly equal sections, each repeated
 first section leads to dominant, second returns to tonic
• La Coquette virtuose (The Virtuous Coquette; NAWM 87) lute
dances by Denis Gaultier
 from La Rhétorique des dieux (The Rhetoric of the Gods, ca. 1650)
 courante: moderate triple or compound meter
 agréments left to performer
 broken chords, style brisé

(cont’d)
 Dance music (cont’d)
• Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665–1729)
 original child prodigy in music
 age five, performed at Louis XIV’s court
 dedicated most works to him
 Céphale et Procris (1694), first opera by a Frenchwoman
 best known for harpsichord collections
 small output, wide variety of genres
• series of dances grouped into suites
 Jacquet de la Guerre’s Suite No. 3 in A Minor from Piéces de
clavecin (1687, NAWM 88)
 all are stylized dances
 associations of the dances known to the listeners

(cont’d)
 prelude
• unmeasured, nonmetric notation
• improvisatory
 allemande
• moderately fast 4/4
• continuous movement, style brisé,
agréments appear often
 courante
• moderate triple or compound meter
• based on dignified dance step
 sarabande
• originally a quick dance-song from Latin
America
• brought to Spain and Italy, spread to
France
• transformed into slow, dignified triple
meter
• emphasis on second beat
 gigue
• originated in British Isles
• fast solo dance, rapid footwork
• stylized: fast compound meter
• wide melodic leaps, continuous lively
rhythms
• fugal or quasi fugal imitation
 other dances
• gavotte: duple-time, half-measure
anacrusis
• minuet: elegant couple dance in moderate
triple meter

Ensemble Music
 Italians undisputed masters and teachers of
instrumental chamber music
• renowned as violin makers, composers
 Chamber music: the sonata
• development of the sonata
 as genre developed, sections became longer, self-contained
 finally separated into distinct movements
 theory of the affections, diversity of moods
 by 1660, two types had evolved
 sonata da camera or chamber sonata: series of stylized dances
 sonata da chiesa, or church sonata: abstract movements
 entertainment, private concerts; sonata da chiesa could substitute
items of Mass Proper
• trio sonata: two treble instruments with basso continuo
• solo sonatas gained in popularity after 1700

Ensemble Music (cont’d)
 Arcangelo Corelli’s sonatas
• Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713)
 studied violin and composition in Bologna
 1675: leading violinist and composer in Rome
 organized and led first orchestras in Italy
 established foundation for violin playing
 surviving works: trio sonatas, solo violin sonatas, concerti grossi
• trio sonatas
 emphasized lyricism over virtuosity
 two violins treated exactly alike
 suspensions, forward momentum
 Sonata in D Major, Op. 3, No. 2 (NAWM 94), typical traits
 walking bass, free imitation in violins above
 chain of suspensions in violins, descending sequence in bass
 dialogue between violins, progressively higher peaks

 Arcangelo Corelli’s sonatas (cont’d)
• church sonatas; e.g., Op. 3, No. 2 (NAWM 94)
 four movements: slow-fast-slow-fast
 slow: contrapuntal texture; majestic, solemn
 fast: fugal imitation, active bass line, rhythmic; musical center of piece
 slow: lyric, resembles operatic duet in triple meter
 fast: dancelike rhythms, binary form
• chamber sonatas
 prelude, sometimes in style of French overture
 two dance movements follow, binary form
 bass line pure accompaniment

Corelli’s Ensemble
Portrait of the string band of Grand Duke Ferdinand de’ Medici, ca. 1685, by
Antonio Domenico Gabbiani. In addition to the harpsichord, the instruments
depicted are violins, alto and tenor violas, mandolin, and cello. An ensemble
such as this could have performed the concerti grossi of Corelli’s Opus 6.

 Arcangelo Corelli’s sonatas (cont’d)
• solo sonatas
 follow church and chamber patterns
 more virtuosity: double and triple stops, fast runs, arpeggios, perpetual motion
passages
 slow movements simply notated, ornamented profusely by performer
• Corelli’s style
 each movement based on single subject: continuous expansion
 tonal, with sense of direction
 chains of suspensions and sequences, forward harmonic motion
 almost completely diatonic
 logical and straightforward modulations
 all movements in same key; minor slow movement in major-key sonatas

 Music for orchestra
• end of 17th century, distinction between chamber ensemble and orchestra
 French court formed first orchestra
 1670s: similar ensembles in Rome, Bologna, Venice, Milan
 pick-up orchestra of forty or more for special occasions
 intended for orchestra: overtures, dances, interludes of Lully’s operas
 trio sonata played by several performers
• ensemble music in Germany - cities and churches employed Stadtpfeifer (“town
pipers”)
 exclusive right to provide music for the city inpublic ceremonies, parades, festivities
 apprentices: trade for whole families (Bach family)
 Turmsonaten (tower sonatas) played daily on wind instruments
 Lutheran areas: church musicians employed by the town
 collegium musicum: association of amateur musicians
 educated middle class, private performances
 university students, public concerts

Opera and Vocal Music
in the Late Seventeenth
Century
Chapter
13

Prelude
 Opera spread throughout Italy and to other countries
• Italy: Venice remained principal center
• Germany: imported Venetian opera, fused native styles into national
German opera
• France: resisted Italian influence, developed its own idiom
• England: Commonwealth period against extravagant art; too weak to
support opera on grand scale after the restoration
 Vocal chamber music also flourished
• influenced by language of opera
• distinctive national styles developed

Italy
 Opera, leading musical genre
• Venice, principal Italian center; famous throughout Europe
• late seventeenth century, well established in Naples and Florence
• leading composer: Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725)
• star singers, arias attracted the public
 by 1670s, number of arias increased from twenty-four to sixty
 forms: strophic song, ground bass, short two-part, and three-part arias
 arias reflected meaning of text through motives and accompaniment
 da capo aria dominant form: ornamented and embellished by the singer
• da capo aria (ABA): “da capo” (from the head)
 A section: small two-part form, each introduced by instrumental ritornello
 In voler ciò che tu brami, from La Griselda (1720–21; NAWM 93),
Scarlatti’s last opera
 A section: features two vocal statements
 B section: contrast of key

Italy (cont’d)
 Chamber cantata
• leading form of vocal chamber music
 musical center, Rome
 private parties for elite
 elegance, refinement, wit
 regular work for composers and poets; chances to experiment
 many short, contrasting sections; alternating recitatives and arias
 solo voice with continuo
 text: pastoral love poetry, dramatic narrative or soliloquy

Italy (cont’d)
 Chamber cantata (cont’d)
• Scarlatti cantatas
 more than 600 cantatas by Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–
1725)
 Clori vezzosa, e bella (Charming and pretty Clori, 92a),
(1690–1710)
 chamber cantata, two recitative-aria pairs
 second recitative: wide harmonic range, chromaticism
 diminished chords convey strong emotions, add bite to
cadences
 most common form of Scarlatti’s operas and cantatas: da
capo aria
 sustains lyrical moments
 expressed single sentiment; contrasting middle section
standard aria form in eighteenth century, opera and cantata
 great flexibility of expression

France – King Louis XIV
Louis XIV in his sixties, in a portrait by
Hyacinthe Rigaud from around 1700. The
king is surrounded by images that convey
his grandeur: a red velvet curtain,
multicolor stone column, an impressive wig,
and an enormous ermine robe covered on
one side with gold fleurs-de-lis, the symbol
of French royalty. His crown is by his side,
shadowed and partially obscured, as if he
did not need to emphasize the sign of his
power, even while his hand and staff draw
the eye to it. His elongated, upright stature
and exposed, perfectly shaped legs
proclaim his physical strength and remind
the viewer of his renown as a dancer.

France
 Strong cultural traditions of dance and spoken theater
• slow to adapt to Italian vocal styles
• goal: naturalistic expression of human emotions
• dance and political control
 model of discipline, order, refinement, restraint
 subordination of individual
 ritualized demonstration of social hierarchy
Eventually earning a reputation as a brilliant dancer,
Louis XIV acquired his nickname le Roi Soleil (the Sun
King) after dancing in a court ballet dressed in the
golden-rayed costume of Apollo, shown here.

France (cont’d)
 Opera
• Italian opera in France: political and artistic
opposition
• 1670s, national opera established under Louis XIV
(r. 1643–1715)
• Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687)
 born in Florence, completed musical and dance training
in Paris
 1653: appointed court composer by Louis XIV
 1661: Superintendent of Music for King’s Chamber
 1672, turned to opera; gained greatest fame
 discipline as conductor, admired and imitated
 uniform bowing, coordination of ornaments
 major works: fifteen operas, fourteen comédies-ballets,
twenty-nine ballets, numerous motets and other liturgical
music

France (cont’d)
 Opera (cont’d)
• influences on French opera
 ballet: flourished since late sixteenth century
 king’s love of, and participation in, dancing
 comédies-ballets by Lully, blended ballet and opera
 classical French tragedy: Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) and Jean Racine
(1639–1699)
 strong tradition of French spoken tragedy
 poetry and drama given priority on stage
 tragédie en musique: new synthesis, Jean-Baptiste Lully
 1672, royal privilege granted Lully exclusive right to produce sung drama in France
 established the Académie Royale de Musique
 later named tragédie lyrique

France (cont’d)
• Jean-Philippe Quinault (1635–1688): librettist, playwright
 five-act dramas
 combined ancient mythology, chivalric tales
 frequent divertissements (diversions): dancing and choral singing interludes
 texts overtly and covertly propagandistic
• French overture
 marked the entry of the king
 two sections, each played twice
 homophonic, majestic, dotted rhythms
 faster second section, fugal imitation, returns to first section
 overture to Lully’s Armide (1686; NAWM 85a)

France (cont’d)
• divertissement at center of every act (NAWM 85b)
 extended episodes: spectacular choruses, string of dances
 colorful costumes, elaborate choreography
 dances arranged as independent instrumental suites; new suites composed
• adapting recitative to French
 Lully followed French actors’ declamation
 bass more rhythmic, melody more songful
 récitatif simple: followed contours of spoken French
 shifting metric notation: duple and triple
 récitatif mesuré: more deliberate accompaniment motion
 lyrical moments cast as airs; syllabic, tuneful, not virtuosic

France (cont’d)
 monologue, Act II, scene 5, of Armide (NAWM 85c)
 mixture of styles creates drama
 orchestral prelude: dotted rhythms
 measures of 4, 3, and 2 beats intermixed: accented syllables on downbeats
 anacrusis to strong beats; dramatic rests follow each line
 measured recitative leads to an air
• Lully’s influence
 composers imitated his method of scoring
 string orchestras
 created first large ensembles of violin family
 model for the modern orchestra
 Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi (Twenty-Four Violins of the King)
 1648, the Petits Violons (Small Violin Ensemble), created for Louis XIV
 by 1670s, term “orchestra” used
 king kept stable of wind, brass, timpani players
 military and outdoor ceremonies

France (cont’d)
 Church music
• second half of century, borrowed Italian genres
 wrote in distinctively French styles
• motets on Latin texts
 petit motet: sacred concerto for few voices with continuo
 grand motet: soloists, double chorus, orchestra
 correspond with large-scale concertos of Gabrieli and Schütz
 featured several sections in different meter and tempos
 Lully’s Te Deum (1677, NAWM 86)
 Michel-Richard de Lalande (1657–1726): Louis XIV’s favorite sacred composer

England
 Musical theater
• masques
 favorite court entertainment since Henry VIII
 shared aspects with opera
 long collaborative spectacles, not unified drama
 appealed to all segments of society
 shorter masques produced by aristocrats, theaters, public schools
• Cromwell’s Puritan government prohibited stage plays
 policy allowed first English “operas”
 mixtures of elements: spoken drama, masque, dances, songs, recitatives, choruses
• after Restoration in 1660
 French music and court ballet increasingly influential
 failed attempt to introduce French opera
 only two continuous sung dramas met success
 John Blow’s Venus and Adonis (ca. 1683), Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas
(1689)

England (cont’d)
 Musical theater (cont’d)
• Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
 entire career supported by royal patronage
 organist at Westminster Abbey
 wrote enormous amounts of music in almost all genres
 focus on vocal music
 greatest gift: English song that sounded natural and expressive
 buried in Westminster Abbey
• Dido and Aeneas
 first known performance in exclusive girl’s boarding school
 masterpiece of opera in miniature
 four principal roles, three acts, one hour in length
 elements of English masque, French and Italian opera

England (cont’d)
 Musical theater (cont’d)
 French elements
 overture, homophonic choruses in dance rhythms
 solo singing and chorus lead to dance
 English recitatives
 draws on English and French precedents
 melodies flexibly molded to accents, pace, emotions of English text
 Thy hand, Belinda (NAWM 89a): slow, stepwise descent with
chromaticism
 Italian elements
 several arias, three ground bass
 Dido’s lament, When I am laid in earth (NAWM 89b), descending
tetrachord
 English elements
 use of dance for dramatic purposes
 solos and choruses in style of English air
 With drooping wings (NAWM 89c), closing chorus, word painting

England (cont’d)
 Ceremonial and domestic music for voice
• occasional music
 large works for chorus, soloists, orchestra
 ceremonial or state occasions, commissioned by royal family
 Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day (1692), Purcell
 vocal solos, duets, trios: published for home performance
 catch: round or canon, humorous or ribald text, all-male gatherings
• church music
 principal genres of Anglican church: anthems, services
 verse anthems for soloists with chorus by Blow, Purcell
 nonliturgical sacred texts, one or more voices, for private devotional use

England (cont’d)
 Public concerts
• 1670s London
 middle class interested in listening to music
 large number of excellent musicians; supplemental income
 public concerts spread to the Continent
 Paris 1725, major German cities 1740s

Germany
 Opera
• opera in Italian central to musical life
 Italian composers, opera careers in Germany
 German composers took up the genre
• opera in German
 1678: first public opera house in Hamburg, Germany
 Venetian librettos translated or adapted
 Italian style recitative; eclectic arias
 French style airs and dances
 short strophic songs, popular style of northern Germany
 Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739): foremost prolific German opera composer

Germany (cont’d)
• Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767)
 1722–1738: directed the Hamburg opera
 prolific composer: over 3,000 vocal and instrumental works, every genre and
style of the era
 more widely published and popular than J .S. Bach
 Paris Quartets (1730): also referred to as suites, sonatas, concertos
 versatility of structure and instrumentation
 three instruments and basso continuo

Germany (cont’d)
 Lutheran vocal music
• two conflicting church tendencies
 Orthodox Lutherans: favored choral and instrumental music
 Pietists: distrusted high art in worship
 distinct genres: elaborate works for public worship, devotional songs for private
use
• chorales: new poems and melodies
 private devotions at home
• concerted church music, sacred concertos
 concerted vocal ensemble, biblical text
 solo aria, Italian style, strophic, nonbiblical text

Germany (cont’d)
 Lutheran vocal music (cont’d)
 chorales set in concertato medium, or simple harmonies
 today referred to as cantatas
 Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706): sacred concertos for
chorus, solo voice, orchestra
• Buxtehude
 organist at Marienkirche in Lübeck
 Abendmusiken public concerts at Marienkirche
 Wachet auf: sacred concerto
 series of chorale variations

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