Transcript Slide 1

Concise History of
Western Music
5th edition
Barbara Russano Hanning
Prelude III
The Long
Seventeenth
Century
Baroque Era: 1600–1750
Original meaning: “abnormal,” “bizarre,”
“grotesque”
nineteenth century: flamboyant, theatrical,
expressive tendencies of seventeenth century
twentieth century: adopted by music historians
Baroque period: diversity of styles
Europe in the Seventeenth Century
Scientific revolution
• relied on mathematics, observation, practical
experiments
 1609: Johannes Kepler described elliptical orbits of the
planets
 Galileo Galilei: discovered sunspots and moons orbiting
Jupiter
 René Descartes deductive approach; explained world
through mathematics, logic, reasoning
 Sir Isaac Newton: 1660s law of gravitation
 combined observation with mathematics
Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
Politics, religion, and war
• ranged from advocacy for democracy in England to
absolute monarchy in France
• religious conflicts:
 Thirty Years’ War (1618–48): German Protestant and
Catholics
 political rivalries: France, Sweden, Denmark; Holy Roman Empire
and Spain
 devastated Germany, reduced population by half
 English Civil War (1642–49)
 battle between king and Parliament
 execution of King Charles I (r. 1625–1649)
 1660 monarchy restored
Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
Colonialism
• Europeans expanded overseas
• British, French, and Dutch colonies in North
America, Caribbean, Africa, and Asia
• lucrative imports to Europe: sugar, tobacco
 intensive labor; slaves brought from Africa
• European traditions brought to Western Hemisphere
 Catholic service and villancicos to Spanish colonies
 Protestant psalm and hymn singing to North America
Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
Capitalism
• Britain, the Netherlands, northern Italy: prospered
from capitalism
• joint stock company, important innovation
• Hamburg, London: stock companies finance opera
houses
• capitalism boosted the economy
 rise of public opera, public concerts
 independent demand for published music, instruments,
lessons
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Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
Patronage of the arts
• musicians depend on patronage from courts,
churches, or cities
 musicians best off in Italy
 rulers, cities, leading families supported music: compete
for prestige
• France: King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), power and
wealth more concentrated
 controlled arts, including music
 France replaced Spain as predominant power
 French music imitated widely
Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
Patronage of the arts (cont’d)
• public patronage
 “academies”: private associations, sponsored musical
activities
 public opera houses; Venice 1637
 tickets and subscriptions, England 1672
From Renaissance to Baroque
The dramatic Baroque
• collaboration of theater, painting, and music
 culminated in opera
• rappresentazione: move and impress an audience
• literature
 leading playwrights: William Shakespeare (1564–1616),
Jean Racine (1639–1699)
 Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608–1674), Don
Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616)
 vivid images, dramatic scenes, theatrical qualities
From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
The dramatic Baroque (cont’d)
• art and architecture
 Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680): sculptor




St. Peter’s Basilica, fountains, piazzas
emphasizes motion and change
dramatic effect, viewer responds emotionally
Ecstasy of St. Teresa designed to astonish viewers
The affections
• expressing emotion: emotion function of motion
• affections caused by combinations of spirits, “humors”
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From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
The affections (cont’d)
• René Descartes’s treatise The Passions of the
Soul (1645–46)
 analyzed and catalogued the affections
 for every motion stimulating the senses, specific emotion
evoked in the soul
• opera: series of arias
 succession of contrasting moods
 musical gestures create affections in listeners
From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
The affections (cont’d)
• importance of the senses
 Galileo: senses and reason instruments of learning
 debates: design or color in painting more important element
 music: dissonance used more freely to express words
• physical action, psychological reaction
 Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes
 first operas: Orpheus’s response to death of Eurydice
 concitato genere (“excited style”); descending tetrachords
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From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
The affections (cont’d)
• naturalism
 Bernini, Gentileschi: humble subjects, ordinary activities
 seventeenth century: golden age of Dutch painting,
Rembrandt van Rijn
 physical imperfection acceptable in art
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TIMELINE
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The Musical Baroque
Debate between conservatives and innovators
• Claudio Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals
(1605): distinction between prima pratica and
seconda pratica
• first practice (prima pratica)
 sixteenth-century vocal polyphony of Zarlino, cultivated
by Palestrina
 music had to follow its own rules
 music prevailed over the words
• second practice (seconda pratica)
 adventurous style of modern Italians: Rore, Marenzio,
Monteverdi
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The Musical Baroque (cont’d)
Debate between conservatives and innovators
(cont’d)
 text dictated musical setting
 unorthodox dissonances, unexpected harmonic
progressions
Classifications
• Monteverdi enumerated options
 first and second practices
 differing functions: church, chamber, theater, dance
 types of affections
The Musical Baroque (cont’d)
Classifications (cont’d)
• instrumental music
 dances into suites, suites into tonal cycles
 symmetrical arrangement of movements
 sonatas grouped in collections
• centripetal forces
 unifying: ostinato basses, harmonic patterns, recurring tutti
sections
 other: improvisational impulse, toccatas
Order and disorder
• constant creative tension between control and freedom
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Concise History of Western Music, 5th edition
This concludes the Lecture Slide Set
for Prelude III
by
Barbara Russano Hanning
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