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Similarities between the elements of the baroque and classical period in the music developments
Renaissance vs baroque periods
Renaissance vs baroque periods
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Bach’s work for the melody was different from the beginning of the Classical period compared to the other composers. Instead of keeping all of the melody, bass, and harmony line, he wanted to keep a good bass line in order to write effective music. Bach had a good compositional skill in creating a bass line. The melody construction was carefully thought out and dense. He restricted the leading tones and the second-inversion chords. Bach’s melisma characteristics were different from what Handel wrote. A melisma is a group of notes that is sung to one syllable of text. Handel wrote it in a sequence making the melodic line more predictable and made it sound more pleasant for the listeners. However, Bach wrote the melisma in an unpredictable …show more content…
The Harpsichord and the Organ could not smoothly modulate to the two dynamic contrast, soft or loud. Stringed instruments like violin had a strings made out of the catgut, which created a raspy sound and Oboe had more harsh sound. Many Baroque composers like Bach focused their composition on “expression marks.” Expression mark is a phrase that is written on the musical score that tells the performers to have more expression. However, the performer’s capacity of expression, Bach did not want them to rely on them too much especially during the time where Leipzig was not in a good condition. Although, Bach believed that if the performer was capable of adding the expression on its own, he did not get too picky about …show more content…
This is similar technique as polyphony. The difference here is that heterophony’s second voice melody is coming from the first voice. Similarly, the melody is ornamental part where the melodies sometimes plays in a unison, parallel octave, or against each other. To embellish the melodic line, the chorale melody was added. However, the expansion is completely different than the original. On the other side, Bach was able to exempt parallel octaves. To make Bach’s music more interesting, he hid the parallel octaves. For instance, if the alto voice sang one single note above the soprano and came back down immediately back to alto, the audience will hear the singing voice just as one single voice was singing. Bach was very expert at this technique so the audiences could not hear any mistakes in the
Johann Sebastian Bach was a composer, a musician, teacher, and organist who later became a specialist in construction of organs. Bach learnt to play the violin, the orchestra, and the organ from his father and his famous uncle and twin brother to the father, Johann Christoph at a young age. The organ was his chosen instrument. He also achieved success in the art of Fugue, choral polyphone, instrumental music and dance forms. In Eisenach he attended Old Latin Grammar School, the same school that Martin Luther had attended. He sang in the schools choir. His parents died before Bach was 10 years old. His mother died when Bach was nine years old, his father’s death followed nine months later (Sherrane, 2011). After the parents death Bach was taken in by his older brother Johann Christoph who had already established himself as an organist in Ohrdruf. Johann Christoph had a great influence in Bach’s success in music as he taught him and encouraged him to study music composition. At the same time Bach was attending the Gymnasium grammar school in Ohrdruf where he studied theology, Latin...
The silence hangs heavily in the air, creating a single moment where one can feel the weight of the absence of sound. But a lone D cuts through the stillness, a flicker of light amidst black oblivion. It is followed by eleven other notes, a simple melody, but one that will be the very core of one of the greatest musical masterpieces to ever be conceived. This twelve-note melody becomes entwined and enveloped in an intricate accretion of variations, counterpoints, and modified themes, all based on the original twelve-note motif. The entire collection of variations comprises what is considered to be Bach’s most ambitious undertaking, the Art of the Fugue, meant to serve as an intensive study of the fugue as an entity. Already a complex and multifaceted piece, Art of the Fugue gains a whole new level of depth and significance when placed inside its historical context, amidst the story of its creation and the demise of its creator. During the two hundred and fifty years of its existence, Art of the Fugue has acquired quite the reputation, as it has become enshrouded in a web of mystery and mystique. However, when we strip away these layers, the piece retains its magnitude, as the sheer mastery of the piece is enough to merit substantial renown and reverence.
Strip all the decorations and ornaments, and there is a straight-forward analysis. The piece begins and ends in D, cadencing to tonic. There is an A halfway in between, creating a half cadence. In order words, this can be easily be called a I-V-I, just like any other piece. That is fine. Because every song essentially is I to V to I, there must be something else that differentiates this piece from everything else. What makes this piece interesting? What makes tonic to dominant back to tonic worth listening for? To put it frankly, the notes in between the beginning, the middle, and the end, is what makes anything sound different. Bach devised some interesting ways to train our ears to listen to aesthetic notes when, in reality, it is D to A to D.
According to the article, “Johann Sebastian Bach”, “his Lutheran faith would influence his late musical works.” A tragic event occurred as both of his parents had passed away a few years later, which prompted him to live with his brother’s family. It was there that he continued learning about music. He continued to live there for five years as he left his brother when he was 15. He soon was enrolled in a school at a place called Luneburg. He was enrolled there due to him having “a beautiful soprano singing voice.”(Johann Sebastian Bach) However, as he got older, his voice didn’t sound the way it used to be, so he quickly transitioned back to playing the violin. His first job had also to do with music as he began to work in Weimar as a musician. According to the article, “Johann Sebastian Bach”, there were various jobs he did like serve as a violinist or occasionally fill in
CHAPTER 1 ERHARD BODENSCHATZ AND THE FLORILEGIUM POTENSE Lutheran church music in its first two and a half centuries can be characterized by the incorporation of a staggering variety of styles and musical genres. Plainchant, imitative polyphony, and chorale hymnody existed alongside one another, and composers such as Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) and Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630) were among the first to synthesize elements of Monteverdi’s second apratica with a fully German practice. Fruits of this multi-style crosspollination, whether a continuo based melodic-harmonic framework, polychoral textures, use of the solo voice or obligato instruments, all paved the way for the apex of this tradition, the concerted vocal works of J.S. Bach. I am a sailor.
Bach used time and structure in his work to force his listeners to set themselves inside the narrative. So, while listening, as
According to Rowell, "Musical composition became much longer, and composer were forced to evolve new means of maintaining unity and continuity over long time spans" during the Baroque period. Therefore, the texture of music became very important. When I look at the musical texutre of the Cantata No. 78 by J. S. Bach, I realized that this piece was unified very well within a movement and as a whole piece by many techniques. Some of those techniques were found in the text, and the others were in the music.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a family of musicians. It was only natural for him to pick up an instrument and excel in it. His father taught him how to play the violin and harpsichord at a very young age. All of Bach’s uncles were professional musicians, one of them; Johann Christoph Bach introduced him to the organ. Bach hit a turning point in his life when both of his parents died at the age of ten years old. Bach’s older brother Johann Christoph Bach took him in and immediately expanded his knowledge in the world of music. He taught him how to play the clavichord and exposed him to great composers at the time. At the age of fourteen, Bach and his good friend George Erdmann were awarded a choral scholarship to the prestigious musical school St. Michael’s in Luneburg. From then on, Bach began to build his career in the music industry. His first two years at the school he sang in the school’s a cappella choir. Historical evidence has shown that Bach at a young age would visit Johanniskirche and would listen to the works of organ player Jasper Johannsen. This was thought to have been the inspiration to Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Studying at the prestigious musical school has help Bach network his way around and become acquaintances’ with some of the best organ players at the time such as Georg Böhm, and Johann Adam Reincken. Through his acquaintance with Böhm and Reincken Bach had access to some of the greatest and finest instruments.
He “…cleverly exploited in passing under the other fingers, and he established the rule that the thumb of the right hand must fall immediately after the two semitones in the ascending scale, and before them in the descending scale.” This was also implemented in the left hand, only vice versa. These ‘rules’ are substantial and continue to be taught globally today, where the piano student passes their thumb under their fingers during scales, arpeggios and widespread repertoire. Bach also believed that the cantabile style was the foundation of playing well, and so overtime he developed a way of releasing notes to have this smooth and well-connected affect. He retracted his fingers inwardly as opposed to the previous established technique of lifting the fingers high. This permitted for a cantabile effect and guaranteed clean rapid passages. It is appropriate to mention that this ‘retracted motion’ is still influencing performers today. A majority of contemporary concert pianists are reverting back to his way of playing as it puts less tension on the hands, and reduces the risk of injury. Bach’s teaching practices and didactic works highly influenced his students and contempories, which overtime began a new standard and generation of
The truth can sometimes depend on the circumstance and the person who states it. When confronted with conflicting accounts or questionable details, a judge within the court of law must decide the sentence of an individual with these obstacles in place. In this case, the defendant Dannie McGrew has been charged with the murder of Barney Quill, but claims that it was self-defense. The following contains a thorough explanation as to how the judge decided upon the verdict of acquittal.
The Mass in B minor (BWV 232) by Johann Sebastian Bach is a musical setting of the Latin Mass Ordinary. The piece is orchestrated for two flutes, two oboes d'amore, one natural horn (in D), three trumpets (in D), timpani, violins I and II, violas and basso continuo (cellos, basses, bassoons, organ and harpsichord). The work was one of Bach's last compositions, not completed until 1749, the year before his death. Much of the Mass gave new form to vocal music that Bach had composed throughout his career, dating back to 1714, but extensively revised. Bach's devout relationship with the Christian God in the Lutheran tradition and the high demand for religious music of his times placed sacred music at the centre of his repertory. The Lutheran chorale
Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven both flourished in their compositions of classical music; however, their genre of music differed considerably. Bach was a German composer during the Baroque time era of western music which is estimated to have taken place during 1600 to 1750. It was during this time that he composed prolific church organ music which included such works as the Mass in B Minor, much scared choral music, and the St. Matthew Passion, as well as composing over a thousand works in nearly every musical genre except opera. On the other hand, Beethoven was a German composer whom began to emerge during the classical era of western music twenty years after Bach. This era took place throughout the years1750 and 1830. The large quantity of arrangements, over two hundred works in numerous musical genres composed by Beethoven was significantly influenced by his predecessors, onset of deafness, and his highly personal expression of intellectual depth. Such works include the first an...
To begin to understand the nature of a piece, such as the “Prelude and Fugue in A Minor,” one must first understand Bach and the influences upon him. Before his knowledge on the fugue became famous and was used to educate future fugue composers, Bach was born into the Baroque era. He was constantly surrounded by war, chaos, and a strong urge for forward movement in religion, science, and art. The world had been through struggles over land, a movement to explore a new world, and people being executed under the pretense of being witches. The effects rang clear and true through all the people who lived in this era, including Bach. This chaotic world, along with the great influence from the exposure to the music of other parts of Germany, Italy, and France, produced a perfect climate for Bach’s brilliance.
When approaching a performance, accomplished musicians often consider the historical context from which a piece originates. They most often think of such considerations in the application of that context as it pertains to early music that is, the Baroque era or earlier. For any era, such historical considerations are called performance practice, and may include the use of vibrato, ornamentation, dynamic levels, tempi, instrumental timbres, performance setting, and balance. Vibrato and ornamentation are two important areas of consideration that vocalists must explore when aiming to give an authentically Baroque performance.
During Bach’s time, people were writing mostly in a classical style, however Bach loved composing in the Baroque genre. This is why people said that when Bach died, so did the Baroque genre.