Performance Practice of Baroque Vocal Technique
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.
'Ideal' Baroque Vocal Technique: The Assumed Ideas
Over the past several years, some amateur musicians have developed specific ideas about 'correct' performance practice of Baroque music. In an essay concerning the issues of Baroque music performance, Michael Sartorius notes that:
performance to a major degree reflects the spirit of the times, and some of today's 'authentic' performances have less to do with historical accuracy, attempting rather to produce a performance which, in John Eliot Gardiner's words, will 'excite modern listeners.' (Sartorius)
As a result, audiences today want a sound that contrasts with the full, constant vibrato used in singing today, such as is found in straight-tone singing, and a sound that contrasts with twentieth century minimalism, such as is found in ornamented melodies.
Amateur voice teachers, amateur singers, and amateur listeners often associate straight-tone singing with correct Baroque performance practice (Almirena). This idea is probably an outgrowth of the way scholars understand correct d...
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In conclusion, the ultimate significance to this type of work is to improve the quality of healthcare in these extremely impoverished nations. This argument is represented in Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains, Monte Leach’s “Ensuring Health Care as a Global Human Right”, and Darshark Sanghavi’s “Is it Cost Effective to Treat the World’s Poor.” The idea that universal healthcare is a human right is argued against in Michael F. Cannon’s “A “Right” to health care?” Cannon claims that it would not work, and fills the holes that the other authors leave in their arguments. All of these articles share the same ultimate goal, and that is to provide every individual with adequate health care, and to not let so many people die from things that could easily have been prevented or treated.
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In his day, Johann Adolph Hasse was at the forefront of Italian opera. Although he composed a fair amount of sacred works, he is best known for his operatic output. He was widely popular throughout Italy and Germany, and was commissioned by courts and opera houses throughout Europe. His performances were attended by cultural figures at the time, as well as some of the biggest names in common-era music today. In his later life, styles changed and so Hasse’s acclaim diminished after his death. But generations later, he was re-established as a figurehead and icon of classic ancient Italian opera, a designation he possesses even today.
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This book by John Rupert Martin is a good introductory book in the understanding of Baroque artists and their tremendous variety. Martin defines the Baroque characteristics, but only very broadly leaving a significant amount of room for the reader to make his own deductions. In general, Martin believes that the typical definitions of the Baroque are "too restrictive and hence likely to create more problems of classification and interpretation than it solves." Even the time of the Baroque is left open to the reader when Martin says the Baroque is roughly comprehended by the seventeenth century. It is important to note at the outset that this is only a convenient approximation; for epoch as a whole can certainly not be fitted into such a strait-jacket." This helps to define the Baroque much more generally as a gradual change which can much easily be noticed from the present than the past.
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Universal health coverage allows citizens of a particular country access to health care of all kinds, should they so need it, without exposing the user to financial hardship from medical expenses. The World Health Organization has created three objectives for universal health coverage: (1) equity in access to health services – those who need the services should get them, not just those who can pay for them; (2) that the quality of health services is good enough to improve the health of those receiving services; and (3) there is financial risk protection to ensure that the cost of using care does not put people at risk of financial hardship (WHO, 2013). While virtually every developed country besides the United States has some form of universal
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The musical performance aspect of my paper was not an issue to complete. If you go to Little Italy, New York on any given weekend, especially around the holiday season or the San Gennaro Festival, musical performers are usually playing on the streets. There are many restaurants in Little Italy, Manhattan that have live entertainment; most of these musical performers will come to your table. When it came to comparing the musical traditions of Italy to the Italian-American performance that I observed, I had a little more trouble. Italian music is such a large topic to delve into–there are so many composers and different types of music that it made it difficult to narrow down my research for this paper. In future research among this community, I would suggest that the student is aware of what type of performance they are going to observe—I was unaware of whether the musician would be a Classical Italian performer or an Italian American performer. In my opinion, most of the performers in Little Italy, Manhattan seems to be Italian-American.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.