As humans, we constantly wonder why. Why did this happen? Where did this come from? Music plays a central role in our society and our culture and so we must ask ourselves: where did it come from? The Baroque period has had a tremendous impact on modern day music. The Baroque period gave birth to dozens of musical inventions and innovations including an increased reliance on discordance and the institution of 7th chords and inversions. For these reasons and many more, we can agree that the Baroque period has been a strong influence on modern day music and even our lives. Clearly, the Baroque period is not alive back then but living right now.
Before beginning to delve into the innovations of the Baroque period, it is important to first gain a better understanding of the period as a whole. Some of the most influential composers of the time include: 1. Johann Sebastian Bach 2. George Frederic Handel 3. Antonio Vivaldi 4. George Philipp Telemann 5. Arcangelo Corelli 6. Henry Purcell 7. Domenico Scarlatti 8. Jean-Philippe Rameau 9. Johann Pachelbel 10. Giovanni Battista Sammartini (Green, 2014).
The Baroque Period can be broken up into three main sections: Early, Middle and Late. In the Early Baroque Period, rhythm was free and harmonies began to emerge. However, the harmony was experimental and pre-tonal – it was not governed by a specific key. The Middle Baroque Era brought with it a variety of characteristics including the creation of the bel-cantato style and solidification of major and minor keys. Chord progressions were now governed by major and minor keys, though the chord progressions were still rudimentary. During the final stage of the Baroque Era, tonality and instrumental compositions reached their peak. In this final stage...
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...yle originate from? the answer is clear. The Baroque period is not a question of back then, it is a story of right now.
Works Cited
Buelow, G. J. (2004). A History of Baroque Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Bukofzer, M. F. (1947). Music in the Baroque Era: From Monteverdi to Bach. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.
CMS. (2002, December 12). MUSI 4350/4360: Music of the Baroque Era. Retrieved from AUG: http://www.aug.edu/~cshotwel/4350.Baroquetraits.html
Donington, R. (1982). Baroque Music Style and Performance: a Handbook. New York: Norton and Company.
Gleason, H., & Becker, W. (1980). Music in the Baroque. Indiana: Frangipani Press.
Green, A. (2014). Top 10 Baroque Period Composers. Retrieved from About.com: http://classicalmusic.about.com/od/baroqueperiod/tp/baroquecomposer.htm
Metzinger, J. (2014). Baroque Sacred Music. Retrieved from Liturgica
A. The Baroque Wind Band. Lipscomb University, 2007 -. Web. The Web.
With the rejection of complicated Baroque style of music, the classical era came about. The idea of simpler music would appeal to a broader audience, thus making the classical era more popular. The change was not sudden; rather, the Rococo style was like a transition period. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was an important character in the changing of styles. The Rococo style was known as an expressive or sensitive style. Baroque music usually remained in the same mood throughout a piece, whereas this new style would sometimes change moods abruptly with highly contrasting ideas. The use of ornaments in music gradually went out with the complicated baroque music. Simpler, more original melodies emerged with this new style. During the Baroque era, instrumental music and vocal music were equally important. This contrasts the Classical era where instrumental music was more prominent than vocal.
All had great influence on later composers, Mozart on Beethoven, Bartók on Copeland and Bach on everyone including his twenty or so children
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
The two pieces chosen for this paper are particularly famous and are recognizable audibly, if not by name, by the majority of western populations. Pachelbel’s Canon in D was virtually forgotten from the 1700’s until it was rediscovered in 1919 by Gustav Beckmann. It gradually gained publicity, and burst into the popular culture after being used as the score for a movie, it is now by far the most famous canon and of the most well known pieces of baroque music.
Daum, Gary. "Chapter 12 The Baroque Era (1600-1750)." Georgetown Prep. 1994. Georgetown University. 12 July 2005 .
Throughout history many famous concerto pianists composed various types of music. One of those pianists was named Johann Sebastian Bach. J.S. Bach was arguably one of the best composers in Western music history. Born in Eisenach, Germany to a family of musicians, Bach grew up playing the organ and keyboard. J.S. Bach’s music was characterized as a classification of Baroque music. Baroque was an era of dominant European styled art and music in the 17th century. The term baroque is “applied to art of any time or place that shows the qualities of vigorous movement and emotional intensity associated with art in its primary meaning.” Bach’s famous Baroque style was a combination of many notes, simple motoric rhythms, and a steady shift of underlying harmony.
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.
Schulenberg, David. Music of the Baroque. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. ML193.S38 2001 c.2
The baroque has been called a theatrical style, one that deals in spectacle, grandeur, and dramatic contrast. Test these concepts in an essay that discusses the baroque as an expression of the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Absolutism. Define your general statements with specific examples. The following essay will discuss the baroque period and how the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, and the Scientific Revolution influenced it. The Baroque period generally refers to the years 1600 to1750. Classicism of the Renaissance has been replenished during the Baroque period. During the Baroque artistic period, the exploration of the fundamental components of human nature and the realm of senses and emotions were very crucial. The Baroque era was a very dynamic time that showed an abundance of radiance and color. Artists of this time were passionate and sensual. Their works were many times considered to have an overpowering emotional effect. The superficial form of light was fascinated during this period due to the thoughts of godlike sun or the truth of the Holy Spirit. The Baroque naturalism maintains the religious themes in content. The elements of perception in the Baroque art are how we perceived the natural human figures are in motion through space, time, and light. We present and analyze the extent of human actions and passions in all its degrees of lightness, darkness, and intensity. The scientific revolution also had a tremendous impact on art during this time. Scientists started to study the earth and it’s positioning in the universe. This was a time when the people started take more of an interest in astronomy and mathematical equations. During the time of the Catholic Reformation artists began to challenge all the rules that society has set for artistic design. Artist starting with Parmigianino, Tintoretto, and El Greco began to add a wide variety of colors into their paintings, challenging the way things have been done in the past. These artists also added abnormal figures or altered the proportions in paintings. This is displayed in Parmigianino’s painting, Madonna of the long neck. During this time the Catholic Church was in a transition period moving from their recent reputation and becoming a well-respected organization. During this reform, an autobiography written by Layola about Saint Teresa of Avila set a new tone for Catholics to follow. This influenced people to have a more spiritual outlook on life.
Taruskin, R., & Taruskin, R. (2010). Music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Magic Flute, The Monteverdi Choir and the English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner, Deutsche Grammophon 449 166-2, 1996.
The Baroque style of music was in prominence from the beginning of the 17th century until the mid-18th century. Some primary features of this style, particularly in the later years, include an emphasis on polyphonic textures and a continuity throughout the entire piece. Most compositions were created for specific events and sometimes written for particular instruments. (Kamien, 2015). The Trumpet Concerto for 2 Trumpets, composed by Antonio Vivaldi, is one example of these late Baroque style compositions and one we can use to analyze: the common elements, the overall effect, and the composer’s possible perspective.
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
This era is recognized by the creation of tonality, as well as the establishment of the opera, cantata, and concerto. Different from the classical era, this era featured a unity of mood, a continuous rhythm and melody, and a predominantly polyphonic texture, meaning that there were two melody lines, each fighting for the listener 's attention. The composers from the Baroque period were well-known for their extravagant, frivolous and bizarre usage of their instruments and their performances. The most notable influence from this era is in modern music especially rock music, because in rock music emotions are intense and the mood are usually unified just like the music from the Baroque period. Some artists and rock bands have adopted this bizarre style, for example Prince and Lady Gaga. Many rock bands were inspired by composers of this era such as Bach because of the intensity of his