The Baroque Period, 1600-1750, marked another unique era of musical experimentation and evolvement. Titled after the trendy ornate architectural style during this period, the Baroque period, 1600 to 1750, witnessed a widespread change in the composer’s musical desires as they widely rebelled against the traditional styles that were prevalent during the Renaissance. With this era stained with monarchs attempting to outperform one another with pride and pageantry the development and grandeur of music excelled to new heights. The powerful monarchs of the period utilized composers heavily as they served as employed performers with the sole purpose to develop and perform musical pieces at the desire of the monarch. This servant-composer culture …show more content…
As the church’s cultural influence continued to dwindle, the fundamentals of music rapidly began to alter. With less church-based restrictions, composers gained newly found freedom that allowed musical experimentation beyond secular and religious pieces. As this new freedom developed new musical advances, this allowed the earlier organum to develop and prosper into the musical harmony of today. The creativity that spawned during this era developed a new level of improvisation through harmonic change as the harmony was developed through the implementation of a figured bass to supplement the …show more content…
The Baroque Period thrived on the basis of composers coming together to create artwork of pure beauty, development, and a musical evolution cycle that would forever impact the grand future of music. The developments that occurred during this time laid a vivid path to the creation of the Classical Period. Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Phillip Telemann, Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Frideric Handel, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlatti, Allesandro Scarlatti, Claudio Monteverdi, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Francois Couperin. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 symbolizes the significant freedom composers were fortunate enough to experience during the period as Bach’s piece flows with such elegance and grandeur, typical of the Baroque Period. Handel’s Messiah “He Shall Feed His Flock” embraces the beauty of musical artwork during this era as the piece hints at the cultural changes of the era and offers the musical experimentation that thrived. While these composers played pivotal roles in the creation of an era of music, the people, cultural needs, and desire to create something great fueled the prosperous Baroque
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.
Daum, Gary. "Chapter 12 The Baroque Era (1600-1750)." Georgetown Prep. 1994. Georgetown University. 12 July 2005 .
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
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
Buelow, George J., “Music and Society in the Late Baroque Era.” Music and Society in the Late Baroque Era. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1994. p. 1-38
Sherrane, Robert. “The Baroque Age: George Frideric Handel.” Music History 102. Accessed: 5/18/2010. Date: 2008.
The organum, which thrived at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, was one of the earliest types of polyphony. It was very much similar to a trope, as it added vertical notes onto an existing melody or plainchant. There is quite the development of the organum between the 10th and 12th centuries. French composers, Leoninus, and Perotinus, were leading contributors to the evolution of the organum advancing the terms “free organum”, and “discant organum”. Through examining the works throughout Musica enchiriadis of the 10th century, and the compositions of Leoninus and Perotinusis in the 12th century, it is made clear that the the organum endured influential alterations both melodically and rhythmically.
Getzinger, Donna. Johnann Sebastian Bach and the art of baroque music. 1st ed. Greensboro: Morgan Reynolds, 2004
one cantata a week while he was music director at Leipzig. Due to the pace
Baroque music is characterized by its development of tonality, elaborate use of ornamentation, application of figured bass, and the expression of single affections. A considerable philosophical current that shaped baroque music is the interest in Renaissance ideas that spawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greeks and Romans considered music to be an instrument of communication that could easily stimulate any emotion in its listeners. Therefore, musicians became progressively knowledgeable of the power one’s composition could have on its audiences’ emotions. Because of this, one of the primary goals of baroque art and music was to provoke emotion in the listener, which is closely connected to the “doctrine of affections”. This doctrine, derived from ancient theories of rhetoric and oratory, was the theory that a single piece of art or a single movement of music should express one single emotion. Intrinsically, instead of music reflecting the emotions, composers aspired to cause emotions in the listener. Ma...
During this period opera began to separate into two different geners; seria and buffa. Sera, was based off mythological reasoning while on the other hand buffa was represented as funny. Throughout the baroque period theaters started to become opera houses. The best known baroque composer was Vivaldi who was known for his concertos, while standing his most famous work the four seasons. Vivaldi was able to succeed because of his achievements of variations and embellishments. Another Composer who had an impact on the baroque period was J.S Bach, who is acknowledged as one the world's most prestigious musical geniuses. His music was regularly reformed in courts and churches, his music consisted typically had a counterpoint which is a combination of two or more melodies that each alone stand out. Even though Bach composed no opera he was the author of the musical storytelling of the St. MAtthew PAssion. In comparison to the baroque period stood the classical period during the classical period musicians and composers were typically servants in the household of a noble patron. The age of Enlightenment focused on what we now call the classical
The classical period of music was an exciting time that lasted from 1775 to 1825. The name classical is appropriately applied to the period because in art and literature, there was a very keen interest in emulating the classical artistry and literary heritage of Greece and Rome (Insert citation). This period in time is mostly referred to as the Age of Enlightenment. During this time in history, musical concerts played a major part within the musical scene. These concerts were open and written for the common folk of the era to enjoy instead of keeping music written exclusively for churches and the courts of the time. This period in time was very much open to change and the music that was composed in this era
Baroque art can be described as a “distinctive new style” in which artists embraced “dynamism, theatricality, and elaborate ornamentation, all used to spectacular effect, often on a grandiose scale”. Baroque art encompasses a vast range of art from the dramatic and theatrical Italian pieces, as the quote suggests, to the more simple and every-day life but still fabulous Dutch pieces. Baroque art can hardly be contained in one description because it describes so many types of art, in great part due to the religious, socio-economic, and political scenes of the time. Religiously, the Catholic Church was responding to the Reformation by creating dramatic pieces to invoke piety and devotion. Politically, monarchies and rulers were using commissioned art to emphasize their authority and their given right to rule. Socio-economically, the middle class was rising and therefore wanting to buy and commission pieces of art to boost their reputation and validate their status in the social scene. These three changes were extremely significant but can by no means generalize the entire historical context of Baroque art. Instead, they stand as specific examples of important reasons for the range and breadth of Baroque art.
A time of exuberance and elaboration ushers in new patterns and cuts, along with creativity and fantasy which brought about a distinct societal issue called classism, as shown by European fashion trends. The style of Baroque is “characterized by formal redundancy, by the complexity of patterns, by the eccentricity of decorations, and by the textile sumptuousness” (vogue.com). From light and airy tints, to deep and earthy hues, the coloration of clothes gave this extreme period emotion and depth that strikes the eye, even today. Classism is a major factor and restriction during this era, reflecting the attire an individual wears. Regarding child-like garb to the working class, public could distinguish rank. Furthermore, society can differentiate the church and the nobility’s superiority. In Baroque culture, your status was visually depicted by the clothing you were able to wear. Garments impacted civilization for the duration of the Baroque age, just as is does in society today.