Lesson 4

Baroque: Part One (1600 – 1750)

A time of dramatic changes in musical expression.

The First Opera?

Jacopo Peri wrote Daphne in 1597. Most music historians consider this the first opera, but the work disappeared, and Peri’s later composition, Eurydice, (co-written by Caccini in 1600) took its place as the first Italian opera. For a more comprehensive analysis of early opera, read pages 276-293 of The History of Western Music.

Opera

This lesson will trace the development of cantata and sonata forms in the 17th and 18th centuries. We will also focus on the dramatic changes in musical expression that made possible the popularity of opera.

Monody

The popularity of the madrigal was at its highest point at the end of the 16th century, but that changed fairly abruptly when Italian thinkers and artists rediscovered the power of Greek-style dramatic presentations and became determined to marry music and drama in newfound ways. The madrigal, with its sublime complexity and polyphonic ornamentation, didn’t blend well with drama and the spoken word. The music got in the way of the words, so something new was needed to underscore the voices of the actors on the stage.

The Camerata, a visionary group of Florentine scholars, philosophers, and composers, decided to address the problem, — they developed a style of music that emphasized a single voice but that provided basic chordal accompaniment. Camerata members realized that if music were going to be successfully included in the drama, a new style would be needed. Late 16th-century plays featuring this new style were sometimes called “Drama by means of Music,” while the musical style itself became known as monody.

The First Opera

The result of the combined efforts of poet Ottavio Rinuccini and composers Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini, Eurydice was first performed in 1600, and is generally regarded as the first true opera. As members of the Camerata, Peri and Caccini were dedicated to bringing about a revival of Greek drama. As employees of the powerful Medici family, they were encouraged to explore new musical territory.

Peri and Caccini each played an important role in the early development of Italian opera, and Caccini eventually published a book of songs (New Musics, 1602) that exemplified the monodic style.

Recitative and Aria

Opera as we now know it was shaped by two far-reaching operatic developments that began during the 17th century and were refined in the succeeding century.

Originally, opera was written to represent a musical style of Greek drama, with its emphasis on the spoken word. The method used to accentuate the words was the recitative, a free-flowing style that allowed for the natural rhythm of speech, and provided a means for the audience to clearly understand the singer. Composers used the recitative to explain the unfolding drama. The style was fairly straightforward, and its emphasis on words (rather than music) helped move the story along.

As time and operas progressed, singers and composers began to experiment more frequently with the recitative, particularly those portions of the recitative that were reflective or contemplative. This eventually led to a very florid portion of the recitative which earned its own label and methods — the aria. If the recitative gives the singer an opportunity to “state the case” of the opera’s action, the aria provides time to respond and reflect, and gives the singer a place to display his or her virtuosity. The typical aria for opera is a three-part solo, with similar first and third parts divided by a contrasting second part. As the dramatic form of opera developed, so too did the aria. By the 18th century, numerous styles existed, as did elaborate sets of musical rules for their use.

The Composers of Early Opera

The Italians

In additions to Peri and Caccini, one of the earliest and most important names associated with Italian opera is Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643). His first opera, Orpheus (1607), was considered uniquely powerful and imaginative in its dynamically expressive orchestration (he was one of the earliest musicians to use string effects, such as tremolo and pizzicato, in his compositions). His masterpiece and final opera, The Coronation of Poppaea (1642), expresses the culmination of 35 years of artistic experimentation. Baroque opera was considered to have reached its peak in Monteverdi’s compositions.

Listen to “Prologue: Sinfona” (disc 1, selection 1).

Claudio Monteverdi: L’Incoronazione Di Poppea

Catalog Number: 42547
UPC: 22924254727
Format: CD
Release Date: Jun 8 1993
Label: ELEKTRA/ASYLUM

Monteverdi’s pupil Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676), a second-generation composer of monody and a prolific writer of 42 operas, was an influential composer of the period, as were two other Italians. Allesandro Scarlatti (1660-1725), the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera, wrote more than 100 operas, 500 chamber cantatas, and many other forms of sacred and secular music. Antonio Vivaldi (1675-1741), while known chiefly as a composer of sonatas and violin concertos, also produced 46 operas.

Listen to Scarlatti’s “Son tutta duolo” as performed by Italy’s latest musical treasure, Cecilia Bartoli, on her CD (disc 1, selection 2).

If You Love Me, 18th Century Italian Songs
Cecilia Bartoli
Same Day Delivery in Manhattan.

Catalog Number: 436267
UPC: 28943626729
Format: CD
Release Date: Oct 13 1992
Label: POLYGRAM RECORDS

Then check out Vivaldi’s opera Montezuma. The sample is “Montezuma, Act III, Scene 10, Aria: Dov’e La Figlia” (Disc 1, selection 2) from the CD with this chilling title (Ouch!):

Music From The Age Of Castratos

Catalog Number: 8552
UPC: 93046955922
Format: CD
Release Date: Mar 28 1995
Label: ASTREE

The French

French opera had its beginning in 1669 at the Academie Royal de Musique, eventually coming under the guiding hand of Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), who introduced opera on a grand scale.

Jean Philippe Rameau was the composer and theorist who followed Lully as the next major figure in French opera. He wrote more than 20 operas and ballets, two books on music theory, and numerous harpsichord and chamber works, among other compositions.

Baroque Collection is an anthology that features composers of early French opera. I’d like you to listen to Lully’s “Folies D’Espange” (disc 1, selection 2) and Rameau’s “Musette et tambourin en rondeau” (disc 1, selection 4).

Baroque Collection

Catalog Number: 67425
UPC: 77776742526
Format: CD
Release Date: Sep 29 1992
Label: ANGEL CLASSICS

A Friendly Rivalry

At age 23, Domenico Scarlatti (son of Allesandro) competed against George Handel, also 23, in an informal harpsichord contest held in Rome. The judge declared a tie, and the two virtuosos became lifelong friends. (However, the judge said Handel was a better organist.) For more on the life of Handel, read pages 200-209 in Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works.

Cantata

Much about the cantata is similar to opera. Because the forms have so much in common, my description of cantata will be brief. This will allow you to focus more on the listening samples in this lesson than on the history of this musical form.

The cantata is a form suitable for both sacred and secular music that was developed in Italy alongside opera in the early 17th century, basically a short opera without drama or scenery. The earliest forms were entirely recitative, like opera, and were usually written for one voice. As composers experimented with the style, it became more complex, eventually including multiple movements, arias, and orchestral accompaniment.

The cantata gave musicians the opportunity to write music that displayed the virtuosity of a singer without the added requirements of an operatic drama. Many well-known composers wrote cantatas, and some compositions, including Beethoven’s Ah, perfido! and Mendelssohn’s Infelice, were originally labeled another style, but were truly 17th-century-style cantatas.

Some Early Composers of Cantatas

This group of “cantata composers” is a veritable “who’s who” of music history.

• Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725) and his son Domenico (1685-1757) generated a staggering combined total of over 700 cantatas in their lifetimes.
• George Friederich Handel (1685-1759) wrote nearly 100 Italian cantatas, along with his other great works. Handel is probably best known for the oratorio Messiah, the opera Julius Caesar, and the orchestral composition Water Music.

• Though he died at the age of 26, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) was responsible for many great works, including 12 cantatas.
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote more than 200 cantatas, and was perhaps the greatest composer of music in the Western world. Some historians consider the cantata to have reached its artistic peak in the compositions of Bach.

Here’s a generous sampling of cantatas by the above-mentioned composers:

Bach:
“Cantata No. 202, Wedding: Aria” (disc 1, selection 1)

Bach Cantatas

Catalog Number: 3039
UPC: 47163303920
Format: CD
Release Date: Jul 9 1996
Label: VOX (CLASSICAL)

“Ich habe genug, BWV 82: 2, Recitative” (disc 1, selection 5)

Bach: Solo Cantatas

Catalog Number: 7138
UPC: 99923713821
Format: CD
Release Date: Jan 25 1995
Label: KOCH INT’L CLASSICS

Handel
Jean-Pierre Rampal and Kathleen Battle: “Nel dolce dell’oblio” (disc 1, selection 1)

Handel, Purcell, Rameau and others

Catalog Number: 53106
UPC: 74645310626
Format: CD
Release Date: Nov 2 1993
Label: SONY

A Chip off the Ol’ Bach!

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), fifth child of Johann Sebastian, is considered the Father of the Modern Sonata — not because he composed 70 sonatas, but because of his innovative harmonies and imaginative development of the sonata form.

Discuss

Chapter 11 of The History of Western Music, “Instrumental Music of the Late Baroque Period,” includes sections on several popular instruments of the period, including the baroque organ, the harpsichord, and clavichord. What musical forms were popularized on which instruments? How did those instruments lend themselves to those particular forms? Go to the music board to discuss.

Sonata

Church and Chamber

Much like the cantata, the sonata also developed as opera. The early sonata, in fact, has been called the instrumental version of the cantata. Originally, the terms sonata and cantata simply indicated whether a composition was written for voice or for instruments. But as both forms matured, they came to be characterized by multiple, contrasting movements, and names that identified where the music was to be played. (A sonata for church was called a sonata da chiesa, or church sonata; a chamber sonata was a sonata da camera.)

A quick note: not all sonatas possessed multiple movements. Domenico Scarlatti wrote over 500 sonatas but most were one-movement compositions, including the following sample.

Listen to a Scarlatti sonata;
Domenico Scarlatti, The Baroque Album: “Sonata in E Major” (disc 1, selection 2)

The Baroque Album
Same Day Delivery in Manhattan.

Catalog Number: 44518
UPC: 74644451825
Format: CD
Release Date: Oct 25 1990
Label: SONY

Trio Sonata

Sonatas in the 17th century were most often written for strings (two violins and a cello) and harpsichord or organ. In the late 1700s, the chamber and church sonata forms merged into what became the trio sonata. That’s the point at which the terminology gets a little messy, for even when a composition was called a trio sonata, it was still written for the same four instruments: two violins, one cello, and a harpsichord. The harpsichord presence was taken somewhat for granted — maybe that’s why “trio” made sense, sort of. At any rate, trio sonata became yet even more restrictive in the late 18th century, when sonatas written for one or two instruments were still called sonatas, but works for three instruments were trios and a symphony was a composition for an entire orchestra. Eventually, both the sonata (for solo or small instrumental group) and symphony (for orchestras) developed into four-movement compositions.

Concerto

Early 17th-century concertos were mostly written for a solo stringed instrument (usually violin) to play in contrast with a larger group of orchestral strings. Sometimes the solo instrument was actually a small group of strings. The musical form was the sonata, with three or more contrasting movements. In the case of the concerto, the main contrast was the difference between the solo instrument(s) alternating with the orchestra. Again, since there were two types of sonatas, (church and chamber), there were church and chamber concertos.

A very important type of concerto was the concerto grosso. In this variation on the concerto form, a large (grosso) group played the solo rather than a few instruments playing the alternating solo part that contrasted with the orchestra. However, as time progressed, composers of the concerto form discarded the major contrasting movements between solo and orchestra; instead, they began to use the orchestra as a complement to the solo instrument through the use of small, contrasting passages within the movements. Also, unlike the sonata and symphony, the concerto remained a composition with three movements. Though many composers wrote concerti grossi, perhaps the most famous are Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

Here’s an example of a concerto grosso written by Arcangelo Corelli in 1700:
Op. 6: “Concerto No. 1 in D: Largo-Allegro” (disc 1, selection 1)

Corelli: Concerti Grossi, Op.6

Catalog Number: 443862
UPC: 28944386226
Format: CD
Release Date: May 16 1995
Label: POLYGRAM RECORDS

Here are some CDs featuring sonatas for cello or recorder:
Vivaldi: “Sonata in E minor: 1, Largo” (disc 1, selection 3)

Italian Cello Sonatas
Janos Starker

Catalog Number: 434344
UPC: 28943434423
Format: CD
Release Date: Sep 20 1994
Label: POLYGRAM RECORDS

“Sonata in G Minor — Presto” (disc 1, selection 4)

Handel: Recorder Sonatas

Catalog Number: 60441
UPC: 90266044122
Format: CD
Release Date: Jun 6 1991
Label: RCA

Moving Forward

In the next lesson, we’ll take an in-depth look at the life and influence of the man whom many consider Western music’s greatest composer: Johann Sebastian Bach. For background on the popular church music that may have influenced the young Bach, read chapter 10 of The History of Western Music, “Opera and Vocal Music of the Late Seventeenth Century.”

Assignment: Baroque: Part One (1600 – 1750)

Listen to a complete composition by one of the Baroque composers discussed in this lesson.