1. Vocal Music of the Baroque Or, the History of Music, part IIIa

2. Still, the Italians Baroque vocal styles centered on the Italian love for Monody Remember that word? Le nuove musiche – the new music Basically, a bunch of melody over simple basso continuoso Monteverdi’s madrigals displayed this changing style

3. Baroque Opera: Good Times. Early operas, Euridice and Dafne, were very monodic Music took a backseat toward clear speech Were often mythological stories, written for aristocrats Early on, they were still small works

4. Monteverdi pops up again He became the music director at St. Mark’s Cathedral Orfeo, Monteverdi’s first, was much more sophisticated that others Orfeo called for a lot of specific instrumentation His music was much more complex, interesting, and entertaining Orfeo, again

5. Still, further clarification About this time was the separation of recitative and aria Recitative was for words, aria for music Venice became the center of opera, building the first opera house

7. Competing Opera Styles Venetian opera used counterpoint and gave the orchestra fun stuff Neapolitan was homophonic, focused on vocal melody Eventually, Neapolitan won (except in France) Neapolitan style due to Scarlatti

8. Yet another style! Neapolitan opera became too serious. So, opera buffa (comic opera) was born This was common-man opera, stories about simpler lives and with normal folk performing At first, it was low-class, but this changed through history

9. France’s Turn France was the only part of Europe to develop a non-Italian opera style Lully was the pioneer of said style He wrote operas for Louis XIV, so they were pompous and refined As a whole, they were more colorful and visually pleasing, but made less sense

10. England? Really? Purcell wrote some stuff, but Handel was the big guy His stuff appealed to all of England, regardless of class It was influenced greatly by the Neapolitan style from Naples, Italy The opera Xerxes

11. No more opera! Cantata was also around Italian in design, it was vocal work of recitative and aria with continuo underneath It told a simple story Many composers, including Scarlatti and Bach, wrote cantatas Cantata

12. And more you say? Oratorio: sacred works with long narrative texts It was like opera, but not as fancy One of the most famous is Handel’s Messiah Messiah