The Elements of Baroque Music

1. The Elements of Baroque Music

2. Baroque • Period is from 1600 - 1750 • Styles of Baroque music are: • Italian • French • English • Baroque music is both secular and sacred.

3. The Vocals • The singing voice of Baroque was highly trained for a musical style that’s different from the expectations of today’s opera singers. • Instead of the uniformity of tone color for which today’s voice strives across the vocal range, the Baroque voice accentuated the difference in tone color between the lower and higher registers. • Generally, the qualities most valued in the Baroque voice were agility, purity and clarity, even at the expense of the power which characterizes today’s operatic voice

4. Strings • Violins were very common in this period. Included in the family where: • Violin • Viola • Cello • Double Bass • The most important instrument of this era was the viola dagamba, an instrument very similar to the cello in range. • It was used as a continuo instrument and it disappeared by the end of the eighteenth century

5. Woodwinds • Recorder • Oboe • Basson

6. Brass & Keyboard • The main brass instruments of the Baroque period where Trumpet and French horn. • They where called natural instrument because they didn’t have any valves. • Valves where introduced in the nineteenth century and increased the playing ability of musicians. • Due to the simplifications of instruments in the Baroque period, music written in very simple form. • There where two principle keyboard instruments in the Baroque period, they where Harpsichord and Organ. • Piano was invented during the Baroque period but didn’t get recognized until the mid eighteenth century.

7. Orchestra • Orchestra’s where not as big as modern day orchestra. • String instruments where the majority of the orchestra.

8. Elements of Baroque Music • The two most common elements where continuo also called thorough bass and ornamentation. • These demonstrate, what a composer writes and the player performs. • Both of these styles came from the Renaissance. • The continuo, typically had the harpsichord and cello and added harmony to Baroque music. This part was also called “Figured Bass”. • Ornamentation is the embellishment of music. • This was not often written for music. • Vibrato was considered an ornamental enhancement of a given note or musical moment.

9. Classical Period 1750 - 1825 • The period between 1730 – 1780 was considered the early classical period. • The main composers of the pre-classical period were Gluck, Boccherini and the Bach brothers. • The end of the Baroque period coincides with the Rococo period which is a reaction to the formalism, rigidity, and seriousness of Baroque. • Galant is another word for Rococo. • This style can be summarized as pleasing, tunefulness and prettiness. • One of the first to write in Galant was F. Couperin (1668-1773) • Repetition of short phrases became the characteristic of Galant style. • In this era, the role of the harpsichord as a continuo player was no longer needed.

10. Key Composers • Claudio Monterverdi (1567 -1643) his compositions marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music. • Haydn (1732 – 1809) follows the French overture style for symphony writing, which is slow chordal introduction and comtrapuntal. • Mozart (1756 – 1791) Followed the Italian style in writing: melodiousness, flowing melodies, smooth lyricism, longer phrases. • Schubert (1797 – 1828) the most personal Schubertian trait in instrumental music is expansion: longer and more lyrical themes. • Percell (1659 – 1695) incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements but devised a peculiarly English style of Baroque music. • Bach (1685 – 1750) a German composer and organist of the Baroque period and is universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. • Beethoven (1770 – 1827) wrote the moonlight sonata. YouTube - MOONLIGHT SONATA (Beethoven)

11. 20 Famous Composers

12. Questions???????? • YouTube - America: Fanfare for the Common Man