Transcript The Baroque Concerto

François Couperin 1668-1733
L’art de
toucher
le clavecin
Questions of ornamentation
Is the ornament diatonic, or does it require an
accidental?
Does it precede the main note or fall on the beat?
Is it fast or slow?
If slow, what proportion of the main note does the
ornament require?
Does the stress lie more on the ornament or the
main note?
Antonio Vivaldi
Venetian composer
Holy Orders in his early twenties.
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
il prete rosso - “The
Red Priest”
Girls’ orphanage in
Venice
Composer in one of
four of the most
important music
schools of Italy (and
Europe)
Vivaldi’s Musical Style
Vivaldi is credited for helping to free
instrumental style from vocal style.
Each piece is used as a teaching tool to
create virtuosity in the players of the
orphanage and music school.
Vivaldi boasted that he could write a
concerto faster than the copyist could copy
it!
Vivaldi’s Musical Style
Rapid scale patterns
Arpeggio: the outlining of a chord’s root,
third, fifth and octave.
Change of register. High Low
Tessitura: range of an instrument
Creating contrasting timbres by blending
different instruments together. (sonority)
The Four Seasons: Spring
La Primavera: The Spring
Programmatic Concerto:
Program Music: Music that is inspired by
prose, poetry, painting, or a scene or event
in the mind of the composer.
The Four Seasons: Spring
Program: the actual thought, poetry, or
prose.
La Primavera describes with music a poem
from The Contest Between Harmony and
Inspiration… attributed to the composer.
Spring – Concerto in E Major
Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song, and murmuring
streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark
mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their
charming songs once more.
Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling
overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and
shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.
La Primavera: First movement
Joyful spring has arrived (the Spring theme:
Ritornello)
The birds greet it with their cheerful song.
And the brooks in the gentle breezes.
Flow with a sweet murmur.
The sky is covered with a black mantle, and
thunder and lightening announces a storm
When they fall silent, the birds take up
again their melodious song.
Vivaldi’s Concerto, Mvt 1
Ritornello form
R1 S1 R2 S2 R3 S3
Song
of
birds
Murmuring
streams
How is S2
NOT consistent
w/ the form?
R4 S4 R5 S5
Thunder
lightning
Song
of
birds
R6
Compositions
Over 500 concertos
46 operas
sinfonias
73 sonatas
chamber music
sacred music
Jean-Philippe Rameau
(1683-1764)
Foremost French
musician of
18th century
Rameau: Music Theory
Treatise on Harmony (1722)
Coined the terms tonic, dominant and
subdominant
harmonic progression through falling 5th (or
rising 4th)
chords maintain their identity regardless of
inversion (harmony is based on root
progression, regardless of lowest note)
Rameau: Music Theory
the chord is the primal element in
music
a chord maintains its identity in all
inversions basse fondamentale or root
progression
Triadic relationships: tonic, dominant,
etc.
Hierarchial function of triads
Pivot chord modulation
Rameau - theory II
3. Triadic relationships - tonic,
domininant, etc.
4. Hierarchial function of triads
5. Pivot chord modulation
Hippolyte et Aricie (1733)
music almost programmatic (rough
sea, high winds
“Ah! faut-il”
tragédie lyrique
monologue
Exposed to greatness
Alexandre-Jean-Joseph Le Riche de la
Poupliniere (a rich tax collector)
became Rameau’s patron
Poupliniere’s gatherings included
Voltaire, Rousseau, and Casanova
Rameau and Voltaire
Lullistes versus Ramistes
Rameau: “subverter of the good old French
opera tradition of Lully”
more expressive, dramatic (due to more
chromatic harmonies)
innovative orchestration (more winds)
increase in homophonic sections (Classical
period is right around the corner)