Transcript The Emotional World of Baroque Music

Chapter 8
Prelude: The Late
Baroque Period
The Emotional
World of Baroque
Music
Key Terms
“Affects”
The Emotional World of
Baroque Music (1)
Baroque thinkers, scientists, & artists
fascinated by human emotions
Scientists studied & classified emotions
Baroque composers thought music should
mirror a wide range of emotions
Each new piece expressed a specific
emotion consistently & exhaustively
Thus Baroque emotional expression was
powerful–yet curiously impersonal
The Emotional World of
Baroque Music (2)
Like good actors, Baroque composers
studied appropriate ways of expressing
emotions
Also like actors, they expressed emotions
that were not necessarily their own
These emotions often took on a theatrical
quality–larger than life
Theatrical emotion must have intensity,
clarity, focus
Affects
Many techniques used to maximize
expression of emotions (affects)
Baroque writers catalogued musical
elements appropriate for each affect
• Specific keys
 D minor = serious; E minor = pathos; etc.
• Certain melodic or rhythmic figures
• Specific instrumental & vocal types or genres
 Gigue = ardent & fleeting zeal
 Chant = noble simplicity
 etc.