Before the Baroque era, music was rarely written specifically for instruments; most often, music played on instruments was originally for voice. The Baroque Era last from 1600 to 1750. During this time, instruments were improved, and composers began to write pieces for specific instruments. Music became more popular with the middle class, and amateur musicians became to sprout up, separate from the church and the court.
Instrumental music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras were called sonatas, concertos, and sinfonias interchangeably. The order and shape of their movements were often very similar. Works that used between five and seven violins with contino were often called sonatas and concertos, though they were more often like canzonas. Before Corelli’s concerto grosso, concerti often designated music that used both instruments and voices. However, during the last quarter of the Seventeenth Century, the concerto signified purely instrumental music, unless the title of the piece specified otherwise.
However, by 1680, there were a few ground rules that were being set up. The first generation of the concerto grosso was typically for violins. Arthur Hutchins, about Corelli and Vivaldi, says “the violin was a wordless voice of super-human compass and range of expression, with clearer attack and greater agility than a human voice, and free from the strain of human fatigue.” This belief that violins could emulate the human voice led to a golden age for string ensembles. Concertos normally consisted of between six and twenty strings, with an organ, harpsichord and archlute. In 1686, Torelli wrote the first piece that did not include voices. It was titled Concerto da camera a due violini e basso; thi...
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Due to the loose terminology of the eighteenth century, symphonies and suites were sometimes called overtures (Peyser, 1986). The slow-fast-slow alternation of tempos foreshadowed the order of movements in the Classical symphony, lacking only the menuetto.... ... middle of paper ... ... Kenosha, WI: G. Leblanc. Garofalo, R. J. & Co., Inc. (1992) Guides to Band Masterworks; Teacher Manual.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie, 20 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1980)9: 708-709
The roots of this form can be traced to the simple binary form of the baroque era. With binary, the two sections are thematically similar with a sameness of texture and theme throughout the movement. The term sonata originally referred to instrumental music, not a particular form of composition. The Baroque sonata can be traced back to an instrumental song of the late Renaissance called canzon da sonar. This leads eventually to the trio sonata, for four instruments despite its name, which consisted of two melody instruments, a chord playing instrument, and a basso continuo. Along with the trio sonata, there was the solo sonata that was written primarily for a melody instrument and a basso continuo. In the late 1600s, the word sonata was associated with sonate da chiesa, for church, and sonate da camera, for chamber.
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a composer of Renaissance England and considered one of the most prolific and well-known composers of English lute song. A composer and accomplished lutenist, he is probably the most well traveled English composer of his time. Through his travels he was exposed to the musical elements of his Italian, French and German contemporaries. He developed his own musical language, in which he created a unique style for the lute song. As a composer, he focused on the development of melodic material and was able to elegantly blend words and music with a wide range of emotion and technique. For the purpose of this document we will focus on the influence of his Italian travels. John Dowland’s use of chromaticism in his lute songs as can be directly associated with such as “All ye whom love or fortune.” In these pieces, we can see the influence on this genre through his travels to Italy and encounters with such composers as Marenzio.
Vivaldi wanted to go into priesthood, but due to illness he was unable to continue this pursuit. (Kamien, 2015, p. 126). He spent the rest of his life involved in many aspects of music: teaching, composing, and conducting. It is important to reflect on the composer’s history to gain insight into their perspective. Kamien (2015) describes Vivaldi as a virtuoso violinist which is why he mainly featured violins in his works (p.127).
‘Sonata’ at this time referred to instrumental music while ‘pian’ means soft and ‘forte’ means loud. The title of the work indicates that it is an instrumental work that has soft and loud sections. Gabrieli's composition is special because it is the first to show dynamic markings in an ensemble setting. Some sources will say that it is the first piece to portray dynamics in general, but other sources provide evidence that dynamic markings appear in solo literature composed decades beforehand. “Deeper acquaintance with the music shows that they [the dynamics] also have an emotional function, for they occur so irregularly that the listener is never certain if he will be overwhelmed with sound, or when he must strain his ears for some more subdued phrase.” Gabrieli felt that dynamics can help portray or alter the audience’s perception of a pattern of music towards a particular mood.
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<td width="50%">Baroque Concerto FormClassical Concerto Form Concerto grosso (use of string orchestra set against a number of solo instruments) is the most popular concerto form of this period. Other forms include The ripieno concerto and the solo concerto.Symphony form develops from baroque concerto forms and becomes the new form. Shorter movements than classical form.Concerto longer than baroque from. Fairly strict structure and prerequisites, e.g. Traditional ritornello form, virtuostic displays etc.More freedom and experimentation with traditional form. First movement has solo passages extending into long sections; alternated between four or five ritornello sections. First movement constructed in a variant of ritornello form with a double exposition. Violin is preferred concerto solo instrument although the harpsichord becomes more and more popular throughout the century.The newly prominent piano tak...
From the Early Renaissance to the High Renaissance, there was a movement from vocal music to a combination of vocal and instrumental music (Brown, 1976). There are seven categories of instrumental music: 1) vocal music played by instruments, 2) settings of pre-existing melodies, 3) variation sets, 4) ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas, 5) preludes, preambles, and toccatas for solo instruments, 6) dance music, and 7) songs composed specifically for lute and solo voice (Brown, 1976). Italy dominated the stage for instrumental music at this time, and it was not until the last decades of the sixteenth century that English instrumental music became popular (Brow...
Grove, George. The Musical Times Volume 47. United Kingdom: Musical Times Publications Ltd. 1906, Print.
Giuseppe Torelli, was an Italian violinist, teacher and composer, is considered one of the early developers of the Baroque concerto and concerto grosso. Torelli also composed a significant number of works for the trumpet during the Baroque period (1600-1750). Around 1690, one can begin to see the first works for the trumpet. He was familiar with the virtuoso trumpeter, Giovanni Pellegrino Brandi. Brandi would sometimes play with the San Petronio orchestra, of which Torelli was violin player. This acquaintance could explain Torelli’s awareness of the trumpet’s timbre, dynamic range, and expressive capabilities.
Music has shaped the lives of people throughout history. Even in its earliest forms, music has included use of instruments. One of the oldest musical instruments known is a variation of the flute; the original flute is thought to date back nearly 67,000 years ago. Tonight we are going to move throughout the eras with a history of instrumental music. This concert will begin with the Renaissance Era and continue through time until we have reached modern instrumental music.
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.