Baroque Music - 1600-1750

Music Styles

• Operas
• Sacred
  • Cantatas - Not Staged
  • Oratorios - Not Staged
• Dance Suites
  • Orchestra
  • Solo instruments
• Concertos
  • Concerti Grossi
  • Solo Concerti
  • Fugues - solo keyboard
  • Partitas - solo keyboard

Instruments:

Keyboard

• Harpsichord
• Organ

Strings

• Developed from viols

Woodwind

• Flute
  • known as transverse flute
• Recorder
• known as flute à bec
• Oboe
• Bassoon

Composers

Italian:

Vivaldi

Corelli

Torelli

German:

Telemann

Handel (worked in England)

JS Bach

French:

Couperin

Lully

English:

Henry Purcell

Dynamics:

Subito - SUDDEN

stepped / terraced shadings - NO GRADUAL crescendos / diminuendoes

Melodies:

Short SINGLE BAR motifs

Highly ornamented

Use of trills, mordents, turns were popular

Rhythms:

• Strong
• Rhythmic impetus (drives melody)

Tonality:

Major and minor key system established

Musical Structure:

Binary form - AB format

Rondo form - ABACADA etc.

Terms:

Concerti Grossi -

Group of soloists and orchestra

Solo Concerti

Solo instruments and orchestra

Trills

Start one note above and quickly go back and forth between the written note and note you started on

Mordents

Similar to trills, but end on WRITTEN note and hold note longer

Upper mordent - between written and upper note

Lower mordent - between written and lower note

Turns

3 notes used - note higher, lower and written note.

1. Play note above written
2. Play written note
3. Play note below written
4. End on written

**for inverted turns - swap number 1 and 3 around.