Baroque Era Composers

The prolific Georg Telemann 

POSTED MARCH 14, 2021

Today is the 340th anniversary of Georg Philipp Telemann's birth.   Considered the most important German composer of his time, he was a friend of both Bach and Handel and, with 3000 works to his credit. one of the most prolific composers of all time.   "Key factors in Telemann's meteoric rise to power and wealth as the most famous musician in Germany were his sense of humor and likable personality. He had the good fortune to be admired and envied, rather than resented, for his relentless pursuit and acquisition of major Court and Church positions." [1]

Largely self-taught, Georg Telemann wrote music from a young age and played the flute, violin, viola da gamba, oboe, trombone, double bass, and several keyboard instruments.  Virtually every musical style of his times is represented in his works - cantatas, operas, concertos, oratorios, songs, music for civic occasions and church services, passions, orchestral suites and copious amounts of chamber music. [2]

Although Telemann was eclipsed by Bach in the mid-nineteenth century and although more than half of Telemann's compositions have been lost to time, much of what remains is admired and loved by Baroque music aficionados.  

Among Telemann's most famous compositions is the Viola Concerto in G Major.  Although the concerto form had its roots in the Renaissance, it developed most pronouncedly in the Baroque era.  Baroque concertos had the three movement "fast/slow/fast" form that has continued to the present day.  Baroque music is complex and imaginative, and a unique feature of the Baroque concerto is the "basso continuo" which calls for the use of a tone instrument such as a cello or viola playing the bass line. A chordal instrument such as a harpsichord, organ, or lute plays harmonies over the bass line. This results in two simultaneous and continuous harmonies. [3]

Orchestras were generally smaller than in later eras, and the interplay between the soloist and the orchestra was on a less grand scale.  In the first two movements of a Baroque concerto, the soloist and orchestra compete for the audience's attention as the soloist demonstrates her virtuosity and the different instruments vie to express the music. The final movement results in a musical reconciliation of all the instruments. [3]

The orchestral suite was another popular Baroque form that had its origins in the Renaissance - in this case in Renaissance dance music.  Unlike the concerto, the orchestral suite did not survive long after the Baroque, as it transformed into other styles.  In the Renaissance and early Baroque, composers wrote collections of short dance pieces for actual dancing at court.  The suite usually opened with an overture - similar to opera - and then proceeded to four (or more) dance movements.  Often each dance movement would be from a different country - for example, Allemande (Germany, 4/4, Moderate), Courante (France, 3/4, Quick), Sarabande (Spain, 3/4, Slow), Gigue (England, 6/8, Fast). Over time, the dances and their order became more standardized, and this became a framework for composers to create instrumental music for everything from solo instruments to full orchestra. By the late Baroque, i.e., the time of Telemann, the suite was used primarily as a concert piece and had little to do with the actual dances that it used as its organizing structure.  [4, 5]

Telemann's "Alster Echo" orchestral suite is an enjoyable piece of programmatic music, depicting the sights and sounds of life along the Alster river in Hamburg. The work is scored for four horns, oboes, bassoon and strings, with the horns and winds dominant throughout. It is perhaps the most “picturesque” of all of Telemann’s orchestral suites.  Pallas Athena, Pan, and Peleus from Greek mythology make an appearance along with the carillons of the city, the village music of the Alster shepherds, a gracious swan, and a raucous consort of frogs and crows. The suite ends with a lively Gigue as shepherds and nymphs take their leave. [6]

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach and some quirky facts about JSB and his times

POSTED MARCH 21, 2022

In the classical music canon, few composers are as revered as Johann Sebastian Bach.  He composed over 1500 pieces of music in almost every musical format of the Baroque, and his death in 1750 is regarded as the end of that era. Now an exemplar of the status quo in classical music, Bach was a musical revolutionary in his own day...a brief introduction to the complex music of a genius renowned for his compositional skills, mastery of counterpoint, dense melodies and pleasing harmonies.

In the classical music canon, few composers are as revered as Johann Sebastian Bach.  He composed over 1500 pieces of music in every musical format of the Baroque except opera, and his death in 1750 is regarded as the end of the Baroque musical era.  

"Appearing at a propitious moment in the history of music," his greatness derives from his ability "to survey and bring together the principal styles, forms, and national traditions that had developed during preceding generations and, by virtue of his synthesis, enrich them all." [1]  In other words, he worked and studied hard and he created something extraordinary and original.  

Explaining Bach's greatness, musicologist Joseph Machlis adds, “His sheer mastery of the techniques of composition has never been equaled. With this went incomparable profundity of thought and feeling and the capacity of realize to the full all the possibilities inherent in a given musical situation.”

Bach was a renowned musician who began his career as a composer by studying the works of the great Italian, French and German composers.  He developed his musical style in several phases: first by innovating off the works of the Italian composers of the Late Baroque, then fusing the German and Italian styles, and finally, around 1720 , giving birth to his own unique personal style by integrating the influences of French music with the German tradition. [2]

Bach's complex music is characterized by his mastery of counterpoint, his dense and carefully thought out melodies, and his pleasing harmonies.  Composers including Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, and Mendelssohn began writing in a more contrapuntal style after being exposed to Bach’s music, and Beethoven described him as “Urvater der Harmonie,” the “original father of harmony." [8, 9]  

Now an exemplar of the status quo in classical music, Bach was a musical revolutionary in his own day.  Musicologist Laurence Dreyfus notes six different aspects of Bach’s "subversive practice, a veritable manifesto of resistance."  [3]  According to Dreyfus, Bach subverted:

• conventional notions of musical pleasure, defying traditional notions of what constituted a beautiful melody; 

• religious conventions that made liturgical music subservient to logos, the divine word;

• prevalent notions of musical propriety, which demanded that expressive style adapt itself to the specific functions and purposes of the occasion;

• the dogma that art was a mirror to nature, and must hold on to the most natural forms of expression rather than impose its own value system on the work of art;

• the traditional metrics of musical invention, those time-honored techniques by which melodic ideas were introduced and developed.

• the expectations of musical piety, which demanded that the work of art express its devotion in reverent and orderly subservience to the grandeur of God, and not the glory of the composition or its composer

The U Discover Music website has a nice introduction to Bach's music ("Best Bach Works").   I've added links to performances of two of his violin works at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum - the popular bouncy Italian-influenced Violin Concerto No. 2 in E major and the Chaconne from Partita No. 2 in D Minor, composed after his wife and the mother of seven of his children died at age 35.  [Below left].  

Below right are ten interesting and/or quirky facts that I picked up while researching this post.

Italian Baroque: the mysterious Tomaso Albinoni

POSTED JUNE 14, 2022

The Baroque period saw many dramatic changes and developments in music. One of these was the growth of opera into the grandest and most spectacular form of entertainment. Another was the growing importance of instrumental music.  Italy was the scene of much of this pioneering, and the Venetian Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751) was at the heart of it, composing operas and other stage works as well as concertos and sonatas, in prodigious quantities.  

In his day, the works of Tomaso Albinoni were as widely known and performed as those of his now more famous contemporaries Vivaldi and Corelli.  His operas were performed all across Italy as well as internationally, and he influenced the immortal music of the great Johann Sebastian Bach.  

And yet...almost every biographical sketch warns us, "Relatively little is known about his life..." 

And yet...musicologists advise us that "a good many attributions to Albinoni are doubtful" 

And yet..."his" most famous work, the Albinoni Adagio, was actually the creation of a 20th century Italian musicologist.*

Albinoni was renowned during his lifetime for his operas.  Unfortunately of the 81 that he wrote, the vast majority did not survive since they were not published.  Although he was well trained and highly talented, Tomaso Albinoni never tried to make a living by composing music.  Coming from a wealthy Venetian family, he considered himself an amateur, a dilettante, and apparently had little concern about leaving a musical legacy.

He was a master of melody and you can get a sense of this in the aria from his opera Ardelinda.