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The Baroque
Era extending roughly from 1600 to 1750 refers to the styles used in music,
visual arts and literature. The designation "Baroque" is perhaps from
a Portuguese word referring to a string of irregularly shaped pearls,
appropriate since all the arts of this period display an exuberant ornamental
character. The profound political and social changes that succeeded the
Renaissance Era led to the creation of quite different styles in the arts,
particularly in music.
While the center of musical composition during the Renaissance was decidedly
for the Church, in the Baroque Era composers provided music for royal
and ducal courts, and even civic functions in increasing amounts rivaling
ecclesiastical composition. The modern idea of music performed in concert
for a paying audience also originated in the Baroque period, but this
was a very late development.
The musical texture of Baroque compositions was a logical outgrowth of
the earlier Renaissance polyphonic style, but with significant changes
evident from the very beginning of the period. While Renaissance polyphonic
texture consists of several equal voices sharing a very similar movement,
in Baroque polyphony the various voices take on specific functions and
display different characteristics. The top voice in the texture stands
apart as the primary melody, often with florid ornamentation. The lowest
voice in contrast moves somewhat more simply, generally in contrary motion
to the top melodic voice. The middle voices between the melody and bass
move even more simply and function merely to fill out the harmonic structure.
This change in polyphonic texture reflected the different ways Renaissance
and Baroque composers heard and understood the vertical sonorities or
harmony. Renaissance harmony was really a byproduct of the complex voice
leading rules developed by the Roman school of composers, while the Baroque
composers attended to the progressions of chords formed by the voices
over the bass line. This new perspective led to the idea of functional
harmony comprising a primary element in subsequent western music, even
including modern popular tunes. As a result, dissonant harmonies were
treated differently in contrast to the Renaissance era where they were
carefully prepared and resolved according to contrapuntal rules. In the
Baroque era dissonance was often used as a harmonic color to express emotions
and amplify the meaning of a sung text.
This use of dissonance illustrates another shift in artistic expression.
Renaissance music exhibits a serene, almost detached emotional effect,
while Baroque composers tried to express an entire palette of emotions.
Melody, harmony and even instrumentation were used to convey the emotional
or "affectional" content of the text.
During the Renaissance instruments were used to double or sometimes replace
sung melodic lines even though composers made no specification for this.
Some Renaissance pieces are clearly instrumental, but might have been
performed by a consort of string or wind instruments, or even a single
keyboard instrument at the discretion of the performer. In contrast, Baroque
composers often specified exactly which instruments were to be used in
a composition and began writing in styles idiomatic to particular instruments.
The new Baroque style of composition was often used in forms inherited
from the Renaissance, for instance the Mass and Motet, such as the large
choral works of Giovanni Gabrieli and Orazio Benevoli. The famous setting
of the Vespers service by Claudio Monteverdi uses all the early baroque
compositional techniques and includes styles borrowed from the theater.
Perhaps the best example of this transition from Renaissance to Baroque
is the life and work of Gregorio Allegri, who was born in 1582 and was
trained as a choir singer and composer right at the end of the Renaissance
period, but his published works appeared in the Baroque period, from 1618
to his death in 1652. He composed liturgical and secular, choral and instrumental
music, including masses and motets as well as sinfonia and compositions
for stringed instruments. Most of his published music was of the Baroque
concertato style, while his liturgical work for the Sistine Chapel is
descended from the Palestrina style of Renaissance liturgical composition.
Certainly his most well known and celebrated composition is the "Miserere",
written for two choirs, one of five and the other of four voices. One
of the choirs sings a simple version of the original Miserere chant, the
other choir, spatially separated, sings an ornamented "commentary" on
the other choir. The "Miserere" was actually written during the Baroque
period, but is representative of the Roman School of composers in the
Renaissance period who were stylistically conservative.
The secular opera also developed during this period and its recitative
and aria forms can be found in church compositions. Operatic arias, recitatives
and choruses were used in a new compositional form, the Cantata used in
Lutheran worship. The famous Bach cantatas show a masterful use of all
these forms. The Oratorio, a large musical form using sacred texts but
not used liturgically, also makes use of these theatrical styles. Hndel's
"Messiah" is perhaps the best example. The Lutheran congregation song
known as the "Choral" was the basis of many baroque compositions, sometimes
set for choir, soloist, or the purely instrumental organ chorals and partitas.
The traditional Gregorian chants were still sung alongside pieces composed
in the new Baroque style in Catholic churches. Gregorian melodies are
occasionally evident in Chorals and in the Psalmody of Lutheran worship.
An interesting form of Baroque organ composition arose where the organ
played as a replacement for the second choir in antiphnonal chants. Notable
examples of this are the two great organ Masses of Franois Couperin and
the Magnificat Fugues of Johann Pachelbel.
Credits
Joseph Metzinger
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