Learning Kit No.

1
st
(1 Year, Music in English)
October 8, 2020

The Transition to the Baroque

General presentation

The Baroque is the period between Renaissance and the Classical age.
- In music, it is conventionally placed between the rise of opera (1600) and the death of
Johann Sebastian BACH (1750).
- in the history of music, there are periods of transition between periods, during which
composers are trying to adapt the musical language to the new content of the music
(cultural context, experiments in other arts, philosophy, etc.)
- it is the age of the rise of instrumental music, the grounding of new musical genres (the
sonata, the suite, the concerto, opera, oratorio, cantata, keyboard music: the fugue, fantasia,
prelude, etc.)
- in arts – the Baroque is placed during the 17 th Century and occurred in Italy, then spread
all across Western Europe and spanned for some decades into the 18 th Century (Germany,
France etc.)
- it is the age of the rise of instrumental and vocal-instrumental polyphony (a complex
synthax of the musical discourse, which superposes different melodic lines by the rules of
counterpoint)
- the style is dramatic, desiring to evoke emotional states and feelings (the theory of affects,
rhetorical figures, stile concitato, recitative, opera etc.)
- in arts, and especially in music, Baroque is grand, monumental, complex, tensed, full of
exuberance, rich ornamentation.

The origin of the term:

- it. barocco – used since the Middle Ages, meaning an `obstacle in logic`, contorted
ideas, tricky process of thought. Something generally `odd`.
- port. barroco, sp. barrueco - an irregular or imperfectly shaped pearl. Bizarre,
asymmetrical, departing from any rule and proportion.
- until the 19th Century, it generally meant `odd, grotesque, exaggerated, and
overdecorated`.
Heinrich Wölfflin - Renaissance und Barock (1888) - the term Baroque was used
as a stylistic designation, and a systematic formulation of the characteristics of Baroque
style was achieved.
- until the beginning of the 20th Century, the Baroque in music was called `the
age of the figured bass`. German musicologists named it `Barock`.
 Socio-cultural context
- it is a time of relative peace, which enhances the development of art, music, society and
the evolution of taste.
- it is a time of a Revolution in the field of sciences (astronomy - Galilei, physics - Newton),
lead forward by experiment and observation.
- patronage (mecenatul) – is still essential in the development of arts and music.
- late 16th Century - the Counter-Reform (a movement of the Catholic Church against the
religious Reform of Luther) - a propagandistic stance in which art was to serve as a means
of extending and stimulating the public’s faith in the church.
- a conscious artistic program whose art products would make an overtly emotional
and sensory appeal to the faithful.
- Absolute monarchies, along with the rise of middle class – generates monumental
architecture, in order to display power (ex. Versailles). The middle class had a growing
sense and need for art (sensuous and real art!).
- a renewed interest in Nature, developments in science, exploration of the unknown
world. The insignificance of man compared to the vastness of the world.
- in philosophy, the Baroque illustrates the transition from Humanism to Enlightenment.

The transition to the Baroque

- occurs towards the last decades of the 16 th Century in Italy (in Germany, France, England,
Spain, the transition occurs a few decades later!).
- during the 16th Century, music was dominated by the Renaissance style, namely vocal
counterpoint, later to be referred to as stile antico, in opposition with stile moderno of the
17th Century.
- stile moderno, or nuove musiche — emphasis on solo voice, polarity of the melody and
the bass line, and interest in expressive harmony — developed for secular music.
- they developed distinct musical language for sacred and secular music, for vocal and
instrumental idioms.
- national styles in music were emerging.
- the transition is abrupt, marking a lot of changes in the style and musical language:
- from mostly vocal music – towards instrumental music
- from the modal system towards tonality
- from mostly sacred compositions and genre – towards secular music
- from counterpoint towards harmonic thinking
- from balance of voices towards the polarization between discant and bass
line (the monodic style, recitative, etc.)
- from metric and rhythmic freedom towards unity and repetitive patterns
- from the strict contrapuntal laws of constructing the vocal melody, towards
the freedom of intervallic leaps (instrumental) and a more free way of dealing with
dissonance etc.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uM_-18Mhi0 – prima pratica and
seconda pratica

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItsTZUCl2iI (Monteverdi – O primavera,

vocal version)
Oh Spring, youth of the year,
lovely mother of the flowers,
of new grass and new loves:
regrettably, you come back -
without the dear days
of my hopes;
because of my lost, beloved treasure
but the miserable and painful memory
you are, that not long ago
was so blithe and beautiful.
But I am no longer whom I used to be,
so dear to others' eyes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lZvviG6_Bg (Monteverdi, O primavera
– vocal-instrumental)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq49rymjvNg (Monteverdi, Zefiro
torna)
ENGLISH VERSION:
Return O Zephyr, and with gentle motion
Make pleasant the air and scatter the grasses in waves
And murmuring among the green branches
Make the flowers in the field dance to your sweet sound;
Crown with a garland the heads of Phylla and Chloris
With notes tempered by love and joy,
From mountains and valleys high and deep
And sonorous caves that echo in harmony.
The dawn rises eagerly into the heavens and the sun
Scatters rays of gold, and of the purest silver,
Like embroidery on the cerulean mantle of Thetis.
But I, in abandoned forests, am alone.
The ardour of two beautiful eyes is my torment;
As my Fate wills it, now I weep, now I sing.

Melisma – melismatic (same syllable on several notes!)

Dialogue – imitative

I am falling in love with you /

I am falling in love…./
 Basso ostinato (repeated obsessively): passacaglia, ciaccona – types of variations
built on ostinato bass lines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VIJUJPOsTto&list=PLblF_EXUr5Kk5Y5gNkM021bL6ow3QK53T (Monteverdi, Si
dolce’l tormento)

So sweet is the torment that lies in my heart,

that I live happily from its cruel beauty...
in Heaven's beauty fierce pride may grow bold without pity
but always my faith will be a rock against that wave of pride

 
May false hope turn back from me
may neither delight nor peace descend upon me
and the cruel woman I adore deny me merciful relief;
amidst infinite pain, amidst broken hope, my faith shall survive...

Instrumenta interlude – it is called a Ritornello

 
(From fire and ice I will find no repose;
only at the gate of Heaven shall I find repose...
should the deadly strike of an arrow injure my heart,
my heart shall heal by changing my lot with that [same] arrow of death)

 
If that unyielding heart that has captured mine
has never felt the flames of love,
if the cruel beauty that enthralled my soul denies me pity,
may she well, pained, repenting, languishing, pass a sigh for me one day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=18iRBhuaZrc&list=PLblF_EXUr5Kk5Y5gNkM021bL6ow3QK53T&index=9 (Biagio Marini,
Meraviglia d’amore)

Lungi del mio bel Sol, di luce privo, in queste selve vivo-
se vivo si può dir chi non ha core. Meraviglia d’Amore.

Senz’alma spiro in dolorosi accenti i miei crudi lamenti,

e senza spirito avvampo in grave ardore. Meraviglia d’Amore.

Ritornello (same harmony, different melody!) – structured in succesions of chords (vertical!)

Meco la vita non soggiorna punto qual misero defunto;

e pur mi doglio in questo tetto horrore. Meraviglia d’Amore.

Ritornello
Com’esser può, che provi tante pene colui che’l cor non tiene
e sia di spirto, d’alma, e vita fore? Meraviglia d’Amore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=v4nmkt_OWp0&list=PLblF_EXUr5Kk5Y5gNkM021bL6ow3QK53T&index=11
(Anonymous author, Madonna tu mi fai lo scorruciato)

Madonna tu mi fai lo scorrucciato

Che t'haggio fatto che griffi la cera? – imitation, 2 parts (meaning two voices)
The accompaniment is chordal! (harmony)
Anima mia questa n'è via De contentar' st'affannato core?

Me par che m'habbi in tutto abbandonato

Che non t'affacci all'hora della sera.
Anima mia ....

Va, figlia mia, che ci haggio indivinato

Che saccio con chi giochi a covallera.
Anima mia ...

Napoletan dialect (even Italians do not understand it well)

Donque, mio caro ben, dolce Signora,

Habbi pietà d'un chi te solo adora.
Anima mia ...