Learning Kit No.

2
(1st Year Music in English)
October 22, 2020

The rise and development of instruments and

instrumental genres
(17th Century)

Instrumental music during the 16th Century (Late Renaissance):

- Renaissance instruments:
o Strings: the lute (it is the pedagogical instrument of the time), viela (spa.
vihuela), viola da gamba, Renaissance guitar, viols, the family of the violin
o Winds: flute (recorder, transversal, Blockflöte), cornet, chalumeau, trumpet,
saquebut (ancestor of the trombone), crumhorn (ancestor of the oboe)
o Percussion: tamburines, drums, - rhythmic accompaniment of dance music,
added ad libitum to the scores, according to different ocasions
o Keyboard: organ (complex mechanism organs built since 16th century in
Germany, pedal organs etc.), portative, positive (house instruments, for
music theory studying), clavichord, the virginal (in England), în Franța –
harpsichord (in France), clavicembalo (in Italy)
o Instrumental ensembles were called consort (pl. consorts) consisting
instruments of the same family, but different range (viols consort, flute
consort), adding percussion. Sometimes combinations were possible.

Instrumental Repertory:
- Transcriptions of vocal music (instruments doubling or replacing vocal parts,
polyphonic transcriptions for lute, harpsichord, organ, with schematic notation -
tablature).
- Dances: coupled in pairs of dances (pavana and gagliarda, passamezzo and
saltarello), single dances: rota, trotto, basse danse, etc. Couples of dances had the
following rule: slow tempo (binary meter) – fast tempo (ternary meter) the
melodies of the two dances were related.
- Variations – a simple, repetitive theme, (meant to highlight the technical skills of
the performer) improvizatoric genres (prelude, fantasia, toccata, ricercare).

! During late 16th century the concept of pure instrumental music emerges, usually composed
for ensembles. It was not linked to any other content (dance, ritual etc.), being written and
performed just for enjoymeant and pleasure.

Instrumental music during the 17th Century

Baroque instruments:
- Strings: the family of the violin (violin, viola, cello) replaces gradually the rival
family of the viola (viola de braccio, etc.), viola da gamba; theorbo; the lute
gradually grows out of fashion in favor of the solo violin, the inconic instrument of
the 17th Century.
 - Winds: Renaissance instruments are still in use (saquebut, cornet, recorder),
adding flauto traverso, oboe d’amore, oboe da caccia, bassoon, trumpets, trombones.
- Instrumental ensembles: more varied! And more numerous!
- Until the Classical Period, there is no standardization of instrumental ensembles.
Ensembles of the time: Les vingt-quatre Violons du Roi (Louis the 14th, scores in five
parts), La Petite Bande (16, later 21 brass instruments), both active in Versailles.
For important festivities and for the stage, the two ensembles reunited (La Grande
Bande). They were the absolute model of the Baroque orchestra, and the basis of
the standard symphony orchestra.
- The orchestra used at the premiere of L’Orfeo, favola in musica (1607) by Claudio
Monteverdi – 40 instruments (never to be overpassed during the entire Baroque
age).1

Basso continuo – a group of instruments which plays the bass melodic line, namely the
harmonic base of the music (the technique is called figured bass). It is so typical, that the
entire age of the Baroque has been called the age of the figured bass up to the beginning of the
20th Century (when the term baroque appeared).
Basso continuo consists of minimum 2 different instruments, with the possibility of
addition of other instruments, relaterd to the number of the ensemble:
- A keyboard instrument (organ for sacred music, harpsichord for secular music), or
another instruments with harmonic features (lute, theorbo)
- A melodic instrument in the lower range (cello, viola da gamba, violone, bassoon,
etc.)

Classification of musical genres:

! The development and dissemination of new instruments all over Europe during the
late 16th Century rised a necessity for new repertoire and, consequently, new musical genres
emerged, as composers began composing for these instruments frantically:
By content: Secular genres (sonata da camera, instrumental concerto, concerto grosso,
suite) and sacred genres (sonata da chiesa, improvisatorig genres for organ: fantasia, toccata,
prelude, ricercare, etc.)
By the instrumental setting : soloistic (sonata solo, solo suite, instrumental miniatures
for keyboard instruments), chamber music (sonata a tre, sonata a quattro, sonata a cinque – a
tre, a quattro etc. meant the number of melodic lines played at the same time, among which
the last one was the basso continuo, the repertory being perform either in chamber or
orchestral version), orchestral (concerto, concerto grosso, suite, etc.).

The development of new instruments and of the musical genres dedicated to them
generated a series of modifications in configuring the melody, which, by that time, was
constructing in accordance to the technical possibilities of the sung voice, (a range of a little
over an octave, according to the natural ambitus of the human voice, the avoidance of
intervalic leaps over the octave, or a succession of intervalic leaps in a row, the need of
countarbalancing leaps with stepwise melodc motion, the strict preparation and resolution of
dissonances). Thus, the instrumental Baroque type of configuring the melodygained in range
and flexibility, cultivated scales and arpeggios, with a more free use of dissonances, often used
progressions (sequences), apparent poyphony etc. The particularities of each instrument,
1
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment is am ensemble of the modern day, grounded almost three decades ago. Ther
aim is to reconstruct the authentic sound and performance of late Baroque and early Classical music (this type of
performance is called `historically informed` performance, using theoretical research concerning the original
instruments of the age, the acoustic spaces in which the music was performed, of the performing technique of each
instrument, as depicted in scores, treatises, imagery of that particular age).
which was able to perform different melodic shapes in different ways, determined the
aparition of melodic idioms (melodic predilections in configuring melodies for each
instrument, specific melodic turns of phrases, or leaps, that were `ergonomically` suited and
easy to perform by each instrument).

Apparent polyphony – a special techique of configuring the melody, especially used in

instrumental Baroque music. Although it is called `polyphony`, it is not polyphony as it is, but
a specific way of constructing the melody in such way that it can `suggest` polyphony in a
melodical context, by alternating different registers of the range inside the melody. Apparent
polyphony can be simple of figural, in one or both of the registers of the melody.

Sequence (or progression) – it is a procedureof configuring the musical discourse in

the Baroque and after, developed especially in instrumental melody, and taken over in vocal
music as well. Sequences can be either melodc or harmonic (or both!) and it involves the
`copying` of the same „model” on different pitches.

Tuning systems of the age

During the Baroque, several types of instrumental tuning coexisted:
- The natural tuning, used during the Renaissance (theoretized by Gioseffo
Zarlino), was used during early Baroque and limited the use of tonalities up to those
with maximum 3 accidentals (C-major, a-minor, F-major, d-minor, G-major, e-minor,
D-major, b-minor, B flat major, g-minor, A-major, f sharp minor, E flat major, c-
minor);
- Mezotonic tuning , using the so-called „pure fifths”
- The well tempered tuning, developed by Andreas Werckmeister, which allowed
keyboard instruments to be played in any key without beint re-tuned: J. S. Bach, The
Well Tempered Clavier.
- other instruments have gradually adapted to the well-tempered system of tuning.

Musical practice of tuning: the level of „false” in music performance was higher than
nowadays, due to the combining of instruments with different tuning systems, but also to the
coexistence of different exact pitches of the „a”-sound (in organ, compared to chamber music
or soloistic music).

Listen to the following links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjVNyjjZNAg (fragment from the movie Tous les
matins du monde – I recommend watching it fully, it is relevant for the performance practice
and repertoire of the viola da gamba during the middle French Baroque. The movie is
rigorously documented from the musical perspective, a great cinematic triumph!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVabz8LneI4 (Introducing the Baroque theorbo),
an instrument very typical to the Baroque, either as a basso continuo instrument or as a
soloistic one. There are such short videos about other Baroque instruments. Check them out
as well!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo3AWBE8S_Y (Biagio Marini, Sonata for violin
and basso continuo, early Baroque, Biagio Marini is one of the first violin virtuosos and early
composer of violin Baroque music).