Learning Kit No.

3 (1st Year, Music in English)

October 29, 2020
November 5, 2020

Instrumental genres during the Baroque Period (1)

Chamber music
SONATA versus SUITE

Context:
- During the Baroque age, instrumental music fulfilled three functions:
- Religious
- Stage (theatre, opera, ballet)
- Chamber
- These functions generated specific traits of the musical writing:
- chamber music was performed in smaller spaces, compared to Opera or
Church,
- the lack of echo in Chamber music determined composers to write music in a
more speculative, spectacular way (abrupt modulations, rusher tempos,
luxuriant ornamentation, more flexible melodies, free, rhytmical subtleties,
harmonic subtleties etc.).
- Chamber music was supported, financed and tasted by nobility and
aristocracy, all along Baroque and Classical age. During the Romantic age
chamber music will spread towards the middle class.

The Chamber music style

- Meaning: stile – during the Baroque age, chamber music encompasses vocal
and instrumental music performed in smaller spaces and few audiences,
using few instruments and performers, in groups, every performer being a
soloist in the same group (ensemble)
- Chamber music fulfills a role of entertainment and diversion.
- Features of the style: fluent, delicate, charming, balanced (Johann Adolph
Scheibe, 1745)
- Technical skilled melodic lines, due to the fact that chamber music listening
does not involve other stimuli (visual: in opera, prayer: in sacred music), thus
composers were able to convey the chamber music works with virtuosity.
- Chamber music is aimed to be enjoyed by playing it and listening to it.
- Johann Mattheson classifies instrumental genres in:
- Stylus Symphoniacus (concerto grosso, ouverture, sonata, suite)
- Stylus Choraicus (suite intended to be danced): chamber music belongs to
Stylus Phantasticus. Style: elegance, distinction, grace, dexterity
(Mattheson, Der vollkommene Kapellmeister, Hamburg, 1739).
- 1650, Athanasius Kircher (Musurgia universalis sive ars magna consoni et
dissoni (Rome, 1650)) defines Stylus Phantasticus as „suited for instruments,
it is the most free style, lacking any restrictions, lacking words, lacking cantus
firmus, being suited to unveil ingeniosity, inherent logic of the harmony,
inventivity of the cadences and contrapuntal technique (the fugue)”. He
includes genres such as fantasia, ricercare, toccata, sonata.
- Instruments: violin, flute, oboe + basso continuo.
- After 1700 – keyboard instruments gain in importance (harpsichord,
clavichord, organ etc.)

The SONATA (vb. it. suonare = playing an instrument)

- First exclusively instrumental works during the late 16 th Century were all
called SONATA. The term defined any kind of instrumental combination
(Sonata per archi, Sonata „pian e forte” https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=QXRITlQBitc (Giovanni Gabrieli, 1597), albeit soloistic, chamber or
orchestral component.

Baroque sonata types:

- Sonata solo (without basso continuo)
- Sonata solo (with basso continuo)
- Triosonata (sonata a trè) – 2 solo instruments (same register) + basso
continuo. It is the most widespread type of sonata during the Baroque!!

!! Chamber sonatas were named according to the number of staves in the system. The
last stave was for the basso continuo (sonata a tre, sonata a  quattro, sonata a cinque,
etc.)

- During the first half of the 17 th Century, the number of staves did not limit the
number of performers (it could be performed by orchestras). In time, sonata
particularized as a soloistic and chamber music genre (not orchestral!)
 - Regardless of the number of performers, the Baroque sonata as a musical
genre has two species (types):
- Sonata da chiesa – basso continuo with organ, sobre and stiff style, standard
of 4 movements (slow-fast (contrapuntal writing, imitative)-slow-fast), the
first and the last movement (at least) devised in the same key.
- Sonata da camera – basso continuo with harpsichord, secular style, less
contrapuntal; although each movement is named by the tempo assignment,
(Allegro, Moderato, Presto), many times they are representing suite dances.
They do not have a fixed number of movements (they keep the fast-slow-fast
pattern), but the first and last movements are written in the same key.

- During early Baroque – the violin becomes the main soloistic instrument in
the genre of the sonata (Biagio Marini – sonate solo, Salamone Rossi –
triosonate, etc.). Early Baroque sonatas were written in one movement, that
comprised alternative tempos and alternative syntaxes (homophony,
polyphony).

- During the middle Baroque (Arcangelo Corelli,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozEfJugPMe4, sonata da chiesa,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BPhkY6xIP8, La Follia, Johann
Heinrich Schmelzer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pfoPVO4BsM,
Sonata quarta), sonatas grow in dimensions and are multi-movement.
- Along the Baroque (towards the late Baroque), the number of movements
tends to decrease from 6-7, to 3-4.
- Triosonata origins – in the vocal canzonetta and instrumental canzona if the
Renaissance, and also the instrumental ricercare.

The SUITE:

- Roots in the Renaissance, 16th Century, when couples of contrastant dances

were fashionable (a slow and binary meter dance followed by a fast and
ternary meter dance). They were ACTUALLY danced on! Along the Baroque,
the dance function gradually fades away.
- Synonims: Suite de danses, Ordre (the term favored by François Couperin),
Partita or Ouverture (after the theatrical " overture " which often included a
series of dances)
- First composers of Baroque suites: Johann Schein
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqU5LMTOREA), Samuel Scheidt
 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE1mYAAZoho) were still using
Renaissance dances: pavana, gagliarda.
- The suite: an instrumental genre, in several contrastant movements, belongs
to the secular music. It is a succession of dances, contrasting in tempo, meter
and character, but showing unity in using the same key and related melodic
material (related themes in each dance).
- Unlike the sonata, which is going to crystallize as a soloistic and chamber
music genre, the SUITE is not related to a special instrumental
component: there are solo, chamber and orchestral suites.
- In time, dances ar stylized (they kept only the character, metric structure
and the tempo of the dance, but were intended only to be performed and not
used as a musical accompaniment of the dance itself!)
- During early Baroque, most suites comprised 3 movements: fast – slow -
moderate: allemanda, sarabanda, couranta. After 1650, the fourth dance,
gigue, has been added as the final dance of the suite, while the sarabanda and
courante switched their places.
- Other dances in the suite (menuet, bourree, gavotte, passepied, loure, etc.)
could be added before the gigue.
- There is no standard in the number of dances (Rameau’s keyboard suites
could reach even 32 dances that belonged to the so-called `character
music~> they had titles).
- The standard succession of Ouverture (sinfonia) - Allemande-Courante-
Sarabande-Gigue is just a theoretical model.

Allemande, processional couple dance with stately, flowing steps, fashionable in

16th-century aristocratic circles; also an 18th-century figure dance. The earlier dance
apparently originated in Germany but became fashionable both at the French court
(whence its name, which in French means “German”) and in England, where it was called
almain, or almand. The French dancing master Thoinot Arbeau, author
of Orchésographie (1588), a principal source of knowledge of Renaissance dance, regarded
it as an extremely old dance. Its popularity waned in the 17th century.
- In the allemande the dancers formed a line of couples, extended their paired
hands forward, and paraded back and forth the length of the ballroom,
walking three steps, then balancing on one foot; a livelier version used three
springing steps and a hop. The music was in 4/4 time. As a 17th-
century musical form, the allemande is a stylized version of this dance. In
a suite (as in J.S. Bach’s English Suites) it is normally the first movement.
- The 18th-century allemande was a figure dance in 2/4 time for four couples;
one of its handholds possibly derived from the earlier allemande. The
 dancers performed intricate turns called enchaînements, or passés, with
elaborate interlacings of the arms.

Courante, (French: “running”) also spelled courant, Italian corrente, court dance for

couples, prominent in the late 16th century and fashionable in aristocratic European
ballrooms, especially in France and England, for the next 200 years. It reputedly originated
as an Italian folk dance with running steps. As a court dance it was performed with small,
back-and-forth, springing steps, later subdued to stately glides. Each couple held hands to
move forward and backward or dropped hands to face each other or turn. In its early
courtly form the dance was preceded by a wooing pantomime for three couples.

- As a musical form the dance appears as the French courante in modern 3/2 time

with some contrasting measures in 6/4 (♩♩♩♩♩♩) and as the Italian corrente in
rapid 3/4 or 3/8 time with running passages of eighth notes. 

- Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frideric Handel, J.S. Bach, and other Baroque
composers used both types in their orchestral and keyboard suites. In these suites the
courante follows the allemande, as it did in the ballroom. The Italian masters Arcangelo
Corelli and Antonio Vivaldi, among others, included corrente movements in their sonate da
camera (chamber sonatas).

Sarabande, originally, a dance considered disreputable in 16th-century Spain, and,

later, a slow, stately dance that was popular in France. Possibly of Mexican origin or
perhaps evolved from a Spanish dance with Arab influence that was modified in the New
World, it was apparently danced by a double line of couples to castanets and lively music. It
was vigorously suppressed in Spain in 1583 but in the early 17th century spread
to Italy and reached the French court, where it became a slow, serious processional
dance in 3/2 metre.
- The sarabande remained popular in France through the 17th century and survived
somewhat longer as a stage dance. As a musical form it is a stylized version of the French
dance; when used as part of a suite, as in Dietrich Buxtehude’s four suites for lute or
clavichord, it is normally the third movement.

Gigue, (French: “jig”, Italian giga), popular Baroque dance that originated in

the British Isles and became widespread in aristocratic circles of Europe; also
a medieval name for a bowed string instrument, from which the modern German
word Geige (“violin”) derives. Whereas true jigs were quick and wild solo dances of
indefinite form, gigues were danced by couples in formal ballet style. The French gigue
was a lively dance often in 6/4 or 6/8 time, while the Italian giga was faster and set
in 12/8 time. As a musical form the gigue was often used in the stylized dance suite as the
last movement. Invariably written in fugal style, the gigues of suites retain the
characteristic triple groups of eighth notes. Examples occur in the keyboard suites of J.S.
Bach. UPBEAT!

Baroque dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=9wlU4PP1eUI&ab_channel=DancetimePublication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdYoW6lhf6A&ab_channel=cpcontrapasso
(Courante dance)

- Menuet (ternar, cruzic, fie solemn, fie foaaaaaaarte elegant!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUe7vYPggns&ab_channel=protestant7 (Charles Dieupart
(1667~1740) - Les Six Suites, 1701 - Suite n° 6 en fa mineur pour clavecin ou (flûte ou violon et basse continue) 6. Menuet Il Giardino
Armonico Giovanni Antonini (flûte) Enrico Onofri (violon) Vittorio Ghielmi (viole de gambe) Ottavio Dantone (clavecin) Kaspar Mainz, Natalie
Gal, Uta Gruber (danses) Choreographed by Musica et Saltatoria Directed by Giovanni Antonini Performed by Il Giardino Armonico (On

period instruments / Historically informed performance) from the DVD ' Music of The French Baroque` )

- triple meter (3/4), NO upbeat!, tempo: moderato – fast…., character: elegant, fashionable,
aristocratic, solemn, monumental!

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yurw5Cf4HY (Handel, Muzica apelor)

- Gavotta (gavotte) (binar, moderat spre rapid, anacruză dublă )> moderato –
fast tempo, UPBEAT! (how long is it? 1 full beat! – also called a double
upbeat!), 2/4
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klc_wJJl0X0 (Bach, suita nr. 4 pentru
orchestră )
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO5sjxe7nKU (Bach, suita nr. 1 pentru
orchestră ))

- Bourree (binar, rapid, anacruză pe jumă tate de timp)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiC4Hap1g8c (Bach, Suita a 2-a)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_poFImOvbDs (Handel, Focuri de artificii)

- Gigue (binary meter – triple subdivision of each beat: 6/8, 12/8, fastest
tempo, UPBEAT / short!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_iivGo83Ts&ab_channel=PotsdamerRokoko
 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8nUcID6E1g (Bach, Suita pentru
orchestra nr. 3)
-

SONATA SUITA
- Alternanță de tempo
- Instrumental
- Tonalitate comună

Deosebiri:
Sonata: - solo cameral
3 sau 4 pă rți
Laic sau religios
- Prelucrează material tematic diferit în fiecare parte
- Tehnica contrapunctică

Suita: funcția – muzică de dans (sonata da camera)

- Nu are restricții de componentă instrumentală
- Numă r variabil de pă rți
- Laic
- Inrudiri melodice între dansuri
- Scriitură omofonă (cu abateri polifonice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX1pqTK_Bko&ab_channel=TheUltimateFashionHistory