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Research paper of French and Italian Baroque music

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 Research paper of French vs. Italian style

Andy Yuyang Zhang

MUR 222: HISTORY OF WESTERN MUSIC 1600-1750

Mar 18th, 2019

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Overview of the paper

This paper discusses and compares French and Italian Baroque music through both countries’

history and social background, three music styles, and specific music examples.

French history and social background in Baroque Period

France was one of the most powerful countries in Europe in Baroque period. Francc is ruled

under Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV from 1601 to 1774. French society was not stable in

the early decades of the seventeenth century as a result of the Thirty Years' War, but after Louis

XIII led France to victory, France gained power and wealth as a center of trade, industry and

commerce. Under Louis XIV(1643- 1715), who established an absolute monarchy and portrait

himself as a god like figure, France became the most powerful country in Europe, and art became

an important way for him to gain respect and support from nobles and the public.

Cardinal Jules Mazarin served an important role on French music, and he influenced lots of

French musicians. Being the chief minister of the French Empire during the reign of the Louis

XIV, Cardinal Jules Mazarin, served an important musical role by importing opera and other

Italian music from Italy to France. Born in an Italian province near Rome in 1602, Mazarin was

exposed to Italian opera throughout his youth. When he became chief minister in 1643, Mazarin

started to bring Italian musicians to Paris, including the composers Marco Marazzoli ad Luigi

Rossi, singers Leonora Baroni and Atto Melani, the designer Giacomo Torelli. From 1645 to 1662,

Mazarin introduced opera to Paris audiences, and opera composers like Francesco Sacrati and

Francesco Cavalli were influenced and helped by the Italian opera singers and stage designer that

Mazarin brought to France like Giacomo Torelli, Leonora Baroni; later, those French composers

started to create the French style operas like Sacrati’s La finta pazza, and Cavalli’s Egisto.
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Apart from that, under the pressure of Louis XIV, who wanted to show his power to the whole

of Europe and the world, French composers worked to merge French musical characteristics with

the imported Italian styles while creating a unique national sound that creatively differentiated

their music from other traditions.

Italian History and social background in Baroque Period

Compared to the strong empire of France, Italy was not a unified country during the Baroque

period. It was a collection of states under Habsburg Spain from 1559 to 1713, and under the rule

of the Habsburg Austria from 1713 to 1796. After the loss of the Italian war in 1559, Italy was

socially unstable. Although the arts and science were highly cultivated through baroque period,

the economy of the country was poor and experienced a large decline due to the military conflicts,

political fractionalization and the shift of world trade to Northern Europe and America. Therefore,

Italy is economically weaker than France.

Italy had a stronger start on music in early Baroque period. Since Italian cities like Rome and

Florence played important roles during the Renaissance period, Baroque Italy has a stronger music

history background than France. Also, Baroque Italy has a stronger start on early Baroque period

due to ‘Florentine Camerata’, which is group of artists, humanists, musicians, poets and

intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de'

Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. They argued that

Renaissance music had been corrupted, and suggested artists should return to styles and forms of

ancient Greece to create new styles of music that would save their society.
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Music style and creativity in Italy and France

The music styles discussed in this paper are monody, instrumental music, and opera. For every

single musical style, this discussion starts from the summary of the music style in these two

countries, and ends with comparison on two specific music pieces from Italy and France except

for opera, which used a journal as a reference instead of music examples.

Music style: Monody

Monody, a type of song for solo voice with instrumental accompaniment, is one of the most

important musical inventions of the Baroque period.

Italian people invent monody, and they use complicated musical rhetoric to create an emphasis

on the text which is creative since most Renaissance composer only focuses on music. Vincenzo

Galilei, an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, was one of the inventor of monody, and

Lucia Quinciani, Giulio Caccini and Emilio de’ Cavalieri are early monody composer, and they

are all Italian. The ‘Florentine Camerata’ enthusiastically embraced monody as a form of musical

antiquarianism, since more and more weaknesses of polyphony, like weak emphasis on text and

weak expression on emotion, were exposed in the late Renaissance period.

The development of monody in France is almost parallel to the Italy chronologically, though

the earliest monodies were mostly composed in Italy, Monody is called ‘Air de cour’ in France.

The vocal style of the ‘Air de cour’ developed from French Chanson.

Monody music example comparison

Luzzasco Luzzaschi ‘s ‘O primasvera’ is one of the very first Italian examples of monody, and

Adrian Le Roy’s ‘Mais voyez mon cher esmoy,’ from ‘Airs de cour miz sur le luth,’ is one the first

French examples of monody.

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Luzzaschi was a conservative madrigal composer, and many of his works, such as ‘Se il lauro

e sempre verde from Il lauro secco’ and ‘Il vedervi e lasciarvi’ reflect an older, polyphonic style.

However, he does compose some monadic style madrigals for soprano and instrumental

accompaniment, and ‘O Primavera’ is one of those. It was composed in 1582.

Adrian Le Roy had a whole collection of monody, and he uses Lute as accompanied instrument.

Lute plays three to four notes harmonically, and the vocal line has only one melody.

There is one big difference among two piece which is that ‘Mais voyez mon cher esmoy’ has

no written vocal embellishments while ‘O primasvera’ does. This suggests that Italian monody

writes out the embellishments of vocal lines, while French monody doesn’t.

The written-out embellishment is creative since most music pieces in Renaissance don’t have

written out embellishments, and monody is also creative on text painting since Renaissance music

focuses more on music than texts or words, and it is new trend set in Italian music. For the piece

‘O primasvera’, in measure 4 to measure 5 and measures 7 to measure 8, Luzzaschi uses

embellishment at the end of the poem. In this case, embellishments, like trills, are components of

musical rhetoric that emphasize the texts and clarify the structure of the poem.

There are only slight differences between those two pieces, and there are lots of similarities. In

‘Mais voyez mon cher esmoy’, the melodic range of the vocal line is lower than the vocal line in

‘O primasvera’, this is mainly because Luzzaschi purposely writes ‘O primasvera’ for soprano,

and ‘Mais voyez mon cher esmoy’ is possibly written for alto or tenor. Both pieces have a four-

voice texture on the basso continuo, and they both used lute for continuo. There is a meter change

in ‘Mais voyez mon cher esmoy’ from ¾ to cut-time, while ‘O primasvera’ is in cut-time for the

whole piece The overall rhythmic pattern is slightly more complicated in the French piece. Both
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texts are about love. There are rests at the end of each sentence in the French piece, while the

Italian song uses embellishments on words near the ends of sentences. The two pieces have similar

textures.

Music style: Instrumental music

Both Italy and France have important influence on different types of instrumental music.

Italian people invented the harpsichord, an important instrument during the Baroque period,.

Italy was also home to famous violin makers in Cremona. The instrumental genre of the Sonata

originated in Italy, and it was originally considered as a contrast to Cantata, which refers to a piece

of vocal music. The Baroque Italian Sonata is typically a multi-sectional work with contrasting

rhythmic patterns, sophisticated use of bowing and double stops for stringed instruments, and

complicated ornamentation. Composers like Salamone Rossi and Biagio Marini are representative

composers of Baroque Italian Sonatas.

French musicians elevated the role of the lute in instrumental music. Though lute were not

originated in Europe, French lutenists introduced their specific way of tuning. The Hotteterre

family, born in Paris, invented wind instruments, for example, the oboe and bassoon.

French musicians also developed unique forms of instrumental music, such as French overture.

In the opera ‘Armide’, French overture has features of binary forms, over-dotted rhythm, change

in tempo, and written out ornamentation. Besides, it represents the power of Louis XIV. The

tonality of French overture can reflect the grandiosity and solemnity of the whole court, and the

court dance associated with the overture music is ostentatious and glorious. French overture is

iconic, and it’s performed in the beginning and the end of a French opera.

Besides the French overture, French suite is also a distinctive French instrumental genre

developed during the Baroque period. French suites typically contain five movements, allemande,
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courante, sarabande, optional fourth movements and gigue. Optional fourth movement may

include Air, Anglaise, Bourree, Loure Minuet, Musette, Passapied, Polonaise, Siciliano. All

movements of the French suite are in binary form and are written in the same the key. An

Allemande typically has a 4/4 time signature, slow tempo and improvisations. A Courante has

compound duple meter, moderate tempo, and shift rhythmic emphasis. A Sarabande is

characterized by triple meter, emphasis on second beat and moderate to slow tempo. The Optional

dance can be a bourree, garotte, loure, or minuet. A Gigue features a fast tempo, compound duple

meter, and a skipping rhythm.

French Baroque composers also introduce the stile brise, or broken chord style, into the

instrumental music for violins and other string instruments.

Instrumental music example comparison

Here, the paper will focus on the instrumental music genre: sonata

The piece we are comparing is Sonata I’ from 12 Violin Sonatas Op.9 by Jean-Marie Leclair,

which represents French sonata, and ‘Sopra La Bergamasca’ by Salamone Rossi, which represents

Italian sonata.

The Sonata was imported into France during the late Baroque period, and the sonata written by

Rossi was published in the early Baroque period (1622). Jean-Marie Leclair(1697-1764) may be

the only well-known French sonata composer in Baroque period, and he is one of the earliest

French sonata composer. There are four main differences between these two pieces. First, ‘Sonata

I’ from 12 Violin Sonatas’ is around sixteen minutes long, and ‘Sonata III’ from 12 Violin Sonatas’

is around thirteen minutes long. This suggests that most French sonatas are generally longer than

Italian sonatas, and French one is multi-movement. Secondly, ‘12 Violin sonatas’ uses the French

technique of over-dotted rhythms. Thirdly, the French sonata uses triple stops and even quadruple
 7

stops, which is rarely seen in Italian Sonatas. Fourthly, the French sonata has more rhythmic

contrasts than the Italian sonata by Rossi. The transition between the contrasting sections is

smoother and there are fewer dissonances.

Besides those differences, there are several of similarities. Firstly, the number of the

instruments are the same. Both pieces use two instruments and basso continuo, which may possibly

be the harpsichord. Secondly, both include sections with contrasting rhythm and texture. Thirdly,

both pieces have a lively tempo and vibe, although the emotion building is more complicated in

the French one, for example, Leclair uses for rhythmic contrasts than Rossi does, and Leclair uses

more modulations from major key to minor key and back and forth than Rossis does. Those details

build up emotion and tensions well.

Music style: Opera

Opera is one of the most important musical innovations of early seventeenth century.

Opera is a staged drama entirely set to music, made up of vocalists with instrumental

accompaniment and usually includes orchestral overtures and interludes.

In Italy, opera was called ‘Dramma per musica’.

Jacopo Peri is the inventor of the opera, but Claudio Monteverdi is considered to have

composed the first ‘mature’ opera, Orfeo (1607).

Orfeo represents early opera, and it set up two basic features for opera: the entire text or

libretto is sung and the plot is acted onstage by singers representing specific characters. Also, as

a music genre Orfeo has three features.

Firstly, the music of Orfeo include a variety of types and genre, for example, monodic singing,

ensemble singing, choral singing and instrumental passages. Secondly, the text and plot are drawn

from classical antiquity or ancient history, involve noble and divine figures and ostensibly teach a
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moral lesson. Thirdly, the action incorporates a variety of special scenic effects including the

elaborate mechanical devices.

Opera developed quickly in Italy following Orfeo’s success. In 1649, Francesco Cavalli, one

of Monteverdi's students, composed ‘Calisto,’ the first opera to be performed for a public audience,

and operas were mostly performed in court in palace before. At that time, Opera went commercial

and people started to perform with smaller ensembles for a more casual setting. The work was

little shorter in later opera.

Opera is called ‘tragedie en musique’ in France. Opera was imported into France and continued

to develop into a different, distinctly French style of Opera later in the seventeenth century. In

1673, French opera ‘Cadmus et hermione’, composed by French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully,

firstly performed on stage. French opera incorporates ballet dance into each act and often has a

more complex plot. It also includes a French overture, featuring over-dotted rhythmic patterns,

and a prominent chorus.

French opera and Italian opera

Unlike, the previous comparison, this paper use the journal article ‘a comparison between the

French and Italian music’ written by the French historian, biographer and musicologist Francois

Raguenet (1660-1722), as a reference instead of listing two opera examples. Since Francois

Raguenet wrote this journal article during the baroque period, and considering Francois Raguenet

had traveled around the whole Europe and personally watched lots of operas, it’s rational to

analyze his points as reference.

Raguenet suggests several critical differences and similarities between French opera and Italian

opera. According to Raguenet, “French operas are regular, coherent designs; and, though repeated

without the music, they are as entertaining as any of our other pieces that are purely dramatic. The
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dialogues are lively and natural. However, the Italian operas are poor, incoherent rhapsodies

without any connection or design; all their pieces are patched up with thin and insipid scraps. Their

scenes consist of some trivial dialogues or soliloquy.”

Though clearly biased in favor of the French style, Raguenet points out several points out

relevant differences between French operas and Italian operas.

Pro of the French opera Raguenet suggested

Firstly, French operas have a greater advantage over Italian in their use of the bass voice. This

is frequently used by French but rarely met in Italy. “The air receives a stronger concussion from

these deep voices than it doth from those that are higher and is consequently filled with a more

agreeable and extensive harmony.”1

Secondly, “French used violin much finer and with a greater nicety than they do in Italy.”2

Thirdly, “no theatre can represent a fight more lively than we see it sometimes expressed in

French dances, and he thought French dance is the best dance in Europe.”3

All those points he made are solid, French opera had ‘Haute-contre’, higher tenor voice, and

there are more violin playing techniques in France like double stops. Also, French ballet is an

important French exclusively art.

Pro of Italian opera Raguenet suggested

Firstly, “Italian language is much more naturally adapted to music than French. Their vowels

are all sonorous. Italian music generally make choice of the vowel a, which, being clearer and

more distinct than any of the rest, expresses the beauty of the cadence and division to a better

advantage. Italian music is language-wise more easily to understand.”4

1. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 413.
2. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 415.
3. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 415.
4. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 416
 10

Secondly, “Italian decorations and machines are much better than French, their boxes are more

magnificent; the opening of the stage higher and more capacious.”5

Thridly, “Italians have the same advantage over us in respect of the instruments and the

performers as they have in regard of the singers and their voices. Italian violins are mounted with

strings much larger than French violins; bows are longer and they can make their instrument sound

loud.”6

The first point and third point are valid since he already explained them in details. For the

second point, since there isn’t any video recorded in Baroque period and Raguenet has traveled

around, these words of description, which is about Italian staging, can be treated as a written

record.

Conclusion of the Comparison

After reviewing the history background, creativities that both countries brought, and contrast

on pieces and genre, it’s hard to make a judgement that which country has more contribute to the

whole world and to the music history. However, there is still an overall conclusion can be made:

Italy has a stronger start on music in the early baroque period but France play an active role in

adopting Italian music genre and evolve music to a more complicated structure due to the power

of Louis XIV, French artists worked hard on creativity to create a unique ‘French style’ music

5. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 433
6. Raguenet, Franc̨ ois. "A Comparison between the French and Italian Music." The Musical
Quarterly 32, no. 3 (1946): 431
 11

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