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Baroque Instrumental Music Orchestral Music • Early Baroque orchestras consisted mostly of strings with a few wind instruments for added color.

Mus 100 4 barq instr

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Baroque Instrumental Music

Orchestral Music

• Early Baroque orchestras consisted mostly of strings with a few wind instruments for added color.

Instrumental Music of the Baroque

Vivaldi

Handel

J.S. Bach

Baroque Keyboard Instruments

• Organ

• Harpsichord

• Clavichord

harpsichord

Baroque Instrumental Music

•Keyboard music began to replace the lute in popularity.

•Virtually every home had a harpsichord in it.

Pipe Organ

• The pipe organ was well suited to the Late Baroque, highly dramatic and polyphonic instrumental style.– Dynamics could be changed abruptly – Highly polyphonic music was easier to

achieve with multiple manuals (keyboards).

Baroque Concerto

• Contrast and unity• Latin concertare (“to contend with”)• Opposition of different forces

Two Types of Concerto

Solo Concerto Concerto Grosso

Baroque Instrumental Music

• A Baroque Concerto Grosso is a multi-movement piece for orchestra and one or more solo instruments. – It is a musical conversation between two groups.

• Parts of a concerto grosso– Concertino – the smaller or solo group– Ripieno – the larger orchestra group

• This is also sometimes called Tutti

Antonio Vivaldi – one of the most prolific composers of Baroque concertos.

“Spring” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons

• Terraced Dynamics – A way of changing dynamics by adding or subtracting the number of instruments in an ensemble.

• Ritornello – a section of the music that always returns with the same music.

“Spring” from The Four Seasons

Sonnet that prefaced this movement:

“Spring has come, and the birds greet it with happy songs, and at the same time the streams run softly murmuring to the breathing of the gentle breezes. Then the sky being cloaked in black, thunder and lightning come and have their way; after the storm has quieted, the little birds turn again to their harmonious song.”

The Baroque Suite

Suite: Instrumental music based on dance forms

– Allemande– Courante– Sarabande– Gigue (jig)

• Other optional dances: minuet, gavotte, bourrée, passepied

Movements• Individual sections of a larger piece of music

French Suite, No. 1, D minor BWV 812 Johann Sebastian Bach

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Menuet

Gigue

Handel and the Orchestral SuiteTwo notable suites by Handel

• Water Music• Music for the Royal

Fireworks • Royal party on the

Thames River in London, July 17, 1717

Water Music, Suite in D major, II

D-major Suite

• Opens with fanfare-like theme in trumpets

• Answered by horns and strings

• Followed by lively hornpipe (dance)

Keyboard forms

Two basic types (1) Based on harmony with a strong

element of improvisation(1) Prelude(2) Chorale prelude

(2) Stricter forms based on Counterpoint (polyphonic formula)

Fugue

Genres of Baroque keyboard music

• Prelude – a brief piece that may be an independent composition or an introduction to another piece or set of pieces.

• A prelude and fugue were a common pair in the Baroque era.

Fugue

• A polyphonic (counterpoint) composition with 2 or more independent melodic lines (or voices).

• The parts of a fugue consist of an exposition (opening) where the principle theme is introduced, and episodes where material may be developed.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

• His keyboard music is considered the standard that all keyboard players must learn and study– Well Tempered Clavier books I & II

• Two sets of preludes and fugues in all 12 major and 12 minor keys

– Extensive collection of organ music

J.S. Bach’s Prelude and fugue in C minor, from The Well-Tempered Clavier

• Prelude – improvisatory, free form

• Fugue– 3 voices– Disjunct theme

• Page 174