His career was spent as a composer attached to various churches In northern Italy and France, and most of his compositions are sacred, either settings of the mass or motets, sacred compositions based on Latin poetry suitable for inclusion in a church setting. Jonquil’s four-voice motet Eave Maria… Virgo serene (1502) is an outstanding Renaissance choral work. This Latin prayer to the Virgin is set to delicate and serene music. Joaquin connected the composition to music already existing within the church by adapting the melody for the opening phrases from a Gregorian chant, a technique known as parody.
The rest of the motet was not based on a chant melody. Listening Tips: Following the predominant practice of the time, the setting of Eave Maria is a chapel, a term now taken to mean that only voices are used but derived from Its literal meaning, “as It Is In the chapel” The opening uses polyphonic Imitation, In which each voice sings the same melody in succession. In this style, the voices often continue to add secondary melodies to accompany the following voice entries as at the text “domino’s tech. In addition to the imitation among individual voices, Imitation occurs between pairs of voices. Duets between the high voices are Imitated y the two lower voices at the text “Eave, cuss conception. ” All four voices participate in singing the phrase “Virgo serene,” creating a skillful closing punctuation to this musical section. Throughout this section of the motet, as well as in the rest of the piece not heard In this excerpt, Joaquin skillfully vanes the textures, using the contrast between two, three, or four voices to create distinct musical sections.
Whereas the works of composers of polyphonic music before Joaquin mainly relied upon the processes of polyphonic composition to spin out their works, Jonquil’s use f contrast signifies a more modern approach to creating musical form. Listening Guide: I o:o Eave Maria, I Hail Mary, 1 100:32 I | 00:49 1 101:02 conception, [pick] Domains tech, I Virgo serene. I Eave, Cuss conception, . 1 101:20 I the Lord is with thee, Serene Virgin. I Hail, whose I End of excerpt Thomas Wilkes: As Vests Was Descending Throughout the 16th-century, Italian composers became increasingly attracted to a secular genre called the madrigal.
In this genre, an emotionally expressive poem, often dealing with love, was set to vocal music that attempted to musically illustrate he words or their emotional content through a technique known as word painting. Madrigals were the musical counterpart of the literature and visual arts of humanistic movement. Members of the courts and other upper class citizens performed madrigals for each other as entertainment, sometimes without any audience other than the performers.
The popularity of madrigals in Italy, and the resulting translation and publication of a number of them in England, resulted in the rise of a school of English madrigal composers. Among these composers was Thomas Wilkes (1576-1623), who served as the organist at Chester Cathedral until his similar from his post on grounds of being a habitual common drunkard and a notorious swear and blasphemer. As Vests Was Descending comes from The Triumphs of Iranian (1601), an anthology of English madrigals written to honor Queen Elizabeth, referred to as Iranian in the poem. Note the reference in Vests to the “maiden queen. “) Although the Italian version of word painting often served the purpose of amplifying the emotional content of the text, English composers wrote music similar to that in Vests, in which the music attempts to illustrate individual rods especially those that indicated number or direction. The variety in a music setting such as Vests produced a musical composition requiring skill to perform and pleasing to the performers. As Vests Was Descending has the light mood typical of English madrigals.
Word painting is plentiful, e. G. , the word “descending” is sung to downward scales and “ascending” to upward ones. When Vest’s attendants run down the hill in twos, threes, and larger groups, the setting is for two voices, then three voices, then six voices. A solo voice proclaims that the goddess is left “all alone. ” In the extended including section, “Long live fair Iranian,” a Joyous phrase is imitated among the voices. In the bass this phrase is sung in long notes, with the longest note on the word long.
The length of time dedicated to this proclamation, one third of the composition, is indicative of the ultimate purpose of the composition, to flatter the Queen. AS Vests was from Altos hill descending, I Descending scales on “descending” same ascending, 1 100:15 She spied a maiden queen the I Ascending scales on “ascending” 00:38 alternated on by all the shepherds swain, undulates, neither ascending nor descending. 100:58 I Melody gently Tit whom Donna’s darlings came running down main.
I Rapid imitative descending fugues on running down 1 101 I Two, three then solo voice I Two voices, three voices, and then all voices two, then three by three together, I First two by 01 I leaving their goddess all alone, hasted thither, I solo voice land mingling with the shepherds of her train with I All voices in delicate polyphony entertain. Sang the shepherds and nymphs of Diana, I mirthful tunes her presence 1 102:15 I Then III voices unite to introduce the final proclamation 1 102:29 I Long live fair Iranian!
Brief, Joyful phrase imitated among voices is repeated over and I I lover 1 103:40 End Ionian Sebastian Bach: Organ Fugue in G minor, (“Little Fugue”) Although Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)is today recognized as a master of baroque composition. He composed in all contemporary genres except opera, an omission in his oeuvre that was certainly a result of his twenty-seven year appointment as the music director for the major churches in Leipzig, Germany, and the tension between the church and the secular opera establishment.
One of Bach’s best-known organ pieces is the Little Fugue in G Minor (composed about 1709), so ailed to differentiate it from another, longer fugue in G minor. Mastering the very strict compositional form of the fugue, based upon the earlier imitative vocal polyphony of the renaissance, was thought to be one of the highest achievements of a baroque composer. In this form a single melody, the subject, is the basis of all the following music in the composition.
Bach’s command of this compositional genre was so great that he was called upon to improvise a fugue given to him in 1744 by Frederick the Great. Bach later based the composition of the Musical Offering , a ritual encyclopedia of polyphonic forms, on the royal theme. The investigation of musical construction dominated Bach’s last decade, during which his membership in the learned Society of Musical Sciences where Bach and his fellow composers sought the perfect polyphonic musical materials from which endless compositions could be wrought.
Listening Tips: In a fugue, each melody is called a voice and uses the designations from vocal music from highest to lowest of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. Each of the fugue’s the lower voices, until it reaches the bass, where the organist’s feet on the pedal aboard play it. When the subject appears the second time, the first voice proceeds to the counter-subject, a melody that accompanies the subject balancing its melodic motion and harmonic content.
Subject in soprano voice alone, minor key Subject in alto, countermeasure in running notes in soprano I Subject in tenor, countermeasure above it; brief episode follows I Subject in bass (pedals), countermeasure in tenor I Brief episode Subject begins in tenor, continues in soprano I Brief episode, running notes in a downward sequence I Subject in alto, major key; countermeasure in soprano I Episode in major, upward leaps and running notes I Subject in bass (pedals), major key, countermeasure and long trill 1 102:42 I Longer episode Subject in soprano, minor key, countermeasure below it.
I Extended episode Subject in bass (pedals), countermeasure in soprano. Fugue ends 1 104:12 I End George Frederic Handel: Messiah, Every Valley Shall be Exalted George Frederic Handel (1685-1759) began his career in his native Germany as a musician as an organist and violinist. After composing his first operas in the early sass, he went to Italy, spending three years composing and studying opera in Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice. In the sass, he relocated permanently in London Inhere he became a successful composer and presenter of Italian-style operas.
He began composing oratorios in the sass as an alternative to opera, which could not be produced during the season of Lent. Besides being based on a sacred story, oratorios did not involve stage acting but were rather presented in concert, a more austere performance style appropriate for the season of abstinence. After the premiere of Messiah in 1742 in Dublin, Handel abandoned opera, which had become unprofitable, and for most of the remainder of his life composed and presented oratorios.
At these performances he usually played a concerto on the organ during declaring upon its completion, “l do believe I have seen all of Heaven before me, and the great God Himself. ” In order to fit a larger than normal audience at the premiere, ladies were advised to not wear hoops and gentlemen to leave their swords at home. Ere work was an immediate success despite controversies surrounding his use of theatrical singers to present a work with a sacred text. Like opera, oratorios consist of arias (expressive songs), recitatives (sections of sung dialog), and choruses.
Except for the subject matter, the musical style of arias ND recitatives from Handel’s oratorios is virtually indistinguishable from the style of his operas. His oratorio choruses are unlike anything in his operas. As in many baroque arias, Every Valley Shall Be Exalted opens and closes with an instrumental section. Throughout the piece, the orchestra both accompanies and alternates sections with the voice. This aria is striking in its vivid word painting, a renaissance technique still used by certain baroque composers in Handel’s time.
In addition, the ornamental style of singing, prominent on the text “exalted,” is a musical counterpart f the ornate style in the visual and architectural arts of this period. The virtuosic abilities of the singer, both in the technical aspects and expressive aspects of vocal production, are amply demonstrated in the final sung section, labeled cadenza. I Instrumental Introduction Phrases are repeated at differing dynamic I I I Orchestral section. I Every valley shall be I levels. Exalted.
Joy:55 1 100:21 Reword painting: Ascending rapid notes on “exalted” And every mountain and hill made low, High tone on “mountain”; Low tone on “IoW’ 1 101 Reword painting: I The crooked straight, and the rough places plain. I Word painting: Wavy melody on “crooked”; smooth melody on I “plain” I Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and Reword painting on “exalted,” “mountain,” “low,” “crooked,” and I I low, the crooked straight, and the rough I “plain” I places plain. I hill made 1 102:50 I Cadenza: The crooked straight, and the rough places I Slow, ornamented vocal section repeated 1 103:08 I plain.
I Instrumental introduction 1 103:30 Antonio Vivaldi: La Primeval, Movement I position as maestro did concerto at the Spelled Della Pieta, one of four Venetian institutions for the care and musical training of orphaned girls. In his solo career, he had at times been criticized for having too great a command of his instrument, and ‘being of a volatile disposition, having too much mercury in his constitution. ” His new position at the Spelled provided him with performing ensembles and audiences eager for his compositions.
While at the institution, he composed 500 concertos, forty-nine operas for the Venetian opera houses, and many other works. The instrumental concerto style of Vivaldi was the result of a century of development and experimentation on the principle of concerto, or concerted music, in which intonating sections are placed side by side in a single piece of music. Early concerti often contrasted solo, choral, and instrumental sections, as seen in the compositions of Andrea and Giovanni Gabriele, organists at the Church of SST.
Mark in Venice from 1566 to 1612. The unusual physical design of SST. Marks, featuring multiple choir lofts, Nas especially conducive to sectional contrasts in dynamics, instrumentation, and spatial separation. The principle of contrast and unification is the primary feature of the later baroque concerto in which an instrument or small group of instruments is entrusted with the orchestra. Listening Tips: La Primeval (“Spring”) is a concerto that is also an early example of program music, music that references external objects or concepts.
Vivaldi clearly indicated his references by writing the phrases of a poem in the musical score. (Those references are included in the listening guide below. ) In addition, the music is structured by contrasting sections for the orchestra and the violin soloist, who is accompanied by the orchestra. This movement opens with an energetic orchestral section called a reiteration. Each of the riotousness’s two phrases is played loudly and hen repeated softly in the terraced dynamics typical of baroque music.