The late Baroque era (1700–50) was a time of major political change throughout Europe, involving a shift in the balance of power between sovereign states. Across the continent it was a period of almost continuous warfare, the effects of which were later felt in other parts of the world as a result of conflicting ambitions among the various trading empires consolidated in the previous century. Certain European nations witnessed, in the ...
By the beginning of the eighteenth century, opera was established in some form in most major European centres. The basic types of serious and comic opera in both Italian and French traditions shared similarities, although the content and style of an operatic entertainment could vary according to whether it was intended to flatter a private patron, resound with a public audience, or to celebrate a state event such as a ...
As the violin family acquired the musical respectability previously enjoyed by the viols, so the upper-middle classes began to take an interest in becoming amateur players. Accordingly, a market grew up for tutors, or instruction books. The earliest known volume devoted to the violin was The Gentleman’s Diversion (1693) by John Lenton (d. 1718) and this served as a model for most early eighteenth-century English violin methods. Intended for beginners, they ...
Musicians have always enjoyed a significant role as providers of social entertainment. In the early eighteenth century, this aspect of music-making gained greater importance, as the middle classes in European towns and cities cultivated the art of courtly dancing in such forms as the minuet, the bourée and the gavotte. Most of the era’s major composers, including J. S. Bach, Handel and Telemann, featured the rhythms and styles of popular ...
From the earliest years of the Baroque era musicians, scientists and assorted intellectuals, mainly from Italy, wrote treatises and manifestos discussing the theories, aesthetics and musical practice of a new style of music. By the early eighteenth century almost every country in Europe was producing writers who aimed to define musical styles and concepts. They attempted to rationalize and, to an extent, codify emotional responses to music. Although the results ...
During the early eighteenth century a few composers enjoyed regular close collaboration with a favourite librettist, such as Fux with Pariati, or both Vinci and Porpora with the young Metastasio. However, such examples were rare, and instead it was common for a popular libretto created for one major Italian opera centre to be adapted for the needs of other composers working all over Europe. Some texts were consequently used many ...
Literary clubs that were established in seventeenth-century Italy were commonly known as ‘academies’, taking their name from the Athenian garden where Plato was thought to have met with his followers. One of the most important such groups in the early eighteenth century was the Roman ‘Arcadian Academy’. It was formally established in 1690 to honour the late Queen Christina of Sweden, who had been a keen supporter of the literary ...
The extended polemic between Lullistes and Ramistes was provoked by the former group’s disgust for the Italianate elements in Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie, and their arising concern that the repertoire and tradition established by Lully was under threat. In contrast, Rameau’s supporters championed his innovative music that included more elaborate solo songs and increasingly complex use of the orchestra. One venomous Lulliste complained that he was racked, flayed and dislocated ...
By the eighteenth century many musicians had become accustomed to travelling far from their native cities or countries in search of employment, or in response to invitations from rulers of different states. In the late-Baroque period this type of wandering existence had become a standard feature of musical life in Europe, involving singers, instrumentalists and composers, in sometimes permanent separation from their homes and families. In this way musical styles ...
Forms such as the toccata and prelude, which began in the Renaissance as improvised ‘warm-up’ pieces, became more substantial virtuoso keyboard compositions in the late Baroque era, though they retained their introductory function. Alessandro Scarlatti’s harpsichord toccatas expanded the form to embrace a series of contrasting sections, some of them in strict styles – perhaps fugal or variations on a ground bass. J. S. Bach’s harpsichord toccatas continued this practice, moving ...
The aims of codifying and cultivating the concept of national style can be found in the music of some European countries well before the beginning of the Baroque era. But awareness of national traits in composing and playing music intensified during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the same time, authors of treatises and manifestos became increasingly interested in the ideas and performing styles of other countries. As in most ...
A crucial centre for the emergence of the symphony was the electoral court at Mannheim, where the orchestra achieved an international reputation under its director Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (1717–57). Elsewhere in Europe, orchestral music figured significantly in the mixed programmes of the public concerts that formed a feature of musical life in many cities from the early 1700s. There was a greater focus than ever before on instrumental virtuosity, ...
Novelty, exuberance and contrast were among the many disparate features of Baroque art that helped to enrich its expressive content. The oft-declared aim of the Baroque composer to stir the emotions was entrusted to the performer, whose affective vocabulary was increasingly enlarged by developments taking place in singing techniques, with their emphasis on challenging ornaments and dazzling passagework, and in the craft of instrument-building. Modena, Bologna, Cremona and Venice were ...
The bagpipe consists of drones, or reedpipes, which are connected to a windbag. The windbag is held under the arm and is squeezed by the elbow to pass air into the pipes. The windbag is inflated by a blowpipe or bellows, and the melody is played by means of a chanter, a pipe with fingerholes. Although the bagpipe was essentially a folk instrument, it was played at court in several periods. ...
Originally (and still occasionally) known as the ‘violoncello’, or ‘little violone’, the cello is tuned in fifths like the violin and viola, running bottom to top, C, G, d, a, the same tuning as a viola, but an octave lower. There were early experiments with a smaller five-stringed instrument (with an additional E string to give it an extended upper range) called a violoncello piccolo. J. S. Bach composed the ...
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