Vocal Chamber Music

1. Chamber music for voice was more common than opera
2. Strophic Aria Types
   1. Repeating a melody with only minor rhythmic variations for each stanza
   2. Strophic variation: composing new music for the first stanza and then changing it for each stanza to reflect the meaning and inflection of the text
   3. Using a standard formula, such as the romanesca (see etude, p. 191, in CHWM)
      1. Associated with the poetic form called ottave rime
      2. Some romanesca compositions use a repeating bass line (ground bass, or basso ostinato).
      3. Chaconne (chacona, ciaccona)
         1. Dance song with a refrain
         2. Repetitions of a simple pattern of guitar chords
         3. Probably originated in Latin America then came to Europe via Spain
      4. Passacaglia (pessecalle, passecaille)
         1. Originated in Spain as a pattern of chords played between the strophes of a song (i.e., a ritornello)
         2. Evolved into a variety of four-bar bass formulas repeated continuously
         3. Usually in a triple meter and minor mode
      5. By the eighteenth century the terms passacaglia and chaconne became confusing because of their similarities
3. Cantatas (literally, a piece "to be sung")
   1. By the mid-seventeenth century the term was applied to any composition for solo voice with continuo on a lyrical or quasi-dramatic text.
   2. Cantatas consisted of several sections, including both recitatives and arias.
   3. The leading composers were Luigi Rossi, Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674), and Antonio Cesti.
   4. Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677)
4. Church Music
   1. Venice
      1. The Church of St. Mark continued to be the center of Venetian culture and the location of civic ceremonies.
      2. Venetian church music glorified the state and was independent of Roman rules.
      3. St. Mark's was the most prestigious place for a musician to work.
      4. Divided choirs (cori spezzati) were popular there.
      5. Giovanni Gabrieli composed for up to five choruses, each with a different combination of voice ranges, and with instrumental accompaniment, such as his polychoral motet / grand concerto, In ecclesiis (NAWM 58).
      6. Gabrieli's students spread his style to northern Italy, Germany, Austria, and Scandinavia.
   2. Sacred genres
      1. Grand concerto: a sacred work for very large, sometimes colossal, performing forces
      2. Concerto for few (one–three) voices with only organ continuo was more common.
      3. Monteverdi's Vespers (1610) uses all the styles of its time.
      4. Motets in the new style, for example, NAWM 60, O quam tu pulchra es, by Alessandro Grandi (ca. 1575/80–1630) combine elements from theatrical recitative, solo madrigal, and bel canto.

3. Oratorio
   1. Began in Rome as sacred dialogues combining narrative, dialogue, and exhortation
   2. Influenced by opera but not staged
   3. Called oratorio because they were performed in the oratory, the part of the church where lay societies met to hear sermons and sing devotional songs
   4. Librettos in Latin (oratorio latino) or in Italian (oratorio volgare, i.e. vernacular)
   5. Giacomo Carissimi (1605–1674) was the leading composer of Latin oratorios.
      1. NAWM 61, Historia di Jephte, exemplifies mid-century oratorio.
      2. Text is based on the Bible—Book of Judges—but librettist takes liberties with the words.
      3. A narrator (storicus or testo) introduces the story and narrates events.
      4. Choruses tell part of the story.
      5. The excerpt in NAWM is a lament sung by the daughter who is about to be sacrificed due to her father's promise to God.
   6. Similarities to operas: use of recitative, arias, duets, and instrumental sections
   7. Difference from operas: use of sacred subjects, narrators, dramatic, narrative and meditative roles for the chorus, and the lack of staging or acting.
4. Lutheran Church Music
   1. Lutheran composers continued to compose music based on the chorale but also composed in monodic, concertato, and grand concerto techniques.
   2. Johann Hermann Schein (1586–1630) composed concertos for few voices for German churches.
   3. Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) was the greatest German composer of the mid-seventeenth century.
      1. Studied in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli
      2. 1617–72, worked at the chapel of the elector of Saxony in Dresden
      3. Also spent some time in Copenhagen
      4. His only surviving compositions were sacred.
      5. His Psalmen Davids (1619) is a grand concerto with multiple choruses, soloists, and concertato instruments (in German).
      6. His Concertato motets for one to five solo voices with organ were published in Kleine geistliche Konzerte (Little Sacred Concertos) during the Thirty Years'War.
      7. His Symphoniae Sacrae (Sacred Symphonies), published in 1629, 1647, and 1650 were his most important works.
         1. These were concertato motets influenced by Monteverdi, Grandi, and G. Gabrieli.
         2. The last collection uses the fuller forces available after the end of the Thirty Years' War, for example, NAWM 62, Saul, was verfolgst

Instrumental Music

1. Compositions for Instruments
   1. Affected by developments in vocal music
   2. The violin emulated vocal qualities and rose to prominence as a solo instrument.
   3. Instrumental music became the equal of vocal music in quantity and quality by the middle of the seventeenth century.
2. Dance Music
   1. Dance music styles influenced many other genres, including vocal music.
   2. Suites
      1. A suite: several short pieces, each with specific moods and rhythms
      2. Began in Germany as a continuation of the dance pairs of the Renaissance
      3. As an example, Johann Hermann Schein's Banchetto musicale (Musical Banquet, 1617) includes some suites that build on one melodic idea throughout, and others with only subtle connections among movements.
         1. The sections in the suites in the Banchetto are in this order: paduana, gagliarda, courante, and allemande with a tripla, a triple-meter variation of the allemande.
         2. The style of Schein's suites is dignified, aristocratic, vigorously rhythmic, and melodically inventive, combining Italian and German qualities.
   3. French composers established definite characters for each dance type by arranging actual ballet music for a solo lute, clavecin (the French term for harpsichord), or viola da gamba
      1. Example: NAWM 63a and b, Gigue: La Poste, by Ennemond Gaultier (ca. 1575–1651)
         1. Lute arrangements spread triads out, leaving it to the listener to fill in the harmony.
         2. 63b, for harpsichord, adapts lute (style brisé) techniques to the harpsichord,
      2. The tradition of using little ornaments (agréments) began with lute players and was transferred to French harpsichord composition.
      3. Denis Gaultier (1603–1672) was the leading lutenist of early seventeenth-century France.
         1. His collection of twelve stylized dances, one in each mode, survives in a manuscript with the title La Rhétorique des dieux (The Rhetoric of the Gods).
         2. Each set includes an allemande, a courante, and a sarabande, with other dances added in no particular pattern.
         3. Many of the movements are character pieces with fanciful titles.
      4. Jacques Champion de Chambonniéres (1601–1672) was the most important keyboard composer (clave cinist) in France, followed by Louis Couperin (1626–1661), Jean Henri d'Anglebert (1635–1691), and Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (see Chapter 11).
   4. Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667) carried the French style to Germany and established the standard movements of the suite: allemande, courante, sarabande, gigue.
      1. Example: NAWM 64, Lamentation fait sur la mort . . .
         1. Lament on the death of Emperor Ferdinand III in 1657
         2. Slow allemande
         3. Stile brisé texture
         4. Using the key of F minor to allude to the emperor's name
3. Improvisatory Compositions
   1. The toccata had been established in the sixteenth century.
   2. Frescobaldi's toccatas are often more contemplative than those of Venetian composers.
   3. Frescobaldi also composed virtuosic toccatas in the venetian style, example: NAWM 65, Toccata No. 3
      1. Frescobaldi evades cadences through various means, giving the work a sense of restlessness.
      2. Performer may take liberties with tempo.
4. Contrapuntal or Fugal Genres
   1. Ricercare
      1. Brief, serious composition for organ or clavier
      2. Develops one theme continuously in imitation
      3. Example: Ricercar dopo il Credo (After the Credo, ex. 9.8 by Frescobaldi):
         1. Composed for use in church
         2. Shifting harmonies and dissonances, and chromatic lines
   2. Fantasia, Fancy
      1. Used borrowed themes
      2. Series of fugues
   3. English Consort Music
      1. Ensemble music for viols began early in the seventeenth century.
      2. Fancies by John Jenkins (1592–1678) use a variety of procedures.
      3. Later composers of fantasias for strings without basso continuo included Matthew Locke (1621–1677) and Henry Purcell (1659–1695).
5. Canzona or Sonata
   1. One approach was to build several contrasting sections, each on a different theme in fugal imitation and ending with a cadenza-like flourish.
   2. Variation canzonas use a single theme in successive sections (e.g., CHWM ex. 9.9 by Giovanni Maria Trabaci, ca. 1575–1647).
   3. Most ensemble canzonas are a patchwork of short unrelated sections that sometimes recurred within the work.
   4. The term sonata
      1. Vague in the early seventeenth century, meaning any composition for instruments.
      2. Gradually the term came to mean compositions resembling canzonas in form but with one or two melody instruments (usually violins) with basso continuo instead of the four-part canzona
      3. Sonatas used somewhat free and expressive idiomatic writing compared to the formal, abstract writing of the canzona.
   5. CHWM, ex. 9.10, Biagio Marini's Sonata per il violino per sonar con due corde (1629), is an early example of "instrumental monody."
      1. Contrasting sections without repetitions
      2. Coherence achieved through cadences on A and alternation between rhapsodic and metrical styles
      3. Idiomatic for the violin
   6. By the middle of the seventeenth century the sonata and canzona had merged, and both were called sonata.
      1. Some were specified as Sonata da chiesa, sonatas for use in church.
      2. The typical combination was two treble parts (usually violin) with basso continuo, usually called trio sonatas.
6. Variations
   1. This type was common, although not always titled as such.
   2. Often the word partite (divisions or parts) was used early in the seventeenth century.
   3. The techniques used were the following:
      1. Melodic repetition with little change, sometimes called cantus firmus variation, with different contrapuntal material in each variation
      2. Melodic repetition with different embellishments in each variation and the harmony remaining the same for each variation
      3. Using a repeated bass line as the constant factor (CHWM ex. 9.11a, Aria di Ruggiero by Frescobaldi)
      4. Chorale melodies as the basis for variations on organ (e.g., those of Samuel Scheidt's collection, Tabulatura nova, 1624, which used written-out parts instead of tablature). Scheidt's works influenced later German composers.