Baroque Period Assignment Please read Unit III and do all of the listening in CO

Question

Baroque Period Assignment Please read Unit III and do all of the listening in CONNECT. 1. What are the dates of the Baroque period? Which two keyboard instruments were prominent during the Baroque Period? What is figured bass? What types of instruments are used in basso continuo? How many performers are there in a Baroque Trio Sonata? What instruments aria recitative ritornello Terraced dynamics Doctrine of Affections Libretto Ground bass Which song from the listening uses this device? Cornetto Tutti Chamber Sonata Cadenza

Explanation / Answer

1) The Baroque period refers to an era that started around 1600 and ended around 1750, and included composers like Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, who pioneered new styles like the concerto and the sonata.

2) The Organ

The pipe organ was among the first of the keyboard instruments during the Baroque period. It produces notes by allowing air to flow through reeds called pipes, causing a somewhat 'tooty' sound. Organs were very popular in church music, and was often viewed as an instrument of praise. Baroque composers, however, took the instrument very seriously and professional musicians were thought of as very accomplished. Famous organ composers include Johann Sebastian Bach, Nicolaus Bruhns and Johann Pachelbel.

The Harpsichord

The harpsichord is a baroque instrument which plucks a string rather than hammering it, and in this way produces a brash 'twang' compared to a piano's gentle 'plink.' However, it was the most popular instrument during the baroque era, and indeed many composers wrote their greatest works upon the harpsichord. It is also often used as an accompaniment with string ensembles. While the demand for harpsichords is much less compared to that of pianos', many ensembles employ it for the true 'baroque feel.' Famous baroque composers include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Phillip Telemann.

3) “Figured bass” — also known as “thorough bass” — was a practice used for certain accompanying, chordal instruments (mainly keyboards and various precursors to the guitar) during the Baroque period (ca. 1600 - 1750). (In fact, some figured bass was also occasionally used by Mozart and his contemporaries.)

It was a specific kind of musical shorthand — analogous, in some ways, to today's jazz fake sheets — that made life a little easier for the composer, and allowed for some creative improvisation on the part of the performer. (Improvisation was far more prevalent in Baroque practices — especially in melodic and rhythmic ornamentation — than was the case in classical music from that time until the 1960s). In brief — the texts will explain it in more detail — a bass line was given, with accompanying figures — ie, numbers — written below each note. These numbers stood for intervals — specifically, the intervals to be found above the written bass note.

Usually, the intervals given would correspond to those found in a typical triad or 7th chord. Since the intervals in a “root position” triad (one in which the root is in the bass) are a 3rd and a 5th — both measured from the bass (this is always the practice) — the figures “3” and “5” would be written below the bass note — which, in this case, would be the root of the triad.

4) Basso continuo is a form of musical accompaniment used in the Baroque period. It means "continuous bass". Basso continuo, sometimes just called "continuo", was played by a keyboard instrument and another bass instrument such as cello,violone (an old form of double bass) or bassoon.

5) and 6) The trio sonata was the most common variety of Baroque sonata, which developed from the late Renaissance canzona, an instrumental piece in several sections in contrapuntal style. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, there were two types of trio sonata. The sonata da camera, or chamber sonata, intended for secular performance, consisted of several mostly dancelike movements, and the sonata da chiesa, or church sonata, was as a rule more contrapuntal. The number of movements varied, but the latter type usually consisted of four movements (slow-fast-slow-fast). Distinctions between the two types were by no means rigid; the church sonata might contain dance movements, not necessarily labeled as such, while the chamber sonata often adopted the fugal style (based on melodic imitation) typical of the church sonata’s opening movement.

Notable composers of trio sonatas include Arcangelo Corelli, George Frideric Handel, François Couperin, and Antonio Vivaldi. In the trio sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach, the three parts are often played by fewer than three instruments; one top part might be played by violin and the other two parts by keyboard, or all three parts might be played on one organ (the two top parts on the keyboards and the bottom part on the pedals). Despite its name, the Trio Sonata is a composition written for four instruments. It’s called a trio, because there are three written parts, and the fourth instrument provided the “continuo”, or accompaniment. A typical set up would have been two violins, a cello and harpsichord.

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