Concise History of
Western Music
5th edition
Barbara Russano Hanning

Prelude III
The Long
Seventeenth
Century

Baroque Era: 1600–1750
 Original meaning: “abnormal,” “bizarre,”
“grotesque”
 nineteenth century: flamboyant, theatrical, expressive tendencies of seventeenth century
 twentieth century: adopted by music historians
 Baroque period: diversity of styles

Europe in the Seventeenth Century
 Scientific revolution
• relied on mathematics, observation, practical experiments
 1609: Johannes Kepler described elliptical orbits of the planets

Galileo Galilei: discovered sunspots and moons orbiting
Jupiter
 René Descartes deductive approach; explained world through mathematics, logic, reasoning

Sir Isaac Newton: 1660s law of gravitation
 combined observation with mathematics

Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
 Politics, religion, and war
• ranged from advocacy for democracy in England to absolute monarchy in France
• religious conflicts:
 Thirty Years’ War (1618–48): German Protestant and
Catholics
 political rivalries: France, Sweden, Denmark; Holy Roman Empire and Spain
 devastated Germany, reduced population by half

English Civil War (1642–49)
 battle between king and Parliament
 execution of King Charles I (r. 1625–1649)

1660 monarchy restored

Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
 Colonialism
• Europeans expanded overseas
• British, French, and Dutch colonies in North
America, Caribbean, Africa, and Asia
• lucrative imports to Europe: sugar, tobacco
 intensive labor; slaves brought from Africa
•
European traditions brought to Western Hemisphere
 Catholic service and villancicos to Spanish colonies

Protestant psalm and hymn singing to North America

Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
 Capitalism
• Britain, the Netherlands, northern Italy: prospered from capitalism
• joint stock company, important innovation
•
Hamburg, London: stock companies finance opera houses
• capitalism boosted the economy
 rise of public opera, public concerts
 independent demand for published music, instruments, lessons

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Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
 Patronage of the arts
• musicians depend on patronage from courts, churches, or cities
 musicians best off in Italy
 rulers, cities, leading families supported music: compete for prestige
• France: King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), power and wealth more concentrated
 controlled arts, including music

France replaced Spain as predominant power

French music imitated widely

Europe in the Seventeenth Century
(cont’d)
 Patronage of the arts (cont’d)
• public patronage
 “academies”: private associations, sponsored musical activities
 public opera houses; Venice 1637
 tickets and subscriptions, England 1672

From Renaissance to Baroque
 The dramatic Baroque
• collaboration of theater, painting, and music
 culminated in opera
• rappresentazione : move and impress an audience
• literature
 leading playwrights: William Shakespeare (1564–1616),
Jean Racine (1639–1699)
 Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608–1674), Don
Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616)
 vivid images, dramatic scenes, theatrical qualities

From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
 The dramatic Baroque (cont’d)
• art and architecture

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680): sculptor
 St. Peter’s Basilica, fountains, piazzas
 emphasizes motion and change
 dramatic effect, viewer responds emotionally
 Ecstasy of St. Teresa designed to astonish viewers
 The affections
• expressing emotion: emotion function of motion
• affections caused by combinations of spirits, “humors”

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From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
 The affections (cont’d)
• René Descartes’s treatise The Passions of the
Soul (1645–46)
 analyzed and catalogued the affections
 for every motion stimulating the senses, specific emotion evoked in the soul
• opera: series of arias
 succession of contrasting moods
 musical gestures create affections in listeners

From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
 The affections (cont’d)
• importance of the senses

Galileo: senses and reason instruments of learning
 debates: design or color in painting more important element
 music: dissonance used more freely to express words
• physical action, psychological reaction
 Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes
 first operas: Orpheus’s response to death of Eurydice
 concitato genere (“excited style”); descending tetrachords

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From Renaissance to Baroque
(cont’d)
 The affections (cont’d)
• naturalism

Bernini, Gentileschi: humble subjects, ordinary activities
 seventeenth century: golden age of Dutch painting,
Rembrandt van Rijn
 physical imperfection acceptable in art

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TIMELINE
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The Musical Baroque
 Debate between conservatives and innovators
• Claudio Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals
(1605): distinction between prima pratica and seconda pratica
• first practice ( prima pratica )
 sixteenth-century vocal polyphony of Zarlino, cultivated by Palestrina
 music had to follow its own rules
 music prevailed over the words
• second practice ( seconda pratica )
 adventurous style of modern Italians: Rore, Marenzio,
Monteverdi

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The Musical Baroque (cont’d)
 Debate between conservatives and innovators
(cont’d)
 text dictated musical setting
 unorthodox dissonances, unexpected harmonic progressions
 Classifications
•
Monteverdi enumerated options
 first and second practices
 differing functions: church, chamber, theater, dance
 types of affections

The Musical Baroque (cont’d)
 Classifications (cont’d)
• instrumental music
 dances into suites, suites into tonal cycles
 symmetrical arrangement of movements
 sonatas grouped in collections
• centripetal forces
 unifying: ostinato basses, harmonic patterns, recurring tutti sections
 other: improvisational impulse, toccatas
 Order and disorder
• constant creative tension between control and freedom

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Concise History of Western Music
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Concise History of Western Music, 5th edition
This concludes the Lecture Slide Set for Prelude III by
Barbara Russano Hanning
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