Introduction to Baroque Music
Music from 1600 to 1750
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Setting the Stage
 The Baroque Era runs from 1600 to 1750; for once, the dates are genuinely
significant
 In 1600 occurred the first surviving work we today consider an opera,
performed in Florence, Italy
 An opera is a stage drama set to music – an opera celebrated the single
emotion felt by a single person to an entirely new degree
 During the summer of 1750, Johann Sebastian Bach dies. Admittedly, few
people knew he had dies, and even fewer actually cared, but undoubtedly his
death meant and marked the end of an era
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What Does the Word Mean?
 Baroque is a Portuguese word, barocco, meaning a pearl of
irregular shape or color
 Later on in the early 18th century, it was used as a slang for
anything that was considered gross or bizarre or in bad taste,
overly extravagant or fussy in its design
 By the 1920s though, it came to refer to the flamboyant,
extravagant, highly detailed art and music of the said dated
period, from the birth of opera to the death of J.S. Bach
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Listen to Bach…
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Music in the Baroque
Baroque music is about expressive exuberance and
surface extravagance, carefully tempered and controlled
by rhythm, a systemic approach to harmony, and
symmetrical musical forms
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Renaissance vs. Baroque


Giovanni Palestrina
Johann Sebastian Bach
Pope Marcellus Mass – Agnus Dei (1555)
Mass in B Minor – Sanctus, Hosanna (1745)
Rhythmically very measured and comes at us gently at
a moderate speed and does not seek in any way to
overwhelm us
Melodically , the voices have a plainchant quality,
lacking in any sort of embellishment or ornamentation
– no accessories, no makeup or jewelry; it is pure and
squeaky clean

The polyphony is typical of the Renaissance - no
dissonance

Work is for voices only – for the chapel, a cappella,
without accompaniment

Rhythmically has pure dancing energy overwhelming
us

Melodically all over the place – melodies are long and
ornate

The polyphony and harmony is typical of Bach – filled
with dissonance, driving each phrase forward in search
of resolution

Work is concerted: scored for voices and instruments
Unrestrained joy and celebration, almost physical in its
exuberance
Caviar and martinis happy hour
A quiet, sombre prayer, measured and dignified
A snack of milk and cookies
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Renaissance vs. Baroque (Secular)
Thomas Weelkes
Henry Purcell
As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending
(1601)
Dido and Aeneas – Dido’s Lament (1689)
 What is being expressed: word-painting
– expressively, a madrigal is about its
words
 The emotional impact is generic at best:
do we suffer with Vesta? Not really
 The “speaker” is impersonal, faceless,
relating a story of someone else
 Dido’s feelings are being expressed,
feelings beneath the words
 Dido’s despair, grief and pain become
our despair, grief and pain; she is
singing directly to us
 The “speaker” is sharing personal
feelings – this is theatre, opera, sharing
individual emotions
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The Opera
The development of opera represents, musically, the rise
of the individual in Western culture, and nothing in the
last 400-plus years of Western music history has been
more important than the invention of opera
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The French Overture
A specific and important genre of music that evolved as a result of the pomp
and extravagance of Louis XIV
 An overture is an instrumental work that precedes a stage work
 A French overture is a royal, magnificent orchestral composition designed to
create a festive atmosphere for the stage event to come AND to welcome the
king (Louis XIV) to the theater
 Invented by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) around 1660, master of all music at
the French courts
 Part I: Characterized by sweeping scales and a slow, plodding tempo,
majestic and royal
 Part II: Characterized by imitative polyphony and a faster tempo