The Late Seventeenth Century
Opera in seventeenth-century France
• Absolute monarchy — established by Cardinal Richelieu under
Louis XIII
• Académies
– 1635 Académie française (for belles lettres) set up by Richelieu —
rationalistic, idealistic, classicistic in sense of restraint, balance
– Académie de musique (1669)
• Ballet de cour
– social, participatory with courtiers as dancers
– danced in center space in open hall
– included instrumental music, spoken narrative and dialogue, airs
• Opera’s arrival in France
– Italian works during regency of Anne of Austria (1643–1653)
– nationalism — exploited by librettist Pierre Perrin (ca. 1620–1675)
under Louis XIV
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687)
• Florentine, moved to Paris 1646
• Instrumental composer to Louis XIV from 1653
– member of existing Vingt-quatre violons du roi
– Petits violons (sixteen, later twenty-one) under Lully from 1656 set
new performance standards
– superintendent of music from 1661
• Comédies-ballets with Molière 1663–1672, e.g., Le bourgeois
gentilhomme 1670
– fused music, dance, poetry — developing style
– influence of Italian pastoral operas, French ballet de cour
• 1672 — took over Académie de musique — complete control of
musical life in France
Tragédies lyriques
• Lully and Philippe Quinault (1635–1688)
• Mythological plots with allegorical allusions to France and king
• French style
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–
–
–
–
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five acts — Classic model from Greek antiquity
emphasis on ballet derived from ballet de cour tradition
more chorus than contemporary Italian opera
spectacle — machines, sets
récitatif — carries action, carefully measured, simple
air modeled on French air de cour — nondramatic, often
employs dance rhythms and forms
– functions of instrumental music
• articulative — especially overture
• dramatic — accompaniment to singing
• dance accompaniments
English music in the late seventeenth
century
• Isolation — especially under Cromwell and
Commonwealth 1649–1660
• Restoration began to recover court following French
model
English church music in the seventeenth
century
• Beginning of century continued music of English
Reformation
– Services
– full and verse anthems
• Church musicians abolished under Puritan regime
• Restoration recovered choral music tradition, including
concerted compositions
Instrumental music in England
• Keyboard tradition from sixteenth century
– dances
– variation sets
• Ensemble music
– fantasy (fancy) for consort of viols
– later, Italian-style sonatas
Musical drama during the Restoration
period
• Theater music tradition of court masque
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–
–
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recitatives
songs
choruses
dances
• Theater suppressed during Commonwealth — concerts
still permitted
• Opera after the Stuart Restoration still very limited
Henry Purcell (1659–1695)
• Time of Stuart Restoration, worked in court and
Westminster Abbey
• Sacred works associated with church employment —
anthems, services
• Dramatic music for court milieu
– opera Dido and Aeneas
– semiopera, e.g., The Fairy Queen
• Odes and welcome songs — royal welcomes, weddings,
birthdays, St. Cecilia’s Day
• Songs
• Instrumental — keyboard, ensemble (fantasies, sonatas,
etc.)
Spanish opera in the seventeenth
century
• Based on pastoral court entertainment tradition — use
of mythical, allegorical plots
• Solo singing
– all female in leading parts — except for comic male
peasant
– not separated into distinct style of recitative and aria but
used strophic songs for both dialogue and affective
moments
• Spanish instrumentation — continuo uses harp and
guitar
• Choruses in familiar style
Neapolitan opera in the late seventeenth
century
• Naples as focus of stylistic progress in Italy
• Sharp distinctions
– serious vs. comic scenes — later to be split away
– solo almost completely displaces chorus, mostly
displaces ensembles
– recitative extremely differentiated from aria —
differentiated as simple, accompagnato; arioso
Da capo aria design
A
B
A
Ritornello
home key
Solo
modulating
Ritornello
contrast key
Solo
modulating
Ritornello
home key
Solo
modulating
da capo — ornamented in performance
Cantata
• Chamber vocal genre (cubicularis) for
– voice (possibly voices)
– continuo (possibly obbligato instruments)
• Multiple movements
• Vocal styles of opera
– recitative
– aria
Later seventeenth-century
instrumental genres
Organ music, Suite, Sonata, Concerto
German organ music in the late
seventeenth century
German organ music in the late
seventeenth century
Two classifications of organ compositions
• Frei — figurational material; free from contrapuntal
texture
– prelude, toccata, etc.
• Gebunden — based on established melodic material,
follows contrapuntal rules
– chorale-based pieces
– fugues
Chorale settings for organ
• Chorale fugue — chorale melody treated in fugal texture
• Chorale fantasia — extended elaborations of each phrase with
repetitions and interruptions in c.f.
• Chorale prelude — one more-or-less continuous statement of
chorale melody as c.f.
– c.f. with or without ornamentation — ornamentation
usually only if c.f. is soprano
– accompaniment either independent or derivative —
Vorimitation
• Chorale partita — series of short chorale settings in
contrasting styles
– alternatim usage in service — organ, choir, congregation
Fugue
• Antecedents
– sixteenth-century imitative pieces based on vocal models —
ricercar (from motet) and canzona (from chanson)
– early seventeenth-century monothematic fantasia or ricercar
• Theoretical and stylistic principles in mature fugue
– monothematicism
– subjects more instrumental in melodic and rhythmic profile,
unlike ricercar and fantasia
– tonal answer
– countersubject
– tonal unity and plan for entire piece
– pedal point — especially approaching final cadence
– stretto, especially for end of piece
The French keyboard suite (ordre)
• Importance of dance — court ballet tradition
• Harpsichord — intimate style suited to taste of
courtly amateurs
• Rhythm — derived from dance styles
• Melody — agréments; ornamented doubles
• Forms
– binary dance form — variety of midpoint cadence choices
– rondeau
Standard order of dances in the late
seventeenth-century suite
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•
•
•
Derived from publication of suites by Johann Jacob
Froberger (1616–1667)
Allemande — duple meter, moderate tempo
Courante — flowing triple meter (often with hemiola)
Sarabande — slow triple meter, emphasis on second
beat 2 of the measure
Gigue — fast compound meter
Two important French suite composers
• Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665–1729)
• François Couperin "le grand" (1668–1733) — often
used descriptive titles rather than dance names,
turning dance movements into character pieces
Sonata
• Scoring
– violin(s) or other melodic instruments and b.c.
– instrumental idiom, not vocal style
• Ensembles
– trio sonata — duet and b.c.
• most popular
• combines clarity of b.c. texture with polyphonic
interest
– solo sonata — solo and b.c.
• allows for more virtuosity
• Major composer — Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713)
Sonata types
• Sonata da camera (chamber sonata)
– stylized dances — actually a dance suite
• Sonata da chiesa (church sonata)
– abstract movements (at least ostensibly)
– alternating tempos, usually slow-fast-slow-fast
Concerto
• Derived from sonata by reinforcing some
passages with multiple instruments
• Two major composers
– Giuseppe Torelli (1658–1709) —established structural
principles
– Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) — worked out types of
material to exploit principles of form
Concerto types
• Ripieno (full) concerto — uses all instruments freely
• Solo concerto — solo vs. ripieno group
• Concerto grosso — concertino group (often trio
group) vs. ripieno
Form in the Baroque concerto
• Three movements (usually) — fast, slow, fast
• Outer movements usually in ritornello form:
Ritornello
Solo
Ritornello
Solo
Ritornello
Tutti
Solo and
b.c.
Tutti
Solo and
b.c.
Tutti
Home key
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Contrast key
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Home key
Questions for discussion
• How did political structures affect musical life and
express themselves through musical style in the late
seventeenth century?
• Why would it be appropriate to describe a large Italian
opera aria as a concerto movement for voice? What
significant differences are there between the two
structures?
• How did the idea of affective expression and of key
center support large forms in instrumental and vocal
music in the seventeenth century?