The Pavan and Galliard
• Renaissance dances organised into
pairs or groups
• Homophonic texture with sections
repeated in a more ornamented form
The galliard
• a form of Renaissance dance and music popular all over
Europe in the 16th century
• mentioned in dance manuals from England, France,
Spain, Germany and Italy
• quik and lively tempo, with three beats in the bar
• a favorite dance of Queen Elizabeth I of England although it is quite a vigorous dance, in 1589 when the
Queen was in her mid fifties, John Stanhope of the Privy
Chamber reported, "the Queen is so well as I assure you,
six or seven galliards in a morning, besides music and
singing, is her ordinary exercise"
The pavane
• a slow, stately tempo
• two beats in a bar
• usually performed before a galliard
• generally follows binary form - AA1, BB1, etc.
• generally uses counterpoint or homophonic
accompaniment
Named from the stately sweep of a lady's train likened to a peacock's
tail. The decorous sweep of the pavane suited the new more sober
Spanish-influenced courtly manners of 16th century Italy, and the
pavane may have originated in Spain. The musical pavane survived
hundreds of years after the dance itself was abandoned.
Viols were still the most popular stringed instruments but
the new violins were beginning to be used in combination
with the more established instruments like
harpsichords, lutes and bass viols.
Ballett
• a light-hearted madrigal
• strophic in style (verse repeating and the same music for
each verse)
• each verse ending with a fa-la chorus
• more homophonic in style (more chordal) than the
madrigal proper
Thomas Morley’s Now is the Month of Maying
Ayre
• John Dowland was the most prolific writer
• Music written as a solo line on one page of a book with
the harmony on the facing page
• Most frequently performed by a solo singer
accompanied by a lute or viol
Other Features of the Period…
• Composers experimented with collections of dances
played together as a suite
• Variations and grounds were popular - a way of
extending themes by repeating a simple theme followed
by at least one variation
• Fantasias were popular - contrapuntal in style and
usually performed by a solo instrument such as a lute
• Other styles were developed from Italy:
- the canzona (like a song for instruments)
- the ricercar (in which melodies were treated with
much imitation)
- the toccata (from the Italian verb 'to touch', which
was an instrumental style for keyboard and
required
very fluent and rapid finger work)
BAROQUE
Features
* basso continuo - a kind of continuous accompaniment
notated with figured bass, usually for a sustaining bass
instrument and a keyboard instrument
* monody - music for one melodic voice with
accompaniment, characteristic of the early 17th century,
especially in Italy
* homophony - music with one melodic voice and
rhythmically similar accompaniment (this and monody are
contrasted with the typical Renaissance polyphony)
* dramatic musical expression
* dramatic musical forms like opera, drama per musica
* combined instrumental-vocal forms, such as the oratorio
and cantata
* new instrumental techniques, like tremolo and pizzicato
* clear and linear melody
* the aria
* the ritornello aria (repeated short instrumental
interruptions of vocal passages)
* the concertato style (contrast in sound between
orchestra and solo-instruments or small groups of
instruments)
* precise instrumental scoring (in the Renaissance, exact
instrumentation for ensemble playing was rarely
indicated)
* idiomatic instrumental writing: better use of the unique
properties of each type of musical instrument
* virtuosic instrumental and vocal writing, with
appreciation for virtuosity as such
* ornamentation
* development to modern Western tonality (major and
minor scales)
Genres
Baroque composers wrote in many different musical
genres. Opera, invented in the late Renaissance,
became an important musical form during the Baroque,
with the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725),
Handel, and others. The oratorio achieved its peak in
the work of Bach and Handel; opera and oratorio often
used very similar music forms, such as a widespread use
of the da capo aria.
In other religious music, the mass and motet receded
slightly in importance, but the cantata flourished in the
work of Bach and other Protestant composers. Virtuoso
organ music also flourished, with toccatas, fugues, and
other works.
Instrumental sonatas and dance suites were written
for individual instruments, for chamber groups, and for
(small) orchestra. The concerto emerged, both in its
form for a single soloist plus orchestra and as the
concerto grosso, in which a small group of soloists is
contrasted with the full ensemble. The French
overture, with its contrasting slow and fast sections,
added grandeur to the many courts at which it was
performed.
Keyboard works were sometimes written largely for the
pleasure and instruction of the performer. These
included a series of works by the mature Bach that are
widely considered to be the intellectual culmination of
the Baroque era: the Well-Tempered Clavier, the
Goldberg Variations, and The Art of Fugue.
Baroque forms
Binary form AB
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Simplest baroque form
Used primarily for the individual dances in the
suite
Two sections, usually separated by a repeated
double bar
The two sections usually share melodic
material
Section A: tonic key – modulation to
dom/rel.min or rests on dom/rel.min chord
Section B: starts where A ended, then works
back to tonic, perhaps via other keys such as
subdominant
Ternary form/da capo
aria form ABA
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Three sections
Commonly used by Baroque composers for
arias in operas and oratorios
A – tonic key, B – modulating and ending on
chord V of the tonic in preparation for the
return of section A
Also known as ‘da capo’ form – baroque
composers only wrote out the first two
sections and ended section B ‘da capo’
meaning ‘to the head’, indicating that the
performers should go back to the start of A
Rondo form/
Ritornello form ABACA
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A form where one section keeps returning, or coming
round again and again
The middle sections contrast with the A section through:
tonality, instrumentation, melody or a combination of
features
The A sections are known as the rondo theme whilst the
middle sections (B, C etc) are know as episodes
Ritornello is very similar. The sections in Ritornello form
tend to be shorter and there are more of them, than in
Rondo form. Ritornello form is commonly found in the
movements of concerto grosso and solo concerto
Variation form AA1A2A3
Favourite form with Renaissance
keyboard composers, and the form
continued into the Baroque period
 In performance, solo singers and
instrumentalists were used (and often
expected) to vary a repeated line or
section by adding ornaments or scalic
passages, embellishing the line written
in the score
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Opera
Main features

Overture
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Recitatives
instrumental
introduction
conversational

Arias
solo song
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Chorus
SATB
Many composers such as
Monteverdi, Handel and Purcell
began work on the new form of
opera. As well as this,they
worked in all the major genres of
the day - madrigals, church
music and instrumental pieces.

Purcell’s Dido and Anaeus
Purcell’s Dido and Anaeus
It was composed in the late 17th century at a
time when harmony was settling down to
what we know today and opera plots were
drawn from ancient stories. It focuses on the
rise and fall of Queen Dido and includes all
the usual ingredients that make up an opera.
• Aria: short solo song, usually with orchestral
accompaniment, common also in oratorios.
Usually written in ternary form (ABA) - known
as da capo arias
• Recitative: melodic speech set to music.
Often simple accompaniment, sometimes
nothing more than a basal continuo. Can be
conversational and improvisational, giving a
naturalness somewhere between speech and
song
• Basso continuo: the most common practice
is using a harpsichord playing occasional
chords
Fugue
Structure of a Fugue
The form of a fugue is usually
in three parts called the:
 EXPOSITION
 DEVELOPMENT
 FINAL
SECTION
Exposition
The section at the start of the
fugue
 Each voice enters in turn with the
subject/answer idea
 Usually centred around the tonic
and dominant keys of the fugue

Final section
Re-hear the subject, played with
some emphasis and sometimes in
stretto
 Return to the tonic key to round
off the piece

Development


This section comes after each voice has
introduced the fugal subject and the
tonic/dominant keys
The main motives from the subject and
countersubject are tossed about between the
voices, usually involving sequences and
movement around several keys
Key terms/phrases
Voice
* Each melodic line in the fugue is called a
voice, whether sung or played
* There may be 3 or 4 voices in a fugue
* In a 4-voice fugue, the voices are referred to
as Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass
Subject
2 bars long
 Starts on the dominant not (D), but is
firmly in the tonic key of G minor
 Each bar has a different interval and
rhythmic ideas
 The second bar features stepwise
movement

Complex and sophisticated
In many fugues, the subject, answer,
countersubject and free material all
share motif material
Listening:
J.S. Bach: ‘G minor fugue’ from The
Well Tempered Clavier, Book 1
Key terms/phrases
Stretto
When an answer begins before the
subject is finished – creating an
overlap of entries
Key terms/phrases
Episode
* A passage where all of the voices
are working with free material
* Often found in the development
section but can come between
entries of the subject/answer in
the exposition
Key terms/phrases
Free material
Once the first voice has completed
the subject and countersubject, it
moves onto free material –
contrapuntal padding.
Key terms/phrases
Countersubject
When the first voice has completed
the subject and the second voice is
playing the answer, the first voice
continues by playing a new theme
that is called the countersubject. It
usually contrasts with the
subject/answer phrase shape.
Stretto
Lots of examples
 Start of final section (bars 28-29)
 Three overlapping entries of the subject
in the space of 11/2 bars

Free material
Basically anything that is not the
subject, answer or countersubject
 Bach is too clever though!

Countersubject
Starts in bar 3 on the lower stave
 Ideas from the subject are reversed and
inverted
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Four-part fugue exposition
The entries of a fugue alternate between the
subject and answer, tonic and dominant:
*
*
*
*
Subject (tonic)
Answer (dominant)
Subject (tonic)
Answer (dominant)
Key terms/phrases
Subject
* The first theme that is played in
the fugue
* Played by one voice, usually as a
monophonic line – first fugal entry
* Usually in the tonic key
Key terms/phrases
Answer
* The theme played by the second voice
* The answer usually has exactly or
almost the same rhythm and interval
patterns as the subject, but it is usually
in the dominant key
Answer
Starts half way through bar 2
 Similar shape to the subject
 Starts on the tonic then modulates to
the dominant area of D minor
 The intervals patterns are not the same
as the subject - TONAL answer (if they
were the same - REAL answer)

The Chorale
During the 16th century, the Protestant church in
Germany wanted the congregation to be more
involved in the service. Rather than the choir
singing the hymns in latin, they decided to write
hymns to be sung in German by the whole
congregation.
A German hymn-tune of this kind is known as a
Chorale. The tunes were sometimes newly
composed, sometimes adapted from plainchant or
from popular songs.
A Chorale is written in four parts - soprano, alto,
tenor and bass. The texture is usually
homophonic.