New Genres and Styles in the Age
of Rationalism
Three styles of vocal music
Marco Scacchi (ca. 1600 to ca. 1685) — writer on music,
classified types of vocal music in letter of 1648:
• stylus ecclesiasticus — church music
• stylus cubicularis — chamber music
• stylus theatralis — opera
The creation of opera
Predecessors
• Greek drama
• Liturgical drama
• Madrigal dialogue and madrigal comedy
• Pastoral — poetic play with music, popular in sixteenth
century
• Intermedio between acts of dramas — included songs,
pantomime, dances
– theatrical context allowed for very elaborate stagings
– poets also important madrigal poets
• Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) — Aminta (1573)
• G.B. Guarini (1538–1612) — Il pastor fido (1590)
Studies of Greek drama
• Camerata in Florence under leadership of Count Bardi
• Girolamo Mei in Rome concluded Greeks sang
throughout dramas
• Style was understood to be monophonic and speechlike
• Plots taken from Greek mythology
Early operatic experiments
• Jacopo Peri (1561–1633) — first completely composed
drama — Dafne (1594, perf. 1598)
– pastoral by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562–1621)
– only fragments extant — two by Jacopo Corsi (1561–
1602), Peri’s patron, and four by Peri
• Emilio de’ Cavalieri (ca. 1550–1602) — first extant,
completely composed play — Rappresentativo di anima e
di corpo (Rome, 1600)
– sacred allegory, idealized drama, first score printed with
figured bass
Euridice, 1600
• First intact, genuine opera
• Original production for wedding in Florence of Henry IV
of France and Maria de’ Medici (commemorated in
paintings by Rubens)
• Pastoral text by Rinuccini
• Music by Peri, who probably sang Orfeo’s role
• Produced by Corsi
• Staged by Cavalieri
• Some music inserted by Caccini
The music of Euridice
• Structure — five acts, modeled on Greek drama
• Vocal style — stile rappresentativo, recitative
– free rhythm, like speech, to suit affect and meaning
– pitch controlled by affect more than by meaning —
rhetoric rather than word painting
– monodic texture — basso continuo accompaniment,
scoring not specified
– harmony — dynamic created stress by chord changes
Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo (1607)
• Libretto by Alessandro Striggio (1573?–1630)
• Five acts
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1 — rejoicing over wedding
2 — news of Euridice’s death
3 — Orfeo goes to Hades
4 — release and second loss of Euridice
5 —Apollo takes him to Olympus (in early version Orfeo chased away by
Bacchantes)
• Instrumental pieces
– early and unusual example of specific orchestration
– function for articulation of drama, unifying ritornelli
• Choral madrigals, dance pieces
• Solo singing
– stile rappresentativo for dramatic passages
– separate songs for expressive monologue
Vocal chamber music
• Madrigals
– vocal and unaccompanied, as in sixteenth-century style
• Monodies and ensemble vocal pieces with basso
continuo
– trend to chamber duet
– title might be madrigal, but more precise for soloistic
pieces would be aria or cantata
• Works with additional concertato instrumental parts
accompanying
– introductory sinfonias or recurring ritornellos
– quasi-dramatic depictions
The importance of stylus cubicularis
• Development of musical forms — problem of writing
extended vocal works without dramatic plot to give
coherence
• Aria changed from strophic or strophic-bass form to
closed-form piece in which music dominated text
• Cantata began to mean a piece that employed a variety
of styles and eventually a work planned as a series of
movements
Styles of sacred music in the early
seventeenth century
• Stylus gravis, or stile antico — older Zarlino/Palestrina style
• Polychoral vocal scoring
– multiple choral forces — may also include organ
– prima pratica harmony
• Concerted style
– choirs, organ, instruments
– prima pratica harmony
• Motets and concertos in seconda pratica — for solo
portions of liturgy
– solo voices and b.c.
– motet — without obbligato instruments (cf. monodic
madrigal, duet)
– concerto — with obbligato instruments
Oratorio
• Derived from narrative texts treated as motets or sacred
concertos
• Name taken from oratorio or prayer hall, space separate
from sanctuary, where such works were performed
• Intended for devotional observances of Christian
confraternities, but not liturgical
• Features narrator, called testo or historicus (in Passion
oratorios “evangelist”)
Dramatic and musical gestures of
oratorio
• Concert work (not worship music) for chorus, solo singers,
and orchestra
• Not staged or costumed
• Based on biblical story
• Uses musical techniques of opera — recitative,
affective/rhetorical solos, chorus, instrumental
accompaniment
• Likely to feature chorus
– no logistical problem in costuming, staging
– musical word painting replaces visual scenery
Instrumental genres
in the early seventeenth century
Building on Renaissance genres
• Increased importance in musical life
• Doctrine of affects provided justification for expression —
musical style as rhetorical even without text
• Structural advances — concertato scoring, tonality, form
• Conception based on instruments
– farther from vocal models
– idiomatic writing
• Dynamics — terraced
Improvisatory types
• Toccata, prelude
• Often paired or interwoven with section or passages
in fuga
Imitative types
• Ricercar, fantasia
• Featured polyphonic imitation, concentrating on one
subject — unity of affect
• Free form, tendency to continuity rather than
frequent sectional divisions
Sonata
• Successor of canzona by separation of sections into
movements
• Key unity maintains central affect, but sections
contrast in material, tempo
• Almost always with basso continuo — trio texture
(two parts and b.c.) becomes most important
Variation types
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Partita (series of partes)
Cantus firmus variation — especially of chorale
Ornamentation of melody line
Variations over repeating bass
– similar to vocal strophic variations
– standard types — chaconne, passacaglia, ruggiero,
romanesca, etc.
Dance types
• Stylized dance types for independent pieces
• Binary form
• Suite
– relation to variation set — partita
– key unity stabilizes affect while dance rhythms give
affective variety
– standard order — allemande, courante, sarabande,
gigue
Questions for discussion
• What historical factors let to the distinction between
church, chamber, and theatrical styles in seventeenthcentury music? How have more recent periods
maintained or forsaken the separation of styles by social
function?
• In what sense is early opera dramatic? In what senses is it
not dramatic?
• How did the appearance and development of the oratorio
resemble or differ from that of the liturgical drama?
• What factors contributed to the increasing important and
sophistication of instrumental music in the seventeenth
century?