Each verse of Bach’s “Komm, Süsser
Tod,” is 21 measures long. The time signature is 3/4.
Assuming the tempo is 48 beats per minute (48 quarter notes per minute), how long would a performance of all 5 verses take?

(1600-1750)

• The word Baroque means “elaborately ornamented.”
• Heavily religious artistic style due to the Council of Trent (church pushback against Protestant
Reformation)
• Middle class was beginning to emerge, causing a need for individual enjoyment of music.
• Galileo, Newton, Shakespeare, Rembrandt

• 1607- Jamestown Founded
• 1611- King James Bible published
• 1610- Galileo confirms a heliocentric solar system
• 1687- Newton publishes “ Principia
Mathematica”

• Unity of mood throughout a piece
• Very repetitive rhythmic motifs
• Sequence - successive repetition of a musical idea in different pitches
• Terraced Dynamicsalternating between loud and soft in a piece
• Patronage systemcomposers were employed by a court or church full-time
• The Harpsichord!! Composers LOVED writing for the harpsichord. It was the electric guitar of its day.

• Musicians needed patrons, and therefore had to find favor with aristocracy.
• Many rulers valued music and sought to develop their musical skills.
• Large towns employed their own musicians
• Many times the art of composition was passed down in families (like blacksmithing or carpentry)

• Mostly consisted of a small group of strings.
• Other instruments in small numbers:
– Recorders and woodwinds
– Brass instruments (no valves)
– Timpani
– Harpsichord (basso continuo – “continuous bass”)

• Many Baroque works are actually a collection of pieces, or movements , that contrast.
• A movement is a piece that sounds fairly complete and independent but is part of a larger composition. (Sort of like different CD tracks on an album)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, Mvt. I
• One in a set of 6 Concertos written around 1721
• Opens with the tutti , then alternates with solo sections
• Listen for the familiar “tutti” section alternating with softer solo sections.

• The fugue was a cornerstone of Baroque music.
• Polyphonic composition based on one main theme, called a subject .

• Listen to a fugue by following the familiar subject through all the levels of texture.
• Beginning of a fugue can be diagrammed like this:
Subject----------------------------..... Etc
Subject--------------------------------.... Etc
Subject--------------------------------------.... Etc
Subject-----------------------------------------... Etc.
• After a voice finishes presenting the subject, it is free to do its own thing.

Bach: Organ Fugue in G Minor “Little Fugue”
• One of Bach’s most well-known pieces
• The subject is presented by four
“voices” in succession, from highest to lowest.

• Opera is a drama that is sung with orchestral accompaniment.
• Characters and plot are revealed in song rather than in dialogue.
• Libretto - text of an opera
• Opera consists of one to five acts divided into scenes

• Opera saw its beginnings in the Baroque era.
• Early operas drew their plots from Greek mythology.
• Opera in the Baroque era saw the rise of virtuoso singers.

• Monteverdi was a pioneer of opera
• Wanted to create emotional intensity through his music
• First opera told the Greek myth of
Orpheus
• Listening: Tu se’ morta (You are Dead) from
L’Orfeo Act II (Recitative)

• Purcell is often considered the greatest of
English composers.
• Ground Bass - when a musical idea is repeated over and over in the bass
• Dido and Aeneas is a simple, yet masterful opera written in 1689.
• Listening: Dida and Aeneas Act III: Dido’s
Lament (featuring a ground bass)