Music History

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Influences on development of opera

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Interest in Greek culture, especially the perfermances of plays and tragedies. Wanted to generate the ethical effects of ancient music by creating modern works with equal emotional power. Medieval liturgical dramas were sung. Mystery and miracle plays included music. Renaissance plays used songs and offstage music. Pastoral dramas, a play in verse with music and songs interspersed derived from Greek and Roman themes. Love in the country. Madrigals could be miniature dramas using contrasting groups of voices much like dialogue. Madrigal comedy or cycle grouped madrigals in series to represent a succesion of scenes or simple plot. Composers expressed emotions and dramatized text through music. Most direct source, intermezzo, musical interlude on a pastoral, allegorical, or mythological subject performed between the acts of a play. Combined dialoge with choral, solo and instrumental music, dances, costumes, scenery and stage effects. Had everything for an opera except a plot and new style of dramatic singing.

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L'Euridice

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Florence Camerata discussed Mei ideas about Greek music. Members Rinuccini and Peri put them into practice. Peri composed music for Rinuccini's libretto. Performed in Florence for wedding of Maria de' Medici to King Henry IV of England. Buonarroti says very well recieved.

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barroco and Baroque

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misshapen pearl 1600 - 1750. 18th cent. critics said baroque was dissonant, unmelodious, capricious and extravagant changes of key and meter, surprising by the boldness of its sounds. 19th cent. critics deemed ti ornate, dramatic and expressive, Focus on extravagance, decoration, and expression.

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Doctrine of the Affections

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Composers sought musical means to express the affections, emotions such as sadness, joy, anger, love, fear, excitement, wonder-relatively stable states of the soul, caused by combinations of spirits. Experiencing a range of affections through music would bring humors into balance promoting health. Music offered contrasting moods to balance.

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basso continuo

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Composer wrote out melody and bass line but left it to performer to fill in chords. When chords were other than root position or had suspension, composer added numbers called figured bass to indicate.

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Prima vs. seconda practica

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Prima 16th cent. style of vocal polyphony set down by Zarlini-music had to follow certain rules and dominated text.Artusi defended.
Seconda-used by modern Italians, defended by Monteverdi-text dominates music, voice leading rules can be broken, and dissonances used more frequently to evoke feelings. Second practice does not displace the first.

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Claudio Moteverdi

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known for unprepared dissonances, declamatory melodies, and embellishments written into music. 1st opera-Orfeo

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monody

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accompanied solo singing. Incluses recitative, aria, and madrigal. Simple melodic lines with contours and rhythms that followed the spoken inflection and rhythm of the text, accompanied by basso continuo

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Giulio Caccini

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Singer-composer, coined the term Camerata,wrote a setting of the first opera, L'Euridice

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Le Nuove Musiche

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A book of songs for solo voice by Caccini. Ones with strophic texts he called arias, which at this time could mean any setting of strophic poetry. The others he called madrigals, comparing them to polyphonic madrigals.We now call solo madrigals-through-composed settings of non-strophic poems.

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intermezzo intermedio?

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musical interlude on a pastoral, allegorical, or mythological subject performed between acts of a play.Performed before, in between, and after a plays standardfive acts. Linked together by a common theme. Had dialogue, choral, instrumental, and solo music, dances, costumes scenery, and stage effects;everything for an opera except a plot and rectitative.

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Florentine Camerata

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Count Bardi and Galilei hosted an academy where scholars discussed literature, science and the arts, and musicians performed new music. When Bardi moved to Rome, Corsi took over and Rinuccini and Peri joined. Tried to recreate Greek drama.

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Joseph Peri

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singer composer set Rinuccini's L'Euridice to music. Sang the role of Orfeo for Medici wedding. Peri invented rec.- a speech song for delivering dialogue.

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Dafne

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Peri's setting of Rinuccini's libretto. Performed in 1598 at Corsi's palace. Only fragments remain.

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Orfeo

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1607. First real opera. Full five length act. Clear division between aria and rec. Overture like fanfare and ritornellos-short instrumental interludes between stanzas.

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intermezzo

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Originally a variant of the intermedi. A small scale comic opera, performed in between the acts of an opera seria with completely separate actors and plot. Pergolesi most famous-La Serva Padrona

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Lament

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Tu se' morte-Lyric recitative in Monteverdi's Orfeo