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| How to categorize Baroque instrumental music | 4 ways= by performing forces, venue, nationality, and type of composition |
| Baroque Music: Performing forces | We find SOLO WORKS (for keyboard, guitar, etc.); CHAMBER WORKS (for soloist or chamber group with continuo); LARGE-ENSEMBLE WORKS (for 2 or more players on a part) |
| Baroque Music: Venue | (i.e. Social Function) Like vocal music, instrumental works served in all 3 social arenas: Church (organ and ensemble music in religious services), Chamber (e.g. solo and small ensemble msuic for private entertainments and public pegants), and Theater (e.g. dances and interludes in ballets and operas) |
| Baroque Music: Nationality | Baroque music is differentiable by nationality (e.g. Italian, French, etc.) |
| Baroque Music: Type of Composition | (until 1650, these were the categories...) Keyboard/lute pieces in improvisatory style (called toccata, fantasia, or prelude)= Fugal pieces in continuous imitative counterpoint (called ricercare, fantasia, fancy, capriccio, or fugue)= pieces with contrasting sections, often in imitative counterpoint (called canzona or sonata)= Settings of existing melodies (as in an organ verse or chorale prelude)= Pieces that vary a given melody (variations, partita), chorale (chorale variations, chorale partita), or bass line (partita, chaconne, passacaglia)= dances and other pieces in stylized dance rhythms, whether independent, paired, or linked together in a suite |
| Keyboard or lute pieces in improvisatory sytle | called...Toccata, fantasia, or prelude |
| Fugal pieces in continuous imitative counterpint | called...Ricercare, fantasia, fancy, capriccio, or fugue |
| Pieces with contrasting sections, often in imitative counterpoint | called...Canzona or sonata |
| Pieces that vary a given melody | called...Variations, partita |
| Pieces that vary a given chorale | called...Chorale variations, chorale partita |
| Pieces that vary a given bass line | called...Partita, chaconne, passacaglia |
| Principal types of keyboard composition after 1650... | Prelude, toccata, fugue, chorale or chant setting, variations, and suite |
| Works for ensemble after 1650 | Fell into 2 broad categories: sonata and related genres; &; suite and similar genres |
| Large-ensemble music after 1650 | Encompassed suites, sinfonias, and the new genre of the instrumental concerto |
| Mixing textures and styles... | Elements of 1 style or type of work often appeared in another (e.g. process of varying an idea is found in ricercares, canzonas, and the dance suites as well as in variations= Toccatas may include fugal sections, and canzonas may have sections in improvisatory style) |
| Toccatas and other improvisatory pieces | Played on the harpsichord (as chamber music) or the organ (as service music) |
| Most important composer of toccatas | Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643) |
| Girolamo Frescobaldi | Toccata NO. 3 from his first book of toccatas for harpsichord is typical in featuring a succession of brief sections, each focused on a particular figure that is subtly varied= Each section ends with a cadence, weakened in some way to sustain momentum until the very end= According to the composer's preface, the various sections of these toccatas may be played separately and player may end the piece at any desired cadence (THIS WAS A REMINDER that baroque music was a platform for PERFORMANCE, NOT an unchangeable text)= Indicated that tempo can be subject to change |
| Fiori Musicali | (Musical Flowers, 1635= Written by Frescobaldi) Illustrates the role of the toccata as service music= Is a set of 3 ORGAN MASSES, each containing all the music an organist would play at Mass= All 3 include a toccata before Mass and another at the Elevation of the Host before Communion, and 2 add another toccata before a ricercare= These toccatas are shorter than his ones for harpsichord but just as sectional, and they feature the sustained tones and harmonic surprises often found in organ toccatas= He published this collection in OPEN SCORE (rather than 2 staves like for most keyboard music) |
| Girolamo Frescobaldi's most famous student | Jacob Froberger (1616-1667) |
| Jacob Froberger | His toccatas tend to alternate improvisatory passages with sections in imitative counterpoint= His pieces were model for later merging of toccata and fugue, as in the works of BUXTEHUDE, or their coupling, as in Bach's toccatas or preludes and fugues |
| 17th-Century Ricercare | Typically a serious composition for organ or harpsichord in which one SUBJECT (or theme) was continuously developed in imitation |
| The Ricercare after the Credo from Frescobaldi's Mass for the Madonna in Fiori Musicali | Amazing for the skillful handling of chromatic lines and the subtle use of shifting harmonies and dissonances |
| Fugue | (Italian "fuga"= flight) In early 17th century, some composers (especially in Germany) began to use this term, formerly used for the technique of imitation itself, as the name of a genre of serious pieces that treat 1 theme in continuous imitation |
