Domenico Scarlatti 1685-1757

Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725

Da capo aria

• A and B sections

• A section then repeated (“da capo” means literally “from the head”)

• Performers expected to improvise variations and ornaments during the repeated A section

Cardinal Mazarin Queen Anne of

Austria

Louis XIV

The Palace at Versailles

• Versailles– Landscaping

• Hall of Mirrors– Extravagance

Pierre Perrin

Jean-Baptiste Lully

Opera in France

• Tragedie lyrique: combo of dance scenes, lyrical music and plot based upon courtly love.

• Jean Bapiste Lully

(1632-1687)

father of French opera

French Overture

• Overture is French for “opening”2 sections, each repeated

1. First section homophonic, dotted rhythm, majestic (was supposed to signal the entry of the king) and slower

2. Second section polyphonic, faster

How evil is opera?

a French critic, late 1600s:

Opera is a bizarre affair made up of poetry and music, in which the poet and the musician, each equally obstructed by the other, give themselves no end of trouble to produce a wretched work.

Opera was illegal in Rome in the early 1700s.

an English critic, 1872:

Opera is to be regarded “musically, philosophically, and ethically, as an almost unmixed evil.”

How evil is opera?

Opera in England

• James I (r. 1603-25)

• Charles I (1625-490– Stuart Kings– Supported musical plays called “masques” to be

performed in private palaces.– Very popular during this period of time.

Commonwealth Period

• 1649-60• Ruled by the Puritans• Opera, Stage Plays, Secular forms of entertainment

were forbidden.• Considered blasphemous• Plays set to music could be performed if set with the

proper precautions.• John Blow is the first English masque writer.• His pupil, Henry Purcell (1659) was the first major

English Opera Composer.

Henry Purcell 1659-1695

Dido and Aeneas (1689)

• Dido, filled with grief meets her death. (loss of love)

• Climbs a funeral pyre.• Music: descending line in ground bass is a sign

of grief in baroque music.• Descending line paints “laid in earth.”• Use of ground bass.• Use of dotted rhythms to denote royalty.

Dido and Aeneas, Act III Dido’s Lament

• Virgil’s Aeneid

• Adventures of Aeneas after the fall of Troy

• Aeneas is stranded in Carthage, Northern African coast

• Falls in love with Dido, Queen of Carthage

• Aeneas pushes her away as he must leave for Italy…. Soon to be the founder of Rome.

After Dido . . .

• English preferred spoken drama

• Purcell wrote some “Semi-operas”

– Example: The Fairy Queen (1692)

• Opera had support of the monarchy in France and the public in Italy, but from neither in England

Types of Recitative

• arioso – passages that lie somewhere between recitative and aria style

• recitative semplice (simple recitative) – as speechlike as possible and accompanied only by basso continuo

• recitative accompagnato (accompanied recitative) – used orchestra to dramatize tense situations