EARLY BAROQUE OPERA

Origins of the Baroque

The “first practice”

The “first practice” is the older, established, tradition of Renaissance music, and is mainly polyphonic in nature.

Polyphony—several musical lines or voices that sound simultaneously but move independently.

The art of counterpoint continues to develop during the Baroque era and remains important well into the 19th-c.

The “second practice”

The “second practice” used vocal music as its standard.

Inventors of this second practice helped shape opera into an art form, and the appearance of this art form marks the beginning of the Baroque period.

Music of the “second practice” is monodic.It consists of a single melodic line against a

complementary accompaniment (called basso continuo.) Texture—homophonic

This accompaniment does not compete with the text, but enhances the emotional expression of the text.

Stile recitativo

The word “recitative” derives from the same root word as “recite”.

This style of singing lies somewhere between singing and speaking.

Allows words to be projected with special clarity.

Claudio Monteverdi

Monteverdi (1567-1643)An innovator, his career straddled the

Renaissance and the Baroque Era.He composed in both the old and new styles.Director of music at St. Mark’s in Venice.(Italy was the center of the musical world

during the Renaissance)LA Tu se’ morta from Orpheus (1607)

Henry Purcell

Purcell (1659-1695)Opera: “Dido and Aeneas” Aeneas is from

Troy. Dido is the windowed Queen of Carthage (Tunisia). Typical of opera, this is a story of ill-fated love.

Dido and Aeneas was composed in 1685. Opera was not popular in England. Eventually, Italian opera achieved some popularity. Dido is the one of the first operas written in English.