In the writing of this Baroque section of liturgical music, for the first time I have come across the name of Philippe Jaroussky. Having discovered him, I have also discovered a wide variety of music and composers that he has performed most impressively. He seems to have focused particularly on the Baroque era, but sings most admirably Medieval and Renaissance music as well. He specializes in the music written for the castrati, and a short but focused article concerning his background, his debut as a countertenor, and audience reactions appears at http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/arts/a-natural-high–with-no-surgical-intervention/2010/02/15/1266082241013.html
He deserves more hearing, so I include some of those posts:
And for a delightful video humorously dramatizing an audience response to him and the same aria, above, in a setting contemporaneous with George Friedrich Handel, see:
And for similar contemporary countertenor portrayals of Baroque castrati performances and audience reaction, see:
For a musically sound, humorous and delightful side of him, yet characteristically Baroque style, including some more contemporary music which showcases his artistic flair, see
Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725) was a composer of the Baroque era and founder of the Neapolitan school of Opera. The Baroque era is considered to have culminated with the work of Handel and Bach in 1750. Alessandro Scarlatti was representative of the mature Baroque era. He is considered to have bridged the Baroque era and the succeeding Classical era of music. His opera experience certainly influenced his sacred music, particularly the oratorio. The oratorio also was dramatic, but without staging and acting, as in opera. A device that he used in both is the recitative, which precedes the aria and introduces its subject matter gives it setting rather than having great melodic interest in its own right; neither had it costumes or stage settings. I understand that it might have included some narration. We will further discuss and demonstrate that in our discussion of Handel and his Messiah.
Alessandro Scarlatti also composed upward to 500 chamber sonatas, some of which are included, below.
I must say that I am exceptionally grateful for the materials that have been made available through YouTube, which make exceptional performance resources. At age 64, as I write this, it is remarkably different from the time in which I grew up, went to school and taught music. What an immense and beautiful resource!!
Vocal sacred music
Salve Regina, op. 2 Nr. 10
Cieca Talpa
The above link is provided not only because it is sacred music of the Baroque period, but, also, for its sound musical performance, its beauty, particularly that of the vocalist, Roberta Invernizzi, it’s demonstration of the increasing role of instruments in sacred music, its also demonstrates the impact of instrumental music upon Baroque composition for the human voice, its rhythmic and harmonic drive.
At the above site there is also a comment which, while it may be somewhat critical in its introduction, more articulately and expressively states my own observation, above:
Only Alessandro Scarlatti’s talent and intellect could combine such operatic techniques into a sacred work and still produce something lofty and sincere. How much Handel owes this man! Also “strings are not bad either” – not bad for some of the finest baroque musicians in Europe…
Salve Regina http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=NTQxWqeSkk0&feature=endscreen
I had never heard of the name of Roberta Invernizzi until I located this clip on YouTube of the performance of Cieca Talpa, above. Not only is her performance remarkably beautiful and artistically sound, but it demonstrates, also, the belcanto, or “beautiful singing,” style characteristic of the Baroque era. The composition has a contrasting section in which Scarlatti uses the human voice as an instrument with immense rhythmic drive. In this case, one can also observe the dramatic contrasts (as in the visual artistic use of chiaroscuro ) and ornamentation, both of which are stylistically characteristic of the Baroque era.
The oratorios:
Sedecia, Re Di Gerusalemme
This oratorio has an extensive overture as is common to that form in the later Baroque as is perhaps best recognized in Handel’s Messiah. It is all the more interesting because it features two countertenors and a soprano, including a duet of soprano and counter tenor. The above site includes the following tribute, beautiful in its own right:
I do not know when this was performed but I am so happy to see the early performance of Philippe Jaroussky when he was a budding new face as a CT. He has shown his extraordinary talent already here. How much he has grown since this performance is really amazing!! His voice stronger, fuller and much more beautiful now. Thank you for this precious video.
I also include the following YouTube video post that is entitled, “Cecilia Bartoli – Castrati” I do not know Cecilia Bartoli other than by name, but this clip appears to be the performance of a woman who looks similar to other YouTube videos of Cecilia Bartoli, rather than that of a castrati.
A castrati (to be distinguished from the counter tenor) was created by a deforming practice common to the Baroque era, It also risked Joseph Haydn’s manhood as a choir boy some 150 years later, which would likely diverted his compositional talents. As with a steer, the body developed a large vocal instrument, the vocal instrument being the entire body, castration during adolescence tended to freeze the vocal cords in their development while permitting the body to mature, preserving the voice at the stage of development when the operation was performed, allowing for remarkably powerful sopranos and altos, depending upon when they underwent the procedure. Besides being a beautiful performance (there are so many available on YouTube, that I fear that “beautiful” or “remarkable” gives none of them justice), the selection below is illustrative of both the Baroque instrumental treatment of the voice and of belcanto singing. I do not even know whether this is Scarlatti, although it seems to be consistent with his style:
Instrumental works
The focus of this series of posts is sacred music of the church. That tends to be liturgical, however in the latter part of the Renaissance instrumental music was increasingly incorporated in sacred music, particularly relating to the Protestant Reformation, and that, first with the organ and then with other instruments. The Gabrieli’s increasingly incorporated instruments in their church music; that increased in the Baroque Period. That increase in the use of instruments during the Baroque Period, also influence the technical use of the human voice as an instrument, both in the intricacies of the line and trills.
Concerto for Recorder in A minor
I include the Concerto for Recorder both for its music and for the visuals inserted into the video which include photographs of Scarlatti, the instruments of the time, and the settings, historically and currently.
Concerto grosso n°2 en ut mineur
Henry Purcell (1659 – 1695) was an English composer who was heavily influenced by Italian and French styles of composition, but his style remained distinctly English. He has been considered the greatest English composer prior to Edward Elgar. Some have claimed that he was composing as young as nine years of age, but, unlike Mozart, none of those childhood compositions remain extant. He wrote songs, and Psalm settings; operas, Dido and Aeneas, The Faerie-Queen, and several musical settings of Shakespearean plays, including the Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest; several less formal operas, called “semi – operas,” or “dramatic operas;” music for the theater; and sacred works for Westminster Abbey. At the same time that he served Westminster Abbey, he served as organist for the Chapel Royal. He is well-known for “Trumpet Voluntary,” which has often been played at weddings and anthem and eulogies for Queen II’s funeral; and for the choral piece, “Sound the Trumpet.” He met an untimely death at about 35 years of age. He was buried beside the organ in Westminster Abbey, and the music that he wrote for Queen Mary’s funeral was performed at his own. He was quite prolific given his early death.
Jubilate Deo in D major (which has many similarities to Sound the Trumpet, below
Hear my prayer
Christ is made the sure foundation
Sound the Trumpet uses an interesting repeating ground base over which to counter tenor’s (men who have trained their voices to sing soprano and alto) imitate to lively trumpet parts. Will note that during the Baroque Period the voices treated as an instrument that is with rich, florid passages played by an instrument, including delicate ornamentation’s. You will also note to the characteristic Baroque rhythmic drive.
I first became familiar with this piece when I was directing church choirs. The following is similar to that arrangement, but sung by young children:
Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637 – 1707) was a German – Danish organist and composer. He is particularly well known for his organ pieces. He strongly influenced Johan Sebastian Bach and other Baroque composers. While he was yet active in music composition, he organized evening performances, called Abendmusik, or “evening music,” which were held at the church that he served at Marienkirche, Lubeck, Germany. They were free to the public. These were also attended by many composers, including George Phillip Telemann, George Friedrich Handel and Johan Sebastian Bach.
He wrote a significant volume of organ works based upon chorale tunes, choral music, including oratorios, chamber music, choral chorale settings, and chorale fantasies. Much of his music is fugal, that is, much as around, certain melodic material set on the same or different notes that come in at different times before they diverge into new material; consistent with the practice of the time, it also provided places for the organist to improvise based upon material already written, much as a jazz artist might improvise during the 20th century or two day. There typically are two or three fugues within a given piece. Much of his rich in music has been lost, and in some cases, survives only by the transcriptions of others.
Organ works:
Toccata in F Major
Praeludium und Fuge (A moll) BuxWV 153
“Passacaglia” BuxWV 161
Praeludium in g
Praeludium und Fuge (A moll) BuxWV 153
Orchestration of his organ work, Chacona en Mi menor
Choral works:
Jesu meines Lebens Leben
Laudate pueri, Dominum
Das neugeborene Kindelein
Der Herr ist mit mir
Magnificat
Instrumental works:
Sonata opus 2 for viol and harpsichord
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 – 1687) was born in Italy, but became composer in the French court of Louis XIV. He was a chief contributor to what became known as the French Baroque style, rejecting his Italian roots. He developed his musical skills by playing the guitar, instructed by a Franciscan Friar in Italy. Someone recognized his musical talents and took him to France to serve Mademoiselle de Montpensier to do various jobs that she requested and to teach the Italian language. While there, he studied music theory. Ultimately she dismissed him for some indiscreet song he made concerning her. In 1653, he became a dancer in the court of Louis XIV. While there, he composed a ballet, sufficiently impressive that King Louis appointed him the court composer of instrumental music. He is known primarily for his ballets. One Day, he was directing the court orchestra with a staff by pounding it on the floor (can you imagine the effect of that?), when he accidentally pounded on his toe. It became became abscessed ultimately resulting in gangrene, which took his life.
The behaviors which caused his dismissal by the Mademoiselle continued throughout his life. He was a free spirit and was marked by numerous scandals and relationships with both men and women. It is always remarkable when people of questionable repute, at least in the public eye, produce such beauty. My mother, Xenia Lee Fitz Randolph Wheeler, says that she likes the Bible stories, using as an example, King David, because it tells her that God can use flawed and ordinary people for “His” purposes. I think the same can be said of Lully. Although he is particularly known for introduction of new instruments to the orchestra, his ballets, many of which he danced him him him him self until advanced age, his operas, and music written for comedies of Molière, he also wrote some beautiful sacred music, such as the following: Te Deum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDDHhV4YMg De Profundis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxHFYHM9WnA&feature=fvwrel Grand Motet – Exaudiat te Dominus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnTPdsQvSW4&feature=related Dies irae http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGvmTI5BS_c&feature=relate Miserere http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZUwQqFSttQ
Samuel Scheidt (1587 – 1654) was a German composer who, all so lived and composed during the Thirty Years’ War, and, for a time, was Kappel lmeister to the Margrave of Brandenburg. He is the first German composer to be internationally recognized. He developed the German style of music in response to the Protestant Reformation. Organ works are a major part of his musical contribution.
For performances of his music, see:
Canzona Bergamasca is a favorite of brass quintets
Heinrich Schutz (1585 – 1672) was a German composer and organist in the early 17th century. He was considered by many to be in the class of Monteverdi. He was first trained as a lawyer and only later studied music with Giovanni Gabriele and then with Claudio Monteverdi. He wrote in a polyphonic style similar to that of the Renaissance in approaching and resolving dissonances. In addition to his organ works and sacred choral music, he is known as the composer of the first German opera. Also, as was common in the Baroque era, he was known for “word painting,” in which the composers sought to portray in sound a specific action or mood, such as a falling melodic line painted a picture of depressed moods, or rising melodic line for happy moods. A miniature form of this affect is the “Baroque “sigh,” consisting of an appoggiatura of a single dissonant note resolving downward to a consonant note.
This power of music was recognized in what was known as the Doctrine of Affections. Both Bach and Brahms were influenced by his works for examples of his work.
Gregorio Allegri (1582 – 1652) was an Italian composer of sacred music for the Sistine Chapel, serving under Pope Urban VIII. He was heavily influenced by Palestrina and the Roman school. He was one of the early composers of sacred music which included stringed instruments in his sacred choral works; and he is the earliest known composer of string quartets.
His Miserere Mei Deus on the text of Psalm 50 is by far the most popular of his works. It is written for two small choirs, to be sung antiphonally. The second, smaller choir culminates each of the sections with a gorgeous, arched soprano solo. There are many videos of its performance available on YouTube but few of his other works. Pope Urban highly prized Miserere Mei Deus and forbade dissemination of its printed form. This is what Mozart heard twice in the Sistine Chapel, committed to memory and transcribed.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567 –1643)
Monteverdi was an Italian composer who was so revolutionary for his time, that he is considered to provide the pivot point for transition from Renaissance to Baroque. He was influenced by the Gabrieli’s, and Giovanni Gabriele was influenced by him
He was harmonically revolutionary in that his music led the listener from a sense of leaving “from home” for a tour of harmonic exploration, with growing tension (called “drive to cadence,” to repose in the tonic in the home key. A cadence literally means to “fall.” In rhythm it generally refers to the rhythmicallity that lends itself to the “fall” of marching feet.
Monteverdi and later Baroque composers discovered that one could explore “secondary cadences” within the various scale degrees other than the major and final cadence from the chord on the fifth scale degree (or dominant) to that on the first scale degree (or tonic). Those can be successive descending fifths or ascending fourths which ma proceed through all the scale degrees. This series of progression, as far as it proceeds is called a “circle of fifths.
Terraced dynamics is another characteristic of Baroque music. The crescendo was not known until after the Baroque period. Rather, like terrace on hillsides, the dynamics were assigned to phrases or parts of phrases, often alternating loud and soft, with the effect of an echo, as in the antiphonal instrumental music of the Gabrieli’s at St. Mark’s.
During the Baroque era we see music that utilizes chordal progressions within a polyphonic texture consisting of interplay of independent voices. At the end of the Baroque era, polyphony was brought to its refined summit with Johan Sebastian Bach, at a time that polyphony was yielding to homophony. Bach was seen in his day as out of touch with the times. It was not until Mendelssohn rediscovered him much later in the Romantic Period that his genius was recognized.
For performances of Monteverdi’s work, see: Beatus vir [Blessed is the man], from Selva Morale e Spirituale (Psalm 112:1-10) http://bibleasmusic.com/?cat=650
This piece is particularly interesting to me for several reasons: because of three short bass fragments repeated throughout which unifies the piece, although the voices above provide variety; because of the deceptive cadence within it; because of the augmented rhythm at the close of the large sections, affecting a rhythmic cadence before repeating the section or before going to new material; because of the clear metric organization in which the piece begins in homophonic 4 meter, moves to an imitative, polyphonic middle section in which the bass fragments are adapted to the new meter which is repeated, as before; because of it’s introduction of the basso continuo; and because it is in clear ABAC form, returning to the original material, and then closing with a section that has some similarity to what has preceded, as though summarizing the entire piece. The deceptive cadence uses the expectation deceives the listener by suspending resolution and gently leading us a little further. The return to the tonic chord is a resolution that finally brings us “home.”
Beatus vir anticipates a number of Baroque devices which would follow: harmonic progression, circle of fifths, clear metrical organization, rhythmic drive, rhythmic and melodic augmentation.
This video begins with a discussion by the conductor of the music and of its spiritual qualities. You will also note an excursion into the circle of fifths.
Lauda Jerusalem, Dominum
Tomás Luis de Victoria was the Spanish composer of the Catholic counterreformation. Most important composers of the Catholic Counter Reformation, which was also known as the Catholic Revival. He has been called the “Spanish Palestrina,” and deity is conjectured that he may have studied with Palestrina. He was an ordained Catholic priest, an organist, as was common to composers of that time, and also a singer. It has been said that his music is reflective of Spanish mysticism of the time. His style is marked by exquisite, overlapping vocal parts and his organ accompaniments are interesting in their own right. His style is more homophonic texture than the polyphonic style known as counterpoint in which each part tends to have interest of its own, hence, “point against point.” He is more free in his use of dissonance without the preparation and resolution that was characteristic of sacred music of the Renaissance. As with the Gabrielli’s, he incorporated instruments in his sacred music. He also used a technique that became common in the Baroque called “word-painting,” in which the composer painted in sound the affect of the words. In the Baroque Period there developed the Doctrine of Affections which recognized that music can affect the emotions, from which certain keys and certain modes became associated with certain affects.
For a sampling of his works, see the following:
Andrea Gabrieli (1532 – 1585) and his nephew, Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554 – 1612), are known for their sacred compositions which were written for St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, Italy, where each was composer and organist. They were members of the Venitian School of northern Italy, known for its unique responsorial polychoral style. St. Mark’s was particularly spacious and resonant, producing much echo and delay between the two opposing choir lofts. Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli and their predecessors used those sound characteristics to advantage in several ways. They developed a polychoral style marked by antiphonal effects. St. Mark’s organ and instrumental accompaniment could bridge the delay between the two choirs when positioned between them. In language of the mid-20th century, high fidelity was fine for the conservative Roman school and its a cappella choral music, but music of the Gabrieli’s and the Venintian school required close-up stereo.
The Gabrieli’s were known not only for incorporating string and brass instruments into their choral works, but also for introduced dynamic markings into their music. They and others of the Venetian School introduced a new style of music to Europe, including sacred music with instrumental accompaniment and secular music at a time that the influence of the Catholic Church upon sacred choral music was declining. They introduced the Baroque characteristics of terraced dynamics. The crescendo and decrescendo was not introduced to music until the Mannheim school introduced its famous “Mannheim crescendo” at the end of the Baroque period during the Rococo bridge into the Classical Period. Rather, the Gabrieli’s used dynamic markings for sections or responsorial phrases of music, as the word “terraced” suggests. It most often was in the form of a loud, short phrase followed by a spatially separate performing group statement repeating or imitatingf that phrase, at a softer level as though it were an echo. It was only natural to do so given the acoustical properties of St. Mark’s Basilica and its choir lofts at opposing sides of the congregation.
Baroque music also saw the development of instrumental music as an extension of that incorporated by the Gabrieli’s in St. Mark’s. The Gabrieli’s music was characterized by a rhythmic drive, which also became a characteristic of the Baroque music that followed.
In a society that was becoming more mobile, Europe was experiencing greater artistic communication among France, England, German states, and Italian city states. Whereas many European composers visited Italy to experience its music and to learn from it, Andrea Gabrieli traveled to Germany to learn from Orlando de Lassus, who had become well known throughout Europe as a progressive composer of both sacred and secular music. Giovanni Gabrieli also studied in Germany. In time, other European composers came to Venice to study with Giovanni Gabrieli.
Following the death of his uncle, Giovanni Gabrieli edited and published much of Andrea’s work.
See the following sites for a sampling of Andrea Gabrieli’s compositions:
Sacrae Symphoniae – Sonata pian e forte, in which you will note the effect of terraced dynamics:
Sonata XIII
The Pope is in attendance at this nuanced performance.
The Bible Through Artists' Eyes 