New Genres and Styles in the Age of Rationalism

Three styles of vocal music

Marco Scacchi (ca. 1600 to ca. 1685) — writer on music, classified types of vocal music in letter of 1648:• stylus ecclesiasticus — church music• stylus cubicularis — chamber music• stylus theatralis — opera

The creation of opera

Predecessors• Greek drama• Liturgical drama• Madrigal dialogue and madrigal comedy• Pastoral — poetic play with music, popular in

sixteenth century• Intermedio between acts of dramas — included

songs, pantomime, dances– theatrical context allowed for very elaborate stagings– poets also important madrigal poets

• Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) — Aminta (1573)• G.B. Guarini (1538–1612) — Il pastor fido (1590)

Studies of Greek drama

• Camerata in Florence under leadership of Count Bardi

• Girolamo Mei in Rome concluded Greeks sang throughout dramas

• Style was understood to be monophonic and speechlike

• Plots taken from Greek mythology

Early operatic experiments

• Jacopo Peri (1561–1633) — first completely composed drama — Dafne (1594, perf. 1598)– pastoral by Ottavio Rinuccini (1562–1621)– only fragments extant — two by Jacopo Corsi

(1561–1602), Peri’s patron, and four by Peri• Emilio de’ Cavalieri (ca. 1550–1602) — first

extant, completely composed play — Rappresentativo di anima e di corpo (Rome, 1600)– sacred allegory, idealized drama, first score

printed with figured bass

Euridice, 1600

• First intact, genuine opera• Original production for wedding in Florence

of Henry IV of France and Maria de’ Medici (commemorated in paintings by Rubens)

• Pastoral text by Rinuccini• Music by Peri, who probably sang Orfeo’s

role• Produced by Corsi• Staged by Cavalieri• Some music inserted by Caccini

The music of Euridice

• Structure — five acts, modeled on Greek drama• Vocal style — stile rappresentativo, recitative– free rhythm, like speech, to suit affect and

meaning– pitch controlled by affect more than by meaning

— rhetoric rather than word painting– monodic texture — basso continuo

accompaniment, scoring not specified– harmony — dynamic created stress by chord

changes

Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo (1607)

• Libretto by Alessandro Striggio (1573?–1630)• Five acts

– 1 — rejoicing over wedding– 2 — news of Euridice’s death– 3 — Orfeo goes to Hades– 4 — release and second loss of Euridice– 5 —Apollo takes him to Olympus (in early version Orfeo

chased away by Bacchantes)

• Instrumental pieces– early and unusual example of specific orchestration– function for articulation of drama, unifying ritornelli

• Choral madrigals, dance pieces• Solo singing

– stile rappresentativo for dramatic passages– separate songs for expressive monologue

Vocal chamber music

• Madrigals– vocal and unaccompanied, as in sixteenth-century

style• Monodies and ensemble vocal pieces with basso

continuo – trend to chamber duet– title might be madrigal, but more precise for

soloistic pieces would be aria or cantata• Works with additional concertato instrumental

parts accompanying– introductory sinfonias or recurring ritornellos– quasi-dramatic depictions

The importance of stylus cubicularis

• Development of musical forms — problem of writing extended vocal works without dramatic plot to give coherence

• Aria changed from strophic or strophic-bass form to closed-form piece in which music dominated text

• Cantata began to mean a piece that employed a variety of styles and eventually a work planned as a series of movements

Styles of sacred music in the early seventeenth century

• Stylus gravis, or stile antico — older Zarlino/Palestrina style

• Polychoral vocal scoring– multiple choral forces — may also include organ– prima pratica harmony

• Concerted style– choirs, organ, instruments– prima pratica harmony

• Motets and concertos in seconda pratica — for solo portions of liturgy– solo voices and b.c.– motet — without obbligato instruments (cf. monodic

madrigal, duet)– concerto — with obbligato instruments

Oratorio

• Derived from narrative texts treated as motets or sacred concertos

• Name taken from oratorio or prayer hall, space separate from sanctuary, where such works were performed

• Intended for devotional observances of Christian confraternities, but not liturgical

• Features narrator, called testo or historicus (in Passion oratorios “evangelist”)

Dramatic and musical gestures of oratorio

• Concert work (not worship music) for chorus, solo singers, and orchestra

• Not staged or costumed• Based on biblical story• Uses musical techniques of opera — recitative,

affective/rhetorical solos, chorus, instrumental accompaniment

• Likely to feature chorus – no logistical problem in costuming, staging– musical word painting replaces visual scenery

Instrumental genres

in the early seventeenth century

Building on Renaissance genres

• Increased importance in musical life• Doctrine of affects provided justification for

expression — musical style as rhetorical even without text

• Structural advances — concertato scoring, tonality, form

• Conception based on instruments– farther from vocal models– idiomatic writing

• Dynamics — terraced

Improvisatory types

• Toccata, prelude• Often paired or interwoven with section

or passages in fuga

Imitative types

• Ricercar, fantasia• Featured polyphonic imitation,

concentrating on one subject — unity of affect

• Free form, tendency to continuity rather than frequent sectional divisions

Sonata

• Successor of canzona by separation of sections into movements

• Key unity maintains central affect, but sections contrast in material, tempo

• Almost always with basso continuo — trio texture (two parts and b.c.) becomes most important

Variation types

• Partita (series of partes)• Cantus firmus variation — especially of

chorale• Ornamentation of melody line• Variations over repeating bass– similar to vocal strophic variations– standard types — chaconne, passacaglia,

ruggiero, romanesca, etc.

Dance types

• Stylized dance types for independent pieces

• Binary form• Suite– relation to variation set — partita– key unity stabilizes affect while dance

rhythms give affective variety– standard order — allemande, courante,

sarabande, gigue

Questions for discussion

• What historical factors let to the distinction between church, chamber, and theatrical styles in seventeenth-century music? How have more recent periods maintained or forsaken the separation of styles by social function?

• In what sense is early opera dramatic? In what senses is it not dramatic?

• How did the appearance and development of the oratorio resemble or differ from that of the liturgical drama?

• What factors contributed to the increasing important and sophistication of instrumental music in the seventeenth century?