The beginnings of Baroque musical style appeared in Italian solo song and opera in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This style manifests as a vocal melody accompanied by chords and bass line, a format intended to highlight the lyrics. This straightforward homophonic texture is called monody. Although monody heralded the Baroque style, polyphonic texture soldiered on and existed side by side with homophonic sections into the late Baroque.
Allegory of Music | Laurent de La Hyre, 1606–1656 | The lute was a popular instrument during the Baroque. | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Giulio Caccini
Italian composer Giulio Caccini (1551-1618) was an operatic pioneer and member of the Florentine Cammerata Society, a group advocating ancient Greek art as a model for artists. Caccini's Euridice (1600) was the first published opera and his solo song collection, Le Nouve Musiche (1602), laid the foundation for bel canto and monody, helping open the floodgates of the Baroque.
Amarilli mia bella
Giulio Caccini's Amarilli mia bella, from Le Nouve Musiche, is a textbook perfect example of the monody style. Here it is accompanied by lute per the original practice (modern performances often substitute piano):
Amarilli mia bella | Giulio Caccini | Voices of Music (2:58)
The text concerns the universal woe of love unrequited.
Amarilli, mia bella,
non credi, o del mio cor dolce desio,
d’esser tu l’amor mio?
Credilo pur, e se timor t’assale,
prendi questo mio strale
aprimi il petto e vedrai scritto in core:
Amarilli è il mio amore.
Amaryllis, my beauty,
don't you believe, sweet desire of my heart
that you are my love?
Believe it, and if you fear
take this my arrow,
open my breast and you shall see written in my heart:
Amaryllis is my love.
Claudio Monteverdi | Bernardo Strozzi, 1581–1644 | Monteverdi was an opera pioneer and transitional figure to the Baroque style. | Tyrolean State Museum
Claudio Monteverdi
Another pioneer of Baroque opera, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), composed a breakthrough early Italian Baroque style opera, Orfeo (1607). We'll sample one movement, Con che soavità. Even with a chamber ensemble accompanying, the text is presented clearly and supported with straightforward homophonic texture.
Con che soavità (1619) | Claudio Monteverdi | Voices of Music (5:58)
Con che soavità, labra odorate,
e vi bacio e v'ascolto;
ma se godo un piacer, l'altro m'è tolto.
Come i vostri diletti
s'ancidono fra lor, se dolcemente
vive per ambedue l'anima mia?
Che soave armonia
fareste, o cari baci, o dolci detti,
se foste unitamente
d'ambedue le dolcezz'ambo capaci,
baciando, i detti, e ragionando, i baci.
With these sweet fragrant lips
I kiss you or listen to you speak
but when I enjoy one pleasure, I am deprived of the other.
How is it that your delights
can exclude each other, if my
soul lives sweetly for both?
Such smooth harmony
you make, dear kisses, oh sweet sayings,
if only you could do both at the same time:
kiss the words and speak the kisses.
Nymphenburg Palace (1675) | Summer residence of Bavaria rulers. Franz, Duke of Bavaria, is the current resident. | Peter Kun Frary
Baroque Style
Now that we've gotten a taste of Baroque music and culture, it's time to look at musical style in detail.
Baroque composers tended to give the outer voices—soprano and bass—more importance than typical in Renaissance polyphony, resulting in a polarity between outer voices. While monody was the rage in seventeenth century Italy, polyphonic textures continued to be favored in Northern Europe.
Tonality
Major-Minor tonality rather than modality formed the basis of most music by the latter half of the seventeenth century. The focus on major and minor scales allowed harmony to become more deliberate and formalized. In other words, harmony was no longer a chance result of combinations of melodic lines but, instead, deliberate organization of chords into patterned progressions.
Baroque Guitar | Matteo Sellas, 1599–1654 | Frets on guitars and lutes helped popularize equal temperament tuning. | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Baroque Guitar | Elizabeth Brown plays Canarios by Gaspar Sanz (1640-1710)
Equal Temperament
Popularization of Equal temperament tuning yielded increased pitch range and modulation. Equal temperament is a tuning system where adjacent notes in the chromatic scale are spaced exactly the same distance apart—equidistant spacing of half steps. Non-tempered tuning used varied interval spacing, rendering register extremes and distant keys out of tune.
Double Virginal | H. Ruckers, c.1581 | Baroque keyboard instruments overtook lutes as the de rigueur household instrument. | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Basso Continuo
A bass line with chords improvised above it, called basso continuo, was the foundation of harmony used in solo song and ensemble music. Figured bass symbols—numbers placed under bass notes—are a short hand system of indicating the chords played by basso continuo players. The example below shows figured bass on the left with a simple realization on the right.
Figured Bass | Numbers under bass notes indicate chords.
Basso continuo used an instrumental combination able to play chords and bass: cello (bass) and harpsichord (chords); bassoon (bass) and lute (chords), etc. If a bass player was unavailable, both bass and chords were played on a single instrument such as a lute or harpsichord.
Viola da Gamba | Richard Meares, 1647–1725, London | Viola da gamba was often used to play bass lines. | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Handel's Sonata in E minor HWV 375, Minuetto, was written for recorder and basso continuo. Here, basso continuo is played by guitar (chords) and cello (bass):
Sonata in E minor HWV 375: Minuetto | G. F. Handel, 1685-1759 (3:54)
Terraced Dynamics
Terraced dynamics, sudden changes from loud to soft or vice versa, characterize ensemble music. The louder volume of an ensemble versus a softer soloist creates terraced dynamics. The Recorder Concerto below pits an ensemble against a solo soprano recorder, resulting in terraced dynamics:
Recorder Concerto in C Major RV 443 | Antonio Vivaldi, 1685-1759 (3:44)
Continuity of Mood, Rhythm and Melody
Baroque music sticks to one mood or feeling throughout a movement. Particular scales, keys, rhythms, etc., represented specific emotions. For example, sadness was suggested with descending chromatic scales and minor keys. Indeed, calculated emotional expressions are characteristic of Baroque art in general.
Rhythmic patterns established at the beginning tend to be used continuously throughout the movement, creating a feeling of forward motion. Rhythm is often characterized by subdivision of the beat, sometimes called motor rhythm.
Melody or sections of melody are repeated in different guises. Melody may unfold into elaborate phrases but maintains a similar character due to repeated motives and melodic sequences.
Prelude No. 1
Bach's Prelude No. 1 introduces an arpeggiated motive and repeats this idea incessantly, keeping a similar mood from beginning to end:
Prelude 1 in C Major BWV 846 | Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750 | Xuefei Yang, seven-string guitar (2:17)
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Baroque Style
Terraced Dynamics
Continuity of Mood, Rhythm and Melody
