Today was primarily centered around the music and influence of Monteverdi, a composer with one leg in the Renaissance and the other in the Baroque. Using madrigals, drama, and opera, Monteverdi helped usher in a new type of music that became known as the Baroque. While the music of the High Renaissance was polyphonic with independent lines working congruently, and the music was primarily linear with resulting vertical harmony, the music of the Baroque was driven more by the bass line and subsequently the harmonic implications.
The concepts of basso continuo, a melody served an accompaniment, and an establishment of sharps, flats, and key structures affected music development most dramatically. This is seen in the late madrigals of Monteverdi. In an ironic sense, the bass line began to serve as the foundation for the music, rather than serving as another melodic line. This then led to a greater realization of the harmonic series and its importance in designing the overall sound of music.
Monteverdi's contributions to music were not only in the area of musical development but also in music drama and orchestration, as his use of instruments as an important force in opera, make his music among the most influential of his time. We listened to Tancredi and Clorinda, pointing out the string tremolos, the layering of sounds, and the vocal inflections adding to the drama. The development of opera music included the rise of the importance of the orchestra. As the instruments themselves became more sophisticated and composers began to make more technical demands on the players, the orchestra took on a greater role. This role included enhancing the drama and even playing its own overtures. Ultimately these "sinfonias" separated to become what we now know as the symphony. Perhaps the most respected early opera that is still performed today is Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, a wonderfully expressive and complex retelling of the ancient Greek story of Orpheus.
As we concluded Monteverdi, we jumped into a quick and somewhat superficial discussion of the fugue and its anatomy. Please study the following website for further detail and cognition: http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/fugueanatomy.html. This link also includes a robust link allowing for a comprehensive understanding of Bach's Well-tempered Clavier.
Tuesday we will continue with the Baroque period before jumping back to the 20th century where we get to discuss folk song, primitivism, and finally the 2nd Viennese School. The future is bright!
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I just finished the test and found it hard to sum up Monteverdi's contribution to music. The invention of opera is a huge accomplishment and included the orchestral and dramatic elements as well.
ReplyDeleteDo a quick study on the Madrigals. Later madrigals demonstrate a more "Baroque" usage of melody, harmony, and bass line. Early madrigals show quality of line, demonstrating a more "Renaissance" kind of concept in the music. The result then is an ushering in of harmony as we know it today.
ReplyDeleteBefore this class, I just lumped Monteverdi in the pre-Baroque pot of composers. I may have vaguely associated him with madrigals. He is an important figure though...the way he bridged Renaissance and Baroque music reminds me of Beethoven and Classical and Romantic music.
ReplyDelete--Olivia
I think one of the things that helps Monteverdi be of such influence is the fact that there is so much of his work published. The madrigal books are a huge effort of publication, yet because we have all of them still, we can trace the transition from renaissance to baroque. Really rather amazing.
ReplyDeleteOf course he was certainly a great composer, but the fact that he was in the right place at the right time, able to publish his works, composing when almost everything renaissance had been exploited and also when new instrumental technology was available to add to the orchestra: these all helped him to have the influence that he had.
What is that website for the animated fuge dissections?
ReplyDeleteIs this what you are talking about Petros? http://www2.nau.edu/tas3/wtc.html
ReplyDeleteBy the way...by (ahem) randomly (cough) clicking on one of the fugues here, I stumbled upon the following comments by Tim Smith...if you read through the end, you will find that Mr. Smith sets out a most amazing and logical dismemberment of materialism, showing that it is based on presuppositions and using Bach to prove that the universe is more than matter and energy!
Delightful. True. Ingenious.