Chapter 9 Vocal Music 1650-1750 Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera • beyond Italy, opera was slow to develop • France, Spain, and England enjoyed their own forms of dramatic entertainment with music Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera France: Comédie-ballet and Tragédie en musique • Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), established sung drama that was part opera and part ballet • wrote a series of comédie-ballet for dancing talents of his master, Loius XIV • mixed spoken drama and dance Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera France: Comédie-ballet and Tragédie en musique • in 1672, Lully created new operatic genre: tragédie en musique (also know as tragédie lyrique) • drew on classical mythology and chivalric romances with plots being veiled favorable commentaries on recent court events Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera France: Comédie-ballet and Tragédie en musique • Tragédie en musique consisted of: • an overture • an allegorical prologue • five acts of entirely sung drama, each divided into several scenes • many divertissements (interludes) Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera France: Comédie-ballet and Tragédie en musique • Lully Armide - tragédie en musique (also called tragédie lyrique) - French Overture (section with slow dotted rhythms followed by faster imitative section) - the aria uses figured bass and moves freely between meters to accommodate the French language Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • Opera seria (serious opera) • usually tragic content • the most important type of opera cultivated from 1670-1770 • developed in Italy and sung almost exclusively in Italian • became an international genre Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • libretto draws subject matter from classical antiquity • rulers presented in favorable light: heroic, magnanimous, placing duty and honor above personal gain • texts balance drama and music with mixture of action (recitative) and reflection (aria) Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • majority of arias are da capo arias • name comes from indication at tend of second section: da capo (from the head) • having finished B section, the performer goes back to beginning of A and continues to the end of that section (fine often in score) Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • recitativo semplice (simple recitative) accompanied by basso continuo for extended passages of prose • arias tend to be dramatically static but psychologically revealing • recitativo accompagnato (accompanied recitative) supported by full orchestral for moments of high emotion and drama Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • Handel Guilio Cesare Act I, Scene 5-7 - Scene 5: - secco (dry) recitative followed by a da capo aria - Scene 6: - secco recitative followed by da capo aria - the aria uses an instrumental ritornello - Scene 7: - uses recitativo accompagnato (accompanied recitative) reserved for moments of high emotion and drama • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orfVtWfHs2Q Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • da capo aria offered singers a way for demonstrating vocal prowess with very high or low notes, fast passages, rapid ornaments • castrato - young boys with promising voices underwent castration preventing change of voice at puberty; combined the high range of the female voice with physical power of male voice Sunday, October 21, 12 The castrato. This early 18th-century caricature lampoons two well-known tendencies of castrati: to put on weight and to sing fantastically elaborate passagework. Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera Italy: Opera seria • establishment of first public opera houses in Venice in 1638 • new audience demanded new kinds of performance spaces and imposed new economics • without direct support of court or church, opera established itself on a for-profit basis Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • masques began as semi-improvised intrusions into large social festivities by masked and costumed actors • masques migrated to stage as loosely assembled series of vignettes that allowed for colorful mixture of musical and dramatic elements Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • semi-operas flourished in the second half of the 17th century • essentially plays with a large proportion of vocal and instrumental musical numbers Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • Purcell Dido and Aeneas from Act I - Purcell borrows much from French opera - no da capo arias - not particularly virtuosic - likely written for a girls school in Chelsea Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • 17th century was time of political unrest in England and circumstances were not favorable to introduction of opera from abroad Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • ballad opera - play with music that portrayed common criminals rather than mythological figures or historical heros Sunday, October 21, 12 Opera England: Masque, Semi-opera, Opera and Ballad Opera • John Gay and Johann Christoph Pepusch excerpts from The Beggar’s Opera - spoken dialog - simple songs - original libretto featured 69 songs of which 28 have been identified as English ballads Sunday, October 21, 12 Sacred Music Music in Convents • families sent daughters to convents for a variety of reasons: mostly economic - convent dowry cost was a fraction of cost to marry daughter into respectable family • more than half of women who published music in Italy between 1566 and 1700 were nuns Sunday, October 21, 12 Sacred Music Oratorio • sacred counterpoint to opera presenting a dramatic scene from Bible or from lives of saints • genre of sung drama performed without staging or costume • music for projecting the drama includes recitative, da capo aria and chorus Sunday, October 21, 12 Oratorio • Carissimi Jephte - one of the most popular early oratorios - since there is no staging, a narrator is often used to weave the story together for the audience. In Jephte, “Historicus” is the narrator. Sunday, October 21, 12 Sacred Music Motet, Mass and Cantata • Motet and Mass: - polyphonic motet continued to thrive throughout the Continent • Handel Zadok the Priest (1727) - Anthem for the coronation of King George II in 1727 - recall that Bonds defined an Anthem as a motet in English Sunday, October 21, 12 Sacred Music Motet, Mass and Cantata • Cantata - throughout Baroque era, the term cantata was applied to many different kinds of sacred and secular vocal works • Elizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre Judith (1708) - cantata performed by one singer and basse continue plus obbligato violin Sunday, October 21, 12 Johann Sebastian Bach Bach holds in his hand a copy of his Canon Triplex, BWV 1076. Sunday, October 21, 12 Sacred Music Motet, Mass and Cantata • J.S. Bach Jesu, der du meine Seele (BWV. 78) - cantata - 1st mvmt. uses a Ritornello form - 2nd mvmt. da capo aria (with a ritornello) - 5th mvmt. uses text painting - 7th mvmt. is a Chorale type setting Sunday, October 21, 12 Conceptions of the Compositional Process • almost every composer of 17th and 18th centuries borrowed musical themes and sometimes entire pieces from others • almost every composer recycled an earlier work into a new composition Sunday, October 21, 12.