Rationalism and Its Impact on Music - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Rationalism and Its Impact on MusicSlide2

“Baroque”

Used

to identify period in art and music history before 1600 to about

1750

Originally a pejorative word — overornamented, distorted, grotesque — used by critics from later periods

does

not apply to all arts of that period

—

e.g

., French

academic

dramatists

Pierre Corneille (

1606–1684) and

Jean Racine (

1639–1699), painter Jan

Vermeer (

1632–1675)

certainly

does not reflect artists’ ideas in the

period

music

includes a variety of styles over long

periodSlide3

Rationalist principles

Reason

supersedes received authority from church or ancients

Francis Bacon (

1561–1626

)

—

clearing away errors in thinking

René Descartes (

1596–1650

)

Discourse on Method

(1637)

—

principles of rationalism

The Passions of the Soul

(1649)

—

important for aesthetics

Aesthetic presuppositions

Humanism —

to portray the idea, “imitate” the “sense” of words

Gioseffe Zarlino,

Istitutione armoniche

(1558)

Thomas Morley,

A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke

(1597)

Rationalism —

to move the audience, imitate

rhetorical

speech

pathos rather than ethos;

affetto

rather than

virtù

Vincenzo Galilei,

Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna

(1581)Slide4

Historical factors in the

seventeenth

century

Courts —

important for arts

major powers

France, absolutism under Bourbons in Paris

Hapsburg empire

—

centered in Austria

principalities

in Germany (electors for Holy Roman Empire) and Italy

constitutional monarchy in England

Civil War, 1642

Commonwealth, 1649

Stuart Restoration, 1660

Church —

important for the arts

Roman Catholicism

—

Jesuitism

Lutheranism (Orthodox Lutheran and Pietist branches)

Church of EnglandSlide5

Important commercial cities in the

seventeenth

century

Venice

—

port (Adriatic)

Hamburg

—

port (North Sea)

Leipzig

—

center for publishing

London

—

capital and trade centerSlide6

Monody and basso continuo

Camerata

—

amateurs in Florence interested in Classical

antiquity

Giovanni

de’ Bardi (

1543–1612

)

—

host, nobleman, writer (

Discourse on ancient and modern singing

, ca.

1578)

Girolamo

Mei (

1519–1594

)

—

scholar in Greek literature; lived in Rome, letters to

Florence

Vincenzo

Galilei (late

1520s to 1591

)

—

lutenist and singer, theorist (

Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna

,

1581)

objection

to polyphonic song on

principle

monodic

texture based on Mei’s information about Greek

drama

rhetoric

as model for moving affectionsSlide7

Monodic texture

—

homophony

Vocal

part

declamation influenced by existing formulas for singing strophic poems, Camerata’s theories

ornamentation

(derived from Renaissance improvisation in polyphony)

Bass

treatment

Renaissance basso seguente

—

essentially lowest line

basso continuo from ca. 1590s

real, independent part as polar opposite of melody, freeing vocal bass

addition of figures

—

practical, but optional

Giulio Caccini (ca.

1545–1618

)

—

singer and composer

Le nuove musiche

(1602

) — explained and illustrated new styleSlide8

Caccini,

Le nuove musiche

(1601)Slide9

Concertato scoring

New

ideal

—

exploit heterogeneous performers

from Latin concertare

—

to contend or fight

unlike

humanist

ideal of homogeneous, a cappella sound

Usages

of term

sixteenth century —

colla parte (e.g., Cristoforo Malvezzi,

1589, reports that a madrigal

was “concertato” with instruments)

1587

—

Gabrieli collection

—

first use in title

polychoral, voices and instruments

1602

—

Lodovico Grossi da Viadana,

Cento concerti ecclesiastici

one or more singers with organ basso continuo

1610

—

Monteverdi, 1615 Giovanni Gabrieli

voices and instruments, independent, idiomatic rolesSlide10

Seconda

pratica

harmony

Sixteenth-century harmonic style — panconsonance

theorist — Zarlino,

Istitutione harmoniche

(1558)

Mannerism — chromaticism and cross-relations

e.g., Carlo Gesualdo (ca. 1561–1613)

Seconda pratica

new

dissonances permitted

— including accented

passing tones and neighboring

tones, appoggiaturas, escape

tones

G

. M

. Artusi (ca.

1540–1613

)

— attacked dissonances in

new style with score (no text) examples from madrigals by Monteverdi, 1600

Claudio Monteverdi (

1567–1643

)

—

reply in Foreword prefacing

Madrigals

, Book 5 (1605

), amplified

by Dichiarazione in

Scherzi musicale

(1607) by his brother Giulio Cesare Monteverdi (

1573 to ca

. 1630

), justifying unusual harmony as rhetorical expression of text’s affectSlide11

Questions for discussion

How does the change from Humanist to Rationalist aesthetics and musical style compare to the change at the beginning of Humanism?

How are rational and passionate aspects of musical experience kept in balance or synthesized in seventeenth-century musical thought and style?

Compare basso continuo texture to earlier textures in Western music.