Opera seria in the early eighteenth century Addressed to aristocratic audience Dramatic style libretti brought to high level by Pietro Metastasio 16981782 Rationalistic three acts dialogue in simple recitative alternating with affectiverhetorical arias generally in da capo form ID: 320875
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Slide1
The Early Eighteenth Century
Slide2
Opera seria in the early eighteenth century
Addressed to aristocratic audience
Dramatic style — libretti brought to high level by Pietro Metastasio (1698–1782)
Rationalistic
three acts
dialogue in simple recitative alternating with affective/rhetorical arias generally in da capo form
characters allotted a number of arias according to carefully developed schemes of theatrical hierarchy
emphasis on solo arias rather than character interactionSlide3
Intermezzo
Rationalist opera seria eliminated comic aspects
Comedic
intermezzi
performed between acts
plots adopted from popular
commedia dell’arte
— street theater
stock characters: clever, young woman (soprano) bests older, dominating man (bass) in “carnivalesque” social inversion
Two acts, corresponding to intermissions in opera seria
Simple recitatives, affective da capo arias and ensemble numbers
Accompaniment provided by reduced orchestra
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736)
La serva padrona
(1733) best known and most influential in music historySlide4
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) and the opera
Born in Halle, Germany, went to Hamburg to study music, played in opera under Reinhard Keiser (1674–1739)
At 21, went to Italy to develop his skills
Returned to Germany in 1710 as music director at the Elector’s court in Hanover
1710–1711 season in London — Italian operas brought great success
Returned to Hanover but almost immediately went back to London, where he spent the rest of his career
1714 Elector of Hanover became King George I of England
1720–28 — Handel’s operas produced in honor of the king at the Royal Academy of Music
Altogether, Handel wrote forty operasSlide5
Decline of Italian opera in England
Growing urban, commercial class disliked
unfamiliar mythological and classical plots
foreign language
castrati
Royal Academy of Music closed
Handel founded New Royal Academy, but it also failed
competed rival company Opera of the Nobility
drove both companies to the verge of bankruptcySlide6
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764)
Early career
keyboard pieces
established himself as a theorist —
Traite de l’harmonie
(1722)
At first unsuccessful in opera
Patronage of Alexandre-Jean-Joseph Le Riche de la Pouplinière — enabled success in opera
Hippolyte et Aricie
(1733)
Les Indes galantes
(1735) — opera-ballet
Guerre des Lullistes et des Ramistes — journalistic battle in 1730s
Lullistes claimed Rameau’s works abandoned true French style of Lully
Ramistes insisted that his music maintained Lullian idealsSlide7
Handel and the oratorio
Reach
to
London’s urban audience
English language
familiar biblical
subjects
English
choral tradition
avoided artificialities of Italian
opera, including castrati
English oratorios
— twenty-six
Saul
,
Israel in Egypt
1739
—
established genre
Messiah
1742
— biblical
prose, not dramatic
Judas Maccabeus
1746
Solomon
1749
Like opera in general musical resources
three
acts
narrative
recitatives and
affective/rhetorical arias
overtures in French style or sinfonias in Italian style
more emphasis
on
chorus than in operaSlide8
Choruses in Handel’s oratorios
Chorus
becomes hallmark of genre
Magnificent
choral anthem style
More
varied uses than opera (which hardly used chorus by this time)
commentary — expression of affect through musical rhetoric
action
narration
pictorialism — replaces visual aspects of opera staging
singability
—
from English anthemSlide9
Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685–1750) — earliest
years
Musician family
born 21 March 1685 in Eisenach
parents died 1695, Bach lived with older brother in Ohrdruf
Chorister in Lüneburg — interest in the organ
met Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
visited Hamburg to hear Johann Adam Reinken (1623–1722)Slide10
Bach in his late teens and twenties
Arnstadt 1703–1707 and Mühlhausen 1707–1708
— church organist
toccatas, fugues, chorale-based works
earliest vocal sacred concertos (so-called church cantatas)
Weimar Duke’s chapel 1708–1717
violinist — transcriptions of Italian instrumental works for organ
choral director — sacred concertosSlide11
Bach in Cöthen 1717–1723
Kapellmeister to Prince — mostly secular music
orchestral and chamber works — including Brandenburg concertos
some secular cantatas
Teacher for his sons — clavier music, including
Two-part Inventions and Three-part Sinfonias
Well-Tempered Clavier
, Book 1 (compiled 1722)Slide12
Bach in Leipzig 1723–1750
Leipzig, St. Thomas church (and other churches) and school — church music director and teacher
sacred concertos
motets
Masses
Passions — several annual cycles
Collegium Musicum, connected with university — instrumental music
Late, paradigmatic worksSlide13
Bach’s plan for the Lutheran sacred concerto (church cantata)
Before the sermon
Large chorus, usually based on a chorale proper to the day
Recitative and aria or duet
After the sermon
Recitative and aria or duet
Homorhythmic setting of the choraleSlide14
Questions for discussion
In what ways did different balances of influence among social classes affect music in England, France, Germany, and Italy in the early eighteenth century?
How were Bach’s and Handel’s responses to the public’s changing musical tastes different?
In what ways might it be possible to consider some music of the early eighteenth century mannerist? Does the term seem as appropriate for this period as for the late fourteenth or late sixteenth century? Why or why not?