Dbq Italian Cantata

The Opera is described as the relationship between words and music. Opera is dramatic staged secular vocal work with orchestral accompaniment .Consisting of alternating recitatives, arias, and chorus numbers. Soloists, solo ensembles, choruses, dancing, dramatic action, costumes, staging are all components of opera. It was important because it added interest in dramas and music and it created interest is homophonic texture. Cantata was another important Baroque style. Cantata extended solo or choral work. It was created for Lutheran worship service. Cantatas include harmonized chorales, polyphonic choruses, arias, recitatives, solo ensembles, and instrumental accompaniment. Oratorio is dramatic work for chorus, solo voices, and orchestra. It is similar to cantata except it is longer and to a larger scale. Most were based on biblical texts to teach and entertain. Chamber music works for solo instruments performing together in small ensembles. Trio Sonatas were important chamber music pieces during the Baroque Period. Church sonatas would be performed in church. Chamber sonatas were meant for concert performance. Finally, orchestra varied in size and instrumentation. This style was favored by royalty and wealthy families. Most court orchestra were made up only bowed stringed instruments although woodwinds and others were gradually

So where are the similarities between these two composers? Both being German and born in the same year, both excelled at organ and studied the music of German and Italian composers. Being masters at counterpoint, both exhibited similarities in their skills and styles. Aside from Bach’s absence from opera, both composers had remarkable influence on nearly every contemporary genre. They both made huge impressions on keyboard pieces, being exceptionally skilled at organ.

The Baroque Era started in 1600 and lasted till 1750. Some of the famous composers from the Baroque Era include Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handel, and JS Bach. Music in Baroque society became amusement for aristocrats, modern orchestra began to evolve, and the idea of opera are beginning to develop. In many Baroque pieces the use of a Basso Continuo, which is played by two instruments typically a keyboard and a member of the strings family was found in many pieces during this time. The Baroque period can be characterized with clear and distinct meter, repeated rhythmic patterns, homophonic texture, and terraced dynamics. The Baroque is also classified by its distinct genres including Fugue, Solo Concerto, and Cantata. The Ritornello form being introduced had an impact on Baroque music because it is outlined using harmonic progressions, key modulations, and motives from the main theme in order to give character to a piece.

From 1400 to 1600 A.D., the Renaissance was a period of a rediscovery of Greek ideals for musicians to explore possibilities of their art. It was during this time that ideas were able to better circulate, because individualism began to increase, and the printing of music helped to preserve and distribute musical ideas (History). Also, as opposed to the medieval period, the Renaissance began to expand upon the type of sound that was created by adding the voices of women in choirs, as well as expanding instrumental music. The texture of music also began to change, with homophonic and polyphonic compositions. Sacred vocal polyphony was used rather than monophony in the form of masses and motets, while secular pieces also included madrigals and songs. Instrumental pieces usually were short during this time, and were for dancing (History).

From 1600 to 1750, Western Europe music was known as the Baroque period. The most known composers of this era were Bach, Vivaldi and Handle. Their music and styles inspired the people of their time and continue to do so 400 years later in the modern world. The Baroque era was considered a time of flamboyant lifestyles; a style that “filled the space.” When the church began to distance themselves from the political control of Europe, composers began to come up with more radical styles to be used in their pieces that had not been seen before. For this reason, Baroque music became known for its highly energetic and dramatic styles. Of course, behind this great music came amazingly talented composers who made it all happen. Perhaps one of the

This thesis aims to explore the life of Johann Sebastien Bach (1685-1750), and his contribution to European classical music. Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. To this day, he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest composers and musicians of all time. Bach is known for his talent in playing the organ, and the extreme complexity of his works using counterpoint, motifs and harmony. His catalogue boasts over a thousand pieces, from cantatas, motets, lute pieces, four part chorales, to chamber music, orchestral works and canons.

The Baroque Music Era is one of the most influential eras of music in music history. One of the most famous and well-known composers from that era is Johann Sebastian Bach (McKay, Hill, et al., 2012). In this discussion we will be analyzing who Bach was and his place in history and critiquing his influences in both today’s musical society and the musical society in the Baroque Era.

When Bach was eight years old he went to the old Latin Grammar School. He was taught reading and writing, Latin grammar, and a great deal of scripture, both in Latin and German. The boys in the school formed the choir of the St. Georgenkirche. This also gave Bach an opportunity to sing in the regular services, as well as in the nearby villages. He has an uncommonly fine treble voice.

Like the previous eras, Opera continued to be one of the most important music genre is the 19th century, especially in Italy, German and France. Opera served as a form of entertainment for the people of higher social class. Opera music was also popular among the people of other social classes due to the availability of transcribed opera music for them to enjoy in salons or homes of the middle class. This genre was extensively explored and developed by the Italians and Germans. This paper will discuss how Italian and German opera were developed by comparing each composer’s distinctive compositional traits.

The baroque era was full of influential composers, who would travel all over Europe, hear each-others music, and be influenced from all over the globe. Though music was suddenly more global, differences in nations where still audible in the music (most obviously between France and Italy). One of the era’s most famous composers was Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist and violinist (far left picture below). Born into one of the greatest musical families of the times, and hailed as a “natural genius”, Bach composed over 1,000 compositions in nearly every type of musical form. Though, in his later years, he faced harsh criticism that his work was outdated (due to a new Italian style invading Germany as he wrote and prepared some of his most important pieces), his legacy still lives on strong. Some of his most popular works include “Air on a G String”, “Double Violin Concerto” and the “Brandenburg concerto No. 3”. Another famous composer was the German British composer George Frederic Handel (1685-1759)- middle picture below. Handel composed for every type of musical genre, though he is most famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. He is also credited for creating the English oratorio. Handel turned blind at old age, but continued to compose. Beethoven thought Handel to be the greatest of all his predecessors, and once said that “I would bare my head and kneel at his grave”. Some of Handles popular music

Bel Canto was a form of singing that was pretty much defined by three Italian composers: Rossini, Donizetti, and Bellini. These three composers had huge success in Italy and their operas are still being performed to this day. These captivating operas like Il barbiere di Sivilglia, Lucia di lammermoor, and Norma are three of the most popular and challenging operas that singers can be involved in. These three composers really set the stage for the rise of Italian opera.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 –1750)-A theorist at heart was one of the most renowned composers of the Baroque Period known for the use of his exquisite and infallible counterpoint method. Famous for his more than 300 cantatas, the Goldberg Variations and two Passions It was recently discovered that Bist du Bei Mir was actually composed by Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel (1685 –1750) even though it stills appears as Bach BWV 508. Stolzel was a prolific composer of the Baroque Period as well, and Bach had great respect for him. Sometimes, Bach would use little excerpts from Solztel’s music as exercises that were used to teach his children. The piece was found in Ana Magdalena Bach’s notebook so it was immediately attributed to her husband; but the

The end of the 1600’s and beginning of the 1700’s marked the beginning of stylistic changes in Western music. As time progressed, the popularity of the Baroque styles of music was fading away. European society started to favor more natural and less intense art, which contradicted the typical flashy, over-the-top elements of the Baroque period. During this time of great stylistic change, the concerto, which was developed around 1680, became the most important type of Baroque instrumental music, and also established the orchestra as the leading instrumental ensemble. The instrumental concerto took the idea of the vocal concerto in bringing together two contrasting forces.

For this analysis I chose George Friedrich Handel’s Messiah (https://youtu.be/71NCzuDNUcg). Handel, a German composer various different forms of orchestral works, operas, organ concertos, anthems and oratorios who accomplished great success in England, was born on February 23rd 1685 and died on April 14th 1759. In 1741 he stopped composing operas, and focused on oratorios with his greatest composition, Messiah however, before he wrote the Messiah, he had seriously considered going back to Germany. But instead of giving up, he turned more strongly to God. This was during a time when illiteracy was widespread and written copies of the Bible were expensive and difficult for the ordinary citizen to acquire, Handel became excited about Jennens’

Handel and Bach composed music for similar types of instruments and composed musical pieces and vocal works. They both wrote compositions for some of the same type of works such as Fugues, Preludes, and Suites. Although, Handel wrote some operas, Bach wrote a large variety of church music. A majority of Bach’s compositions were Cantatas and Passions. What made Handel’s music rather different from Bach was the fact that he used simple harmonic progression. Bach’s music was written with sudden surprising harmonic shifts and he also focused on adding extra ordinary chords throughout his works. Handel preferred using simple textures, by creating music with three different melodies that were to be played at once, while several other instruments were being played at the same time. Bach on the other hand creatively composed his music by writing music