Essay on Ensemble Music During the Baroque Period

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

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had endless ideas for writing piano sonatas and like his other works, his sonata style has evolved dramatically over the years. His early works have been constantly compared with other well-known composers at the time. For example, it has been suggested that Haydn’s F Major Sonata, Hob. XVI: 23 as a model for Mozart’s K. 280 in the same key.

Later on in his life, Bach composed the Orchestral Suite No.3 in D Major. This work's second movement was appropriately titled Air, because it was an aria for the orchestra. Bach wrote music for single instruments, duets, and small ensembles. Bach's works for solo instruments include the six sonatas and partitas for violin (BWV1001-1006), the six cello suites (BWV 1007-1012) and the partita for solo flute (BWV1013). Bach's best-known orchestral

Composers since the early classical era have used sonata form to express through music ideas which are at once complex and unified. This form contains a variety of themes and permutations of these themes, but is brought together into a comprehensible whole when these excerpts reappear. Beethoven, in the first movement of his Piano Sonata Opus 2 Number 3 utilizes this form to its full potential, modifying the typical structure in his characteristic way.

When the concert first began, the three instrumentalists walked with energy despite their age. The first song, “Sonata I in G-Major Op. 2, Nr. 1” by Michel Blavet, was a Baroque Sonata. There were five movements and was played by the harpsichord, flute, and cello. All movements of the song were polyphonic because of the three instruments that had different parts and equal importance. In the first movement, I noticed that the flute tended to rise in pitch. In the second movement, I noticed that the melodies often repeated. Throughout the rest of the song the tempo changed from fast to slow and the flute would usually take the lead. On the last movement, the cello and the harpsichord

A multimovement piece composed for the lute or keyboard with the style, tempo, and rhythmic patterns of a particular dance

The second piece that is discussed is Toccata in F major, by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is a solo piece that was performed in a unison and dissonant harmony. Surreal coordination and impressive pedal solo was extremely impressive and gave this particular piece a broad spectrum of dynamic change and tempo. Ascending and descending theme constantly repeated throughout this performance, alternating in crescendo and decrescendo, which brought life and movement to a classical piece.

Since the Baroque era, the concerto has played a vital role in the music world. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a concerto is “a composition for one or more soloists and orchestra with three contrasting movements.” There are two main types: the concerto grosso and the classical concerto; both will be discussed later. While the term concerto is relatively easy to understand in context, when put into use the term becomes more complicated to define.

There were a total of four music pieces performed. They were “Overture from the Singspiel”, “Concerto in e minor”, “Concerto on b minor,opus 104”, and “Symphony#2 in b minor, opus 5”. I think pieces were performed belong to classical style.

During the Baroque era, Bach compositions represented unity because he maintained to keep melody through rhythm. Furthermore, Cello Suite No.1 in G major, BWV 1007 has 6 parts. Kouyoumdjian stated, “ Prelude has 3 layers, the bass, then the melody which is the treble and the middle” (Kouyoumdijan commentary). Afterwards, the rest of the composition. When Kouyoumdjian transcribed Violin Sonata No. 2 in A minor, BMV, he used the violin and harpsichord as a source to transcribe the composition for the guitar. Fuga in the composition is an imitation from the previous composition, Andante is the poetic moment and Allegro shows “fiery.”

The sonata in the baroque era was made of multiple movements, and was either secular or sacred. The sonata da chiesa was designated for performance in church. It was typically comprised of three movements for a stringed instrument. The first movement was most often an adagio with a legato melody, the second movement was a fugal allegro, perhaps three voices to represent the trinity, the third was choralic and the fourth movement was a finale in two part form. The court sonatas were a bit longer sometimes containing as many as six movements.

The Chamber Winds had a forty-one personnel ensemble, which played Mother Earth by David Maslanka, Hymn to a Blue Hour by John Mackey, and Symphony in B Flat by Paul Hindemith. My personal favorite in which I would like to emphasize on was Symphony in B Flat by Paul Hindemith wrote in 1851. The Symphony in B Flat was absolutely remarkable, this piece had three different movements in it. The three movements in the Symphony in B Flat had different textures, themes, and rhythms. The first movement was moderately fast with vigor is in allegro tempo and begins with one beat that shifts to a duple ending in a B flat major chord. The second movement was andantino grazioso which begins in a melody with a sax and cornet then corresponds to movement

Rarely in the documented history of music can we found a collection of compositions more perfectly tied to an instrument, than that of the Baroque school of French organ composition. Looking at the earliest examples of music from this period (which stem from even earlier vocal polyphony), one will find forms and techniques indubitably connected to the organ. By the start of the sixteenth century, the establishment of colloquial categories of organ composition, and independent vocal forms, were finally acknowledged. For the following two centuries the technical progression of the organ in conjunction with musical development, resulted in every stop on Baroque French organs being given a standardised function. This function was almost always outlined at the beginning of a score by the composer.

Classic Sonata Form(s): The term “sonata form” surfaced in the 1820s and was variously described as: “the first movement of the symphony [or sonata]”, “an elaborate movement [or] a long movement…generally divided into two sections”’, “grand binary form”, et cetera. It wasn’t until the second quarter of the nineteenth century that it was formally defined as an individual-movement structure. Leonard Ratner describes the form in terms of the key-area scheme I – V (III) / x – I and uses a 10-point system (Table 1) to map the points of cadential action. He identifies the most critical points

The name ' Sonata ' or known as first movement appeared in the early 17th century, when instrumental music began to separate instrument or composition of the piece from vocal music. ‘Sonata ' means a work to be played, which is derived from the Italian word suonare. At first, Sonata form is made for dance movements and used as a church music, but eventually this form changed and became really popular among composers of classical music from the 17th century until the early 20th century.