As with Lully’s stylization and organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. As French humanist scholar Artus Thomas described a performance in the late sixteenth century. Critics were quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin’s categories to music, however, and in the second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid the adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. Composers also began to be more precise about instrumentation, often specifying the instruments on which a piece should be played instead of allowing the performer to choose. Until the early 18th century, a concerto was simply a composition that united a diverse ensemble consisting of voices, instruments or both. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality. Mechanical differences between baroque and modern instruments also suggest that the older instruments would have sounded differently, so ensembles like Music of the Baroque often adjust their technique to allow for this. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin’s theory of the Baroque systematically to music. Derived from the Portuguese barroco, or “oddly shaped pearl,” the term “baroque” has been widely used since the nineteenth century to describe the period in Western European art music from about 1600 to 1750.Comparing some of music history’s greatest masterpieces to a misshapen pearl might seem … One shilling a piece, call for what you please, pay the reckoning, and Welcome gentlemen. As musicians and composers traveled all over Europe and heard each other’s music, the new conventions they encountered made subtle impressions on them. Concerto: Derived from the Italian concertare (to join together, unite), the concerto took several forms during the baroque era. Later in the seventeenth century, the concerto began to assume its modern definition: a multimovement work for instrumental soloist (or group of soloists) and orchestra. Operas typically alternate between recitative, speech-like song that advances the plot, and arias, songs in which characters express feelings at particular points in the action. 1, Article 1. The suite was essentially a series of dances in the same key, most or all of them in two-part form. In Germany, wonderful examples of the sacred concerto can be found in the works of Johann Hermann Schein, Michael Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt and Heinrich Schütz (especially his Kleine geistliche Concerte, or “Small Sacred Concertos,” of 1636–39). “Dance and Its Importance in Bach’s Suites for Solo Cello”, Musical Offerings: Vol. Later, the name came to apply also to the architecture of the same period. They experimented with a type of drama…, At certain centres, particularly Venice, it was the practice in the late 16th century to combine and contrast an instrumental consort (mainly winds) with voices in a type of religious composition called the sacred concerto. If music was a form of rhetoric, as the writings of the Greeks and Romans indicate, a powerful orator is necessary—and who better for the job than a vocal soloist? Many musical terms and concepts from this era are still in use today. In the realm of instrumental music, the notion of contrast and the desire to create large-scale forms gave rise to the concerto, sonata and suite. © 2019 Music of the Baroque. Outside of Italy, the expanding genre of the Lutheran motet began incorporating many elements of the Italian cantata, especially techniques of dramatic expression like recitative and aria. And the growth of a new middle class breathed life into an artistic culture long dependent on the whims of church and court. Since he judges according to his own fingers, his pieces are extremely difficult to play; for he demands that singers and instrumentalists should be able to do with their throats and instruments whatever he can play on the clavier, but this is impossible… Turgidity has led [him] from the natural to the artificial, and from the lofty to the somber; and…one admires the onerous labor and uncommon effort—which, however, are vainly employed, since they conflict with Nature. As Johann Adolph Scheibe said of J. S. Bach in 1737. Throughout much of the Baroque era, however, composers only earned a living writing music if they were fortunate enough to be on the payroll of a political or religious institution. The term “Baroque” is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate musical ornamentation, made changes in musical notation, and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other.