Characteristics of Baroque Music questions and answers

Characteristics of Baroque MusicMELODY: - correct answer A single melodic idea. RHYTHM: - correct answer Continuous rhythmic drive. TEXTURE: - correct answer Balance of Homophonic (melody with chordal harmony) and polyphonic textures. TIMBRE: - correct answer Orchestral - strings, winds and harpsichord with very little percussion. Also had intruments like the lute or viol. DYNAMICS: - correct answer Abrupt shifts from loud to soft - achieved by adding or subtracting instruments. An overall characteristic of Baroque Music - correct answer is that a single musical piece tended to project a single mood or expression of feeling. Contrast as a dramatic element - correct answer Contrast is an important ingredient in the drama of a baroque composition. The differences between loud and soft, solo and ensemble (as in the concerto), different instruments and timbres all play an important role in many baroque compositions. 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. Brilliant instruments like the trumpet and violin also grew in popularity. Monody and the advent of the basso continuo - correct answer In previous musical eras, a piece of music tended to consist of a single melody, perhaps with an improvised accompaniment, or several melodies played simultaneously. Not until the baroque period did the concept of "melody" and "harmony" truly begin to be articulated. As part of the effort to imitate ancient music, composers started focusing less on the complicated polyphony that dominated the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and more on a single voice with a simplified accompaniment, or monody. 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? The new merger between the expression of feeling and the solo singer come through loud and clear in Monteverdi's preface to the Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda from his Eighth Book of Madrigals (1638), in which he writes: "It has seemed to me that the chief passions or affections of our mind are three in number, namely anger, equanimity and humility. The best philosophers agree, and the very nature of our voice, with its high, low and middle ranges, would indicate as much." The earliest operas are an excellent illustration of this new aesthetic. Along with the emphasis on a single melody and bass line came the practice of basso continuo, - correct answer a method of musical notation in which the melody and bass line are written out and the harmonic filler indicated in a type of shorthand. As the Italian musician Agostino Agazzari explained in 1607: Since the true style of expressing the words has at last been found, namely, by reproducing their sense in the best manner possible, which succeeds best with a single voice (or no more than a few), as in the modern airs by various able men, and as is the constant practice at Rome in concerted music, I say that it is not necessary to make a score... A Bass, with its signs for the harmonies, is enough. But if some one were to tell me that, for playing the old works, full of fugue and counterpoints, a Bass is not enough, my answer is that vocal works of this kind are no longer in use. Because basso continuo, or thorough bass, - correct answer remained standard practice until the end of the baroque period, the era is sometimes known as the "age of the thorough bass." Different instrumental sounds - correct answer After being ignored for decades, baroque music has become increasingly popular over the last fifty years. As part of this new interest, scholars and musicians have spent countless hours trying to figure out how the music might have sounded to 17th and 18th century audiences. While we will never be able to recreate a performance precisely, their work has unearthed several major differences between baroque and modern ensembles: