The Baroque covers a great period in the history of the Musique, extending approximately from the beginning of the 17th century in the middle of the 18th century, in a more or less uniform way according to the countries considered. In a necessarily diagrammatic way, esthetics and the inspiration baroques succeed those of the Renaissance and precede those by the classicism.

The word baroque probably comes from Portuguese barroco who indicates pearls of irregular form. Was invented it to qualify, at the beginning in a pejorative way, the Baroque architecture come from Italy. It is only later that the term was used to qualify the music which was contemporary for him. All pejorative connotation disappeared for a long time and the term more tends to indicate the period of composition that the character of work.

Time and places

Generally, one divides this period into 3 50 years phases each one:
  1. the old Baroque (1600-1650);
  2. the average Baroque (1650-1700);
  3. the late Baroque (1700-1750).

The era of the Baroque music begins, conventionally, in Italy with the Orfeo, an opera of Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) - true creator of the opera - and finishes with the contemporaries of Jean-Sebastien Bach and Georg Friedrich Haendel: Jean-Philippe Branch and Georg Philipp Telemann, from their great longevity, composes their last works in the years 1760. But well before this decade, the younger type-setters turned to a new style.

It is during the period baroque that the instrumental music émancipe and is born truly: it is not satisfied any more to accompany or supplement a primarily vocal polyphony; if it still borrows, at the beginning of the 17th century, its forms with the vocal music, it is not long in working out its own structures, adapted to their technical and expressive possibilities.

The two poles of the Baroque music are the Italy and the France whose styles are strongly opposed in spite of reciprocal influences. This opposition was such as many musicians of the one of the schools went as far as refusing to play of works coming from the other. The Italian style was diffused widely out of Italy, and the France is undoubtedly the country which resisted this domination more, under the influence of Jean-Baptiste Lully (Italian naturalized French) and this until the Querelle of the Buffoons, in the middle of. It should, in addition, be noted that France followed only with delay the European movement of evolution of the music towards the style known as “traditional” in particular illustrated by Haydn and Mozart.

Other hearths exist and take part in the movement while bringing their specificities there: the Netherlands and the Germany of North (the stylus fantasticus , the choral), the England (the art of the variation), a little the Spain. A synthesis appears in the German music, which borrows from these various currents and culminates in the work of Jean-Sebastien Bach. It also exists, in a way much less achieved, at some others of which Johann Jakob Froberger (European musician par excellence), Georg Muffat, Savoyard become Austrian after having studied in France and Italy, François Couperin ( Joined together Tastes ). As for Haendel, her work raises more personal assimilation of each style than of a true synthesis: it can compose like a German of North, an Italian, a French and creates even the new kind of the English oratorio.

Characters of the Baroque music

The style baroque is characterized in particular by the importance of the counterpoint then by a Harmonie which grows rich gradually, by an increased expressivity, by the importance given to the ornament S, by the frequent division of the orchestra with Basse continues, which is named Ripieno and a group of soloists which is the Concertino and by the technique of the Basse continues quantified like accompaniment of sonatas. It is an erudite and sophisticated style.

The baroque has also many contrasts: the oppositions held notes/notes short, low registers/acute, dark/clear (a major agreement at the end of a minor part)… or the appearance of the Concerto (of Italian concertar “to dialog”) which puts in opposition a soloist to the remainder of the orchestra (the Tutti ), the opposition between parts of invention (prelude, toccata, imagination) and parts built (running away) are only examples.

The classicism, later, will have as an ambition “to return to nature”. The confrontation of these two ideals finds one of its most famous illustrations in vehement “the Querelle of the Buffoons” which confronts, in France about 1740 the lyric tragedy with the Frenchwoman and opera-puffs out it Italian (Rameau against Rousseau).

Many musical forms are created for this period of one century and half: some reach their apogee there (for example: the continuation, the Concerto grosso…) for then falling into the lapse of memory, others will know a fortune which will last well beyond the end of the baroque: the opera, the Sonata (which will generate the Symphonie), the Concerto of Soliste.

The period baroque is also an important moment concerning the development of the musical theory. One gradually passes there from the Tonalité S of the Polyphonie (let us tons ecclesiastical Plain-chant) to the moderate Gamme and the two modes major and minor bequeathed to the traditional period. One meanwhile will have invented and tried out many Tempérament S and will have posed the bases of the traditional harmony. Instruments are erased, others appear or take their final form, while the invoice makes many progress and that the techniques of execution are stabilized and codify themselves. It thus acts, in all one very fertile period connections.

Redécouverte of works baroques

Interpretation of the 19th century

Many works of this time knew a long eclipse of the end of the 18th century until the middle of the 20th century. Bach itself was almost forgotten of its death (1750) until 1829, which sees the return (initiated by Felix Mendelssohn) of the Passion according to Saint Matthieu in the repertory, after one century of renunciation. Following this event, the interest increases for the musics of last which seemed to never have not to return to the repertory. However, certain musicologists launch out in compilation and the critical edition of works of large type-setters such Bach, Haendel, Couperin… the instruments evolved/moved, and some disappeared; the harpsichord ressuscity at the beginning of the 20th century under the notorious impulse of Wanda Landowska hardly any more resembles that of the great Parisian factors of the 18th century; the viols yielded the place for a long time.

Revival of interpretation at the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, only some impassioned musicians endeavor to find the sounds of the past. Under the impulse of the factors of instruments which manufacture old copies to them , these musicians study the treaties relating to the execution left by the theorists, in a very in general dispersed way.

This avant-garde is inaugurated initially in the United Kingdom by the violonist and factor of French instruments Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), in France by Henri Casadesus (Viola d'amore) and Edouard Nanny (double bass), which in 1901 are the Co-creators the “Company in concerts of the old Instruments”, under the presidency of the type-setter Camille Saint-Saëns, which aims to make revive the music of on the instruments of time. This group made up of young first prices of the Conservatory and soloists of the Parisian orchestras initiates an intensive research in the field of the old music.

In Germany, the violoncellist Christian Döbereiner (1874-1961), dealt with giving to the honor the viols. It founded in 1905 the Vereinigung für Alte Musik . The movement of the “violists” of the years 1920 constituted a form of protest against “the musical artistic Establishment”.

As from 1927, with Basle, the musician August Wenzinger (who after the Second world war would direct celebrates it Schola Cantorum Basiliensis), tried out the play on old instruments with other impassioned musicians, under the employers of the industrialist and violonist amateur Hans Hoesch.

After 1945, young musicians continue on this way: with Vienna a group is constituted around the violoncellist Nikolaus Harnoncourt and of the Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, with the beginning of the year 1950, with in particular the future wife of the first and Eduard Melkus. Of return to the Netherlands, Leonhardt will give the impulse to a plentiful school Dutchwoman. the movement is launched.

It is still advisable to mention Alfred Deller, born in 1912. Even if it were never really interested by the play on old instruments, it marked deeply the pioneers of the years 1950. He was indeed the first singer of the 20th century to have made career as soloist viola, after the Second world war. Then, it had become inconceivable for a long time that a man could sing acute airs. The time baroque, it, raffolait voices of boys and falsettists, and especially of that of the Castrat S (for which in the operas were often reserved the heroic roles (Hercules, César…). The singular stamp of Alfred Deller, properly single, made scandal. But it gave rise to also a passion for the vocal music of the time baroque. Who more is, the great sensitivity of interpreter of Alfred Deller inspired Gustav Leonhardt durably.

During years 1970, chiefs such Jean-Claude Malgoire, John Eliot Gardiner or Sigiswald Kuijken, Trevor Pinnock or Reinhard Goebel continue the “movement”, which still at the time is generally scoffed by the established musicians. The integral recording of the crowned cantatas of Jean-Sebastien Bach undertaken jointly by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt in 1971 will become the war-horse of those which criticism will not be long in calling “the baroqueux ones”. Old instruments, choruses and soloists boys, airs of viola entrusted to a man. Much rises and shouts with the scandal.

Years 1980 see little by little being essential the evoked interpreters and being born from new talents like: William Lincoln Christie, Philippe Herreweghe, Rene Jacobs, Gerard Lesne, Jordi Savall, Your Koopman, Christophe Coin… In the years 1990, the movement of the old music and without question is definitively anchored in practice musical thanks to a new generation, represented by Marc Minkowski, Herve Niquet, Christophe Rousset, Iakovos Pappas, Hugo Reyne, Christina Pluhar and its group Arpeggiata and much of others.

Philosopher's stones of the past, forgotten since centuries, are exhumed and played, with the concert or on the scene, with the instruments and the often reduced formations of the time baroque. One calls that interpretation baroque, i.e. when the leader decides to play a work with the instruments of the time, the rates/rhythms of the time (faster) and the tuning fork of the time (ground # in the place of the naturalness).

A emblematic work of this rebirth is the lyric last Tragédie of Jean-Philippe Rameau, Boréades of which the first representation took place with the Festival of Aix-en-Provence… in 1982: the repetitions had been stopped by the death of the musician in 1764, and ever taken again.

Whole of Baroque music

See also: Contenu=Voir the ''' [[List of the formations and whole of music classique#Ensembles specialized in Baroque music]], [[list of the units specialized in Baroque music]] '''

Kinds

Instrumental music

Lyric music

Sacred music

Specific instruments

Some instruments are specifically dependant at that time where they reach an apogee (invoice like literature) before knowing the decline even the complete lapse of memory of the middle of the 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century or later. The tradition of invoice being lost meanwhile could be restored, at least partially by the analysis of the old instruments which remain, and the study of the treaties when they exist.

  • the Recorder

  • the Harpsichord S
  • the Lute and the Théorbe
  • the Organ - remained at the 19th century the privileged instrument of the liturgy, but hardly any more interests the large type-setters until César Franck. The invoice of the organ with mechanical drive reaches its apogee, in France and in the Germanic countries during.
  • the Viol S - knew their hours of glory during three centuries, of 1480 to 1780.
  • the Violin baroque - as from the 19th century the Violon S underwent changes of esthetic and sound nature.

Some important type-setters

In Italy

See also:

  • Violonist because for the majority of them, they interpreted themselves their compositions.

In France

Musicians of the court of Louis XIII ou/et Louis XIV

Type-setters of incidental music (opera ballet…)

Type-setters for harpsichord, ou/et organ

Organ

Harpsichord

Organ and Harpsichord

Type-setters for string instruments:

Type-setters for flute traversière

See also:

In Germany

See also:

In England

In the Netherlands (Spanish, then Austrian)

Some outstanding chiefs of work

Partitions

  • a beautiful collection of more than 200 works baroques, Italian, German, French and Scandinavian

  • free Partitions of right concerning the music of keyboard more particularly baroque

External bonds

  • music and the dance baroque

  • Re-examined MUSE Baroque with many articles, tests, criticisms, partitions and documents of time…
  • Foundation Orpheon, Vienna, Austria

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