Bell Ringer – 10/31m.socrative.com – Room 38178 OR Bell Ringer Card

QUESTIONS: 1. A polyphonic piece of music that starts with a simple theme that

keeps getting more and more complex is called a ___________.

2. Music written with an external idea in mind, or to tell a story, is called ________________.

3. A piece of music written for one of more soloists and an orchestra is called __________________.

Vocal Music

Vocal Music – Cantata

Cantata = “sung,” vocal composition with instrumental accompaniment with several movements with related text

The vocal version of a sonata

Usually had instrumental accompaniment

Designed to be performed without costume or scenery

Mostly written for solo soprano voice, both secular and religious

Grew out of the church

Vocal Music – Cantata

Bach wrote several cantatas – more than 200

As a choirmaster and professional organist, he was required to compose a new cantata weekly for the church (Protestant)

He usually wrote for 4 parts

His sacred music achieves extraordinary power – a heartfelt expression of faith

Cantata 80: “A Mighty Fortress is our God”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_PinoZvY5Q

Vocal Music - Opera

Opera is a drama set to music

The music is continuous, with set pieces designed to dramatize the action and display the vocal skills of the singers

Combines a number of complex art forms into one big, ornate, and even more complex piece of art

Includes music, drama, dance, and visual art

Vocal Music - Opera

Included roles for castrati – male singers who had been castrated in boyhood so their voices would remain in the soprano range

Created adult voices of unusual strength and clarity

Played many male heroic roles

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7XH-58eB8c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqUoCD_-gp0

Began in Italy

Vocal Music - Opera

Wanted the singing to resemble the intonations and rhythms of speech – “recitative”

Usually simple music, moves the story along quickly, “speak singing”

Is not ornate – does not “show off” vocal ability

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7Ag9Pf0ybk

Jacopo Peri’s “Eurydice” is the first surviving opera – consisted primarily of recitative

Vocal Music - Opera

Emotional moments in opera were sung as arias

Aria: a solo or duet that was very expressive.

The story would “stop” and the singer would share their feelings

Challenging range

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-LNFzG2-ug

Vocal Music - Opera

Claude Monteverdi made Baroque opera an art form

In “Orfeo” he took the same mythological story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and made it a five act opera.

He created more substantial and emotional music

The mood swung widely through contrasting passages of louds and softs

(with music, quick shifts in volume or expression are the musical equivalents of the strong contrasts of light and shade in baroque painting.)

Vocal Music - Opera

Monteverdi had solos, duets, ensemble singing, and dancing in his operas

Melodic lines were highly ornamental – similar to a fugue

Monteverdi is called the “father of opera”

Vocal Music - Opera

Opera spread to France, England, and Germany very quickly

King Louis XIV of France established a national opera

French opera included ballet

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo

One of the earliest operas still regularly performed

41 instruments used

Instruments specifically used to depict particular settings or characters

Strings and Harpsichord represent the pastoral fields

Brass illustrates the underworld

Very polyphonic

Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo

The Plot...

The Performance...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mD16EVxNOM

Act IV – 1:21:00