Objectives
- List the characteristics of the Baroque era (1600-1750) in context of social change including religious wars (Protestants vs. Catholics), the exploration and colonization of the New World, and the rise of middle-class culture.
- Identify a new style—monody—that featured solo song with instrumental accompaniment in the Baroque period through listening examples.
- Define figured bass, a shorthand that allowed the performer to supply chords through improvisation.
- Compare and contrast the major-minor tonality system and the equal temperament tuning system.
- Explain the significance of the union of text and music as expressed in the Baroque Doctrine of the Affections and reflected in genres such as opera, oratorio, and cantata.
- Define and compare the genres of opera, oratorio, and cantata.
- Compare and contrast the development of two types of concertos: the solo concerto and the concerto grosso.
- Correctly identify visually and aurally the main keyboard instruments of the Baroque era: organ, harpsichord, and clavichord.
- Describe the main characteristics of J. S. Bach's keyboard music, in particular his Well-Tempered Clavier.
Church and Choral Music in the Baroque: Johann Sebastian Bach
Sacred Music in the Baroque
One of the many musical doctrines of the Baroque period decreed that music be divided into three different categories: Ecclesiasticus (church music), theatralis, (theatrical music), and cubicularis (concert or chamber music). No art form, however, ever divides itself quite so neatly. Not only does each composer have his or her own style which combines his individual technique and beliefs, but each is influenced by prevailing trends in the arts and in society. The universal appeal of Italian music, particularly opera, magnified this influence. Even church music was eventually affected by the popularity of opera and Italian monody.
Most choral works of the time were sacred music. In the Catholic Church, Baroque composers were still required to conform to the stile antico of polyphony a la Palestrina. Several composers, notably Antonio Lotti (c.1667-1740), created some magnificent music in this style. His sacred choral music uses the older polyphonic form to express poignant Baroque emotions. In England, composers such as John Blow (1649-1708) and Henry Purcell (1659-1695) specialized in writing music for the Anglican Church. Purcell's I Will Sing Unto the Lord is an excellent example of the English anthem in the Baroque period.
Composer: Henry Purcell
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"I will sing unto the Lord"
In Germany, the Thirty Years War disrupted all aspects of German society, including the church. The Lutheran church, under the tutelage of the greatest composer of the early Baroque Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) was, however, one of the first segments of the society to rebound. Although Schütz usually set Latin texts to music in a contrapuntal fashion, the influence of Italian style may be heard in his larger works. For instance, the alternation of soloist and chorus is illustrated in the opening chorus and recitative from his Christmas Oratorio. His later works are the most important examples of Lutheran music before Bach.
Composer: Heinrich Schütz
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"Weinachtshistorie, SWV 435 (The Christmas Story): Eingang Chorus"
Two Giants of the Baroque
The lives and careers of the two most significant Baroque composers parallel each other in interesting ways. Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel were born in the same year, and died less than a decade apart. Their compositional styles represent important, although essentially different musical trends during the Baroque.
“Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel were born in the same year, and died less than a decade apart. Their compositional styles represent important, although essentially different musical trends during the Baroque...”
The contrasts between the two men are noteworthy. One spent a quiet career as a music director at various courts and Lutheran churches in Germany; the other lived a lavish life in England, while working in practically all the major forms of the Baroque. One was better known during his lifetime as an accomplished organist and fell into obscurity after his death; the other was known as one of Europe's greatest composers both during his life and after his death. The compositions of one faded from the musical landscape for 100 years; the other's were the model for the next generation.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Bach descended from a long line of distinguished musicians, and, after his death, several of his sons achieved musical prominence. He received his first musical training from members of his family, including his father, who was also a musician. He learned a great deal by studying the scores of other composers, assimilating the best musical practices of Germany, Italy, Austria, and France. Early on, he exhibited the work ethic that made him an extremely prolific composer. One story illustrates the extent of his devotion to his craft: at the age of 20, he walked a distance of 200 miles to hear Dietrich Buxtehude, Northern Europe's most renowned organist at the time, play the organ at Lübeck.
Throughout his career, Bach relied on the established system of patronage for employment, holding posts as court organist to the Duke of Weimar, court composer to the Prince of Cöthen (1717-1723), and cantor of St. Thomas's Church in Leipzig (1723-1750).
At Weimar he married his first wife, who died just a few years later. Bach remarried in 1721, and eventually fathered 19 children, many of whom did not survive childhood. The type of music that Bach wrote was mostly determined by the position he held. For instance, while at Cöthen, he wrote a great deal of instrumental music, since this is what the Prince wanted; it was there that he wrote his six Brandenburg Concertos and the Suites for Solo Cello. At Leipzig, his duties required music for church services, so he wrote most of his cantatas during his employment in that city.
Bach's Musical Style
Bach's musical style may be viewed either as centuries ahead of its time, or as a relic of the polyphonic music of an earlier period. Polyphony permeates much of his work during an era when most other composers were moving toward a more homophonic style. Even his works that are not strictly polyphonic, like the famous Prelude in C Major, have a thickness of texture not found in the music of most of his contemporaries.
Bach's choral music is, arguably, the finest example of vocal polyphony in musical literature. He treats the voices of the chorus like instruments, emphasizing music over text. Though the emotional needs of the text are always considered, his choral works lack the theatrical vocals of opera or the madrigal. The word that perhaps best describes all of Bach's music is reverent. His profound sense of duty to his church and his God is apparent in his respectful approach to composition.
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1: Prelude and Fugue No.1 in C major, BWV 846"
Bach's Church Music
Most of Bach's choral compositions took the form of the Lutheran cantata, which appeared earlier in Italy, but reached its full potential in Germany. The cantata was a relatively new form that combined biblical text and contemporary poetry. Composers set the text to the chorale melodies of early Lutheran tunes. Bach composed over 200 cantatas in his life, almost all of them during his years in Leipzig.
The chorale melody might be sung by the soprano voice in a hymn-like section of the cantata, also called the chorale. In other movements, the chorale tune might appear as a sort of cantus firmus, a melodic fragment woven into the tapestry of multiple polyphonic lines. These movements would take the form of choral fugues, duets, or arias.
Depending on the needs of a particular Sunday and on the chosen text, Bach's cantatas varied from single movement works, to pieces with multiple movements divided into choruses, instrumental passages, arias, and recitatives. Let's look at the Cantata BWV 80, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, for an example of such a multi-movement work. This particular cantata has eight movements:
Chorale fantasia
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: I. Chorus"
Aria e chorale
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BMV 80: II. Aria"
Recitative
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: III. Recitative"
Aria
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: IV. Aria: Komm In Mein Herzenshaus"
Chorale
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: V. Chorale: Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel war"
Recitative
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott, BWV 80: VI. Recitative: So stehe denn bei Christi blutgefärbten Fahne"
Aria duetto
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: VII. Chorus"
Chorale
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80: VIII. Chorale: Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn"
Bach also perfected the Passion, a form new to Lutheran music. The Passions were large-scale works based on accounts of the life of Jesus found in the Bible in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Bach's two passions are the St. John Passion (1724) and the St. Matthew Passion (c.1729).
The last great choral work of Bach's life was the monumental Mass in B minor, a combination of separate mass sections that Bach had written at different periods of his life. A demanding work, it is rivaled only by Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis as the most important setting of the Latin mass text. Bach's ability to express the emotion of the text while simultaneously subjecting it to musical form is most clearly heard in the Crucifixus, the section of the mass dealing with the crucifixion of Jesus.
When Bach died in 1750, some of his keyboard works survived, but much of his music, including the cantatas and the Passions, disappeared from public consciousness. It wasn't until well into the 19th century, that his music began to emerge again, thanks largely to the romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847). Today, he is universally recognized as one of the greatest composers of all time.
As we will see in his instrumental music, Bach was adept at imposing his own complex musical style on any form of composition. A man whose music is simultaneously beautiful and complex, Bach stands as one of the greatest minds and talents in the history of music.
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
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"Mass in B minor, BWV 232: Symbolum Niceum: Crucifixus"
