Music in the Baroque Era: From Monteverdi to Bach

516 Pages·1947·8.43 MB·English

by  Manfred F Bukofzer

MUSIC in the
BAROQUE ERA
Monteverdi Bach
FROM TO
By
MANFRED F. BUKOFZER
PROFESSOR OF MUSIC, THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BY
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC.
NEW YORK, N. Y.
PRNITED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS
IN MEMORY OF
ANDRÉ PIRRO
(1869–1943)
A Pioneer of Baroque Music
CONTENTS
PREFACE
Chapter One RENAISSANCE versus BAROQUE MUSIC
Disintegration of Stylistic Unity
Stylistic Comparison between Renaissance and Baroque Music
The Phases of Baroque Music
Chapter Two EARLY BAROQUE IN ITALY
The Beginnings of the Concertato Style: Gabrieli
The Monody: Peri and Caccini
Transformation of the Madrigal: Monteverdi
The Influence of the Dance on Vocal Music
Emancipation of Instrumental Music: Frescobaldi
The Rise of the Opera: Monteverdi
Tradition and Progress in Sacred Music
Chapter Three EARLY AND MIDDLE BAROQUE IN THE NORTHERN
COUNTRIES
The Netherlands School and Its English Background
English Antecedents: the Abstract Instrumental Style
The Netherlands: Sweelinck
Germany and Austria in the 17th Century
Chorale and Devotional Song
Chorale Motet and Chorale Concertato: Schein
The Dramatic Concertato: Schütz
Continuo Lied, Opera, and Oratorio
Instrumental Music: Scheidt, Froberger, and Biber
Chapter Four ITALIAN MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE BAROQUE
The Bel-Canto Style
The Chamber Cantata: Luigi Rossi and Carissimi
The Oratorio: Carissimi and Stradella
The Venetian Opera School
Instrumental Music: the Bologna School
Chapter Five FRENCH MUSIC UNDER THE ABSOLUTISM
The Ballet de Cour
French Reactions to Italian Opera
Comédie–Ballet and Tragédie Lyrique: Lully
Cantata, Oratorio, and Church Music
Lute Miniatures and Keyboard Music: Gaultier and Chambonnières
Music in the Iberian Peninsula, New Spain, and Colonial America
Chapter Six ENGLISH MUSIC DURING THE COMMONWEALTH AND
RESTORATION
The Masque and the English Opera: Lawes and Blow
Consort Music: Jenkins and Simpson
Anglican Church Music: Porter, Humfrey, and Blow
Henry Purcell, the Restoration Genius
Chapter Seven LATE BAROQUE: LUXURIANT COUNTERPOINT AND
CONCERTO STYLE
The Culmination of Late Baroque Music in Italy
The Rise of Tonality
Concerto Grosso and Solo Concerto
Ensemble Sonata and Solo Sonata
Opera Seria and Opera Buffa—Cantata and Sacred Music
Late Baroque and Rococo Style in France
Ensemble and Clavecin Music
Opera and Cantata in France
Chapter Eight FUSION OF NATIONAL STYLES: BACH
The State of Instrumental Music in Germany before Bach
The State of Protestant Church Music before Bach
Bach: The Early Period
Bach the Organist: Weimar
Bach the Mentor: Cöthen
Bach the Cantor: Leipzig
Bach, the Past Master
Chapter Nine COORDINATION OF NATIONAL STYLES: HANDEL
The State of Secular Vocal Music in Germany before Handel
Handel: German Apprentice Period
Italian Journeyman Period
English Master Period: Operas—Oratorios—Instrumental
Music
Bach and Handel, a Comparison
Chapter Ten FORM IN BAROQUE MUSIC
Formal Principles and Formal Schemes
Style and Form
Audible Form and Inaudible Order
Chapter Eleven MUSICAL THOUGHT OF THE BAROQUE ERA
Code of Performance: Composer and Performer
Theory and Practice of Composition
Musical Speculation
Chapter Twelve SOCIOLOGY OF BAROQUE MUSIC
Courtly Musical Institutions of State and Church: Private Patronage
Civic Musical Institutions: Collective Patronage
Social and Economic Aspects of Music and Musicians
APPENDICES
List of Abbreviations
Checklist of Baroque Books on Music
Bibliography
List of Editions
List of Musical Examples
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE 1. Claudio Monteverdi
PLATE 2. Schütz among his Choristers
PLATE 3. Carissimi’s “The Deluge”
PLATE 4. The Palace of Paris From “Il Pomo d’Oro”
PLATE 5. The Concert
PLATE 6. Entrance of American Music
Aeolian Mode
PLATE 7. The Division Violist
“Lucretia”
PLATE 8. The Psalms in an edition with flower pictures
PLATE 9. Henry Purcell
François Couperin
PLATE 10. Johann Sebastian Bach
George Frederick Handel
PLATE 11. Majer’s “Atalanta fugiens”
PLATE 12. Stage set by Galli Bibiena
PREFACE
THE FIRST book in the English language on the history of baroque music does
not need either apology or justification. Histories of music have been written
usually as quick surveys of the entire field and if they specialize at all they
concentrate as a rule on a single composer. It is a strange though incontestable
fact that by far the great majority of music books deal with composers rather
than their music. This attitude is a survival of the hero-worship that characterizes
the nineteenth-century approach to music as well as the other arts. In a history of
a single musical period the shortcomings of such an approach become
particularly obvious. A musical era receives its inner unity from the musical
style and can be historically understood only in terms of stylistic development. It
is for this reason that in the present history of baroque music the stylistic
approach has consistently been adopted. Biographical information, easily
accessible in musical dictionaries, has been reduced to a minimum in order to
leave space for the discussion of stylistic trends and characteristics of style,
usually ignored in the dictionaries.
I have written this book for the music student and music lover with the aim of
acquainting him with a great period of musical history and helping him to gain a
historical understanding of music without which baroque music cannot fully be
appreciated and enjoyed. If the history of music is to have more than an
antiquarian interest and significance, it must be seen as a history of musical
styles, and the history of styles in turn as a history of ideas. The ideas that
underlie musical styles can only be shown in a factual stylistic analysis that takes
music apart as a mechanic does a motor and that shows how musical elements
are combined, how they achieve their specific effect, and what constitutes the
difference between externally similar factors. This analysis is at once historical
and “technological” and takes beauty for granted. Those writers to whom the
description of music is no more than a matter of elegant variation in judiciously
chosen adjectives may be shocked to learn that the word “beautiful” does not
occur in this book. My aim has been not the expatiation on the obvious but the
explanation of the specific musical results of baroque style. This explanation
must of necessity rely on words, but it must be clearly understood that words
cannot render the aesthetic experience of music itself, let alone replace it.
Familiarity with the rudiments of music is assumed in this book though it is not
designed for specialists nor has it been written, for that matter, by a specialist of
the period. But even the specialized musicologist will find a few new facts, new
interpretations, and a number of hitherto unpublished examples. In the
organization of material I have departed from the usual practice by not making
the book a strictly chronological report. The main principle of organization is
style in its various manifestations. Chapters II-IX comprise the actual history of
baroque style. The first and the three last chapters cut across the field and
complement the subject: the first gives a general comparison between
renaissance and baroque style, the three last deal with aspects of form, theory,
and sociology, rarely, if ever, discussed in histories of music. Several chapters
were first presented publicly in a lecture series at the University of Chicago in
1945, and for the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological
Society in 1946.
For reasons of space the bibliographical footnotes have been restricted
essentially to references to musical reprints. Through the courtesy of Dr. Willi
Apel I was able to incorporate references to the second volume, as yet
unpublished, of the Historical Anthology of Music which contains many valuable
examples of baroque music. It goes without saying that the material presented in
this book is based largely on the special studies listed in the bibliography.
Unfortunately for the music student the majority of these books and articles is
written in languages other than English. Such excellent stylistic studies as those
by J. A. Westrup (Purcell) and Ernst Meyer (English Chamber Music) are all too
rare exceptions. The bibliography stresses style-criticism and includes only those
biographies that consider the musical style of the composer. Although it is the
largest bibliography of baroque music ever printed it is far from being complete.
The inclusion of local and archives studies would have doubled its size. The
checklist of baroque books on music represents a new bibliographical venture
the aim of which has not been completeness, but comprehensive coverage of the
various aspects of musical literature in a given period, the detailed study of
which raises fascinating problems. Prolific writers like Mattheson and others
appear in the list only with their most important titles. Items that appear in a
footnote in incomplete form are more fully cited in the bibliography. It should be
noted that throughout the book major and minor keys are differentiated by means
of small and capital letters; for example, c and C stand for C-minor and C-major,
respectively.