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54-484: In the Baroque period , the differences between a concerto and a sinfonia (also "symphony") were initially not all that clear. The word sinfonia would, for example, be used as the name for an overture to a stage work. Antonio Vivaldi wrote "concertos" which did not highlight individual soloists and which were stylistically more or less indistinguishable from his "sinfonias." The Baroque genre that comes closest to

108-459: A basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments— viol , cello , double bass —played the bassline . A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite . While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During

162-437: A lute player who would play the bassline and improvise the chords and several bass instruments (e.g., bass viola , cello , double bass ) which would play the bassline. With the writing of the operas L'Orfeo and L'incoronazione di Poppea among others, Monteverdi brought considerable attention to this new genre. This Venetian style was taken handily to Germany by Heinrich Schütz , whose diverse style also evolved into

216-517: A "Spanish Symphony " (see also Sinfonia concertante ), it is considered a violin concerto by musicians today. The piece has Spanish motifs throughout, and launched a period when Spanish-themed music came into vogue. ( Georges Bizet 's opera Carmen premiered a month after the Symphonie espagnole .) The Symphonie espagnole is one of Lalo's two most often played works, the other being his Cello Concerto in D minor. The orchestra consists of

270-472: A court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully . He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished Achille et Polyxène . Lully was an early example of a conductor ; he would beat the time with a large staff to keep his ensembles together. Musically, he did not establish

324-907: A harpsichord, and a harp. Karol Szymanowski also composed a sinfonia concertante (for solo piano and orchestra), also known as his Symphony No. 4 "Symphonie-Concertante." Other examples include Joseph Jongen 's 1926 Symphonie Concertante , Op. 81, with an organ soloist, the Sinfonia Concertante (Symphony No. 4), for flute, harp and small string orchestra by Andrzej Panufnik written in 1973, and Peter Maxwell Davies 's Sinfonia Concertante for wind quintet , timpani and string orchestra of 1982. The Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů wrote two works in this genre: Sinfonia Concertante for Two Orchestras, H. 219 (1932) and Sinfonia Concertante No. 2 in B-flat major for Violin, Cello, Oboe, Bassoon and Orchestra with Piano, H. 322 (1949). In fact, all but one of

378-1004: A major portion of the " classical music " canon , and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term " baroque " comes from the Portuguese word barroco , meaning " misshapen pearl ". The works of Antonio Vivaldi , George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi , Domenico Scarlatti , Alessandro Scarlatti , Alessandro Stradella , Tomaso Albinoni , Johann Pachelbel , Henry Purcell , Georg Philipp Telemann , Jean-Baptiste Lully , Jean-Philippe Rameau , Marc-Antoine Charpentier , Arcangelo Corelli , François Couperin , Johann Hermann Schein , Heinrich Schütz , Samuel Scheidt , Dieterich Buxtehude , Gaspar Sanz , José de Nebra , Antonio Soler , Carlos Seixas , Adam Jarzębski and others, with Giovanni Battista Pergolesi being

432-401: A male choir, that can be considered a sinfonia concertante. In the 20th century, some composers such as George Enescu , Darius Milhaud , Frank Martin , Edmund Rubbra , Florent Schmitt , William Walton and Malcolm Williamson again used the name sinfonia concertante for their compositions. Martin's work , more reminiscent of the classical works with multiple soloists, features a piano,

486-480: A piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, snare drum, triangle, harp, and strings. The piece has five movements : A typical performance runs just over half an hour. One of the shorter recordings, conductor Eugene Ormandy 's 1967 recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra , featuring violinist Isaac Stern , runs 32 minutes and 43 seconds. It

540-407: A solo singing accompanied by a kithara (an ancient strummed string instrument). The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peri 's Dafne and L'Euridice , marked the beginning of opera, which was a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the more widespread use of figured bass (also known as thorough bass ) represents the developing importance of harmony as

594-463: A technical term from scholastic logic. The term "baroque" is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of about 150 years. Though it was long thought that the word as a critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of

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648-566: A tool for expression and communication. The etymology of baroque is likely via the French baroque (which originally meant a pearl of irregular shape), and from the Portuguese barroco ("irregular pearl"); also related are the Spanish barrueco and the Italian barocco . The term is of uncertain ultimate origin, but possibly from Latin verrūca ("wart") or possibly from Baroco ,

702-530: Is Antonio Vivaldi , who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and concerti. In contrast to these composers, Dieterich Buxtehude was not a creature of court but instead was church musician, holding the posts of organist and Werkmeister at the Marienkirche at Lübeck. His duties as Werkmeister involved acting as the secretary, treasurer, and business manager of

756-666: Is effectively a sinfonia concertante. Bruch explored the boundaries of the solistic and symphonic genres in the Scottish Fantasy (violin soloist), Kol Nidrei ( cello soloist), and Serenade (violin soloist). He also wrote a concerto for clarinet, viola and orchestra in E minor , and a concerto for two pianos and orchestra in A-flat minor , which are both equal to a sinfonia concertante. Ferruccio Busoni wrote an enormous piano concerto in C major , containing five movements, lasting over an hour and even finishing with

810-514: Is often labelled the Age of Absolutism , personified by Louis XIV of France. The style of palace, and the court system of manners and arts he fostered became the model for the rest of Europe. The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music , which is music for a small ensemble of instrumentalists. One pre-eminent example of

864-597: Is partially immersed in the orchestral sound, but also has several distinct solo passages. The second half of this work also features a semi-soloistic part for piano four hands. By the end of the 19th century, several French composers had started using the sinfonia concertante technique in symphonic poems , for example, Saint-Saëns uses a violin in Danse macabre , and Franck a piano in Les Djinns . Richard Strauss 's Don Quixote (1897) uses several soloists to depict

918-572: The Encyclopédie : "Baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited. It appears that term comes from the word 'baroco' used by logicians". Rousseau was referring to the philosophical term baroco , in use since the 13th century to describe a type of elaborate and, for some, unnecessarily complicated academic argument. The systematic application by historians of

972-498: The Western classical music practice. For instance, Italian composers switched to the galant style around 1730, while German composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach largely continued to write in the baroque style up to 1750. The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in

1026-468: The concerto grosso . Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe. As with Lully's stylization and organization of the opera, the concerto grosso is built on strong contrasts—sections alternate between those played by the full orchestra, and those played by a smaller group. Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other. Numbered among his students

1080-468: The Baroque era to its climax, the High Baroque. Italy: France: Italy: Proliferation: France: Germany: Bohemia : Poland : Galant music : Bach's elder sons and pupils : Mannheim school : A characteristic of the Baroque form was the dance suite . Some dance suites by Bach are called partitas , although this term is also used for other collections of pieces. While

1134-462: The Classical sinfonia concertante is the concerto grosso ; among the most famous of these are those by Arcangelo Corelli and George Frideric Handel . During the Classical period (roughly 1750–1800), both the symphony and the concerto had acquired more definite meanings, and the concerto grosso had disappeared altogether. In the second half of the 18th century, this led to attempts to combine

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1188-597: The Renaissance, notably Carlo Gesualdo ; However, the use of harmony directed towards tonality (a focus on a musical key that becomes the "home note" of a piece), rather than modality , marks the shift from the Renaissance into the Baroque period. This led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece —one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality . By incorporating these new aspects of composition, Claudio Monteverdi furthered

1242-600: The Venetian Francesco Cavalli , who was principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti , Giovanni Legrenzi , and Alessandro Stradella , who additionally originated the concerto grosso style in his Sonate di viole. Arcangelo Corelli is remembered as influential for his achievements on the other side of musical technique—as a violinist who organized violin technique and pedagogy—and in purely instrumental music, particularly his advocacy and development of

1296-497: The adaptation of theories based on the plastic arts and literature to music. All of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer and Paul Henry Lang . As late as 1960, there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France and Britain, whether it

1350-403: The arts, especially music and drama . In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical (especially ancient Greek ) musical drama that valued discourse and oration. Accordingly, they rejected their contemporaries' use of polyphony (multiple, independent melodic lines) and instrumental music, and discussed such ancient Greek music devices as monody , which consisted of

1404-478: The bass by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently added for heroic scenes. The middle Baroque period in Italy is defined by the emergence of the vocal styles of cantata , oratorio , and opera during the 1630s, and a new concept of melody and harmony that elevated the status of the music to one of equality with the words, which formerly had been regarded as pre-eminent. The florid, coloratura monody of

1458-504: The bolero and Spanish subjects. Tchaikovsky loved Mozart 's " Don Giovanni " (set in Seville ), heard Bizet's "Carmen" during its opening run in 1876, and later played castanets during a performance of Rimsky-Korsakov 's " Capriccio Espagnol " in 1887, as reported by cellist Yulian Poplavsky, who knew Tchaikovsky at the time ("Tchaikovsky Through Others’ Eyes" (Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 236–237). In March 1878, Tchaikovsky

1512-713: The church, while his position as organist included playing for all the main services, sometimes in collaboration with other instrumentalists or vocalists, who were also paid by the church. Entirely outside of his official church duties, he organised and directed a concert series known as the Abendmusiken , which included performances of sacred dramatic works regarded by his contemporaries as the equivalent of operas. France: The work of George Frideric Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and their contemporaries, including Domenico Scarlatti, Antonio Vivaldi , Tomaso Albinoni , Jean-Philippe Rameau, Georg Philipp Telemann, and others advanced

1566-511: The composer's symphonies feature a piano, as do most of his orchestral works, but the two afore-mentioned works were the only two in his output which he labelled concertante symphonies. Wilhelm Furtwängler completed in 1937 his Symphonic Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in B minor , which lasts over one hour and is one of the longest piano concertos ever written. Sergei Prokofiev called his work for cello and orchestra Symphony-Concerto , stressing its serious symphonic character, in contrast to

1620-446: The early Baroque gave way to a simpler, more polished melodic style. These melodies were built from short, cadentially delimited ideas often based on stylized dance patterns drawn from the sarabande or the courante . The harmonies, too, might be simpler than in the early Baroque monody, to show expression in a lighter manner on the string and crescendos and diminuendos on longer notes. The accompanying bass lines were more integrated with

1674-449: The era are Kozeluch's Sinfonia Concertante in E flat major for mandolin, trumpet, double-bass, piano, Gossec's Symphonie Concertante for Violin and Cello in D major and Gresnick's Symphonie Concertante in B flat major for Clarinet and Bassoon. Few composers still called their compositions sinfonia concertante after the classical music era. However, some works such as Berlioz 's Harold en Italie , for viola and orchestra approach

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1728-569: The following: Joseph Haydn also wrote a Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Cello, Oboe and Bassoon during his visit to London , as a friendly challenge to his former student Ignaz Pleyel . He also stayed in London at the time and his works in the genre were highly popular. Haydn also wrote symphonies with long soloist parts, especially early in his career, such as the "Time of Day" symphonies 6–8. These are, however, rightfully considered symphonies rather than sinfonie concertanti. Other examples from

1782-402: The genre. Ludwig van Beethoven did not write anything designated as a sinfonia concertante , although some feel his Triple Concerto qualifies for inclusion in the genre. Felix Mendelssohn wrote two concertos for two pianos and orchestra: one in E major and one in A-flat major , which can both be seen as sinfonie concertanti. Saint-Saëns ' Symphony No. 3 features an organ that

1836-450: The keyboard player what intervals are to be played above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note. Composers began concerning themselves with harmonic progressions , and also employed the tritone , perceived as an unstable interval, to create dissonance (it was used in the dominant seventh chord and the diminished chord ). An interest in harmony had also existed among certain composers in

1890-592: The light character of the Classical period sinfonia concertante. Benjamin Britten 's Cello Symphony and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich 's Symphony No. 2 also showcase a solo cello within the context of a full-scale symphony. Peter Schickele as P. D. Q. Bach produced a spoof "Sinfonia Concertante" utilizing lute, balalaika, double reed slide music stand, ocarina, left-handed sewer flute, and bagpipes. Baroque music Baroque music ( UK : / b ə ˈ r ɒ k / or US : / b ə ˈ r oʊ k / ) refers to

1944-433: The linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the result of counterpoint , and figured bass is a visual representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as harpsichord players or pipe organists (or lutenists ). The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to

1998-533: The main characters, namely cello, viola, bass clarinet and tenor tuba. Lalo 's best known work, the Symphonie espagnole , is in fact a sinfonia concertante for violin and orchestra. A work in the same vein, but with the piano taking the "concertante" part is d'Indy 's Symphony on a French Mountain Air . Brahms 's concerto for violin, cello and orchestra in a minor, Op. 102 , the last of his four concertos,

2052-568: The melody, producing a contrapuntal equivalence of the parts that later led to the device of an initial bass anticipation of the aria melody. This harmonic simplification also led to a new formal device of the differentiation of recitative (a more spoken part of opera) and aria (a part of opera that used sung melodies). The most important innovators of this style were the Romans Luigi Rossi and Giacomo Carissimi , who were primarily composers of cantatas and oratorios, respectively, and

2106-401: The mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera , cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue ), was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. Overall, Baroque music was

2160-561: The most prominent Baroque composer of sacred music. The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality , an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key ; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music . During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by

2214-412: The period composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part (thus creating the orchestra), made changes in musical notation (the development of figured bass as a quick way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece), and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established

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2268-572: The period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period , and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style ). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms

2322-428: The pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were intended for listening, not for accompanying dancers. Composers used a variety of different movements in their dance suites. A dance suite commonly has these movements : The four dance types (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) make up the majority of 17th-century suites. Later suites interpolate one or more additional dances between

2376-618: The première in October 1733 of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France in May 1734. The critic implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque", complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device. Jean-Jacques Rousseau , who was a musician and composer as well as philosopher, wrote in 1768 in

2430-492: The sarabande and gigue: There are many other dance forms as well as other pieces that could be included in a suite, such as Polonaise , Loure , Scherzo , Air , etc. Symphonie espagnole The Symphonie espagnole in D minor , Op. 21, is a work for violin and orchestra by Édouard Lalo . The work was written in 1874 for violinist Pablo Sarasate , and premiered in Paris on February 7, 1875. Although called

2484-471: The string-dominated norm for orchestras, which was inherited from the Italian opera, and the characteristically French five-part disposition (violins, violas—in hautes-contre, tailles and quintes sizes—and bass violins ) had been used in the ballet from the time of Louis XIII. He did, however, introduce this ensemble to the lyric theatre, with the upper parts often doubled by recorders, flutes, and oboes, and

2538-480: The subsequent period. Idiomatic instrumental textures became increasingly prominent. In particular, the style luthé —the irregular and unpredictable breaking up of chordal progressions, in contrast to the regular patterning of broken chords—referred to since the early 20th century as style brisé , was established as a consistent texture in French music by Robert Ballard , in his lute books of 1611 and 1614, and by Ennemond Gaultier . This idiomatic lute figuration

2592-774: The term "baroque" to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin 's theory of the Baroque systematically to music. Critics were quick to question the attempt to transpose Wölfflin's categories to music, however, and in the second quarter of the 20th century independent attempts were made by Manfred Bukofzer (in Germany and, after his immigration, in America) and by Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune (in Belgium) to use autonomous, technical analysis rather than comparative abstractions, in order to avoid

2646-476: The transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition—the heritage of Renaissance polyphony ( prima pratica ) and the new basso continuo technique of the Baroque ( seconda pratica ). With basso continuo, a small group of musicians would play the bassline and the chords which formed the accompaniment for a melody . The basso continuo group would typically use one or more keyboard players and

2700-750: The two genres, such as those by composers of the Mannheim school . Johann Christian Bach (the so-called "London Bach" and youngest son of Johann Sebastian ) was publishing symphonies concertantes in Paris from the early 1770s on, as was Joseph Bologne , the 'famous Chevalier de Saint-Georges'. Mozart , who likely heard the early Sinfonia concertantes of Bologne, was also acquainted with the Mannheim school from 1777 and probably aware of J.C. Bach's publications. He put considerable effort into attempts to produce convincing sinfonie concertanti . His most successful are

2754-548: Was common practice until the middle of the 20th century for performances of the work to omit the Intermezzo, leaving a four-movement work that more closely reflected the traditional structure of a symphony. The Symphonie espagnole had some influence on the genesis of Tchaikovsky 's Violin Concerto in D major . Other Russian composers like Glinka had travelled to Spain, starting a vogue among young Russian composers for

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2808-401: Was later transferred to the harpsichord, for example in the keyboard music of Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri D'Anglebert , and continued to be an important influence on keyboard music throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries (in, for example, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin ). The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what

2862-535: Was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo Peri , Domenico Scarlatti , and Johann Sebastian Bach under a single rubric. Nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding ( Renaissance ) and following ( Classical ) periods of musical history. Throughout the Baroque era, new developments in music originated in Italy, after which it took up to 20 years before they were broadly adopted in rest of

2916-447: Was staying at Nadezhda von Meck 's estate at Clarens , Switzerland , while recovering from the breakdown of his disastrous marriage and his subsequent suicide attempt. His favourite pupil (and allegedly his lover), the violinist Iosif Kotek , shortly arrived from Berlin with a lot of new music for violin. His collection included the Symphonie espagnole , which he and Tchaikovsky played through to great delight. This gave Tchaikovsky

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