BAROQUE

The Baroque is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, music, painting, sculpture and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the mid-18th century. It followed the Renaissance style and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria and southern Germany. By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.

Music and ballet

The term Baroque is also used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art. The first uses of the term 'baroque' for music were criticisms. In an anonymous, satirical review of 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 noted composer as well as philosopher, made a very similar observation in 1768 in the famous Encylopedié of Denis Diderot: "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."

Common use of the term for the music of the period began only in 1919, by Curt Sachs, and it was not until 1940 that it was first used in English in an article published by Manfred Bukofzer.

The baroque was a period of musical experimentation and innovation. New forms were invented, including the concerto and sinfonia. Opera was born in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's mostly lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Louis XIV created the first Royal Academy of Music, In 1669, the poet Pierre Perrin opened an academy of opera in Paris, the first opera theater in France open to the public, and premiered Pomone, the first grand opera in French, with music by Robert Cambert, with five acts, elaborate stage machinery, and a ballet.  Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century.

The classical ballet also originated in the Baroque era. The style of court dance was brought to France by Marie de Medici, and in the beginning the members of the court themselves were the dancers. Louis XIV himself performed in public in several ballets. In March 1662, the Académie Royale de Danse, was founded by the King. It was the first professional dance school and company and set the standards and vocabulary for ballet throughout Europe during the period.

Several new instruments, including the piano, were introduced during this period. The invention of the piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments. Cristofori named the instrument un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte ("a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud"), abbreviated over time as pianoforte, fortepiano, and later, simply, piano.

Some composers and examples

• Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706), Canon in D (1680)
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), The Four Seasons (1725)
• George Frederic Handel (1685–1759), Water Music (1717), Messiah (1741)
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Toccata and Fugue in D minor (1703–1707), Brandenburg Concertos (1721), St Matthew Passion (1727

VIVALDI "The Four Seasons" - Autumn

The Four Seasons (Vivaldi)

The Four Seasons (Italian: Le quattro stagioni) is a group of four violin concerti by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi, each of which gives a musical expression to a season of the year. They were written about 1723 and were published in 1725 in Amsterdam, together with eight additional violin concerti, as Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione ("The Contest Between Harmony and Invention").

The Four Seasons is the best known of Vivaldi's works. Unusually for the time, Vivaldi published the concerti with accompanying poems (possibly written by Vivaldi himself) that elucidated what it was about those seasons that his music was intended to evoke. It provides one of the earliest and most-detailed examples of what was later called program music—music with a narrative element.

Vivaldi took great pains to relate his music to the texts of the poems, translating the poetic lines themselves directly into the music on the page. In the middle section of the Spring concerto, where the goatherd sleeps, his barking dog can be marked in the viola section. Other natural occurrences are similarly evoked. Vivaldi separated each concerto into three movements, fast-slow-fast, and likewise each linked sonnet into three sections.

Pop meets the Classics

If I Had Words

"If I Had Words" is a 1978 UK hit song by Scott Fitzgerald as a duet with Yvonne Keeley. Yvonne Keeley (born Yvonne Paaij, 6 September 1952) is a Dutch pop music singer. She is the sister of Patricia Paay. Her surname is often misspelled as Keely. Most notably she performed as a duet with Scott Fitzgerald on the song "If I Had Words”. Keeley was part of the group the Star Sisters which was popular in the Netherlands during the 1980s.

The tune was taken from the main theme of the Maestoso section of Saint-Saëns' Symphony No.3 in C minor (Symphony with organ) with an added reggae beat. (The theme used in the song is first exposed by the strings section in the second movement, pages 126–129.) The lyrics and arrangement were by Jonathan Hodge, a prolific writer of TV jingles and movie themes, who also produced the single.

The backing was by the St Thomas More Roman Catholic School Choir in Chelsea, London.

This song very effectively takes the main theme tune from the final movement of the symphony. Made famous, of course, in the film Babe.

I have no idea why this organ music give me, in a good way, shivers.

Pop meets the Classics 4

Hamburger Concerto

Hamburger Concerto is the fourth studio album by the progressive rock band Focus. Released in 1974, it peaked at #20 on the UK charts. The title track is based on Variations on a Theme by Haydn by Johannes Brahms.

Focus is a Dutch rock band which was founded by classically trained organist/flutist Thijs van Leer in 1969, and is most famous for the instrumental pieces "Hocus Pocus" and "Sylvia". The band broke up in 1978, but reformed in 2002 and has been recording and touring since. 

They have found also renewed fame due to the use of "Hocus Pocus" by guitarist Gary Hoey on his 1993 album Animal Instinct, and as the theme for the Nike 2010 World Cup commercial, Write The Future, directed by the Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu.

The Variations on a Theme

The Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, (German: Variationen über ein Thema von Jos. Haydn), now also called the Saint Anthony Variations, is a work in the form of a theme and variations, composed by Johannes Brahms (German composer, born May 7, 1833, Hamburg died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) in the summer of 1873 at Tutzing in Bavaria. It consists of a theme in B-flat major based on a "Chorale St Antoni", eight variations, and a finale. The work was published in two versions: for two pianos, written first but designated Op. 56b; and for orchestra, designated Op. 56a.

The orchestral version is better known and much more often heard than the two-piano version. It is often said to be the first independent set of variations for orchestra in the history of music, although there is at least one earlier piece in the same form, Antonio Salieri's Twenty-six Variations on 'La folia di Spagna' written in 1815.

 

Brahms's orchestral variations are scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns (2 in E flat, 2 in B flat), 2 trumpets, timpani, triangle, and the normal string section of first and second violins, violas, cellos and double basses. The piece usually takes about 18 minutes to perform.

Brahms composed the work on a theme entitled "Chorale Saint Antoni" found in a wind ensemble composition. At the time Brahms discovered it, the wind ensemble piece carried an attribution to the composer Joseph Haydn. Brahms's titled his own composition accordingly, crediting Haydn for the theme. But publishers in the early nineteenth century often attached the names of famous composers to works by unknown or lesser known composers in order to move inventory. Subsequent research has shown that the wind piece Brahms used as a source does not fit Haydn's style. Today the wind ensemble piece remains without attribution.

The first performance of the orchestral version was given on 2 November 1873 by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under Brahms's baton.

Pop meets the Classics 1

"Someone to Call My Lover" is a song by American recording artist Janet Jackson from her seventh studio album, All for You. Written and produced by Jackson and Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the song was released as the album's second single on June 26, 2001.

Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966) is an American recording artist and actress. Known for a series of sonically innovative, socially conscious and sexually provocative records, as well as elaborate stage shows, television appearances, and film roles, she has been a prominent figure in popular culture since the early 1970s. The youngest child of the Jackson family, she began her career appearing on the variety television series The Jacksons in 1976 and went on to appear on other television shows throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including Good Times and Fame.

The song's looped guitar riff is sampled from America's 1972 hit "Ventura Highway". The loop played throughout the chorus is an interpolation of "Gymnopédie No. 1" by French classical composer Erik Satie, played in 4/4 time instead of the original 3/4. Jackson had searched for years for the catchy Satie track. "When I was a little girl and I used to come home from school, there was something called "The 3:30 Movie", and they used to play the MGM Musicals. There was a commercial. I remember watching Singin' in the Rain and there was a commercial with the lady all in white, and I don't know if it was for Dove or something like that, but they would play this, 'Da, da, da.' It was the Erik Satie. I never knew who the composer was, and this song never left me."

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.