Monody, with the words of a single person sung by a single person with basso continuo harmonic support
Caccini, Amarilli, mia bella (1601)
Monteverdi, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624)
Monteverdi, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624)(sound and text alone)
Monteverdi, Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (1624)(sound and score alone)
Video performance on YouTube of Il Combattimento by La Risonanza, directed by Fabio Bonizzoni
Video performance on YouTube of Il Combattimento by Regenc’hips, directed by Nicolas Achten, lute; with Marco Beasley, testo; Carlos Monteiro, Tancredi; Hanna Al-Bender, Clorinda
Affekt, with specific musical effects used to express specific emotional states
(e.g., Rage aria, or lament, or the depiction of royalty)
YouTube performance by Jesse Blumberg and the American Bach Soloists of “Why do the nations” from Handel’s Messiah (1741)
YouTube performance by Christian Immler and the Bach Consort Wien of “Why do the nations” from Handel’s Messiah (1741)
Mi palpita il cor (HWV 132)(includes two Da capo arias)
YouTube performance by Alexander Chance, countertenor, of the aria “Es ist vollbracht” from J. S. Bach’s St. John Passion, BWV 245 (1724), with the Oxford Bach Solists, Jonathan Manson, viola da gamba.
J.S. Bach, Es ist vollbracht from the St. John Passion, BWV 245 (1724)(sound, text, score)
Beyond Affekt? Music seeming to move beyond the restrictions of particular categories of musical effects
(Bach’s B-minor Mass, a summa of sacred musical styles old and new, climaxes in the final “movement,” the Dona nobis pacem, itself a recapitulation of the Gratias agimus tibi of the Gloria. The style is archaic, modeled on the stile antico of Palestrina, but grander than any music written before, with three trumpets and timpani for ultimate power. In a piece like this, which had no performances in Bach’s lifetime, we sense an anticipation of what later in the eighteenth century would be called the “sublime”.)
YouTube performance by Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan of the “Dona nobis pacem” from Bach’s B-minor Mass (1747)
Renaissance ars perfecta (pervasive imitation), with music sensitive to the sound and pronunciation of the words it sets
Josquin - Inviolata, integra et casta es (ca. 1500)
Josquin - Missa Hercules, Kyrie (ca. 1503)
Palestrina - Missa Papae Marcelli, Kyrie (1567)
Musical Rhetoric (Word painting, madrigalisms), with music now attempting to express the meaning of the words it sets
Orlande de Lassus - Tristis est anima mea (1565)
Giaches de Wert - Ascendente Jesu (1581)
Mannerism, with extreme musical effects to express emotion
Gesualdo - Judas mercator pessimus (1611)
Medieval Independence of Music from the Words It Sets
Du Fay - Nuper rosarum flores (1436)
Biteryng - En Katerine (ca. 1410)
Jaquemin Senleches - La harpe de mellodie (ca. 1385)
Matteo da Perugia - Le greygnour bien (ca. 1405)
Machaut - Messe de Nostre Dame, Kyrie (ca. 1360)
Perotin - Viderunt omnes (ca. 1200) (opening)
Bernart de Ventadorn - Can vei la lauzeta (troubadour song)(12th cent.)
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