Music and Architecture n Britain during the Period 1600 to 1750 - Coursework Example

The development in architecture has been influenced by a number of happenings in Italy during the initial Baroque period as in the case of Music. Subsequently, by early 18th century the Georgian Architecture evolves from the Baroque as an alternate and not so rich. The literature study will go through these periods of musical and architectural history to delve deeper into the happenings during this period, the development of both and their structure. Baroque period was the beginning of a major change in the approach to music in the Western Europe.

The growing power of the Europe both economically and militarily led the music industry also to take its turn and grow. Baroque music is very complicated with motets and madrigals and movement of voices over and across one another creating the opera and the Oratorio. While one had the musical ingredients combined with drama and scenery, the Oratorio did not have the scenery making it just the voice and the music alone (Saddie J A, 1998). During this period of Baroque, there was no piano and it is yet to be invented.

The major musical instrument was the violin, which was considered the queen of all instruments. The keyboard instruments are the harpsichord and the organ. The Baroque period also saw the rise of what are called the Orchestras. Chamber music was played by the Chamber Orchestra which had a small group of players playing specific instruments. These were in Trios (3), Quartets (4) or in Quintets (5) and can go up to 10 players in all (Colles 1927). During this period the most common form of music came in as Instrumental Suite.

They were mixed with dances so that the music and dance went together along with drama in some cases to make a complete presentation. In Opera, the voice was added. The Baroque Period was made proud by a number of composers and renowned musicians. The early Baroque period is normally looked at as the period between 1600 and 1654. Baroque's dividing line from the Renaissance period starts with the rise of the Opera, the musical drama. This was first staged in Italy by Claudio Monteverdi (Franklin Zimmerman, Jul 1958).

This is normally referred to as the 'recitative style' which also permeates architecture and painting. While at the same time, on the music front the major change in the figured bass and in the polyphonic composition in association with the harmonic one. This was also the period when the music was slowly weaned away from the influence of the Catholic Church and a slow but steady move towards secular thought in music came up. The Protestant thought also reflected in the music and most of the developments in music can be attributed to the rising competition between catholic and protestant churches.

One of the other major changes in music was the text form of music which could transcend language barriers and was being used in Germany by Heinrich Schutz. This was completely redone from the prima practica, by Monteverdi as seconda practica (musica 2007). The Monteverdi style includes idiomatic writing, virtuoso flourishes and other new techniques. This became the core of the early Baroque Period and goes on up to the very end of this period in 1750. The influence of the Italian composers continued to dominate the music scene during the early