Baroque Music Play List - Term Paper Example

Baroque Music Play List Antonio Lotti- Crucifixus This is a magnificent , high quality music made for vocal performance. I chose this for I was amazed by its contrapuntal techniques and variety of voices. Lotti produced masses, cantatas, madrigals and around thirty operas and instrumental music. His work is thought to be the bridge between the established baroque and emerging Classical styles. Marin Marais- Passacaille: I chose this music because I admire the way of descending stepwise from the tonic to the dominant pitch of the scale and the harmony that is given to the upper parts.

Marin Marais was a master of the viola da gamba, and the leading French composer of viol music. He played in the royal court of Versailles and was very famous. He was married with Parisian, Catherine Damicourt and he had 19 children with her. Claudio Monteverdi- Lamento della Ninfa: What I liked about this piece was the heart-wrenching soprano solo with mournful sidelines by a male trio, over a relentless four-note ground bass. Monteverdi was an Italian composer, violinist and singer. His work marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music.

He was one of the most significant revolutionaries and he wrote the earliest dramatically viable opera, Orfeo. He is one of the rare artists who was fortunate enough to enjoy fame during his lifetime. Tomaso Giovani Albinioni- Adagio: The melody of Adagio is magnificent. It’s got outbursts of melancholy and passion. Today Albinioni is most noted for his instrumental music, especially his oboe concertos. He is thought to have been the first Italian composer to employ the oboe as a solo instrument in concerts and the first composer globally to publish such works.

Johan Sebastian Bach- Domine Deus: This one I chose for its angelic sound and powerful expressiveness. -Allegro: It’s highly dynamic and it spreads joy, radiance and splendor to those who listen. It has the ability to cheer up the listeners. Bach was better known as a virtuous organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that concealed immense rigor.

Many experts of classical music from the middle of the 20th century on consider him as the greatest music composer of all time. Luigi Boccherini- Menuett: This composition is beautiful, relaxing and it makes the ones who listen feel like royalty. Bocherini’s style is characterized by the typical Rococo charm, lightness, and optimism, and exhibits melodic and rhythmic invention, coupled with frequent influences from the guitar tradition of his adopted country, Spain.

Antonio Vivaldi- Four Seasons; Winter: This is the kind of music that decides how you’re going to feel, if you relax and let it get to you. It made a strong impression on me and I consider it to be one of the most beautiful pieces of the Baroque era. Spring : I chose this piece because I like it’s joy, grace and positive energy. Vivaldi is considered to have been one of the composers who brought Baroque music to evolve into a new Galante style which paved the way to Classicism.

He, like many composers of that time, ended his life in poverty. Franz Jozeph Haydn- Symphony 95 in C minor: I. Allegro moderato : This piece is unique for it lacks a slow introduction and a minor key. There is tension and a dynamically diverse transition from the beginning and that’s what makes this piece interesting. Haydn was a leading composer of the classical period, called the “Father of the symphony” and “Father of the string quartet”. Being isolated from other composers and trends in music until the later part of his long life, he was, as he put it, “forced to become original”.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart- Ave Verum Corpus: While we listen to it, we can feel a great and rare angelic beauty making its way to our hearts. It makes the listeners feel blessed and calm. Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers. Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg.

Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. Jean-Baptiste Lully- Marche pur la cérémonie des Turcs: The rhythm is overwhelming and passionate and the melody is interesting and cheerful in a way. Lully can be considered the founder of French opera, having forsaken the Italian method of dividing musical numbers into separate recitatives and arias, choosing instead to combine the two for dramatic effect. Lully also opted for quicker story development as was more to the taste of the French public.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi- Pergolesi - Stabat Mater - moritur and amen: This piece introduces a great grief and strong emotions in a perfect harmony of sounds. Pergolesi spent most of his life working in Neapolitan courts. Pergolesi wrote a number of secular instrumental works, including a violin sonata and a violin concerto. He died very young, at the age of 26. Giuseppe Torelli- I. (Andante): It’s dramatic and intriguing and it left a great impression on me. Torelli was an Italian violist and violinist, pedagogue, and composer, who ranks with Arcangelo Corelli among the developers of the Baroque concerto and concerto grosso. . He directed the capella at the cathedral (San Petronio) of Bologna, 1686–1695.

He was maestro di concerto to the court of Georg Friedrich II, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach in 1698-1699 where he presented an oratorio (December 1699) before returning again to Bologna (1701) to become a violinist in the cappella musicale at San Petronio. Arcangelo Corelli- Vivace-Grave: The piece consists of many transitions from calm, melancholic to intense and dynamic (and other way around). Corelli was an influential Italian violinist and composer of baroque music. His compositions are distinguished by a beautiful flow of melody and by a mannerly treatment of the accompanying parts, which he is justly said to have liberated from the strict rules of counterpoint.