Page 102 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

100 HIGH BAROQUE RELIGIOUS CHORAL MUSIC

the final development of the used it to control the flow of their
IN CONTEXT Baroque aesthetic known work by modulating between
T as the High Baroque was different keys. Increasingly complex
FOCUS underway by around 1680. The new counterpoint, combining distinct
High Baroque religious tonal system, in which music was melodic lines, one of the defining
choral music
built from notes forming major and characteristics of Baroque music,
BEFORE minor scales, was fixed by this was employed to create vivid
1471 The Flemish composer time, and High Baroque composers dramatic effects; coupled with
Jacob Obrecht writes a Passio such as Johann Sebastian Bach incisive rhythmic features, the
secundum Matthaeum music achieved an unprecedented
(Matthew Passion). The Crucifixion, often depicted in emotional power.
Renaissance art, as here by the German In earlier periods, vocal art
1620s In Rome, Giacomo painter Lucas Cranach the Elder, music had been preeminent; now
Carissimi produces oratorios became a subject for composers, too, increasing interest in instrumental
on Old Testament subjects to as music grew ever more descriptive. music offered composers another
satisfy the demand for operatic
entertainment during Lent.
1718 Handel composes
the first version of Esther,
about the Old Testament
queen. Eventually, in 1732,
this piece would be revised
into the first English oratorio.
AFTER
1829 Felix Mendelssohn
conducts the Berlin premier
of the St. Matthew Passion—a
key moment in the revival of
interest in Bach’s music.

1846 Mendelssohn premieres
his oratorio Elijah, depicting
the life of the Prophet Elijah.
1850 The Bach–Gesellschaft
is formed in Leipzig by Moritz
Hauptmann (Cantor of the
Thomaskirche), Otto Jahn
(a biographer of Mozart),
and the composer Robert
Schumann, in order to publish
the complete works of Bach.
1963–1966 Polish composer
Krzysztof Penderecki writes
the St. Luke Passion, an atonal
orchestral-choral setting of the
Passion story.

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