Page 70 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

68 BIRTH OF THE BAROQUE

uses plainsong (single line when they had slightly different
unaccompanied Latin chants, meanings and usage from today.
associated today with monks Until around 1650, “sonata” was
and monasteries) as the basis of used interchangeably with
the seven sections. The repeated “canzona,” an instrumental
return to plainsong provides a composition employing repetition,
compositional thread that connects while “concerto” simply meant
the very different Renaissance and an ensemble piece for voices
early Baroque styles. It also helped and instruments.
ensure that his work would not
alienate the Church. Monteverdi’s intentions
It is not known whether Monteverdi
Sacred concertos expected to hear the Vespers
In addition to Monteverdi’s five Monteverdi dedicated and presented sung as a complete work. There is
psalm settings, the Ave Maris Stella his Vespers to Pope Paul V, a member little evidence that any of the 1610
setting, and the Magnificat, he set of the powerful Borghese family, publication was actually performed
four antiphons—short sentences possibly in the hope of commissions. during his lifetime and it is not
sung or recited before or after a known whether the vesper
psalm or canticle. The first two creating an other-worldly effect. For movements were ever performed
(non-liturgical—not part of the example, the first singer’s “gaudio” together. Some scholars have
service) antiphons come from the (joy) is echoed as “audio” (I hear). suggested that Vespers is simply
Old Testament’s Song of Solomon. Devices such as repeated phrases a collection of religious settings
They are Nigra Sum, sed Formosa for emphasis might have appeared honoring the Virgin Mary,
(I am Black but Comely) and Pulchra in an opera. which were published together
Es (Thou Art Fair), sung by two The vesper settings are for convenience. The publication
sopranos whose lines interweave completed by the Sonata sopra may have been intended by the
as if in a love duet. Sancta Maria (“Sonata on [the composer as two works—Vespers
In the third antiphon, Duo plainsong] Holy Mary, Pray for Us”). and Mass—complete in their own
Seraphim, two angels call across Together, the four antiphons and right, and also as a compendium
the heavens, and in the fourth, the Sonata were described by of sacred music from which to
Audi Coelum (Hear, O Heaven), Monteverdi as “sacred concertos.” draw movements for different
the endings of the words sung by “Sonata” and “concerto” are terms occasions when expert singers
one tenor are echoed by another, that date from the 18th century, and instrumentalists were

Music in Venice opening of the world’s first
opera house, the Teatro di
Few other cities in Europe have San Cassiana, in 1637.
a longer or more glorious musical In the 19th century, Rossini
tradition than Venice. In the saw some of his greatest
Baroque age, it was a major center triumphs in Venice, while
of the arts and a powerful trading Wagner, a regular visitor who
hub, with a great tradition of later died in the city, composed
church and state ceremonies Tristan und Isolde here, and
requiring music. The fame of Verdi premiered Rigoletto (1851)
Venetian composers, such as and La traviata (1853) at Teatro
Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, La Fenice, the chief opera house
Monteverdi, and Vivaldi, rivals from 1792. In the 20th century,
The Family in Concert, c.1752, that of the city’s artists—Bellini, Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress
by the Venetian artist Pietro Longhi, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, and (1951) and Benjamin Britten’s
who specialized in contemporary Tiepolo. Opera first found a mass The Turn of the Screw (1953)
domestic scenes. following in the city, with the were also premiered here.

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