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Historia di Jephte
- Oratorio (1648)
- Giacomo Carissimi (1605 - 1674)
- - Carissimi's recitative uses expressive dissonances in a way that recalls early Florentine opera, but they exist in a more chordally conceived environment.
- - The oratorio closes with a magnificent six-voice chorus of lamentation. In what became an emblem of lament during the seventeenth century, the bass line descends repeatedly by step through a fourth; a chromatic variant on the same figure that appears in Dido's lament at the end of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.- Especially striking is how Carissimi conveys the intensification of grief by building from single suspensions to double suspensions and even triple suspensions.
- * The oratorio is a genre that first developed in Rome during the seventeenth century as a musical setting of a scared narrative or dialogue in either Latin or Italian.
- * Oratorios resembled operas without staging, costumes, or action, and they used similar forms of monody, such as recitative and aria. But oratorios differed from operas by sometimes including a narrator and by giving a greater role to the chorus, which had associations both with Greek tragedy and with liturgical polyphony.
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O lieber Herre Gott SWV 287, from Kleine geistliche Konzerte I
- Sacred Concerto (CA. 1636)
- Heinrich Shuetz (1585-1672)
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Saul, was verfolgst du mich, SWV 415, from Symphoniae sacrae III
- Sacred Concerto (CA. 1650)
- Heinrich Schuetz (1585 - 1672)
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Toccata No. 3
- Toccata (CA. 1615, Rev. 1637)
- Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
- - Idiomatically suited to the harpsichord - the music fits easily under two hands, and Frescobaldi avoided the long sustained notes common in his organ music because they decay too quickly on the plucked strings of the harpsichord.
- - Like most of Frescobaldi's toccatas, this one unfolds as a series of brief phrases or sections, each closed with a cadence or similar punctuation.
- * A toccata is a piece in improvisatory style, in which the player explores a range of harmonies and figurations.
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Ricercare after the Credo from Mass for the Madonna in Fiori musicali
- Ricercare (CA. 1635)
- Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583 - 1643)
- * By the early seventeenth century, a ricercare was an imitative composition based on the continuous development of a single subject, sometimes with a countersubject. The subject of this ricercare is easy to pick out of the texture because of its distinctive shape.
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Sonata IV per il violino per sonar con due corde
(Sonata for the violin to play on two strings)
- Sonata for Violin and Continuo (1626)
- Biagio Marini (1594 - 1663)
- - Among the first significant sonatas for violin and continuo are the four Biagio Marini included in his Op. 8 (1629), a compendium of his instrumental works in various genres that was published while he was serving as violinist and composer for the ducal court of Neuburg in southern Germany. Marini's sonatas are notable for taking advantage of the idiomatic possibilities of the violin and for borrowing expressive gestures and figuration from vocal melody.
- * The sonata for one or two instruments with basso continuo became an important genre in the seventeenth century, signifying a shift in instrumental music that paralleled the increased focus on solo singing in the new vocal genres of the time.
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Armide
- Opera (tragedie en musique or tragedie lyrique) (1686)
- Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)
- * In the early 1670's the two [Lully and his librettist Jean-Philippe Quinault] developed a new French form of opera known as tragedie en musique, later called tragedie lyrique, by combining elements of classical French drama with ballet, the French song tradition, and a new form of recitative. The orchestra consists of strings divided into five parts rather than the four that later became standard; some of the parts may have been doubled by winds in some performances.
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Te Deum
- Grand motet (1677)
- Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632 - 1687)
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La Coquette virtuose
- Courante (CA. 1650)
- Denis Gaultier (CA. 1603 - 1672)
- * Like most seventeenth-century dances, this one is in binary form, with two sections, each repeated.
- * The rapid decay of each notes prompted lutenists to animate each voice and the entire texture with almost constant motion, reserving longer notes and chords to mark the ends of phrases.
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Suite No. 3 in A Minor, from Pieces de clavecin
- Keyboard suite (CA. 1687)
- Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665 - 1729)
- - As in most French harpsichord music of the time, the composer used figuration borrowed from the style that musicians used for playing the lute, known as the style luthe (lute style or broken style).
- * Allemande - by the seventeenth century, the allemande was no longer danced, and the music became slower and highly stylized - far from the dance that was its source. Allemandes are in a moderate 4/4 meter, always begin with an upbeat, and progress almost continuously in eighth and sixteenth notes.
- * Courante - A French dance whose choreography included bending the knee on the upbeat or offbeat and rising on the beat, often followed by a step or glide. The music is in moderate triple or compound meter and always begins with an upbeat. In many courantes the meter shifts back and forth between 3/2 or 6/4, sometimes with different voices simultaneously implying different meters.
- * Sarabande - French musicians modified the dance to be slow and dignified in triple meter with a stress on the second beat.
- * Gigue - Introduced in France in the mid-seventeenth century, it was stylized as a dance in fast compound meter. The wide leaps and fugal imitation at the beginning of both sections of this gigue are typical, as is the almost constant motion.
- * Chaconne - triple time dance song. In Italy, it evolved into a form for variations over an ostinato bass, while in France it developed into a stately dance that was often shaped by repetition rather than variation. Like many French chaconnes, this one is in rondeau form, with a four measure chaconne theme (repeated each time its played) that alternates with contrasting eight-measure periods called couplets.
- * Gavotte - A vigorous dance in duple time with a characteristic rhythm of two two quarter notes leading to a half note on the downbeat.
- * Minuet - moderate triple meter, often uses rounded binary form.
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Dido and Aeneas
- Opera (1689)
- Herny Purcell (1659 - 1695)
- * Dido's lament is one of the landmarks of seventeenth-century music, a justly famous adaptation of technique to expression. Purcell followed an Italian tradition of setting laments over a basso ostinato, or ground bass.
- * As was customary in the early Italian operas and many French operas, the act and the opera end with a chorus, in emulation of the choruses of ancient Greek tragedy.
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La puerpura de la rosa
- Opera (1701)
- Tomas de Torrejon Y Velasco (1644 - 1728)
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Los coflades de la estleya
- Villancico (Late Seventeenth Century)
- Juan De Araujo (1646 - 1712)
- * The villancico began its career in fifteenth-century Spain as a courtly secular song in mock-peasant style, but by the seventeenth century it had become a vernacular sacred genre cultivated by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the Spanish speaking world.
- * While their works preserved distinctly Spanish elements, villancico composers in both Spain and the Americas incorporated the new techniques of the Baroque era, including the concertato medium, continuo accompaniment, monody, polychoral or other antiphonal effects, rhetorical approaches to text setting, and, in some works, instrumental ritornello.
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Clori vezzosa, e bella
- Cantata (CA. 1690 - 1710)
- Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
- - Typical of the cantatas that Scarlatti composed after about 1690, Clori vezzosa, e bella has two recitative-aria pairs and is scored for voice and continuo. Both arias in this cantata follow the da capo form that became standard around 1690 and remained the most common aria form for almost a century.
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La Griselda
- Opera (1720 - 21)
- Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 - 1725)
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Trio Sonata, Op. 3, No. 2
- Trio Sonata (1680's)
- Arcangelo Corelli (1653 - 1713)
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Praeludium in E Major, BuxWV 141
- Organ prelude (Late seventeenth century)
- Dieterich Buxtehude (CA. 1637 - 1707)
- - In the style of a toccata.
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Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in A Minor, Op. 3. No. 6
- Violin Concerto (CA. 1710)
- Antonio Vivaldi (1678 - 1741)
- - For the fast movements of his concertos, Vivaldi used ritornello form, in which ritornellos played by the full orchestra alternate with episodes that feature the soloist or soloists.
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Vingt-cinquieme ordre
- Keyboard Suite (CA. 1730)
- Francois Couperin (1668 - 1733)
- * Throughout the order, Couperin used agrements and other forms of ornamentation to stress important notes, maintain forward momentum, and achieve an elegant line. Refined elegance, emotional restraint, vibrant energy, and logical clarity in harmony, melody and form, made Couperin's suites very appealing to the courtiers and amateurs of his time.
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Hippolyte et Aricie
- Opera (1733)
- Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683 - 1764)
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Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543
- Organ prelude and fugue (CA. 1715)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
- - In contrast to Buxtehude's Praeludium in E Major that contains a series of alternating toccata-like and fugal sections, Bach's standard practice was to compose only two main sections, a prelude and a fugue, each much longer than a similar section in a Buxtehude work.
- * Bach's adaptation of ritornello form to the fugue allowed him to write fugues that maintained coherence but were much longer and more varied than those by earlier composers. This ritornello-like structure, alternating expositions of the subject with extended episodes became typical of Bach's fugues, and because of Bach's prominence as a model composer of fugal works, it soon became a standard characteristic of the fugue.
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Chorale Prelude on Durch Adams Fall, BWV 637
- Chorale prelude (CA. 1716)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
- - Like many chorales the tune is in bar form (AAB), consisting of a repeated section and a closing section.
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Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 62
- Cantata (1724)
- Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750)
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Giulio Ceasare
- Opera (1724)
- George Frederic Handel (1685 -1759)
- * The standard elements of an operatic scene from this period are present: dialogue in simple recitative accompanied by continuo, followed by a da capo aria introduced by the orchestra. But these elements are slightly rearranged to create greater realism and enhance the drama. Instead of presenting a static orchestral introduction and aria, Handel intersperses the recitative with the sections of the aria so that the plot advances continously throughout the scene.
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Saul
- Oratorio (1738)
- George Frederic Handel (1685 - 1759)
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Mike's Pieces
- Mahler 5
- Tchaik 5
- Ravel le tombeau de couperin
- Brahms 4
- Copland 3
- Ive's songs
- Dufay Nuper Rosarum Flores
- Ligeti Rock Harpsichord
- Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 7
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Alison's Pieces
- Brandenburg 3,4,5
- Handel Concerti Grossi
- Handel's Rinaldo
- Charpentier's Medee
- Brahms Op. 118, No. 2
- Beethoven 6
- Bach Cantata No. 140
- Coffee Cantata
- Charpentier Missa Assumpta Est
- Schumann Carnivale
- Copland Piano Quartet
- Magic Flute
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Andy's Pieces
- Benjamin Britten War Requiem, Op. 66
- Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 111
- Mahler 6
- Mahler 2
- Mozart Requiem K. 626
- Puccini Madam Butterfly
- Schuber 6 Musical Moments D. 780 (Op. 94)
- Beethoven String Quartet Op. 131
- Mozart String Quintet K. 516
- Orff Die Bernauerin
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Jessica's Pieces
- Bach Wedding Cantata, BWV 202
- Boismortier Diane et Acteon
- Barber Adagio for Strings
- Argento "Six Elizabethan Songs"
- Argento Postcard from Morocco
- The Planets
- Holst Terzetto
- Crumb Black Angels
- Maxwell Davies "Eight Songs for a Mad King"
- Albinoni Oboe Concerto
- Handel Water Music
- Grieg Peer Gynt Suite No. 1
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Gerk's Pieces
- Late Beethoven String Quartets
- Brahms Chamber Music
- Josquin Lament on the death of Ockheghem
- Dvorak 7
- Gottschalk A Night in the Tropics
- Faure requiem
- MacDowell Suite no. 2 "Indian"
- Ravel String Quartet
- Thomas Tallis ("Everything is delicious")
- Amy Beach Hermit Thrush Pieces
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Nate's Pieces
- 1. Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame (esp. the Kyrie; if you have extra time, check out the crazy Ensemble Organum recording; not your grandma's early music performance)
- 2. Lully's "Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme" we actually had an excerpt of this on my prelim, and I've loved the march of the Turks ever since:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lully_Le_Bourgeois_Gentilhomme_-_11._Marche_pour_la_Ceremonie_des_Turcs.ogg
- 3. Prokofiev's 4th and 5th Symphonies. Good stuff. You've probably heard the fifth, but the fourth exists in two versions and the original 1930 version is darling. (It's also based on material from his super amazing ballet, The Prodigal Son)
- 4. Tchaikovsky's Francesa da Rimini; it doesn't get any more fiery or brimstoney than this.
- 5. Any Haydn string quartet, but if you haven't run across "The Joke," which is a MHM 240 staple, you should.
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Andy's Symphonies
- Samartini: Um, Symphony No. 3 I think. Something in C major with three movements, anyway.
- FJ Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D
- WA Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C, K 551 (the "Jupiter," if you insist on assy nicknames)
- Beethoven: Symphonies No. 5 in c, Op. 67 and No. 9 in d, Op. 125
- Schubert: Unfinished Symphony in b, D. 759
- Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in d, Op. 120
- Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 4 in A, Op. 90 ("Italian," since apparently it's...Italianate?)
- Brahms: Symphony No. 1 in c, Op. 68Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 in f, Op. 36
- * Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E
- Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in e, Op. 95
- Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in d (That's you!!)
- * Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony, Op. 9
- * Webern: Symphony, Op. 21
- William Grant Still: Afro-American Symphony [Note: we learned more or less nothing about the Harlem Renaissance]
- Charles Ives: Symphony No. 4 in Batshit
- Sergei Prokofiev: Symphonies No. 1 in D, Op. 25 and No. 5 in Bb, Op. 100
- Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 in d, Op. 47
- * Gorecki: Symphony No. 3, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs"
- * Berio: Sinfonia
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