The Baroque era witnessed a triumphant revival in the
fortunes of Catholicism, reversing some of the setbacks that
had occurred in the sixteenth century. During that turbulent
period, the Reformation had torn the Church in two, dividing
Europe into competing Protestant and Catholic factions; the
Turks had continued to threaten the eastern fringes of the
Holy Roman Empire; and Rome itself, the Holy See, had been
sacked in 1527.
The Papacy did not respond to these disasters in a spirit
of compromise, but with a determination to reassert its
authority. In contrast to the Protestant values of austerity
and simplicity, it encouraged the creation of grandiose
architecture and works of art. Elaborate new churches and
altarpieces were intended to evoke the same sense of awe and
majesty that the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages had
inspired.
Baroque style: drama and complexity
The Baroque style developed to meet the needs of this
Catholic revival. The term probably derived from barroco,
Portuguese for an irregularly shaped pearl. The emphasis
is on "irregular", as the Baroque implied a departure from
the symmetry and harmony of the Renaissance. In
architecture, this resulted in buildings conceived on a
grand scale, using the richest materials and featuring
wilfully complex, dramatic designs. The style was pioneered
m Rome by the seventeenth-century painter, sculptor and
architect Gianlorenzo Bernini who designed the colonnade
in front of St Peter's and the magnificent canopy over the
High Altar together with Francesco Borromini and
Pietro da
Cortona.
Baroque painters made similar attempts to appeal
powerfully to the emotions and the senses. Artists like
Caravaggio in Italy and Rembrandt in Protestant Holland
sought to achieve this end through dramatic lighting
effects, while others, such as Rubens, imbued the figures in
their compositions with vigorous, sometimes contorted
movements.
Baroque music and the emergence of opera
In a musical context, "Baroque" is a much less precise
term, often used to suggest little more than an ornate and
rather theatrical style. Composers of. the time, however,
were conscious of a break with the past. In 1605, Monteverdi
made a firm distinction between a PRIMA PRATTICA and a
SECONDA PRATTICA (first and second practice), the former
referring to the intricate Renaissance style of composition,
the latter to a new emphasis on the clarity of the text. At
the heart of the new style was the development of the BASSO
CONTINUO (thorough bass), a system of notation for the
secondary instruments.
PRIMA and SECONDA
PRATTICA As defined by Monteverdi, prime prattica
was the intricate, polyphonic approach to composition
current during the Renaissance; seconda prattica
referred to the new emphasis he and his colleagues
placed on the solo voice. In essence, this meant that
whereas his predecessors had sometimes obscured their
lyrics through the complexity of their music, textual
clarity now took precedence. Also known as stile
antico and stile moderno.
BASSO CONTINUO A shorthand notation of
the bass line, indicating the chords to be played by
the instruments (usually keyboards or strings)
accompanying the main melody, which was written out in
full; until this time, the continuo had usually been
improvised. Also known as "figured bass" or "thorough
bass."
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Such innovations bore fruit almost immediately, helping to
stimulate the emergence of opera. Since the 1 570s. an informal
academy in Florence known as the Camerata (Companionship) had met
to discuss a variety of cultural topics. One of the subjects under
consideration was ancient Greek drama, in which, it was believed,
music had played a vital role. Several members attempted to revive
the form, using "recitative" (a method of solo singing reflecting
the patterns of normal
speech) as the means of conveying the dramatic
dialogue to the audience. In so doing, they were effectively
echoing Monteverdi's stricture that music should be subordinate to
its text.
The oldest surviving opera is Jacopo Peri's
Euridice, commissioned in 1600 for the festivities celebrating
the marriage of Henri IV of France to the Florentine Maria de'
Medici. However, the first masterpiece in the new genre was
Monteverdi's Orfeo in 1607, which was composed for the
Gonzaga family at Mantua. This was produced on an entirely
different scale from the earlier experiments. While Pen had made
use of just a few lutes and a harpsichord in his operas, keeping
them discreetly hidden behind the scenery, Monteverdi employed a
full orchestra consisting of some 40 instruments.
The taste for opera spread; Rome and Venice
became the new centres of musical excellence. Rome took the lead
in the 1620s, largely due to patronage from high-ranking
clergymen. Cardinal Barbenni had a well-appointed opera house
constructed in his palace in 1623, while one of the most talented
librettists of the period, Giulio Rospigliosi, became pope in
1667. Venice was to all appearances a wealthy city, although the
facades of its buildings often concealed the decay behind. Despite
not having Rome's exalted operatic connections, it played a
crucial role in bringing the genre to a wider audience.
The first public opera house opened there in
1637, and at least 15 more were built before the end of the
century. Each neighbourhood had its local theatre, similar to
cinemas today.
Italian divisions
Opera was the most exciting new art form of the
age, consolidating the reputation of the Italian regions as the
cultural focus of Europe. This fact belies the conception that
political and artistic success go hand in hand, for the Italian
peninsula then contained little more than a motley assortment of
independent princedoms and satellite states. The glories of the
regions might prove a draw to artists and connoisseurs; they also
attracted invaders. Throughout the era, most of Italy was ruled by
either Spain or Austria. Rome, the seat of the Papacy, exerted
influence among the Catholic nations, while Venice and Genoa were
independent mercantile cities of some standing. Many of the
remaining territories, however, were merely bargaining counters
petty possessions that were passed around between the greater
European powers as they jostled for supremacy within the
continent. This state of affairs persisted in some measure until
the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century.
The Thirty Years' War
Italy's problems paled beside the destruction in
central Europe caused by the Thirty Years' War, which ploughed a
bloody furrow across the continent between 1618 and 1 648. The
conflict had begun as a seemingly minor internal dispute within
the Austrian Hapsburg Empire. In 1619, the Protestant citizens of
Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) rejected the Catholic Emperor
Ferdinand II and chose Frederick the Elector Palatine as monarch.
The next year, the Imperial lorces reacted by defeating
Frederick's army at the Battle of the White Mountain, and it
appeared the rebellion had been quashed.
Instead, the religious overtones of the conflict
soon triggered further violence. Fearing that the Catholic
influence would spread further north, two other Protestant powers,
Denmark and Sweden, joined the fray. The Danish army proved no
real threat and sued for peace at the Treaty of Lubeck in 1629.
However, the Swedish forces, led by Gustavus Adolphus, the
so-called "Lion of the North", cut a swathe through the German
provinces. Mainz and Munich both fell, and even Vienna came under
threat. Only the death of Gustavus at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632
threw the outcome of the war back into the balance.
A new twist was added in 1 635, when the French
became involved in the final phase of the conflict. Although a
Catholic power, France sided with the Protestants of Holland and
Sweden in a bid to undermine the powerful Hapsburg Empire. By and
large, it was successful, and when the Peace of Westphalia finally
brought an end to hostilities in 1648, France was established as
the leading force in European affairs.
Civil war in England
While the last act of this protracted struggle
was being played out, an equally destructive war raged on the
other side of the Channel. There, too, religious and political
differences intermingled with disastrous effect. On the surface,
the reign of Charles I (1625-49) was blighted by a long-running
constitutional dispute between the King and his Parliament.
Charles attempted to govern like an absolute monarch, but lacked
the political flair to carry it off. For 1 1 years, he ruled
without Parliament, until the outbreak of war in Scotland forced
him to recall the governing body in 1640. Behind the inevitable
resentment that had simmered during these years of "tyranny" there
lay a growing suspicion about the King's commitment to the Church
of England. Charles's Catholic Queen was deeply unpopular and,
when the Archbishop of Canterbury revamped the Anglican liturgy,
critics condemned it as an imitation of the Roman Mass. So, when
the Civil War finally erupted in 1 642, it was not surprising that
the Puritan factions should ally themselves with Parliament
against the King.
The struggle between the Royalists and the
Parliamentarians one of whose leaders was Oliver Cromwell, a
committed Puritan was to last for seven years. Following
catastrophic defeats at the battles of Marston Moor in 1644 and
Naseby in 1645, the initiative drifted away from the King. He
surrendered at Newark in 1646. Supporters of the Parliamentary
cause agonized for some time over what should be done with their
regal captive but, in the end, compromise proved impossible.
Charles was put on trial and was then beheaded at Whitehall in
1649.
England was declared a Republic and named the
"Commonwealth." This state of affairs continued for just 11 years,
and for much of that time the reality of power was vested not in
Parliament but in Cromwell, who assumed the title of Lord
Protector in 1 653. Under his leadership, Britain regained much of
its authority abroad winning victories in Ireland, gaining
possession of Dunkirk and Jamaica, and successfully concluding the
AngloDutch War. None of this counted for anything, though, when
the Monarchy was restored in 1660 two years after Cromwell's death
and Charles II ascended the throne. Cromwell's body was exhumed
from its resting place in Westminster Abbey and hanged on the
gallows at Tyburn, near London, the place of execution for
criminals. His head was impaled on a pole and displayed outside
Parliament.
The New World: trade and colonization
While the countries of Europe were occupied with
such turbulent events, they were also increasingly concerned with
affairs in the New World across the Atlantic, as well as with
their better-established trading concerns in the Indies (southern
Asia). In the sixteenth century, colonial expansion had been
largely limited to Portugal and, especially, Spain, whose
conquistadors established a large colonial empire in Central and
South America, destroying the Aztec civilization in the process.
In the early years of the seventeenth century the eastern seaboard
of North America was settled by France, Britain.
and Holland, and competition for the seemingly
endless possibilities of overseas wealth was fierce. Overseas
trading companies were set up by governments to exploit the
production of valuable commodities, each having a trading monopoly
in a given area and often wielding considerable political
influence. The most famous of these were the British, Dutch, and
French East India Companies. In the Americas, the growth of
valuable export products such as coffee, sugar, and tobacco came
to depend on slave labour. A trading triangle developed in which
slaves were taken from Africa and traded for goods in the
Americas, where they were set to work in the plantations; the
ships that had brought them meanwhile returning with their cargos
to Europe where their owners amassed fabulous wealth.
Initially, therefore, the newly discovered parts
of the world were viewed as an unlimited opportunity for
commercial exploitation and profit. Increasingly, however, these
areas, particularly the Americas, were settled, often by people
seeking to escape religious persecution. In 1605 French settlers
established Quebec; in 1612 New Amsterdam (now New York) was
founded by the Dutch on Manhattan Island; and in 1620 the Pilgrim
Fathers Puritan Separatists who had fled England established
Plymouth as the first permanent colony in New England. As the
first successful bases in the colonization of the continent by the
rival European powers, such settlements marked a significant phase
in the great European expansion that had begun in the 1490s with
Columbus and da Gama. The New World was viewed by many as offering
real hope for new ways of life.
English opera
In England, in the mid-sixteenth century, the
influence of the Puritans ushered in an era of austerity. The
theatres were closed down for the duration of the Commonwealth,
soldiers were quartered in Westminster Abbey, and a large portion
of King Charles I's splendid art collection was sold off.
Ironically, the same period also witnessed the first stirrings of
English opera. Plays set to music qualified as "concerts" and thus
escaped the ban that affected the stage. Hence The siege of
Rhodes, which was first performed in 1656 and was described by
its authors as "a story sung in recitative musick", has been
tentatively acknowledged as the earliest English opera. In truth,
this and most of its immediate successors might be defined more
accurately as "semi-operas." Henry Purcell, whose father had been
one of the performers in The siege of Rhodes, wrote several
semi-operas, among them The fairy queen and King Arthur,
and also produced the first English opera of genuine merit
with his Dido and Aeneas in 1689.
The expanding role of music
Although the Church and the Court remained the
principal sources of patronage, it gradually became accepted that
music might also serve a useful purpose outside these relatively
limited circles, in Britain and elsewhere. Vivaldi, for example,
was employed for much of his career as a violin teacher at the Pio
Ospedalc della Pieta in Venice, an orphanage for girls. The
regular performances given by the girls under Vivaldi's direction
were not commercial undertakings public concerts of this sort
did not really take root until the Classical era but rather
emblems of civic pride.
The broadening appeal of music had several
important consequences. First, it led to an extraordinary increase
in the volume of music that was required. The concept of playing
the "classics" or of having a stock repertoire did not exist. New
pieces of music were composed and then discarded at an alarming
rate, Vivaldi's notoriously prodigious output being an example of
this. Sometimes, they would be played only once -perhaps for a
particular occasion before being set aside and forgotten. This,
in turn, meant that the ability to write quickly was essential. A
hastily produced piece of music was not seen as the tell-tale sign
of a casual attitude but rather as proof of the composer's
professional skill.
Closely allied to this was the growing
importance of the individual performer. The Baroque era was the
age of the showman - the virtuoso. For the first time, both
singers and instrumentalists were really encouraged to stretch
their talents to the limit. In the realm of opera, this made stars
of the castrati male singers whose beautiful, youthful voices
were artificially maintained through castration. This practice was
at its peak during the heyday of the Baroque Italian opera. These
virtuosos did, however, help to undermine the sort of dramatic
tension that had been achieved in the type of opera developed by
Monteverdi. Increasingly the recitative, which carried the
storyline of the play, was interrupted by more and more arias
often complex, beautiful, set-piece melodies in which the singers
could show off their skills.
Exhibitionist tendencies were not confined
simply to vocalists. Composers, equally, were eager to put their
talents in the spotlight. One of the most popular ways of doing
this was to create music that mimicked natural sounds. The four
seasons by Vivaldi, with its birdsong and weather effects, is
probably the best-known example, but the practice became
commonplace. Johann Kuhnau's Biblical sonatas contained a
clever imitation of the sound of David unleashing his sling
against Goliath played on, of all things, a harpsichord. J.S.
Bach used the same instrument to convey the noise of coach horns
in his Capriaio on the departure of a beloved brother, but
the supreme keyboard virtuoso was Domenico Scarlatti. Hidden
within the compositions that he produced for the Spanish court
were ingenious imitations of street cries, strumming guitars, and
hoofbeats.
This kind of showmanship surfaced partly because
musical entertainments were growing longer a full-scale opera,
for example, gave composers far greater scope for elaboration
and partly because instruments were becoming more sophisticated.
The main development here was in the field of violin manufacture.
The violin had appeared in the early years of the sixteenth
century, but it was in the Baroque era that the town of Cremona in
Italy produced the three giants of violin-making Nicolo Amati,
Giuseppe Guarneri, and, most famous of all, Antonio Stradivari.
The fact that a provincial Italian city should
have become the centre for such an important craft is no
coincidence, for Italy remained the dominant musical force in
Europe throughout most of this period. Composers as diverse as
Bach and Handel both had their roots in Italian styles, while
Jean-Baptiste Lully, the musician who did most to provide a
distinctive national school in France, was actually born Giovanni
Battista Lulli, an Italian.
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Antonio Stradivari
Italian violin maker
(c. 1644-1737) |
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Louis XIV: the Sun King
The emergence of an independent style of music
in France was hardly surprising, given the political strength of
the country during the long reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715). The
King was less than five years old when he succeeded to the throne,
his early years clouded by a series of civil disturbances called
the Frondes (after the slings used by the rioters). At
times, the violence grew so bad that the child had to be hustled
away from Paris to St Germain, where he slept on straw. The memory
of these terrifying episodes left Louis with a permanent dislike
of Paris and a pathological loathing of disorder.
Accordingly, when he was old enough to manage
his affairs, the King determined to leave his hated capital and
move the seat of government to his newly enlarged chateau at
Versailles. Believing literally in the divine right of kings, he
was anxious to reduce the influence of the old nobility and the
Parlemcnt (the powerful Pans law court), concentrating all power
in his own hands. He kept the nobles in check by encouraging them
to lose themselves in the excesses of his court at Versailles,
corrupting them with a dazzlingly extravagant lifestyle, and thus
weakening their capacity to act against him. However, there was
much more to Louis's reign than superficial display; under his
rule, France acquired new road systems, ports, and canals, a
modern police force, navy and merchant marine, a manufacturing
industry, and a flourishing export business. "L'litat e'est
Мел" ("I am the State") was Louis's motto, an eloquent description
of absolutism.
In cultural matters as much as in politics,
Louis exercised complete control, presiding over a golden age in
the arts. France became the epitome of civilization, envied and
emulated by the rest of. Europe. French classical drama was at its
peak, exemplified in the tragedies of Corneille and Racine, as
well as in the satirical comedies of Moliere. The same period also
witnessed the creation of the Royal Academy of Fainting and
Sculpture in 1 648 and the reorganization of the Gobelins, the
celebrated tapestry factory, in 1662. Louis became known as le
Rot Soldi (the Sun King), a reflection of the splendour and
brilliance of his regime.
Music, too, had the King's stamp upon it. Louis
surrounded himself with music, in his personal life and on
ceremonial occasions; his military victories would be celebrated
with specially composed Те Deums. A musician and enthusiastic
dancer himself, Louis actively encouraged the development of the
comedie-ballet, a new operatic form that grew out of a
collaboration between Lully and Moliere. This extravagant mixture
of song, dance, comedy, and spectacle was supremely elegant and
formal, yet also much lighter than the prevailing strains of
Italian opera, being adapted to suit French tastes.
The splendour of the court at Versailles
eclipsed all others and spawned countless imitations. Critics
later argued that it isolated the monarch from his subjects and,
in so doing, sowed the seeds of the French Revolution. There may
be some truth in this, but there was, nevertheless, a logic behind
Louis's actions. Like the papacy at the start of the century, he
was seeking to project an aura of grandeur that would make the
monarchy an institution worthy of reverence, inspiring both
loyalty and obedience.
During the first half of Louis's reign, this
grandiose image was reinforced by victories on the battlefield. In
1667, he invaded the Spanish-controlled southern Netherlands. His
initial advance was checked, but a second invasion in 1672 was
more successful, and the Dutch only managed to hold him back by
opening their dykes and flooding the country. Louis's triumphs
were recognized in the Treaty of Nijmegen (1678), when Hainaut and
the Franche-Comte were ceded to France.
The golden age of Holland
Despite setbacks such as these, the United
Provinces of Holland (the northern part of the Netherlands, which
had won independence from Spam in the previous century) enjoyed a
golden age of their own at this time. The Republic's extensive
trade with the Baltic region and the Indies had helped to turn
Amsterdam into the financial capital of the world, and the city's
banking, insurance, and share-dealing services had boosted its
reputation still further. This prosperity, and the sense of
security it generated, served to stimulate a flowering of the arts
and sciences. Christiaan Huyghens invented the pendulum clock,
while Anton van Leeuwenhoek and Jan Swammerdam made important
discoveries in the field of microscopy. In the art world Holland
produced geniuses of the stature of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans
Hals. Musically, the most significant figure was Jan Sweelinck,
sometimes known as "the Father of the Fugue", who was the city
organist m Amsterdam from 1577 until 1621. His teachings made him
a household name as far afield as Poland, although he is probably
best remembered today for his influence on J.S. Bach.
Music and the Protestant Church
In Germany, as in Holland, organ music played a
crucial role in Protestant worship. It is necessary to distinguish
between the Lutherans and the more extreme followers of Calvin.
Martin Luther had been an enthusiastic musician he possessed a
fine tenor voice and composed music himself and he actively
encouraged the continuing tradition of Church music. This was in
sharp contrast to the Calvinists, who, in keeping with their
precepts of religious asceticism, prohibited organ music and tore
out the instruments from their places of worship.
These acts of ideological vandalism were
particularly disturbing to many communities, as the organ was seen
as a tangible symbol of municipal pride. Indeed, individual cities
vied to sign up the most prestigious performers on the organ with
a rivalry often as intense as the competition between present-day
football clubs. At Leipzig in 1723, for example, the city council
were disappointed when they only managed to secure the services of
Bach as their Director of Music. He had been their third choice
after Telemann, who had used the situation to demand a raise in
salary at his post in Hamburg, and Graupner, who was still under
contract to another employer. Perhaps because he 'was not a
technical innovator, Bach enjoyed a comparatively modest
reputation in his own lifetime.
The career of Handel could hardly have been more
different, although he was born in the same year as Bach. Where
the latter was content to continue working in provincial
seclusion, Handel sought and found the limelight, enjoying a
roller-coaster career in London as both composer and impresario.
His methods could be unconventional there is a story that he
once dangled one of his divas out of a window and threatened to
drop her if her singing did not improve but they soon brought
him international acclaim. When the fashion for Italian opera
began to wane, Handel switched his attentions to its religious
equivalent, the ORATORIO.
ORATORIO Extended
musical setting of a (usually) religious text with solo
voices, chorus and orchestra. Developed in Rome in the
mid-17th century, it had a similar structure to an opera but
was presented in a concert hall rather than acted out on
stage.
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The end of an era
The fact that Handel chose to settle in London,
which had hitherto been something of a backwater in operatic
terms, may well reflect the shift that had taken place in the
European balance of power.
After 1680, the supremacy of the French began to
look less secure. In the East, the threat of a Turkish invasion
receded when Jan Sobicski and his Polish forces relieved the siege
of Vienna in 1683. This, however, left the Austrian Emperor free
to turn his attention towards the West. Five years later, Louis
XIV suffered the even greater blow of England's "Glorious
Revolution", when the Catholic James II was ousted from the
English throne, to be replaced by his old adversaries, William and
Mary (respectively, Stadholder of the Netherlands and James's
daughter). The presence of a Protestant king across the Channel
was all the more disastrous in the wake of the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes in 1685. With this act, Louis had cancelled the
rights to freedom of worship that had been granted in 1598, thus
provoking the hostility of the entire Protestant cause.
The scale of the problem became apparent during
the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), when French troops
were committed on four separate fronts in Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy, and Spain. Resounding defeats at Blenheim in
1704 and Malplaquet in 1709 threatened to undo all Louis's
achievements, although the unexpected victory at Denain in 1712
partially retrieved the situation. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713
left France territorially intact, but brought great benefits to
the growing British Empire, including the acquisition of
Gibraltar, Minorca, and Nova Scotia.
The death of Louis XIV in 1715 after a 72-year
reign marked the passing of an era. Jeers and catcalls could be
heard at his funeral procession, signifying the death-knell of
absolutism. In France, the theologian and writer Francois Fenelon
argued that the divine right claimed by the Monarchy contravened
Christian teachings; in England, philosopher John Locke asserted
that it was incompatible with the inalienable rights of the
individual. People were beginning to challenge the notion that the
authority of a pope or a king should be accepted without demur.
The Baroque, with all its emphasis on grandeur and obedience, was
giving way to the rational values of the Enlightenment.
