Musical culture of the Baroque
The world of musical culture of the 17th-18th centuries. extremely complex and varied. It cannot be reduced to any one style or several laconic definitions and formulations. That is why, when talking about baroque music, we will only outline the general picture of its development.
The musical culture of the Baroque was significantly different from the music of the Renaissance. A sense of the inevitability of change and the spirit of innovation reigned in her. One of the music lovers of the early 17th century. wrote with indignation:
“Musicians want to invent something new. And now the new art came to unrestrained licentiousness. Having deviated from the paths outlined by our fathers, young composers create distorted works in which there is no merit except novelty … “
Indeed, music, like no other art, felt the tense, disturbing and unstable spirit of its time. The smooth harmony, poise and optimism of the Renaissance was replaced by a tragic outlook, the composers’ close attention to human feelings and emotions. To express such feelings, music needed new specific means and forms. And they were brilliantly found. The choral polyphony of the Renaissance is replaced by a melodic monophony that can convey the slightest excitement of the human soul.
Baroque music is predominantly secular in nature, in which the democratic tendencies of the era are manifested to a greater extent; all kinds of decorations (melismas) make it the most striking and decorative, which corresponds to the baroque aesthetics. Unstable dissonant accords, unexpected transitions, contrasts and oppositions, melodies that languidly last in time, fast, technically difficult, virtuoso passages in singing, the simultaneous sound of many instruments, the use of dance rhythms – all this determined the essence of baroque music.
The new musical style also penetrates into church music (the organ masses of Frescobaldi, Bach, Handel’s oratorios). But it manifested itself most clearly in opera, the leading genre of baroque music.
