Baroque and Classical Music
| Site: | Moodle Learn My Homeschool |
| Course: | High School Sample Lessons |
| Book: | Baroque and Classical Music |
| Printed by: | Guest user |
| Date: | Saturday, 23 November 2024, 3:20 PM |
Description
My Homeschool Music Appreciation Courses incorporate the study of a variety of composers, their life and music and are studied once a week all year. Two music appreciation courses focusing specifically on composers from the modern era are included in the Year 9A course, designed for students of this age and to complement the era of history being studied. This includes Baroque and Classical, a one term resource examining key composers from the Baroque and Classica eras, including JS Bach and Handel and Mozart and Beethoven.
Subject: Creative Arts and History
1. Lesson 1: What is Baroque Music?
Baroque music is a period of music that is highly ornamental, just like the baroque period of architecture. It is grandiose music, as grandiose as the painted ceilings of baroque style churches that dazzle and shine. It started in Italy around 1600 with a recreation of Greek drama, singing songs in that ancient tradition, but in a new way. Bach’s choral pieces and vocal pieces like Handel’s Messiah are still performed and enjoyed today. It was in this period that what we know as a song today was effectively born. It unleashed the development of opera, instrumental music and choral pieces too: an exciting time!
The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, composed by Handel, is a great example of this lavish sound (3 mins):
This period of music also saw a progression of harmony into a progression of chords and it ushered in a new interest in instrumental music, with groups of violins playing, or groups of flutes playing together for instance. Do remember that at this time while groups of musicians would play together, the orchestra as we know it today did not exist then. If a composer wrote a piece that required a number of musicians to play it then they just simply picked the number of instruments (and musicians) as required. This meant a different approach to even the way music was built and organised, something which sometimes we take for granted these days. Do remember too that this music was performed as soon as it was composed and there were jokes that some pieces were performed before the ink was even dry. These were concerts held in large baroque churches and then it sounded ever so modern, because it was!
Another aspect to remember is that many baroque pieces that we hear today being played on a piano were actually played on a harpsichord. Here is a portion of Bach’s “Goldberg” Variations, which were actually thirty contrasting variations, all variations on an aria (4:50 mins):
These variations were made famous again in the 1950’s when musician Glenn Gould recorded them. He recorded these again in the early 1980’s as they remained popular and you can hear part of it here (12:50 mins):
(Please note that if you are a piano student your piano teacher is unlikely to be supportive of you adapting your physical playing position to emulate Gould’s unique style!)