Baroque music
The Baroque sound world
Roughly 1600–1750. The exam tests continuo practice, genre definitions, dance forms, fugue terminology and the difference between Italian, French and German styles.
Core concepts
- Basso continuo: a bass line plus figures realized by keyboard and a melodic bass instrument; figured bass numbers show intervals above the bass.
- Monody and seconda pratica: solo voice with continuo, text over counterpoint; the Florentine Camerata leads to early opera (Peri's Euridice, 1600; Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, 1607).
- Fugue: subject, real or tonal answer, countersubject, episode, stretto, pedal point.
- Ritornello form: an orchestral refrain returns in related keys between solo episodes (Vivaldi).
- Suite: allemande (moderate 4/4), courante (running triple), sarabande (slow 3/4, accent on beat 2), gigue (compound, often fugal); optional gavotte, bourrée, minuet.
- Vocal: da capo aria (A–B–A), recitative secco/accompagnato, cantata, oratorio, passion; French overture (slow dotted section, fast fugal section).
Worked example
A fugue opens with the subject in the tonic, then the answer in the dominant while the countersubject accompanies it. When a later entry overlaps the subject before the previous one finishes, that is stretto - a sign of tightening, not a new exposition.
Traps that cost marks
Calling the answer a second subject; confusing ritornello with rondo; forgetting that the da capo repeat is ornamented; treating all Baroque concertos as concerto grosso (a solo concerto uses one soloist).
Polish context
Mielczewski, Zieleński and Gorczycki show the Italian style absorbed into Polish chapel music.