Saturday, April 26, 2014

The Mannerism of Madrigalisms

In my last article in the series (somewhere around a month ago--apologies for the long wait!), I outlined the trends of sacred music at the end of the Renaissance. This included moving away from the elaborate productions of mid-Renaissance style, and returning to the simpler, more text-focused music for liturgical purposes.

Secular music, on the other hand, felt no such need. In fact, it just got crazier.

Mannerism is a generic term, not restricted to music at all, and in fact is more often used to describe visual art. Nevertheless, it is the perfect term to describe what happened with secular music at the end of the Renaissance, around 1560-1600. According to Webster's dictionary, mannerism is defined as follows: 


a :  exaggerated or affected adherence to a particular style 
                           b  :  an art style in late 16th century Europe characterized by spatial incongruity and excessive elongation of the human figures



In other words, taking a style to such an extreme that before long, people will grow sick of it and move away from that that style for good. This is exactly what happened with both art and music at the end of the 16th century. Here is a painting by one of the most famous Mannerist painters, El Greco (1541-1614). As you can see, the proportions are a little funky, the colors are vivid, and the emotions are intense and obvious. Mannerist art can get a little overwhelming, but it achieves its purpose nicely. By the time you get done studying this picture, you'll have a very a clear idea of what the artist wanted you to think or feel. 

The exact same thing happened with secular music. Composers were already writing madrigals, and, as we discussed a while ago, one of the characteristics of the madrigal was word painting. By the end of the 1500s, word painting, through either melody or harmony, was taken to such an extreme, and was so married to the genre that the technique became known as madrigalisms. 

Madrigalisms included frequent and unusual use of chromaticism, sometimes abandoning what sense of key signature music had developed by this point. One type of chromatic harmony that was particularly unique in that time period was the cross-relation. This referred to a note played in both its natural and its sharp or flatted version at the same time, or in very quick succession. For instance, a five voice madrigal might have the soprano line singing a C sharp at the same time the second tenor is singing a C natural. This type of dissonance is perfect for expressing the intense emotions desired by the Mannerist composers such as Carlos Gesualdo or Cipriano de Rore.

Another choice by composers of late Renaissance madrigals rather than ones earlier in the century was the type of text. Earlier compositions included literary poetry such as sonnets, and the text was always chosen for its sophistication and quality. By the end of the period, texts were chosen for their emotional content, and, if looked at critically, could even come across as slightly manic or unstable. However, once again, they were perfect for the effect.

This madrigal by Gesualdo is one of my examples of the Mannerism in composition. If you take a moment to follow along in the score, you will see the extensive chromaticism and non-diatonic harmonies. A small portion of the text reads:
"I depart." I said no more, for grief
robbed my heart of life...
"Hence in pain I remain, Ah may I never
cease to pine away in sad laments."

Crazy, huh? By the early 1600s, this style had been done to death, and people were ready for a change. Enter... the Baroque! Which we will discuss next time, because I have to get ready to play for an opera. 

Oh, by the way... if you're interested, there's a 7:30 pm show on Saturday, April 26 and a 2pm show on Sunday April 27 of Hansel and Gretel, an opera that's actually in English, and has some pretty fun moments. It's in Robinson Hall at UNC Charlotte, and really would be worth it. Even if you don't like opera. Would love to see you there!

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Music Theory 101 #5: The Basic Skills of Music; Rhythm: Pt. 2

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Music Theory 101 series on ASMTB! I hate that last week was a dud but I had a lot going on I had to take care of (mostly pertaining to updating the site soon!) and posting sort of slipped my mind. I am really sorry about that, but I hope this episode and the updates will make up for this little mishap!

Today's lesson is to continue talking about rhythm in comparison to the six basics of music. If you would like to follow along with the previous ones then I made a tab above (If you're reading this from the newsletter then head on over and show us some love). As I mentioned in the last post, duration is the length a pitch is produced. I failed to bring up that it is not strictly related to pitches, but can measure rests as well. Rests are something that are not commonly mentioned because they are simpler than pitches, however they have an equal amount of importance compared relative to music. Music can be seen as a very carefully planned balance of sound and silence. Composers such as John Cage and Penderecki made sure that it was clear composers and musicians should know these differences. If you are interested in hearing these pieces, check out "4:33" by John Cage and "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" by Penderecki. Both of them are earfuls for two different reasons! Digressing from modern music and back onto my last post, we see that I explained how music is divided counting wise and what the time signature is. Now we need to continue and explain more on these concepts.

Music Terms:

~Dotted Rhythm
~Simple & Compound Meter
~Tuplets (Triplets, Duplet, etc.)

Credit: Music-Mind.com
Music does not only divide two ways, but it is possible to divide it into more divisions. The first way is to use dotted rhythm. Dotted rhythms is when you add a dot after the note. The dot represents adding half of the original value to the note. So if you add a dot to a half note, then you have a half note PLUS another quarter note, making it equal to three quarter notes. Also, adding a dot after a whole note makes it a half note added onto the whole note. If you want to add more dots, then you add half of the last value. So a double dotted half note is one half note, PLUS a quarter note PLUS an eighth note. So you half three and a half quarter notes.

The uses of this makes it possible to have compound meters. The best way to explain compound meter is through actual examples. If we take a look at most music, one can feel music in a two or as in four. This is called simple meter. It is either feeling a beat, or pulse, as "one & two &" or something that can be subdivided into half. All of these include 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, or anything related to them. Compound meter comes into play for meters such as 6/8, or 12/8 where the beat is broken into 3. For a more classical and audible examples of this, listen to Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" compared to his "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (Click on the names to hear audio). Eine Kleine is in a simple meter because the division of the beat is in two, versus Jesu which is in 12/8 and is subdivided in three.

Credit: Scaletrainer.com
If you do not want to write a piece that is completely one way the entire time, you can use tuplets. Tuplets is the generic term used to define a rhythm in a different rhythmic subdivision. The most common example of these are triplets. Triplets are when you fit three notes in the space of two, such as fitting three quarter notes within a two quarter notes. The reverse is true as well, you can fit 2 notes in the space of 3. Using a duple, you can fit two notes within three. It is even possible to fit more in a space.

Before this drags on much longer, I'm going to wrap up rhythm here. Later on, I'll write a full post on polyrhythms and other cool things one can use rhythm for. For now however, this will be the end of this discussion and I'll start with the next topic of this series. Until then, this is Sulli signing off! 

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Alessandro Scarlatti: Supreme Musical Innovator

Ok, folks, due to prepping for sophmore review, superjuries, end of semester projects, and exams, my brain is complete mush this weekend, and I really don't want to subject you to reading brain mush. So, in lieu of writing the next post in our music history series, I shall make a brief digression and instead present to you a portion of said end-of-semester project for my music history course. Please enjoy a condensed biography of the great Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti. 


Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti is one of the most influential composers of the Italian Baroque period. Scarlatti wrote extensively for the musical theatres of his day: cantatas, serenatas, and of course dozens of full length operas, the genre in which his influence is most recognized. Church music also makes up a good portion of his works, in the form of oratorios and masses. Later in his life, Scarlatti touched on instrumental music, although little survives, and seems to be merely diversionary rather than a primary focus. He left this type of composition to his famous son Domenico. Spending his life rotating between several major Italian cities—Rome, Venice and Naples—and patronized by such kingpins as the Medici family, Scarlatti was able to spread his influence through many outlets and raise the bar for both opera specifically and general compositional practice for the rest of the world.



Scarlatti was born in 1660, in the heart of the Baroque period, to a family already primed to produce great musicians. His father Pietro was a singer, and four of his six siblings were also professional musicians. Scarlatti would go on to continue the tradition, with the composer Domenico Scarlatti as his most famous son, as well as two other children earning their own respect as performers. His family moved to Rome when he was 12, and he married into high society in 1678. Nothing is known of his early musical training, but such training obviously took place, for his first opera, Gli equivovi nel sembiante, was produced shortly before his 19th birthday. There is some speculation that Scarlatti may have trained under Roman composer Carissimi, who passed away when Scarlatti was in his teens. This speculation is mostly based on the strong influence of Carissimi’s style seen in Scarlatti’s early work.

The success of this first opera threw Scarlatti into the notice of many of the aristocracy of Rome as well as the fairly international audience of Roman courts and ambassadors. Before long, he was appointed maestro di capella, or choirmaster, for the court of the mysterious Queen Christina of Sweden, a noblewoman estranged from her home country upon conversion to Catholicism. She supported Scarlatti in his work as he continued to write and produce operas. He was in some disfavor with the Church at this point for two reasons. First, opera was a controversial subject at the time, with edicts from as high up as the Vatican condemning it as indecent and liberal. There was also some outcry when Scarlatti’s secular musicians were brought in for church performances. The second reason was that Scarlatti’s sister Anna, a popular singer, was accused of inappropriate behavior with more than one church official. Despite these issues, at least two cardinals commissioned oratorios from Scarlatti for Lenten services.

Fame did not keep Scarlatti in Rome for very long, however. Shortly after he produced his wildly popular opera, Il Pompeo, he moved his family to Naples, the city which would become his favorite and eventually the home of his old age. The next 18 years were spent here, writing operas and oratorios, as well as sacred works and chamber cantatas for private performance. It was during this period that Scarlatti began to develop his own unique opera style which in turn would become the prescription for other composers of the genre to follow. Characteristics of Scarlatti’s operas include arias in ternary form, very little music independent of the texts, and the lowered importance of the chorus. Although operas such as La Rosaura and Pirro e Demetrio received most acclaim, some modern scholars feel that his chamber cantatas were the outlet for “the most profound of his musical ideas.”

It was also in Naples that Scarlatti received the patronage of Ferdinando de Medici, and celebrated the birth of several of his children, including Domenico. He even wrote and directed a serenata for the visit of King Phillip V of Spain, a celebration in which his rival, Corelli, also participated but received less than favorable reviews. The serenta, Venere, Adone, et Amore, was composed near the end of his time in Naples, in 1696. The occasion was an annual summertime festival in Naples with the guest of honor being a newly appointed Spanish viceroy, well known to be a patron of the arts. Scarlatti turned out at least two other popular serenatas this same year, working with the poet Francesco Paglia.

In 1702, he visited the Medici family in Florence, but did not find the success he was looking for, and returned to Rome. For the next 20 years, Scarlatti, along with his son Domenico, moved from city to city, searching for the elusive position which would provide both artistic satisfaction and financial stability. While this period was in general a very disappointing era of Scarlatti’s life, there were a few high points. In 1706, he was inducted into the Arcadian Academy, a sort of literary honor society originally formed by Scarlatti’s old patron, Queen Christina. The year after, Il Mitridate Eupatore, one of his most acclaimed operas, was performed in Venice.

In 1722, Scarlatti left Domenico, who was now earning respect as a composer in his own right, in Rome and retired to Naples to live in relative poverty until his death in 1725. Although his later years brought him fewer public accolades than his early successes, there were still those who appreciated his genius. One Neapolitan newspaper stated that “as [Scarlatti] increases in age, so all the more does he acquire new and sublime ideas in his compositions.” His tombstone, with an epitaph written by Cardinal Ottoboni, longtime collaborator with Scarlatti, sums it all up with the title of Musices Instaurator Maximus, or, Supreme Musical Innovator.