Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Music

The Dance in the Baroque Era

The Development of Baroque Ballet

Ballet, evolving within the French court, began its golden era with the creation of the ballet de cour. This form was a result of the collaboration of great artists, often under the patronage of the king's dance company. Many composers of instrumental music also created pieces intended for dance.

Key Baroque Dance Forms

• Allemanda: Of German origin, a quiet dance in binary rhythm with a short initial upbeat.
• Courante: A fast dance in ternary rhythm.
• Bourrée: A French round dance, fast-paced and in binary rhythm.
• Chaconne: A dance of Spanish origin, often sung, quiet, and in ternary rhythm.
• Zarabanda (Sarabande): A solemn dance of Spanish origin, in slow ternary rhythm.
• Giga (Jig): A fast

Spanish Romantic Theater: Characteristics and Key Playwrights

1. Introduction to Spanish Romantic Drama

When romantic dramas began to invade the stages of Madrid, Spanish theater was in serious decline. Bland, imitative moralizing comedies and cold Moratinian classical tragedies constituted the original production. Beyond these, one could only find translations of foreign works or performances of opera. Hence, the new dramatic school achieved resounding success with an audience that had never accepted classical drama.

2. Features of Romantic Drama

Thematic Characteristics

• Historical drama dominates.
• Emphasizes emotional impact, utilizing various effects, contrasts, and surprises.
• Characters' passions become strident, often driven by ill-fated circumstances.

Some instruments featured a simple harmony based on fourths, fifths, and octaves, similar to medieval organum. The quality, richness of timbre, and softness are characteristic of Chinese music.

Historical Periods of Chinese Music

Yuan Dynasty: A Flourishing of Arts

In the 13th century, the Mongols came to China. This period boosted the arts, bringing new scales and instruments. The first operas of this dynasty appeared, and five works are preserved.

Qing Dynasty: Decline and Innovation

The Qing Dynasty saw a significant decline in the arts, with drama being the only genre that was salvaged. Symmetrical melodies were introduced, along with ternary rhythm.

Contemporary Era: Western Influence and New Forms

Joseph Amiot (1784) wrote a significant work... Continue reading "Chinese Music: Dynasties, Theory, and Evolution" »

Elements of a Dramatic Text

• Acts constitute the most important division of a play, beginning with the rise and fall of the curtain.
• Some works' acts are divided into scenes, distinguished by a change of scenery.
• The scenes are part of an act, usually with no change of scene when a character enters or leaves.
• Dialogue between characters is the most important resource of a dramatic text.
• The monologue occurs when a single actor speaks.
• Characters, both major and minor, advance the dramatic action.
• Stage directions are indications that the author proposes (scenery, etc.).
• Asides are messages that go to the public, with actors pretending that the other characters do not hear them.

Elements of Staging

• The stage is where the actors are located.
• The

The Romantic Drama: Don Alvaro, The Troubadour, and Don Juan Tenorio

Key Features of Romantic Drama

Structure and Discourse

• Division of the work into composite days.
• Time in various settings.
• Mixture of verse and prose with a tendency towards polymetry.
• Breaking the rule of three unities, with secondary episodes and genre scenes.
• The conflict occurs in different places and may include jumps of years.
• Mixture of comical and tragic elements, in scenes of dramatic tension and other maxims of intense lyricism.
• High and colloquial styles.

Characters

• The protagonists are often unknown, noble, and generous, and are victims of a blind fate.
• Women love passionately but are condemned to killing and suffering.
• Many secondary characters appear.

Staging

• Staging had great

Defining the Baroque Movement

The Baroque is a 17th-century art movement that sought to reflect, through complex forms, the pain and complexity of human existence. It stands in opposition to the restraint of the Renaissance.

Key Characteristics and Themes

The Baroque is characterized by:

• Pessimistic view of life.
• Formal complexity.
• Realism, contrasting with Renaissance idealism.

Baroque writers aimed to surprise the reader, abandoning Renaissance restraint and utilizing diverse rhetorical devices and conceptual wordplay.

The usual themes explored by Baroque artists include:

• The vanities of life.
• Transience and inconsistency.
• The struggle for existence.

Baroque Lyric Poetry

Baroque lyric poetry maintained the seven-syllable and hendecasyllabic verses and... Continue reading "Spanish Baroque Literature and the Golden Age Theater Structure" »

Vocal Forms in Renaissance and Baroque Music

Motet: "O vos omnes" by Tomás Luis de Victoria

What is a Motet?

A motet is a polyphonic vocal composition with a religious theme, usually in Latin, and distinct from a mass.

Mysticism in 16th-17th Century Spain

Mysticism was very important in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries. Mystics are religious individuals who, through sacrifice, fasting, and similar practices, seek to achieve union with God in this life.

Madrigal: "Ahimè, dov'è 'l bel viso" by Arcadelt

Defining the Renaissance Madrigal

A madrigal is a polyphonic, profane vocal form, typically performed a cappella in the 16th century. It was the most characteristic song type of the Renaissance court.

The Ideal of the Courtier

Imagine four cultured... Continue reading "Renaissance and Baroque Vocal Music Forms Explained" »

Understanding Literary Texts and Their Features

An exhibition is a kind of text meant to inform and provide knowledge to the receiver on a given topic. Through a narrative text, it can define a concept, explain a process, or classify a group of objects or living things.

Main Linguistic Features of Informative Texts

• Dominates the present tense and third person.
• Includes facts and figures.
• Uses adjectives.

The Renaissance: A Period of Transformation

The Renaissance is the historical period following the Middle Ages. It arose in Italy and has the following characteristics: it exalted earthly life. This vitalism is observed in the topic of carpe diem ('seize the day').

Knowledge began to be perceived as a way of improving human well-being. Humanism emerged.... Continue reading "Renaissance Literary Themes and Spanish Mysticism" »

La Celestina: A Timeless Masterpiece

Since the 16th century, *La Celestina* has been the popular name for the work initially titled *Comedy of Calisto and Melibea* and later *Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea*. Attributed almost entirely to the scholar Fernando de Rojas, this transitional piece bridges the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Written during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, its first known edition dates back to 1499. *La Celestina* laid the groundwork for the birth of the modern novel and theater.

Key Themes in La Celestina

• *The Fervor of Love*

  This theme centers on the uncontrollable desire that, while sometimes veiled in the conventions of courtly love, disregards all social and moral norms, ultimately leading to the downfall

Literary Devices

• Alliteration: Repetition of one or more phonemes.
• Anaphora: Repetition of a word at the beginning of each verse.
• Parallelism: Repeated similar grammatical structures.
• Polysyndeton: Repetition of conjunctions.
• Allegory: Transforms the overall meaning of a text to express a different idea, often using metaphor.
• Antithesis: Juxtaposition of words or sentences with opposite meanings.
• Hyperbole: Exaggeration of what is spoken.
• Metaphor: Identifying a real term with an imaginary one based on similarity.
• Metonymy: Designating one thing with the name of something closely related.
• Personification: Attributing human qualities to irrational or inanimate things.
• Simile (Comparison): Comparing two objects using a linking word (like or as).
• Synesthesia: