Baroque Mass: Vivaldi Mass: Gloria

Follow the music and listen for the homophonic chorus, the trumpet fanfare at the beginning and Plagal Cadence iv-i at the end of the voice part.

The Perfect Cadence comes on the last notes of the piece to give a feeling of closure. V-I!

Toccata and Fugue in D minor performed on the organ.

This super famous fugue starts at the 3 minute mark.

In a Fugue there are four voices or lines or colours as this programme illustrates.

In the Exposition (beginning) of a Fugue, the first phrase to happen before the second colour or phrase begins is called the Subject. The Second phrase or colour is called the Answer.

• If the Answer begins on the Subdominant(Chord 4) It is called a Tonal Answer.
• If it goes to the Dominant (Chord 5) it has a Real Answer.
• After the Answer (Real/Tonal) the final two voices play the Subject. and then the Development Section begins where rhythmic and melodic ideas of the fugue are explored.

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 op. 1 Allegro Moderato.

Baroque concerto written by Bach

violins, violas, cellos and harpsichord

Ritornello form. The same tune comes back again and again.

Imitation, repetition, contrapuntal (polyphonic),

Tocatta and Ritornello and vocal excerpt.

This is a piece of music from one of the first ever surviving operas “Orfeo”. This music  was the catalyst for the move to the Baroque period where music became more ordered, in a more strict sense, with more structure and ornamentation or decoration.

A ritornello is simply, “a little return”. The music from the beginning comes back again and again and again. The keys of the music may change for variance.

Listen out for the Turns, Mordents, harpsichord, trumpets, The singer sings in a recitative style. Recitative is when a singer sings words over a selection of  sustained chords.

Listen out for the Woodwind in one of the later ritornellos!

The structure looks like this. ABACADAEA…. Where the letter A represents the Ritornello and the subsequent letters represent the singer.