# Outstanding innovations/distinctive features of Baroque period/style



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

What in your opinion were the most outstanding innovations or distinctive features of the Baroque period/style in classical music?

I'm certainly neither a music historian nor musicologist, but from my own experience and understanding, it seems to me a couple that would make the short list are:

• Tonality — Development of the practice of creating a musical work unified or centered around a particular tonal key.

• Form — Development of standardized or conventional forms, often with similarly structured sub-sections, such as sonatas, concertos, suites, etc.

I think considering this might deepen understanding of this era of music. I'd appreciate other perspectives on the issue of what particularly distinguishes the Baroque era in music.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

Counterpoint is the big one, though not omnipresent. On one hand you have Bach, the great-grandaddy of the fugue and sophisticated counterpoint, and then you have more streamlined composers like Telemann or Händel (To be fair I haven't listened to a ton of Händel so maybe there is more counterpoint in music than I know of).


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

I'm also very very far from being a music historian or musicologist, but I've always understood that the line between Renaissance music and Baroque music is more about people like Monteverdi dramatically setting aside complex contrapuntal polyphony in favor of monodies based more around one main melody with harmonic support - in other words, a new privileging of 'vertical' harmonic constructions over the Renaissance's more 'horizontal' interest in cascades of overlapping forward-moving melodies. And that this change is of course intimately tied to the development of tonality as a replacement for modal thinking, which seems like the other biggest thing that signifies Baroque-ness. Like, as far as I know, Bach's complex counterpoint was regarded, in his own time, as a very 'old-school' almost archaic feature of his music, though of course he pushed it in all kinds of new directions.

However I think given the many relatively sudden changes to the theory and practice in music across western Europe from the Renaissance to the Baroque, I think it's also fair to think of the dividing line as not a specific stylistic shift but rather a set of many independent shifts that were all extremely accelerated by the sudden and enormous influx of wealth into Europe via colonialism. Like, there was A) new demand for radically innovative music because European colonial powers wanted to celebrate their newfound prestige and status as empires, and B) much more opportunity, because of the increased wealth of society, for more people to devote more of their time to composing, printing music, thinking about music theory, etc.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Nawdry said:


> What in your opinion were the most outstanding innovations or distinctive features of the Baroque period/style in classical music?
> 
> I'm certainly neither a music historian nor musicologist, but from my own experience and understanding, it seems to me a couple that would make the short list are:
> 
> ...


A good composer to explore to answer this is Trabaci, Bk 1 rooted in pre baroque ideas, bk 2 more clearly baroque. Sergio Vartolo recorded both books separately so it's easy to get hold of the music in performance. Monteverdi Bk5 is another good one, the end is firmly in the baroque I think, the beginning more pre baroque.

It's also instructive to explore the other end, to see what changed as you left the baroque. J S Bach is very interesting for this, with, for example, Clavier Ubung I containing both baroque and less baroque partitas.

Let me know what conclusions you come to.


----------



## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka rightly mentions Monterverdi, and the intriguing and gradual evolution from modality to tonality is evident in his works.

That Book 5 was a horse of a different color did not escape the notice of scholar and theorist Giovanni Artusi. Artusi was offended by the "imperfections" in Monteverdi's part-writing, specifically in the (at that point unpublished) madrigal Cruda Amarilli. In his _On the Imperfections of Modern Music_ Artusi writes, "The writing [of the madrigal] was not bad - though…it introduces new rules, modes, and idioms that are harsh and hardly pleasing to the ear. It could not be otherwise, for these new rules break the [established] good rules…These new rules must therefore be deformations of nature…They are far from the purpose of music, which is to delight."

Monteverdi answered Artusi and as we know his deformations of nature continue to delight audiences to this very day.


----------



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Thanks for this quite entertaining response. Emphasizes the key role of developments in instrumentation in the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. I suspect this was facilitated by the quickening pace of overall technological development in this era.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Nawdry said:


> Thanks for this quite entertaining response. Emphasizes the key role of developments in instrumentation in the transition from Renaissance to Baroque. I suspect this was facilitated by the quickening pace of overall technological development in this era.


Yeah, one incorrect information presented in the video is about equal temperament (0:48). Equal temperament actually didn't become widespread until atonality started to dominate European music, in the 20th century. Buxtehude and Bach preferred Werckmeister I (III) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werck...ect_temperament"_based_on_1/4_comma_divisions


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Buxtehude and Bach preferred Werckmeister


How do you know?


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Nawdry said:


> What in your opinion were the most outstanding innovations or distinctive features of the Baroque period/style in classical music?
> 
> I'm certainly neither a music historian nor musicologist, but from my own experience and understanding, it seems to me a couple that would make the short list are:
> 
> ...


In regard to form, there were some standardized forms in the Renaissance, most significantly the Mass, which was THE form of the era.

Another aspect of the change from the Renaissance to the Baroque: at the end of the Renaissance and into the beginning of the Baroque the most important music was sacred and vocal...by the end of the Baroque secular music overshadowed sacred...and instrumental became arguably more important than vocal.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Haydn70 said:


> Another aspect of the change from the Renaissance to the Baroque: at the end of the Renaissance and into the beginning of the Baroque the most important music was sacred and vocal...by the end of the Baroque secular music overshadowed sacred...and instrumental became arguably more important than vocal.


Is this a quantities claim - that there was more instrumental music played in c17 than in c16? If so, can you show me some evidence, it doesn't sound obviously true to me. Neither does the claim about increasing secularisation, but I could be wrong.

Re forms, it may well be true that standard forms _with structured subsections_ came into their own in instrumental music in the c16.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Is this a quantities claim - that there was more instrumental music played in c17 than in c16? If so, can you show me some evidence, it doesn't sound obviously true to me. Neither does the claim about increasing secularisation, but I could be wrong.
> 
> Re forms, it may well be true that standard forms _with structured subsections_ came into their own in instrumental music in the c16.


"Is this a quantities claim - that there was more instrumental music played in c17 than in c16?"

Yes, it is a quantities claim. But remember I was not talking 16th century v. 17th century, I was talking Renaissance v. Baroque.

But for starters let's compare those two centuries.

Two quotes from Grout's "A History of Western Music", long considered a classic undergraduate music history text:

"In the latter half of the sixteenth century, the Mass, the motet, and the madrigal were coming to the end of a long period of development. By the end of the century these had reached an apex of beauty that was not to be surpassed in any succeeding age and their relative importance declined after 1600. Instrumental music, on the other hand, was steadily increasing in both quantity of output and in the skill with which composers were learning to write idiomatically and to manipulate and expand musical forms independently of a text; the growth continued without interruption into the following century." [Steadily increasing but still behind.]

"Instrumental music in the first half of the seventeenth century was gradually becoming the equal, both quantity and content, of vocal music."

And remember in the late 17th century we see the dramatic rise of keyboard music, specifically organ music, specifically German organ music by composers such as Schütz (d. 1672), Pachelbel (d. 1706) and Buxtehude (d. 1707). In Italy we see the dramatic rise of ensemble music, the trio sonata and the concerto in particular. The most important composer was Corelli and all of his works--four sets of trio sonatas, one set of solo sonatas, and this crowning achievement, the Opus 6 Concerti Grossi-were all composed in the period c. 1680-1700.

I think all of this points to the fact that more instrumental music was played in 17th century than in 16th. At the* very least* by 1700 instrumental music was on equal footing with vocal which was definitely not the case in the 16th century.

And if we go back to my original comparison, Renaissance v. Baroque, we then can include the instrumental works of Vivaldi, Handel, Bach, Telemann, etc…so no contest there.

Regarding sacred v. secular, my first response was going to be that instrumental music is, by its nature, secular in that there is no text (specifically sacred in the case of our discussion) to be transmitted. So, it follows: increasing amount of instrumental music = increasing amount of secular music. (And I know there are instrumental pieces that can be considered sacred such as Biber's Rosary Sonatas but they are very few in number.)

However I got to thinking that when you wrote "increasing secularization" you might have been thinking about not whether the music was instrumental or vocal but where a person in 1680 would HEAR any music, i.e., in a church v. anyplace else.

For example, the organ music I discussed above would only be heard by the mass of people in churches. So we have the question of whether you want to consider the performance venue a factor in defining sacred v. secular.

For myself in differentiating between the two I do not consider whether a piece was played in a church or a non-religious space. Tons of organ music was played in churches…but that, for me, does not make it sacred music.

As such, I will stick by my original claims.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> How do you know?


https://stereosociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BACHandTUNING-screen.pdf#page=20
"Among the primary reasons for Bach's extended stay in Lübeck may have been the organ tuning Buxtehude used, which this author believes was Werckmeister III tuning. Werckmeister scholar Ursula Hermann discovered that as a student in Lüneburg, J.S. Bach once sang a composition written by Andreas Werckmeister entitled Der Mensch vom Weibe geboren. Bach's idea of an extended stay in Lübeck after first achieving full-time employment was probably hatched at this time."


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> https://stereosociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/BACHandTUNING-screen.pdf#page=20
> "Among the primary reasons for Bach's extended stay in Lübeck may have been the organ tuning Buxtehude used, which this author believes was Werckmeister III tuning. Werckmeister scholar Ursula Hermann discovered that as a student in Lüneburg, J.S. Bach once sang a composition written by Andreas Werckmeister entitled Der Mensch vom Weibe geboren. Bach's idea of an extended stay in Lübeck after first achieving full-time employment was probably hatched at this time."


Is there any argument in there that the Luneburg organ was Werkmeister III, nor that Bach preferred it to other tunings? I'll have a look later on about the tunings in the organs which Bach had built.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I think Corelli pretty much developing common practice tonality and harmony has to be a big deal. Of course Bach and Handel perfected this.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Haydn70 said:


> "Is this a quantities claim - that there was more instrumental music played in c17 than in c16?"
> 
> Yes, it is a quantities claim. But remember I was not talking 16th century v. 17th century, I was talking Renaissance v. Baroque.
> 
> ...


He clearly doesn't rate Monteverdi! There's tons and tons of c16 instrumental music for keyboard and consort and viol.

(By the way I don't think it's true that organ music was necessarily connected with the mass. People gave secular organ concerts in church (Sweelinck for example, never played organ as part of a religious ceremony if I remember right.))


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

GucciManeIsTheNewWebern said:


> Counterpoint is the big one, though not omnipresent. On one hand you have Bach, the great-grandaddy of the fugue and sophisticated counterpoint, and then you have more streamlined composers like Telemann or Händel (To be fair I haven't listened to a ton of Händel so maybe there is more counterpoint in music than I know of).


Handel used a great deal of polyphony, but was at the same time a more melody-oriented composer than Bach.


----------



## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

cheregi said:


> I'm also very very far from being a music historian or musicologist, but I've always understood that the line between Renaissance music and Baroque music is more about people like Monteverdi dramatically setting aside complex contrapuntal polyphony in favor of monodies based more around one main melody with harmonic support - in other words, a new privileging of 'vertical' harmonic constructions over the Renaissance's more 'horizontal' interest in cascades of overlapping forward-moving melodies. And that this change is of course intimately tied to the development of tonality as a replacement for modal thinking, which seems like the other biggest thing that signifies Baroque-ness. Like, as far as I know, Bach's complex counterpoint was regarded, in his own time, as a very 'old-school' almost archaic feature of his music, though of course he pushed it in all kinds of new directions.
> 
> However I think given the many relatively sudden changes to the theory and practice in music across western Europe from the Renaissance to the Baroque, I think it's also fair to think of the dividing line as not a specific stylistic shift but rather a set of many independent shifts that were all extremely accelerated by the sudden and enormous influx of wealth into Europe via colonialism. L*ike, there was A) new demand for radically innovative music because European colonial powers wanted to celebrate their newfound prestige and status as empires, and B) much more opportunity, because of the increased wealth of society, for more people to devote more of their time to composing, printing music, thinking about music theory, etc*.


Good post. I was thinking the same (with much less expertise), in response to Gucci's post about counterpoint.

Do know of any good books on the bolded bits?


----------



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Haydn70 said:


> I think all of this points to the fact that more instrumental music was played in 17th century than in 16th. At the* very least* by 1700 instrumental music was on equal footing with vocal which was definitely not the case in the 16th century.


Just on the basis of my own impressions and "anecdotal evidence", it would seem that instrumental composition began to proliferate and become much more robust in the Baroque compared with the Renaissance - another distinctive characteristic.


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

RogerWaters said:


> Good post. I was thinking the same (with much less expertise), in response to Gucci's post about counterpoint.
> 
> Do know of any good books on the bolded bits?


Hmmm I wish I did, I would love to read a more in-depth study of this process - this is just information synthesized from Internet sources... maybe someone else can help?


----------



## Nawdry (Dec 27, 2020)

Haydn70 said:


> In regard to form, there were some standardized forms in the Renaissance, most significantly the Mass, which was THE form of the era.
> 
> Another aspect of the change from the Renaissance to the Baroque: at the end of the Renaissance and into the beginning of the Baroque the most important music was sacred and vocal...by the end of the Baroque secular music overshadowed sacred...and instrumental became arguably more important than vocal.


Excellent points, especially on the issue of form. Yes, I did overlook the mass, also the motet and perhaps canon. Was the cantata not also a vocal music form developing in the Renaissance?

Another good point about the development (or enrichment) of instrumental music in the Baroque as compared with the Renaissance.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Mandryka rightly mentions Monterverdi, and the intriguing and gradual evolution from modality to tonality is evident in his works.
> 
> That Book 5 was a horse of a different color did not escape the notice of scholar and theorist Giovanni Artusi. Artusi was offended by the "imperfections" in Monteverdi's part-writing, specifically in the (at that point unpublished) madrigal Cruda Amarilli. In his _On the Imperfections of Modern Music_ Artusi writes, "The writing [of the madrigal] was not bad - though…it introduces new rules, modes, and idioms that are harsh and hardly pleasing to the ear. It could not be otherwise, for these new rules break the [established] good rules…These new rules must therefore be deformations of nature…They are far from the purpose of music, which is to delight."
> 
> Monteverdi answered Artusi and as we know his deformations of nature continue to delight audiences to this very day.


Artusi was clearly right, the modernism of this Monteverdi guy sucks. He doesn't belong to the real tradition of classical music.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Nawdry said:


> What in your opinion were the most outstanding innovations or distinctive features of the Baroque period/style in classical music?
> 
> I'm certainly neither a music historian nor musicologist, but from my own experience and understanding, it seems to me a couple that would make the short list are:
> 
> ...


To me music has reached its historical pinnacle in the Baroque Age, in all terms of perfection: form, tonality, thematic variety, melodic richness, harmonic potential, expressiveness, philosophical relation, aesthetics. All comes into the highest point of the graph of the musical development in history. The best invention of the Baroque music is perfection.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

norman bates said:


> Artusi was clearly right, the modernism of this Monteverdi guy sucks. He doesn't belong to the real tradition of classical music.


No, Monteverdi was not about modernism, the Practica Prima reached its highest point with Orlando di Lasso and Giovanni Gabrieli, further use of this style will only severely constrain the musical expression against the ever new texts. For example, the texts of german cantatas were mostly contemporary to their time, the musical development by Monteverdi was not only important but also urgently needed. To understand the importance of Monteverdi`s work, one has to listen to early baroque a lot.

Another example is the French early baroque music in the 17th century, Lully dominated the whole middle 17th century french music because in the early 17th century french music was too conservative being stuck in the 16th century measured polyphony which was losing audience quickly, the french kings themself were asking for more italianate music to no avail untill Monsieur Lully came. Monteverdi`s work was inspiring more freedom to the music to express more emotionally, the most obvious result is the more smooth melodic lines as many can listen from his younger generations influenced by him: Francesco Cavalli, Giacomo Carissimi, Heinrich Schutz, Kaspar Forster.

If one is still not clear with the strictness of the Prima Practica, listen to Orlando di Lasso, how can you imagine such austere style can suite to the ever changing trend of the following Baroque Age in sacred literature and religious life?


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Ariasexta said:


> No, Monteverdi was not about modernism, the Practica Prima reached its highest point with Orlando di Lasso and Giovanni Gabrieli, further use of this style will only severely constrain the musical expression against the ever new texts. For example, the texts of german cantatas were mostly contemporary to their time, the musical development by Monteverdi was not only important but also urgently needed. To understand the importance of Monteverdi`s work, one has to listen to early baroque a lot.
> 
> Another example is the French early baroque music in the 17th century, Lully dominated the whole middle 17th century french music because in the early 17th century french music was too conservative being stuck in the 16th century measured polyphony which was losing audience quickly, the french kings themself were asking for more italianate music to no avail untill Monsieur Lully came. Monteverdi`s work was inspiring more freedom to the music to express more emotionally, the most obvious result is the more smooth melodic lines as many can listen from his younger generations influenced by him: Francesco Cavalli, Giacomo Carissimi, Heinrich Schutz, Kaspar Forster.
> 
> If one is still not clear with the strictness of the Prima Practica, listen to Orlando di Lasso, how can you imagine such austere style can suite to the ever changing trend of the following Baroque Age in sacred literature and religious life?


Interesting. What do you think of those madrigalists who pushed modal/polyphonic/imitative style to expressive extremes, like later Marenzio or Gesualdo? To my ears they sound very free, not austere at all, and very well-equipped to express the emotion of newer texts - in many ways better-equipped than monody.

And even in the context of your emphasis on church music there is the very common practice of turning secular madrigals into sacred by changing the texts - I forget the name for this practice...


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

cheregi said:


> Interesting. What do you think of those madrigalists who pushed modal/polyphonic/imitative style to expressive extremes, like later Marenzio or Gesualdo? To my ears they sound very free, not austere at all, and very well-equipped to express the emotion of newer texts - in many ways better-equipped than monody.
> 
> And even in the context of your emphasis on church music there is the very common practice of turning secular madrigals into sacred by changing the texts - I forget the name for this practice...


There is a CD featuring contrafacta motets by the "Le Poème Harmonique" ensemble: Anamorfosi. The result of contrafacta sacred works is foreshadowing the Carissimi`s style in general, a sweet lyricality, less austerity but slightly more emotionally imparting. There is a discretion in emotional expressiveness to be noted all along the Baroque Age, starting from this innovation by Monteverdi known as Practica Seconda.

Artusi attacked Monteverdi for Monteverdi being the youngest to practice this trend not for the quality of his music, as Monteverdi`s younger brother said, it was Cipriano de Rore who truly invented it but only he only enhanced the dissonant effects in his madrigals and did not use this practice on sacred music also, whereas Monteverdi significantly broke down the symmetric vocal parts in his madrigals, verbally using dramatic style into the madrigals. These works are already secular cantatas, which could be very shocking to conservatives like Artusi. This is just problem of formality in respecting the formal definitions of the Madrigal, not about the musical style or quality.

Gesualdo was individualistic in his musical style, not innovative, he glorified de Rore`s achievement like dissonance and steep chromaticism but always remained loyal to the doctrine of formal symmetry in vocal parts. Their skills express poignancy and elegance in combination with later legacy of Monteverdi in early baroque age.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ariasexta said:


> *No, Monteverdi was not about modernism*, the Practica Prima reached its highest point with Orlando di Lasso and Giovanni Gabrieli, further use of this style will only severely constrain the musical expression against the ever new texts. For example, the texts of german cantatas were mostly contemporary to their time, the musical development by Monteverdi was not only important but also urgently needed. To understand the importance of Monteverdi`s work, one has to listen to early baroque a lot.
> 
> Another example is the French early baroque music in the 17th century, Lully dominated the whole middle 17th century french music because in the early 17th century french music was too conservative being stuck in the 16th century measured polyphony which was losing audience quickly, the french kings themself were asking for more italianate music to no avail untill Monsieur Lully came. Monteverdi`s work was inspiring more freedom to the music to express more emotionally, the most obvious result is the more smooth melodic lines as many can listen from his younger generations influenced by him: Francesco Cavalli, Giacomo Carissimi, Heinrich Schutz, Kaspar Forster.
> 
> If one is still not clear with the strictness of the Prima Practica, listen to Orlando di Lasso, how can you imagine such austere style can suite to the ever changing trend of the following Baroque Age in sacred literature and religious life?


actually the argument "The writing [of the madrigal] was not bad - though…it introduces new rules, modes, and idioms that are harsh and hardly pleasing to the ear. It could not be otherwise, for these new rules break the [established] good rules…These new rules must therefore be deformations of nature…They are far from the purpose of music, which is to delight." seems exactly the kind of argument used by many conservative listeners against any kind of modernism. And it's quite fun to see how in every century there have been exactly the same arguments "music is supposed to be like this, this breaks the rules of the tradition and therefore is wrong" for music that is still appreciated after centuries.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

norman bates said:


> actually the argument "The writing [of the madrigal] was not bad - though…it introduces new rules, modes, and idioms that are harsh and hardly pleasing to the ear. It could not be otherwise, for these new rules break the [established] good rules…These new rules must therefore be deformations of nature…They are far from the purpose of music, which is to delight." seems exactly the kind of argument used by many conservative listeners against any kind of modernism. And it's quite fun to see how in every century there have been exactly the same arguments "music is supposed to be like this, this breaks the rules of the tradition and therefore is wrong" for music that is still appreciated after centuries.


Seconda Practica and Prima Practica were to be merged into the Baroque style, which matured in all genres of the musical repertoir. In the Renaissance the sacred musical works were severely regulated in writing techniques, but in the secular music world, the development was always forward looking to the latest Baroque Age. For example, the Greensleave tune, was composed around 1500s, this tune sounds trenscendentally modern in all ages, it shows that the potential of the Baroque style was always simmering since the Middle Age. Untill the beginning of 17th century, such potential was not given enough expression. The Baroque Music had rippen all the mature fruitions of the musical potential of the classical tonality, which is in fact a trenscendental and a modern thing way down since its introduction by Pythagoras. No music can be made without the theoretical foundation on which the Baroque music flourished: the greensleave, the Amazing Grace, Non Mi far Monaca, La Folia, Christmas Carols all indispensable tunes and songs we have today have the same theoretical root with Baroque music.

I am not saying Modern music is bad, nobody is there except me who would argue strongly in favor of the Baroque music and appreciate their founding history. One can not ignore today we have people like Richard Dawkins who use their braincells to denigrate everything into nihilistic rubbles, why would someone use their brain to propose so many ugly arguments? to excuse for vulgarity, violence, selfishness? Modern west today is on a crusade against their own established heritages on the visible stage, full of contradictions in the political and social movements, in their stated values and their excution. Nobody(maybe commie knows?) knows what they are really thinking, I can not even conceive a consistent image of the west without their classical cultures.


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Ariasexta said:


> Seconda Practica and Prima Practica were to be merged into the Baroque style, which matured in all genres of the musical repertoir. In the Renaissance the sacred musical works were severely regulated in writing techniques, but in the secular music world, the development was always forward looking to the latest Baroque Age. For example, the Greensleave tune, was composed around 1500s, this tune sounds trenscendentally modern in all ages, it shows that the potential of the Baroque style was always simmering since the Middle Age. Untill the beginning of 17th century, such potential was not given enough expression. The Baroque Music had rippen all the mature fruitions of the musical potential of the classical tonality, which is in fact a trenscendental and a modern thing way down since its introduction by Pythagoras. No music can be made without the theoretical foundation on which the Baroque music flourished: the greensleave, the Amazing Grace, Non Mi far Monaca, La Folia, Christmas Carols all indispensable tunes and songs we have today have the same theoretical root with Baroque music.


So you see medieval and Renaissance modal systems as a stepping-stone on the way to the Baroque? Or as a kind of interruption between two eras of tonality? For me it is the transition from modal to tonal music that is a kind of fall from grace for Western thought, heralding an era of unprecedented anthropocentrism and egoism... To quote those who have influenced me in this:

"It's with the modern, i.e. tonality, that we encounter a closed system reterritorialized via inscription in the tonic-dominant space: That world is dictated via container instead of being explored via (multiply) internal motion."

"the current widely-accepted musical model of striving after the desired tonal resolution ... only gained its current place of unquestioned dominance after the seventeenth century. Prior to this time ... there were other musical forms that stressed pleasure over desire, that were about existing voluptuously in the moment, rather than striving after change. In the age of imperialism, conquest, and the rise of capitalism, though, the current ... narrative became so dominant that many of us just accept it as 'the way music works.'"

So, as I see it, tonal structures that demand resolution and progress are closely tied up with the nihilistic rubbles, the vulgarity, violence, selfishness, that you describe - and we agree completely about Richard Dawkins, what an embarrassing man. But, I love Baroque music, especially early Baroque, because compared to Renaissance it feels like chaos in all directions, intoxicating freedom, embrace of contradictions... actually very different from how you seem to be thinking of it. And then by later Baroque or classical all the chaos is reigned in, the new normative system is established, and it is actually much much more restrictive than Renaissance ever was...


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

cheregi said:


> So you see medieval and Renaissance modal systems as a stepping-stone on the way to the Baroque? Or as a kind of interruption between two eras of tonality? For me it is the transition from modal to tonal music that is a kind of fall from grace for Western thought, heralding an era of unprecedented anthropocentrism and egoism... To quote those who have influenced me in this:


I never consider modal music as a tool for the Baroque to reach masturity, rather I see the consistency of the musical development since Pythagoras untill the end of the Classical era as a showpiece of philosophical and artistical validity, a kind of self-proving mechanism that ends in incomparable perfection. Such consistency also happens in other fields of human attributes achieved by the west: religion, science, humanist philosophy. It is the most amazing part of the west for me, the consistency in the historical development untill communism, at least so far in all the aspects we can see.

I can not see anything in the west what marxists denounced as hypocrisy untill the marxists themself talk: while the colonial capitalist lies are easy to know, but the marxist lies are more psychologically oppportunistic, people always tend to ignore it is the opportunism of marxism that convinces never whatever the facts they tell, the marxists never tell anything freshier than what people already know. So is the case with Richard Dawkins, he is a complete opportunist pretending as a rationalist and atheist. Is it off-topic? it is always true that music can never be insulate to the contemporary social conditions(politics in euphemism), and we must not always take ancient people to be stupider than us, and we will see how their society worked in the way of justice all along like their music tells us.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

> "It's with the modern, i.e. tonality, that we encounter a closed system reterritorialized via inscription in the tonic-dominant space: That world is dictated via container instead of being explored via (multiply) internal motion."
> 
> "the current widely-accepted musical model of striving after the desired tonal resolution ... only gained its current place of unquestioned dominance after the seventeenth century. Prior to this time ... there were other musical forms that stressed pleasure over desire, that were about existing voluptuously in the moment, rather than striving after change. In the age of imperialism, conquest, and the rise of capitalism, though, the current ... narrative became so dominant that many of us just accept it as 'the way music works.'"
> 
> So, as I see it, tonal structures that demand resolution and progress are closely tied up with the nihilistic rubbles, the vulgarity, violence, selfishness, that you describe - and we agree completely about Richard Dawkins, what an embarrassing man. But, I love Baroque music, especially early Baroque, because compared to Renaissance it feels like chaos in all directions, intoxicating freedom, embrace of contradictions... actually very different from how you seem to be thinking of it. And then by later Baroque or classical all the chaos is reigned in, the new normative system is established, and it is actually much much more restrictive than Renaissance ever was...


There is no demanded progress in Baroque music, since Baroque was all about embracing the tradition not defacing it for its own sake. Like many later theorists, they can not establish their attention-gravitation without attacking the old, the traditions, the antiquity right? When one is eager enough to seek for new inspirations from the predecessors, he will never be a progressivist. I think many modern thinkers confuse themself with the materialist perspectives so much that they always have to find faults with the traditions to prop up their own confidence. I can sum up modern atheism and materialism as opportunism through and through, since they can never be independent from attacking the others, the elders; from exploiting the social conditions, the contemporary weakness, the prevalent confusion no matter how much they gain they grow and prosper. When they are done with the ancients, they will start with mother nature, peoples dna, privacy, social morals, anything exists before them will become a target of destruction and sacrilege.

To me, the whole music untill the end of Classical era is as modern as the time can get, it is basically wrong to consider them as something absolutely ancient. While people can respect Pierre de Fermat as much as Bernhard Riemann, why not take the same attitude with music? The overtly materialism at work.


----------



## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

So, almost all the modern philosophy so far is more or less a marxist rubble, people can not get the real grip on their own age, this is the problem. Marxism is the pitfall for all eras since antiquity, it is not a new thing at all, it is a historical blackhole designed for some to fall in on the way to the true contemporary enlightenment. Like marxism is not a defintion of our age, modernism is not a definition of the modern music. All the authoritative definitions of our age is wrong. We need to resuscitate our true vision, to get hold on our time by our own will. 

Our age is too intricate to grossly define with a few directional ideologies like marxism tried to do. It is true in ancient times, majority people had been ignorant, still the world had been led in the right direction but not without heavy prices. As I can see today, we do have an unprecedented chance to get hold on our own time, however, there are also more pitfalls and lies ahead.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Ariasexta said:


> Seconda Practica and Prima Practica were to be merged into the Baroque style, which matured in all genres of the musical repertoir. In the Renaissance the sacred musical works were severely regulated in writing techniques, but in the secular music world, the development was always forward looking to the latest Baroque Age. For example, the Greensleave tune, was composed around 1500s, this tune sounds trenscendentally modern in all ages, it shows that the potential of the Baroque style was always simmering since the Middle Age. Untill the beginning of 17th century, such potential was not given enough expression. The Baroque Music had rippen all the mature fruitions of the musical potential of the classical tonality, which is in fact a trenscendental and a modern thing way down since its introduction by Pythagoras. No music can be made without the theoretical foundation on which the Baroque music flourished: the greensleave, the Amazing Grace, Non Mi far Monaca, La Folia, Christmas Carols all indispensable tunes and songs we have today have the same theoretical root with Baroque music.
> 
> I am not saying Modern music is bad, nobody is there except me who would argue strongly in favor of the Baroque music and appreciate their founding history. One can not ignore today we have people like Richard Dawkins who use their braincells to denigrate everything into nihilistic rubbles, why would someone use their brain to propose so many ugly arguments? to excuse for vulgarity, violence, selfishness? Modern west today is on a crusade against their own established heritages on the visible stage, full of contradictions in the political and social movements, in their stated values and their excution. Nobody(maybe commie knows?) knows what they are really thinking, I can not even conceive a consistent image of the west without their classical cultures.


I'm not sure what you're talking about and what Richard Dawkins has to do with all I've said but one of our most cherished heritage is enlightenment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

Ariasexta said:


> Such consistency also happens in other fields of human attributes achieved by the west: religion, science, humanist philosophy. It is the most amazing part of the west for me, the consistency in the historical development untill communism, at least so far in all the aspects we can see.
> 
> I can not see anything in the west what marxists denounced as hypocrisy untill the marxists themself talk: while the colonial capitalist lies are easy to know, but the marxist lies are more psychologically oppportunistic


Two thoughts:

1) I agree that based on my knowledge now, it looks like the consistency in the historical developments in the West is basically unparalleled, in religion, science, humanist philosophy etc. However I also know that I was raised in a Western, English-speaking context, and, indeed, in a _world_ shaped by Western ideals and thought, and also there is such a monumental amount of institutional/academic labor that goes into making the history of the West as legible as possible, as clear as possible, to draw a straight line from the past to now... meanwhile the world's other intellectual traditions not only appear illegible to me as a Western-educated English-speaker, but even in their own countries people are raised with Western-style education so their own histories appear alien and fragmented and confusing to them... So in the end it seems like I just have to acknowledge that my perspective is limited, and my view of history says more about my present vantage point (probably just after the peak of Western influence on world culture) than it does about the real development of historical thought.

2) I am curious about the idea that the capitalist colonial lies are more easy to know than the marxist lies... I think one of the fundamental paradoxes in the history of Western thought is the fact that the Age of Enlightenment, all these genuinely progressive ideas about human worth and ethics etc., this was all happening exactly at the same time as these same societies were perpetrating completely unprecedented levels of violence around the world... I am not saying the academics and thinkers in Europe were themselves evil or bad, or that colonialism was their fault, not at all... but I do think overall there is a hypocrisy here that cannot be ignored.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

cheregi said:


> I am not saying the academics and thinkers in Europe were themselves evil or bad, or that colonialism was their fault, not at all... but I do think overall there is a hypocrisy here that cannot be ignored.


I can't understand how you can talk about hypocrisy considering what you're saying. The fact that in the same period happen both great and bad thing maybe is due to the fact of the presence of people with different ideas and behaviours. Those who were against slavery weren't hypocrites just because a lot of people were in favor of slavery.


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

norman bates said:


> I can't understand how you can talk about hypocrisy considering what you're saying. The fact that in the same period happen both great and bad thing maybe is due to the fact of the presence of people with different ideas and behaviours. Those who were against slavery weren't hypocrites just because a lot of people were in favor of slavery.


Sure, but, first of all with regards to your specific example of slavery, I'd like to point out the (oft-repeated, but still significant) fact that the American founding fathers, for all their talk of liberty, literally owned slaves, and this is far from the only example of this kind of absurdity within the age of enlightenment... but, regardless, I am less concerned with the hypocrisy of specific individuals (we are all to a certain extent hypocrites, ok, sure) and more concerned with Ariasexta's overall historical narrative of the consistency of Western thought - it seems to me significant that in the transitions from Renaissance to Baroque to Classical, at the exact same time that the volume of writings about human liberty and ethics etc proliferated exponentially, we see also a gradual reduction in acceptance of homosexuality, a new development of a racism grounded in beliefs in biological superiority, and women's rights and visibility in society fluctuating from a peak in the late Renaissance and early Baroque to another long trough before beginning to rise again... and it is important to note that many (certainly not all, but many) of the societies displaced or destroyed by European colonialism actually did have much greater gender equality and tolerance for homosexuality. So, I don't doubt that the great thinkers of Western Europe were individually _good people_ per se, but if we are talking about the overall narrative of a civilization and its intellectual legacy and impact etc, the history of the west strikes me as almost comically disjointed and inconsistent. (and of course there is also the argument that european humanist thinking, in positing man as a totally independent, autonomous creature accountable only to himself, ironically provided a kind of justification for the imposition of his will upon others...)

EDIT: I also want to add - famous double-murderer Carlo Gesualdo is among my favorite composers! And I don't listen to him thinking about what a hypocrite he was, I just enjoy the beautiful music. I genuinely don't think it's _wrong_ to engage with the music of (or, in the case of thinkers, the ideas of) people like that. I am only getting on this soapbox in the context of a conversation about overarching historical narrative and consistency.


----------

