Baroque orchestra

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A baroque orchestra is a form of instrumental ensemble that emerged during the Baroque period . In music history, the period from 1600 to 1750 is defined as baroque within what is commonly considered to be “classical music”. Preforms were created as early as the 16th century. In most cases, baroque orchestras are smaller than modern orchestras, as they began to develop with the end of the Viennese Classical period and the early Romantic period at the beginning of the 19th century. Talented musical amateurs often played in the baroque orchestra.

development

While chapels at many courts of the Renaissance had a rather inconsistent and changing composition, the baroque era began to establish the chapels as permanent ensembles, with the musicians often also being lackeys at the courts that occupied them. In Germany, the Hessian Landgrave Wilhelm III applies . as one of the first rulers to afford a court orchestra with a permanent trumpet ensemble in the context of the need for stately representation, thereby following the models of Italian princes.

Standardizing innovations came from France . Jean-Baptiste Lully , who was also a member of the Louis XIII. existing renowned string orchestra Vingt-quatre Violons du Roy (German: "24 strings of the king") was, reformed and unified the orchestra of the Baroque period, not only by adding the oboe , which he and Jean de Hotteterre significantly newly developed (French hautbois ) and also introduced the flute . In addition, uniform clothing and uniform stroke direction were expected from the players of the string instruments. His reforms were echoed across Europe and contributed to the development of the orchestral suite. In addition to the woodwinds and strings, baroque orchestras had the figured bass ( basso continuo ), which was played with instruments such as the lute , theorbo , harpsichord or organ or low strings. With the development towards the early classical period, figured bass was no longer used. The harpsichord, from which the orchestra was initially directed, disappeared completely as an orchestral instrument. The wind instruments preferred in the Renaissance era were increasingly replaced by string instruments.

The brass played a different role. Since they were only partially capable of chromatic play in the Baroque era because of the valves that had not yet been invented , they were initially only used as military or signal instruments and for hunting purposes. However, the special technique of blowing clarin (claro = brightly sounding) developed for the trumpet, so that this instrument developed from a noisy instrument to an orchestral instrument. Technical innovations have also made the horn an orchestral instrument. However, like the timpani, they were not a regular part of the baroque orchestra.

The size of a baroque orchestra could vary depending on financial resources, the ruler's taste, repertoire or the region in Europe. In some cases each instrument was just single, but there were also orchestras with multiple instruments. So worked Johann Sebastian Bach in Köthen with an ensemble of up to 18 musicians. Archangelo Corelli was able to fall back on 35-80 musicians in Rome and up to 150 musicians were available for special occasions.

At the end of the 18th century, the court orchestras began to disband, so that larger orchestras could now emerge.

Modern ensembles for playing early music

Nowadays, a baroque orchestra is understood to mean chamber orchestras that specialize in historical performance practice and play on original instruments or replicas. The revival of playing practice on original instruments was pursued in the 1970s by Nikolaus Harnoncourt , Gustav Leonhardt , Frans Bruggen , Terrence Holford and especially for the trumpet by Edward Tarr . Since then, many ensembles around the world have come together; the most well-known are:

Instrumentation

The main instruments used in the baroque orchestra were as follows:

Examples of recordings of baroque music

  • Corelli Concerti Grossi
  • Antonio Vivaldi, Pietro Locatelli

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wade-Matthews, Max and Wendy Thompson. The Encyclopedia of Music. London: Hermes House, 2004. Retrieved 10 495586 of November 2011
  2. ↑ a b c d Orchester formation. Retrieved August 7, 2021 .
  3. ↑ Music: orchestra. June 11, 2018, accessed August 7, 2021 .
  4. ↑ Projet de Mécénat pour la reconstitution of the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi (Orchester de Louis XIV). October 17, 2007, accessed August 7, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Riemann Musik Lexikon 2012, vol. 5, article suite , p. 155, col. 2.
  6. ↑ Orchestra in Music | School lexicon | Learning aid. Retrieved August 7, 2021 .
  7. ↑ a b c Friedel Keim: Das Trompeter-Taschenbuch - Worth knowing about the trumpet . In: Atlantis-Schott (Ed.): Series Music . tape 8377 . Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, Mainz 1999.
  8. ^ Kurt Janetzky / Bernhard Brüchle: Das Horn . In: Our musical instruments . No. 6 . Hallwag, Bern and Stuttgart 1977.
  9. ↑ Guido Pannain: Arcangelo Corelli . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . Retrieved November 9, 2015.
  10. ↑ The Baroque period 1600–1750. Retrieved August 7, 2021 .
  11. ↑ Simon Murphy - Audio - Corelli Concerti Grossi . In: simonmurphy.instantencore.com . Retrieved April 1, 2019.
  12. ↑ BSG-O souboru . June 23, 2008. Archived from the original on June 23, 2008. Retrieved on April 1, 2019.