Italian Harpsichord, late 17th century, The Metropolitan Museum
Figures 4.2 and 4.4
Anthology 6 and Example 4.1
NEW! For more on Frescobaldi, See Girolamo Frescobaldi: An Extended Biography, a superb new website site by Frederick Hammond (Bard College)
Dario Castello, Sonata concertante in stil moderno, Book 2: Sonata no. 2, Musica Fiorita
Anthology 7
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Fantasia chromatica for organ, performed by Juergen Kursawa playing the Hauptwerk organ of Joerg Glebe in a live recording using the sample set of the Schnitger organ in Zwolle Netherlands:
Examples 4.2 and 4.3 (examples begin at 0:00 and 7:46)
Read about harpsichord tuning and listen to Sweelinck’s Fantasia chromatica in three different tunings: Meantone, Werckmeister (a late 17th-century tuning system), and Equal Temperament.
Johann Jacob Froberger, Toccata No. 1 in A minor, FbWV 101, performed by Richard Egarr. (Compare with Figure 4.5 Louis Couperin, Prelude de Mr. Couperin a l’imitation de Mr. Froberger en a mi la):
Example 4.4 (example begins at 0:00)
Tarquinio Merula, Ciaccona from Canzoni overo sonate concertate , Book 3, performed by Il Giardino Armonico:
Example 4.5
Compare the last example to this tenor duet by Monteverdi (not discussed in the chapter), which uses the same ciaccona bass: “Zefiro Torna, o di soavi accenti” published in Monteverdi, Book 9 madrigals:
Figure 4.2
Additional Digital Resources
Visit the following websites and explore photos, sounds and other relevant discussions about 17th century instruments
- The Department of Musical Instruments of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an extensive collection of musical instruments, some of them featured online.
- The National Music Museum has one of the largest collections of musical instruments in the world and is located at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
- The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has another impressive collection of Musical Instruments with many resources on their website.
- The Yale Collection of Musical Instruments has their own online digital collection with many resources to explore their instruments by category.
- Violin makers: Nicolò Amati and Antonio Stradiveri. Article with pictures and sound files at the Metropolitan Museum
- Harpsichord by Andreas Ruckers (Antwerp, 1643).
- Baroque organ at the Örgryte New Church in Gothenburg. Discussion of North German organs, pictures, and construction process.
Study Questions
- What are some of the ways that national style impacted instrument construction?
- Composers of early seventeenth-century instrumental music were also interested in moving the emotions of listeners. What kinds of strategies did they use? Choose one example in your listening that you found to be particularly moving and explain why.
- Choose one baroque instrument and discuss how it differs from its modern equivalent. If possible, find a performance of a piece on YouTube that is performed on both a modern and baroque instrument. Which do you prefer, and why?
Global Resources for Chapter Four
Further Reading
Boye, Gary. “The Case of the Purloined Letter Tablature: The Seventeenth-Century Guitar Books of Foriano Pico and Pietro Millioni.” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 11, no. 1 (2005). http://www.sscm-jscm.org/v11/no1/boye.html
Collins, Paul. The Stylus Fantasticus and Free Keyboard Music of the North German Baroque. Aldershot, Hants, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57068461
Cunningham, John Patrick. The Consort Music of William Lawes, 1602–1645. Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2010. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/619611629
Cypess, Rebecca. Curious and Modern Inventions: Instrumental Music in Galileo’s Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. https://worldcat.org/en/title/944445011
Dell’Antonio, Andrew. Listening as Spiritual Practice in Early Modern Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/701495663
Hammond, Frederick. Frescobaldi. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8627214
Kite-Powell, Jeffery, ed. A Performer’s Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music. 2nd ed. Publications of the Early Music Institute. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/707212741
Kroll, Mark. Playing the Harpsichord Expressively: A Practical and Historical Guide. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54454529
Mace, Thomas. Musick’s monument; or, A remembrancer of the best practical musick, both divine and civil, that has ever been known to have been in the world. Facsimile. Monuments of Music and Music Literature in Facsimile, 1st ser.: Music. London, 1676; New York: Broude Brothers, 1966. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/20546035
Marsh, Christopher. Music and Society in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/605019363
Mersenne, Marin. Harmonie universelle: The Books on Instruments, trans. Roger E. Chapman. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1957. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/394914
Praetorius, Michael. The Syntagma Musicum of Michael Praetorius. Volume Two, De Organographia: First and Second Part, Plus Illustrations from Theatrum Instrumentorum, captions trans. Harold Blumenfeld. New York: Da Capo Press, 1980. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/5352919
Saint-Lambert, Michel de. Principles of the Harpsichord by Monsieur de Saint Lambert, trans. and ed. Rebecca Harris-Warrick. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9557213
Saunders, Steven. Cross, Sword, and Lyre: Sacred Music at the Imperial Court of Ferdinand II of Habsburg (1619–1637). Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31288065
Silbiger, Alexander. “Fantasy and Craft: The Solo Instrumentalist.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music, ed. John Butt and Tim Carter. Cambridge History of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/57893415
Silbiger, Alexander, ed. Keyboard Music before 1700. 2nd ed. New York and London: Routledge, 2004. http://www.worldcat.org/title/keyboard-music-before-1700/oclc/826515957
Silbiger, Alexander. “Passacaglia and Ciaccona: Genre Pairing and Ambiguity from Frescobaldi to Couperin.” Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music, 2, no. 1 (1996). http://www.sscm-jscm.org/v2/no1/silbiger.html
Sparti, Barbara. “Irregular and Asymmetric Galliards: The Case of Salamone Rossi.” In The Sights and Sounds of Performance in Early Music: Essays in Honor of Timothy J. McGee, ed. Maureen Epp and Brian E. Power. Farnham, Surrey, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/306802256
Stolzenberg, Daniel. Great Art of Knowing: The Baroque Encyclopedia of Athanasius Kircher. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/70774113
Music in the Baroque: Companion Website by Wendy Heller 