Undergraduate Course: Special History in Music: From Palestrina to Corelli - Music in Baroque Rome (MUSI10084)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Students taking this course will become familiar with the music composed in Rome between c. 1580, when Giovanni P. da Palestrina was at the height of his powers, and the death of Arcangelo Corelli in 1713. Students will become familiar with a broad spectrum of Roman baroque repertory, covering genres of liturgical music, opera, oratorio and instrumental music. The course will examine some important musical innovations emanating from Rome during this period which were to have a huge influence across the rest of Europe. Genres such as the cantata, oratorio and opera will be studied, as well as large- and small-scale Mass and motet settings, organ and instrumental music. The contributions of composers like Gregorio Allegri, Giacomo Carissimi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Bonifazio Graziani, Luigi Rossi, Alessandro Scarlatti and Arcangelo Corelli will be assessed. The context in which this music was produced will also be considered, relating it to architecture, painting and sculpture and the patronage of Rome's papacy, ecclesiastical institutions and powerful patrician families. The influence of the architectural spaces in which baroque music was performed will be taken into account. |
| Course description |
The course will examine the music written in Rome between c. 1580 and 1713, looking at genre, style and context. It will study patterns of commissioning and consumption by Rome's elite, as well as more popular responses. It will seek to relate Roman baroque music to its historical context and to place it in juxtaposition with the art and architecture of the spaces in which it was performed.
1. Can we call Palestrina a 'baroque' composer? Baroque elements in Palestrina's music and that of his contemporaries. The religious and cultural background to baroque Rome.
2. Coping with Palestrina's legacy: the Roman stile antico: the Anerio brothers, Gregorio Allegri (including his Miserere). The papal choir.
3. Stile moderno: small-scale concertato writing in Rome. Giovanni B. Nanino, Giovanni F. Anerio, Bonifatio Graziani. Confraternities and smaller churches.
4. Roman opera. Barberini family patronage. Emilio de'Cavalieri, Stefano Landi, Marco Marazzoli, Luigi Rossi.
5. Roman oratories and the oratorio. Virgilio Mazzocchi, Giovanni Giacomo Carissimi.
6. The Roman cantata, sacred and secular. Rossi, Graziani, Alessandro Scarlatti. Rome's palaces and villas.
7. The colossal baroque: large scale polychoral music. Palestrina, Orazio Benevoli, Ottavio Pitoni. St. Peter's and other basilicas.
8. Rome's institutions and patronage in the high baroque. Parallel movements in art and architecture: Caravaggio, Domenichino, Bernini and Borromini. The arrival of Queen Christina of Sweden.
9. Roman instrumental music: from Frescobaldi canzonas and organ music to the development of the orchestra. The trio sonata and concerto grosso. Arcangelo Corelli.
10. Rome's influence abroad: France, Germany, Britain, Spain. Summing up.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | Music 1D OR Music 2A OR Music 2B where students are not on a BMus degree programme.
Honours students with good musical knowledge from other subject areas may be admitted after consultation with the course organiser.
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| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least three Music courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of this course students will be:
1. Able to assess the contribution made to baroque music by Roman composers from Palestrina to Corelli.
2. Able to analyse, and make critical judgements on, that repertory.
3. Able to relate Roman baroque music to its historical context, to the institutions or individuals who commissioned and consumed it, to the spaces in which it was performed, and to other art-forms produced in Rome at the same time.
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Reading List
Tim Carter and John Butt eds., The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Music, eds. (Cambridge, 2005).
Peter Allsop, Arcangelo Corelli: new Orpheus of our times (Oxford, 1999).
Claudio Annibaldi, Storia della Cappella Sistina: il Seicento (Palestrina, 2011).
John W. Hill, Roman monody, cantata, and opera from the circles around Cardinal Montalto (Oxford, 1997).
Frederick Hammond, Music & spectacle in baroque Rome: Barberini patronage under Urban VIII (New Haven, 1994).
Frederick Hammond, Girolamo Frescobaldi (Cambridge, Mass., 1994).
Noel O'Regan, 'Asprilio Pacelli, Ludovico da Viadana and the Origins of the Roman Concerto Ecclesiastico', Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music 6 (2000).
http://www.sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v6/no1/Oregan.html
Margaret Murata, Operas for the papal court, 1631-1668 (Ann Arbor, 1981).
Giovanni P. da Palestrina, Motetti policorali (a dodici voci in tre cori, da fonti manoscritte), edited with an introduction by Noel O'Regan, Edizione Nazionale delle opera di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Vol. V (Rome, 2013).
Howard E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio, vol. 1 (Chapel Hill, 1977).
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Ability to analyse music from a broad range of genres.
2. Ability to read historical and critical writing and to discuss it.
3. Ability to prepare and write critical essays on a chosen topic.
4. Ability to prepare and deliver a presentation.
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| Special Arrangements |
The usual special arrangements for students with particular learning profiles will apply. |
| Keywords | Music, Baroque, Rome, Palestrina, Corelli, History of Music |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Noel O'Regan
Tel: (0131 6)50 2429
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Annabelle Evans
Tel: (0131 6)50 2422
Email: |
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