Rationalism and Baroque Music: Evolution and Characteristics
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The Foundation of Rationalism
The rationalist thought in the seventeenth century had leading figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza. They rejected revealed knowledge and argued that reason is the main source of human knowledge, laying the foundations of rationalism.
Italian physicist Galileo Galilei and French mathematician René Descartes most influenced later thought. Galileo Galilei founded the experimental method. From his observations, he formulated the laws of falling bodies and confirmed Copernicus’s heliocentric theory.
René Descartes based his philosophy on scientific rationalism. Knowledge must be based on the intuition of unquestionable principles; from there, reason develops increasingly abstract constructions following a deductive method.
Baroque Art
Baroque art contrasted with the Renaissance ideal of harmony, proportion, and measure. The main characteristics of Baroque art are:
- Dynamism: The Baroque artist creates a constant sensation of movement, favoring curved lines over straight lines.
- Theatricality: The artist aims to evoke emotional responses through ultra-realistic procedures, seen in representations of Christ and sacred imagery.
- Decorativism and Sumptuousness: The Baroque artist attends to both essential and accidental details, showing meticulousness in ornamentation.
- Contrast: The Baroque artist opposes Renaissance balance, incorporating different and even antagonistic views within the same composition.
Baroque Music
The sonata da camera (Italian for “chamber sonata”) and the sonata da chiesa were essential in the evolution of sonata form during the Baroque era.
The sonata da camera, intended for secular performance, typically consists of three or more dance movements with a basso continuo. Arcangelo Corelli’s Opus 2 and 4 contain typical examples.
The sonata da chiesa (Italian for “church sonata”) is a Baroque instrumental composition generally consisting of four movements, alternating slow and fast tempos. The second movement was usually a fugue, and the third and fourth were in binary form.
Three Stages of Baroque Music
- 1580-1630: Baroque instruments began to differentiate from vocal.
- 1630-1680: Full Baroque cantata and opera were consolidated.
- Late Baroque 1680-1750: Death of Bach; works of great extension, vocal and instrumental fully differentiated.
Basso Continuo
The basso continuo (or simply continuo, Italian basso continuo or continuo) is the musical accompaniment used in almost every genre of the Baroque era.
The bass played continuously throughout a piece provides the harmonic structure, complementing the melody. The instrumentation of the basso continuo is often left to the performers’ discretion and can vary widely.
Sonata Form
Sonata form refers to the musical structure of the first movements of sonatas and related genres in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Since the mid-eighteenth century, the term sonata has been used for works of three or four movements for one or two instruments, such as piano sonatas or violin sonatas.