Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations
The Graduate School
2003
Musical Fire: Literal and Figurative
Moments of "Fire" as Expressed in Western
Art Music from 1700 to 1750
Sean M. Parr
Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected]
THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF MUSIC
MUSICAL FIRE:
LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE MOMENTS OF “FIRE” AS EXPRESSED IN
WESTERN ART MUSIC FROM 1700 TO 1750
by
Sean M. Parr
A Thesis submitted to the
School of Music
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Master of Music
Degree Awarded:
Fall Semester, 2003
The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Sean M. Parr defended on
August 20, 2003.
________________________
Charles E. Brewer
Professor Directing Thesis
________________________
Jeffery Kite-Powell
Committee Member
________________________
Roy Delp
Committee Member
The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee
members.
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Musical Examples...................................................................................................iv
Abstract................................................................................................................................v
1. MUSIC, AFFECT, AND FIRE.......................................................................................1
2. KINDLING FIRE: MONTEVERDI AND THE STILE CONCITATO........................19
3. THE FLAMES OF FRANCE AND GERMANY........................................................36
4. INFLAMED WITH PASSION: ITALY AND ENGLAND.......................................55
5. BEYOND THE BAROQUE TRAILBLAZERS..........................................................79
BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................87
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.............................................................................................90
iii
LIST OF EXAMPLES
1.1 Morley “Fyer, fyer!” 1595..........................................................................................18
2.1 Monteverdi “Luci serene” 1603..................................................................................22
2.2 Monteverdi “Quell’augellin che canta” 1603.............................................................23
2.3 Monteverdi from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda 1624..............................24
2.4 Monteverdi from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda 1624..............................25
2.5 Handel from Jephtha 1751.........................................................................................26
2.6 Schütz from Historia der Auferstehung 1623.............................................................29
2.7 Lully from Atys 1676..................................................................................................30
2.8 Lully from Atys 1676..................................................................................................31
2.9 H. Purcell “Let the dreadful engines of eternal will” 1696.........................................34
2.10 H. Purcell “Let the dreadful engines of eternal will” 1696........................................35
2.11 H. Purcell “Let the dreadful engines of eternal will” 1696........................................35
3.1 Rameau from Scene 5 of Pygmalion 1748.................................................................38
3.2 Rameau from Act II, Scene 3 of Platée 1745.............................................................39
3.3 Rameau from Act III, Scene 1 of Platée 1745............................................................40
3.4 Rameau from Act III, Scene 7 of Platée 1745............................................................41
3.5 Royer Le Vertigo 1746................................................................................................43
3.6 Rebel “Le chaos” from Les Eléments 1737-8.............................................................45
3.7 Rebel “Le feu” from Les Eléments 1737-8.................................................................46
3.8 J.S. Bach from first movement of O ewiges Feuer, Cantata No. 34 1746-7..............47
3.9 J.S. Bach “Sind Blitze” from Matthäus-Passion 1727 ......................................49-50
3.10 Telemann No. 4 from Die Donner Ode 1756…........................................................51
3.11 Telemann No. 5 from Die Donner Ode 1756............................................................52
3.12 Telemann No. 6 from Die Donner Ode 1756............................................................53
4.1 A. Scarlatti No. 67 from La principessa fedele 1709.................................................57
4.2 A. Scarlatti No. 62 from La Statira 1690...................................................................58
4.3 D. Scarlatti “Inflammatus et accensus” from Stabat Mater 1713-1719.....................60
4.4 Pergolesi “Fac ut ardeat” from Stabat Mater 1730-1736................................62-63
4.5 Vivaldi “Armatae face” from Juditha Triumphans 1716...........................................65
4.6 Vivaldi first movement of “Summer” from Le Quattro Stagioni 1730s....................66
4.7 Vivaldi second movement of “Summer” from Le Quattro Stagioni 1730s................67
4.8 Vivaldi third movement of “Summer” from Le Quattro Stagioni 1730s...........…....68
4.9 Eccles from Act III, Scene 1 of Semele 1707............................................................71
4.10 Eccles from Act III, Scene 6 of Semele 1707...........................................................71
4.11 Eccles from Act III, Scene 4 of Semele 1707...........................................................72
4.12 Eccles from Act III, Scene 7 of Semele 1707...........................................................72
4.13 Pepusch “By great Cecilia” from The Union of the Three Sister Arts 1723..........74
4.14 Handel “Why do the nations” from Messiah 1742...................................................76
4.15 Handel “But who may abide” from Messiah 1742...................................................77
5.1 Weber final section of Max’s aria from Der Freischütz 1821...................................84
iv
ABSTRACT
This thesis will describe the quality of musical fire and how the representation of
fire in music began and progressed during the Baroque period. In addition to hearing
beautiful sonorities, experiencing a visceral thrill is one of the basic aesthetics that makes
music such an affecting art in Western culture. For the purposes of this thesis, I will
define a “musical fire moment” as a musical passage in which the composer’s language
elicits the quality of some fiery context. These contexts will be defined in this thesis. In
music of the Baroque period, I consider fire to be an affect which is utilized by
composers to attain moments of heightened, fire-like intensity.
There are certain musical works which have texts, characters, or titles including
the actual word, “fire,” or related words, such as “burn,” “flame,” etc. Composers set
such words in different ways in attempting to reflect the appropriate dramatic meaning or
emotion musically. These techniques usually yield feelings of excitement, heightened
intensity, and/or agitation in the listener.
Clearly, such feelings are not limited to vocal music. Purely instrumental music
can and does similarly affect listeners. However, these instrumental fiery moments are
not as immediately evident without the word cues of fiery moments in vocal music.
Nevertheless, one can certainly feel moments of musical “fire” in high intensity moments
in pieces such as the “Summer” concerto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
The origins of the musical expression of fire lie in the stile concitato of
Monteverdi and the generally rhetorical approach to the expression of passion in music
during the Baroque period. Early representations of fire represented in music show that a
key fire-like word was more often painted by itself rather than presented as an affect
lasting for an entire section of a piece. By the late Baroque, fire is presented more
affectively, in complete sections, movements, and entire arias. This thesis will propose a
framework which will serve to categorize musical examples of fiery affect.
v
CHAPTER 1
MUSIC, AFFECT, AND FIRE
Introduction
During particularly dramatic musical moments performers often feel their eyes
widen with intensity. At the same time members of the audience feel their skin tingle
with anxiety and excitement. Personally identifying such a feeling is much easier than
writing about moments that cause such visceral responses. However, the study of music
requires that we describe these moments in prose. Why do critics often describe
performances and pieces as “fiery”? When did such intensely affective music become
commonplace?
This thesis will describe the quality of such musical fire and how the
representation of fire in music began and progressed during the Baroque period. In
addition to hearing beautiful sonorities, experiencing a visceral thrill is one of the basic
aesthetics that makes music such an affecting art in Western culture. For the purposes of
this thesis, I will define a “musical fire moment” as a musical passage in which the
composer’s language elicits the quality of some fiery context. These contexts will be
defined in this chapter. In music of the Baroque period, I consider fire to be an affect
which is utilized by composers to attain moments of heightened, fire-like intensity.
There are certain musical works which have texts, characters, or titles including
the actual word, “fire,” or related words, such as “burn,” “flame,” etc. Composers set
such words in different ways in attempting to reflect the appropriate dramatic meaning or
emotion musically. These techniques usually yield feelings of excitement, heightened
intensity, and/or agitation in the listener.
Clearly, such feelings are not limited to vocal music. Purely instrumental music
can and does similarly affect listeners. However, these instrumental fiery moments are
not as immediately evident without the word cues of fiery moments in vocal music.
1
Nevertheless, one can certainly feel moments of musical “fire” in high intensity moments
in pieces such as the “Summer” concerto of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
The idea of fire in the Baroque period should also be considered in relation to
Baroque psychology. Artists and philosophers were quite interested in the “passions of
the soul.”1 They were preoccupied with representing various extreme feelings, such as
the ecstasy of loving and knowing God and the sorrowful depths of mourning the loss of
a loved one. Just as portrait artists strove for “verisimilitude – the semblance of reality”
in representing faces, so too do Baroque composers attempt to depict the passions
musically as naturally and realistically as possible.2
Early representations of fire in music show that a key fire-like word was more
often painted by itself rather than presented as an affect lasting for an entire section of a
piece. By the late Baroque, fire is presented more affectively, in complete sections,
movements, and entire arias. This chapter will first describe the musical context of the
high Baroque (1700-1750), considering affect, rhetoric, and aesthetics, in addition to
describing the quality and emotional affect of fire in music further. Then the concept of
fire as an affect in a variety of contexts will be discussed. Finally, I will propose a
framework which will serve to categorize musical examples of fiery affect in subsequent
chapters.
Baroque Affect, Rhetoric, and Aesthetics
In determining fire as an affect, it is important to define what the role of an affect
actually entails. Affects are “rationalized emotional states or passions.”3 The concept of
representing a passion in music as an affect is rooted in Greek and Latin doctrines of
oratory and rhetoric. Writers and orators such as Aristotle and Cicero used rhetorical
devices to “control and direct the emotions of their audiences.”4 In many Baroque
treatises on music, such as Jochim Burmeister’s Musica poetica (Rostock, 1606), this
1
John Rupert Martin. Baroque. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977, 13.
Martin, 91.
3
George J. Buelow. “Affects, theory of the.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.
Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. New York: Macmillan, 2001, 1:181.
4
Ibid.
2
2
rhetorical concept directly applied to music, as the composer uses musical-rhetorical
devices to move the listener in a manner similar to impassioned oratory.5
Indeed, rhetorical concepts serve as the basis of most compositional theory and
practice during the Baroque period. Baroque music endeavored to attain a “musical
expression of words comparable to impassioned rhetoric.”6 During the Baroque period
composers sought to paint affects that expressed the texts being set to music. Sections of
arias or movements of programmatic works most often expressed only one affect, which
followed the inherent meaning of the text. The painting of words with musical figuration
of one or more of the elements of music such as pitch level and interval, dynamics,
rhythm, timbre, articulation, harmony, imitation, and repetition often produces an
overriding affect, especially when the meaning of the text implies a particular passion.
Word painting has been employed throughout the history of Western art music. One
rhetorical term, Hypotopsis, is particularly applicable to the subject of fire and affect. In
Burmeister’s Musica poetica, Hypotopsis is described along with many other rhetorical
terms with specific relation to musical figures. The rhetorical device consists of a large
group of figures which all serve “to illustrate words or poetic ideas and frequently
stressing the pictorial nature of the words.”7 Burmeister defines it as:
De Hypotyposi. Hypotypsis est illud ornamentum,
quo textus signification ita deumbratur ut ea,
quae textui subsunt et animam vitamque non habent,
vita esse praedita videantur. Hoc ornamentum
usitatissimum est apud authenticos artifices.
Hypotopsis. Hypotopsis is that ornament
whereby the sense of the text is so depicted
that those matters contained in the text that
are inanimate or lifeless seem to be brought
to life. This ornament is very much in
evidence among truly master composers.8
Affects such as anger, sadness, joy, and fire are all represented in music with figurations
that fit into this rhetorical category.
5
George J. Buelow, Blake Wilson, and Peter A. Hoyt. “Rhetoric and music.” In The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. New York: Macmillan,
2001, 21:262.
6
Ibid.
7
Buelow, “Rhetoric and music.” 267.
8
Joachim Burmeister. Musical Poetics. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by Benito V. Rivera.
New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993, 174-5.
3
Burmeister’s treatise details musical-rhetorical terms, giving examples of each.
Burmeister seems to have used classical oratorical authorities, such as Cicero, in defining
affect in music. In his De Inventione, Liber I (ca. 88 B.C.), Cicero wrote:
Affectio est animi aut corporis ex tempore
aliqua de causa commutatio, ut laetitia,
cupiditas, metus, molestia, morbus, debilitas
et alia quae in eodem genere reperiunter
Affect is a temporary change in body
or spirit due to some cause, such as joy,
desire, fear, vexation, illness, weakness,
and others things which are found in the
same category.9
Burmeister defines musical affect as:
Affectio musica est in melodia vel in
harmonia periodus clausula terminata,
quae animos et corda hominum movet
et afficit.
A musical affection is a period in a
melody or in a harmonic piece,
terminated by a cadence, which
moves and stirs the hearts of men. 10
When describing his list of musical ornaments (figures or parts of speech), Burmeister
qualifies his work, explaining that “their variety is known to be so wide and great among
composers that it is hardly possible for us to determine their number.”11 Indeed, the
beginning of the seventeenth century saw the addition of many innovations in the
expression of text and affect in music, far beyond the Renaissance examples cited by
Burmeister.
While many German musicologists strove to create a consistent doctrine of affect,
Affektenlehre, recent research has shown that Baroque theorists did not establish a single
overarching theory of affect.12 Many theorists did attempt to classify affect in their
treatises, examining the emotive connotations of musical figures, instrumentation, forms,
and styles. Baroque theorists realized that the effort to base musical affect on
impassioned rhetoric was a common element in the craft of most composers of the time.
We cannot be sure that terminology was consistent in the various countries, but the fact
that “musical-rhetorical emphases exist in their music cannot be questioned.”13
Regardless of nationality, most Baroque composers aimed to arouse focused emotional
9
Burmeister, xlix.
Ibid.
11
Burmeister, 157.
12
Buelow, “Rhetoric and music.” 267.
13
Buelow, “Rhetoric and music.” 263.
10
4
states, affects, in the listener. The musical representation of affect was “the aesthetic
necessity of most Baroque composers.”14
This necessity is reflective of the state of philosophical thought during the time
period. The concept of affect was greatly shaped by writings of seventeenth-century
philosophers. René Descartes’s Les passions de l’âme (The passions of the soul,
Amsterdam, 1649) is a work which may have most decisively influenced musical
representation of the passions, because of Descartes’s rationalist, scientific notion of
giving a physiological nature to the passions.15 The idea of affect pervaded all the arts as
a result of this natural philosophy of the 1600s. Descartes confirmed earlier theoretical
writings, such as those of Giulio Caccini, Michael Praetorius, and Charles Butler, which
all referred to the moving of the affects of the soul.16 These earlier works described
music’s power to arouse the passions in listeners. Descartes provided a rational,
scientific explanation for the physiological nature of the passions, thereby giving
philosophical reasoning for the listener’s physical response to musical sound intended to
arouse an affect. Composers during the Baroque period used an intense painting of one
passion to arouse that same passion in the audience. Subsequent composers continued
using musical affect to express words and passions.
Fire as Affect
Most studied affects deal with concrete emotions or passions, such as intense
sadness (a lament affect), joy, anger, and so forth. The idea of studying and labeling fire
as an affect is new, and is both more broadly defined than the above passions, and also
more focused as an affect deeply connected to textual indications, i.e., the word fire and
its associated terms, such as “burn,” “flame,” etc. It is more broadly defined in the sense
that the fire affect encompasses a variety of emotive contexts which include a mixture of
passions. To avoid confusion, all examples in this document will have a clear textual
relation to fire. This will focus fire as the affect because of the explicit text relation to the
intense feeling elicited. Most passionate musical affects do not rely on explicit textual
clues to be interpreted. One would easily deem Dido’s lament in Henry Purcell’s Dido
14
Buelow, “Rhetoric and music.” 269.
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
15
5
and Aeneas (1689) as portraying a sad affect, even without the textual inclusion of
“sorrow” in the lyrics.
Why, then, is fire to be considered an affect? The answer lies in the age-old
connection between fire and emotion. Particularly excited emotions have historically
been compared to fiery feeling. “Heated passion,” “ardent desire,” and “burning rage,”
all are single emotions without the fiery adjective. With such a descriptor, the affect
becomes a fire affect, a generally intensely felt, excited or agitated passion. To see that
fire can indeed be viewed as an affect during the Baroque period, we only need to look at
Descartes’s work on the passions.
In Descartes’s writing on the passions of the soul, he explains five of the primitive
passions (Love, Hatred, Desire, Joy, and Sadness) in terms of the excitations of the soul
and the physiological cause. He connects all causes to variable actions of the heart. The
heart is powered by a fire that is extinguished in death. The fire fluctuates in level
(heartbeat, level of warmth, valve opening, etc.), controlled by a fine wind called animal
spirits. Descartes describes this fire as essential to one’s very being:
Art. 8. Quel est le principe de toutes ces fonctions.
What the principle of all these functions is.
. . . pendent que nous vivons il y a une
chaleur continuelle en notre coeur,
qui est une espèce de feu que le sang
des veines y entretient, et que ce feu est
le principe corporel de tous les mouvements
de nos membres.
. . . while we live there is a
continual heat in our heart,
which is a species of fire that the venous
blood maintains in it, and that this fire is
the bodily principle of all the movements
of our members. 17
Descartes states that the primitive passions are affected by the state of the heart and blood
in characteristic ways. The fire in the heart helps to cause these passions through the
movements and changes in the heart. For example, with Hatred, there is an
accompanying “sharp and prickling heat”; with Joy a quicker pulse and pleasant warmth;
with Desire “it agitates the heart more vigorously than any of the other Passions”; and
with Love it excites a strong heat.18 Descartes’s notion of affect was very much in the
minds of composers and theorists, as performer, composer, teacher, and theorist Johann
Mattheson writes in his Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739):
17
René Descartes. The Passions of the Soul. Translated and Annotated by Stephen Voss. Indianapolis
and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989, 23.
18
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 72-74.
6
Die Lehre von den Temperamenten und
Neigungen, von welchen lektern
Cartesius [de passionibus animae]
absonderlich deswegen zu lessen ist,
weil er in der Music viel gethan hatte,
leisten hier sehr gute Dienste, indem man
daraus lernet, die Gemüther der Zuhörer,
und die klingenden Kräffte, wie sie an
jenen wirden, wol zu unterscheiden.
The doctrine of the temperaments and
emotions, concerning which especially
Descartes [the passions of the soul]
is to be read
because he dealt with music a lot,
serves very well here since it teaches one to
distinguish well between the feelings of the listeners
and how the forces of sound affect them. 19
Mattheson confirms that affect is the still the overriding compositional principle during
the early eighteenth century, writing that in both vocal and instrumental works “the
purpose of music is to stimulate all affections solely through tones and through their
rhythmum.”20
Mattheson also confirms that an awareness of fire represented musically existed
during his time. He examines exclamatory texts, such as:
Eröffne dich, Rache, der schmauchenden Hölle!
Reiss mich zu deiner Glut hinein!
Ich liefre dir meine verzweifelte Seele!
Vengeance, open yourself, to densely
smoking hell! Draw me to thy fire!
I deliver unto thee my despairing soul! 21
While Mattheson seems to dislike such heated negative emotions in music, he states that
such texts should be properly portrayed musically, with “confused intervals which have
an unruly relationship with one another” or “a frenzied tumult, fiddling and whistling for
accompaniment . . . for which a Pyrrhic meter is well suited.”22 Mattheson refers to
Pyrrhic meter, which is a reference to a poetic meter in which the foot consists of two
unstressed syllables. In music, this refers to a war-like meter that tends to be quite quick
or speed up.23 Mattheson clearly refers to string tremolo and quick figuration and tempo
as being key textures in expressing such a fiery affect. His mention of a standard
compositional technique to express intense feeling and Descartes’s ideas of affect and fire
in the heart supports the interpretation of fire represented in music as an intensifying
19
German from Johann Mattheson. Der vollkommene Capellmeister. Edited by Margarete Reimann.
Kassel and Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1954, 15. English from Der vollkommene Capellmeister A Revised
Translation with Critical Commentary by Ernest C. Harriss. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1981,
104.
20
Mattheson, 291.
21
Mattheson, 401.
22
Ibid.
23
Thomas J. Mathiesen. “Pyrrhic.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed
[18 June, 2003]), http://www.grovemusic.com
7
affect. The idea of fire as essential to the feeling of intense emotion substantiates the idea
that fire itself is a powerful affect, evident in a variety of contexts.
The Term “Fire”
What does the term “fire” encompass? According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the word has many meanings. To present a basic idea of the breadth of these
meanings, some definitions, contexts, and etymologies are listed below:24
1. a. The natural agency or active principle operative in combustion; popularly
conceived as a substance visible in the form of flame or of ruddy glow or
incandescence.
1622 MABBE tr. Aleman's Guzman d'Alf. I. 49 With a face as red as fire.
1781 GIBBON Decl. & F. III. lxxi. 802 Fire is the most powerful agent of
life and death.
b. as one of the four ‘elements’.
1576 BAKER Jewell of Health 170a, Mans blood…out of which draw,
according to Art, the fowre Elements… But the fyre purchased of it is
more precious…This fyre is named the Elixir vitæ.
1700 DRYDEN Fables, Pythag. Philos. 517 The force of fire ascended
first..Then air succeeds.
c. with reference to hell or purgatory; sometimes in pl. Also in Alchemy, Fire
of Hell = ALKAHEST.
1667 MILTON P.L. I. 48 In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire.
d. Volcanic heat, flame, or glowing lava; a volcanic eruption.
1734 POPE Ess. Man IV. 124 Shall burning Ætna..Forget to thunder and
recall her fires?
...
2. a. State of ignition or combustion. In phrases: on fire (also of a fire, in (a)
fire): ignited, burning; fig. inflamed with passion, anger, zeal, etc. to set (or
put) on fire (also in (a) fire, on a fire): to ignite, set burning; also fig. to
inflame, excite intensely. To set the Thames on fire: to make a brilliant
reputation.
1697 W. DAMPIER Voy. I. xv. 414 The Sea seemed all of a Fire about us.
b. transf. and fig.; also in phr. near the fire. Phr. fire in the (or one's) belly:
ambition, driving force, initiative.
1611 BIBLE Jas. iii. 6 The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquitie.
1633 P. FLETCHER Purple Isl. V. iii, So shall my flagging Muse to
heav'n aspire…And warm her pineons at that heav'nly fire.
24
J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1989, www.oed.com [Accessed 28 May, 2003]
8
1709 POPE Ess. Crit. 195 Some spark of your celestial fire.
c. fire of joy: a bonfire; = FEU DE JOIE 1.
c1674 CLARENDON Relig. & Policy (1711) I. vi. 314 Preparations...by
the magistrates for making fires of joy.
...
7.
Lightning; a flash of lightning; a thunderbolt. More fully, levenes fire, fire of
heaven. Electrical fire: the electric fluid, electricity.
1747 FRANKLIN Lett. Wks. 1840 V. 186 He imagined that the electrical
fire came down the wire from the ceiling to the gun-barrel.
1748 Ibid. 215 Vapors, which have both common and electrical fire in
them. 1820 SHELLEY Ode W. Wind ii. 14 From whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst.
...
10.
a. Luminosity or glowing appearance resembling that of fire.
1591 SHAKES. 1 Hen. VI, I. i. 12 His sparkling Eyes, repleat with
wrathfull fire.
1605 Macb. I. iv. 51 Starres, hide your fires, Let
not Light see my black and deepe desires!
1735 POPE Prol. Sat. 5 Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand.
b. fires of heaven, heavenly fires: (poet.) the stars; fires of St. Elmo:
1607 SHAKES. Cor. I. iv. 39 Or by the fires of heauen, Ile leaue the Foe.
1667 MILTON P.L. XII. 256 Before him burn Seaven Lamps as in a
Zodiac representing The Heav'nly fires.
11.
Heating quality (in liquors, etc.); concr. in jocular use, ‘something to warm one’,
ardent spirit.
1737 FIELDING Hist. Reg. II. Wks. 1882 X. 223 We'll go take a little fire
for 'tis confounded cold upon the stage.
...
13.
In certain figurative applications of sense.
a. A burning passion or feeling, esp. of love or rage.
1598 SHAKES. Merry W. II. i. 68 The wicked fire of lust.
1694 F. BRAGGE Disc. Parables xii. 408 Rage, and fury, and
impatience…are frequently attended with the epithet of fire.
b. Ardour of temperament; ardent courage or zeal; fervour, enthusiasm, spirit.
1601 SHAKES. Jul. C. I. ii. 177, I am glad that my weake words Haue
strucke but thus much shew of fire from Brutus.
9
1709 STEELE Tatler No. 61 1 Among many Phrases which have crept
into Conversation...[is] that of a Fellow of a great deal of Fire.
c. Liveliness and warmth of imagination, brightness of fancy; power of genius,
vivacity; poetic inspiration.
1680-90 TEMPLE Ess. Poetry Wks. 1731 I. 237 The Poetical Fire was
more raging in one, but clearer in the other.
1737 POPE Hor. Ep. II. i. 274 Corneille's noble fire.
1847 Illust. Lond. News 10 July 27/1 As an actress, she has fire and
intelligence.
The common definition of fire as the “natural agency or active principle operative
in combustion” is useful as a starting point, because this idea of activating or inflaming
may be extrapolated to many other contexts.25 Beyond language – “feuer,” “le feu,”
“fuoco,” or “fire,” among other variations (burn, flame, rage, incensed, ignite, etc.) – fire
in music can be taken in literal and often figurative contexts. Following is a table of
terms associated with fire in the languages of the countries discussed in this thesis:
Table 1.1. Terms associated with fire.
English
Fire
Latin
Italian
ignis (lit.); fax
Fuoco (foco);
(facis); ardor (fig.); incendio
Flame
Fiery
flamma
igneus (lit.); ardens
(fig.)
accendere
scintillare
To fire
To flame
To ignite
To burn
French
feu; incendie
fiamma
ardente; infocato
flamme
de feu (passion);
plein (blazing sun)
infiammare
enflammer (fig.)
andare in fiamma;
s'enflammer;
infiammarsi di rabbia s'embraser;
(fig.)
accendere
enflammer
accendere;
flammam concipere
(fig.)
urere; cremare;
bruciare; in fiamma
flagrare; ardere
(burning)
German
Feuer; Brand; Glut
Flamme
feurig
brennen; feuern
flammen
zünden
incendier; bruler;
ardent (burning
faith)
être en feu
incinére; incendier
brennen; verbrennen
entzünden;
aufleuchten
To be on fire
To set on fire
ardere
incendere
in fiamma
dare fuoco
To light up (fig.)
hilaris fieri
illuminarsi
s'éclairer; briller de
joie
To inflame
inflammare;
incendere (fig.)
ardor
ardens
infiammare
enflammer;
entzünden
exacerber; aggraver
ardeur
Eifer; Inbrust; Glut
passioné; fervent
feurig; eifrig
Ardor
Ardent
25
ardore; fervore
ardente
Simpson, 942.
10
in Brand
anfeuern
English
To excite
Latin
Italian
excitare; incendere eccitare; agitare
(fig.)
To agitate
agitare; perturbare agitare; turbare
Agitated
tumultuos;
turbulentus (fig.)
Heat
calor; ardor; fervor; calore; intenso
chaleur; feu; animé
aestus
(fierce); (fig.) - fuoco; (heated)
ardore
Hot
calidus; fervens;
aestuos; acer;
ardens
Lightning
fulgur; fulmen
lampo, fulmine
(destructive effects)
tonitrus
tuono; fulmine
(thunderbolt)
Thunder
agitazione
French
exciter;
enthousiasmer;
animé (excited)
faire compagne
agité; inquiet
caldo; fig. - accanito; chaud; fièvreux
ardente; violento;
(fever)
focoso
To thunder
Rage
To rage
tonare
furor
furere; saevire
To incense (to
anger)
Mad
Anger
To anger
Angry
incendere
furios
ira
irritare
iratus
Hatred
To hate
Rapture
To enrapture
Ecstasy
Fervor
Fervent
Proud (roots related)
Love
odium
odisse
exsultatio
rapere
ecstasis; elatio
fervor
ardens
Superbus
amor
To fall in love with
amorem incendere essere innamorato
Heart (fig.)
Animus
German
erregen; aufregen
agitieren;
beunruhigen
agitatorisch
(inflammatory)
Hitze; Wärme;
Heizung (heating);
Brunst (sexual); Eifer
(battle); brunsten (to
be in heat)
heiss; stechen (sun);
éclairs; fulgurant
Blitz
tonnerre; foudre
(thunderbolt);
Donner; Gewitter
(thunderstorm)
tuonare
collera; furia
infuriare (storm)
tonner
donnern
rage; colère
Wut
faire rage; tempêter wüten; toben; in Wut
geraten; wütend
machen (to enrage)
infuriare
outré (incensed)
erzürnen; aufhetzend
(incendiary)
matto; pazzo; furioso fou/folle; furieux
verrückt; böse
rabbia
colère
Zorn
arrabbiare
en colère
erzürnen
arrabiato; furioso;
furieux; de colère
zornig; böse;
infiammato
entzündet
odio
odiare; detestare
esaltato
rapire
estasi
fervore
fervido
Fiero
amore
cuore (core)
haine; aversion
détester; haïr
ravissement
s'extasier
extase
ferveur
fervent
Fièrement
amour; le coup de
foudre (love at first
sight)
être tomber
amoureux
Hass
hassen
Entzückung
hinreissen
Verzückung
Inbrust
inbrüstig
stolz
Liebe
coeur
Herz; Mut fassen
(take heart)
sich heftig verlieben
in
From the various sources consulted, these applicable contexts will be grouped into the six
basic qualitative categories which follow.
11
Literal Fire - The Four Elements
Aside from the definition above, fire literally constitutes one of the four elements,
along with earth, water, and air.26 During the Baroque period, the successful imitation of
nature was one of the highest artistic aims. With their origins in Greek philosophy and
science, the four elements serve as aspects of nature from classical antiquity that have
often been represented artistically. The ancient Greeks viewed fire as the single primal
element which made up the whole of matter. Fire to them was both rational and divine,
“with no distinction between its spiritual and material aspects.”27 Aristotelian physics
held that fire was hot and dry, air, hot and moist, water, cold and moist, and earth, cold
and dry. By the Baroque period, the four elements still functioned as basic divisions of
matter. Descartes refers to the four elements as basic to nature, and to a species of fire as
essential to the life of the human heart.28 While fire began to be considered a process by
which elements and materials transform in science and alchemy, many seventeenthcentury scientists and philosophers still perceived fire as the basic natural element.
In nature, fire is a physical phenomenon associated with the burning sun, heat,
volcanoes, lightning, and other intense lights.29 Common synonyms in this context
include “combustion,” “flame,” “incandescence,” “ignition,” “conflagration,” and
“radiance.”30 Texts of pieces musically depicting this type of fire include the
corresponding language’s word or related word for “fire.” The power of fire to destroy,
to provide light, to burn, and to flame provided composers with ample imagery to paint in
music.
Fire as Rage
As already mentioned, fire is also associated with many emotive qualities. Most
people can easily relate to feelings of intense, burning anger, and this aspect of fire is also
reflected in many pieces of music. Descartes describes Anger as a type of Hatred that is
often mixed with Desire to avenge, and with Love for oneself, yielding a vengeful rage.
26
Ibid.
Robert B. Todd. “Stoicism.” In The History of Science and Religion in the Western Tradition: An
Encyclopedia. Edited by Gary B. Ferngren. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 2000, 132.
28
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 12.
29
Hans Kurath, ed. Middle English Dictionary. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1952, 579581.
30
Addison Wesley Longman, ed. Longman Synonym Dictionary. New York: Rodale Press, 1979, 411.
27
12
Rage creates an agitation which enters the heart and “excites a heat more sharp and
burning than that which can be excited there by Love or by Joy.”31 Baroque rage arias
often contain this type of musical fire, where the heat of vehemence, hate, wrath,
jealousy, or vengeance is clearly evident in the music.32 Very often, the texts of such
pieces, when in Italian, contain the word vendetta, which indicates vengeful action.
Composers during the Baroque period frequently use sweeping motivic gestures and
driving pulses to set up such agitated feelings.
Fire as Love
Love is sometimes associated with sweet melodies in music, but the type of fiery
love applicable to this topic is a passionate, burning emotion. In fact, the Latin idiomatic
expression for “to fall in love” is amorem incendere, which literally translates as “to burn
with love.” The type of love varies, depending on the context. It may be a lusty, desirous
love, which “agitates the heart more vigorously than all the other Passions” according to
Descartes.33 It may be a deep ardent love, exciting a strong heat in the heart agitating the
brain.34 In song, it is sometimes the god Cupid who fires an arrow to incite characters to
feel such ardent love. In other texts, the feeling is simply an intense passionate feeling
(e.g., the Italian amore) between lovers. Other phrases which are roughly equivalent to
this feeling of fiery love in this context include “burning passion,” and “full of ardour.”35
Spiritual Fire
Possibly one of the most powerful of fires is the spiritual kind, in which people
are changed by the power of God. Christianity heavily influenced the musical culture of
the Baroque period. Many composers made their livelihood by working as church
musicians in various capacities. Consequently, powerful spiritual transformations such as
those performed by the grace of the Holy Spirit were often depicted musically.
According to Christian doctrine, the liturgical color of Pentecost is red, the color
of the Holy Spirit. This is because Pentecost commemorates the descent of the Holy
31
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 126.
Kurath, 582.
33
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 73.
34
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 74.
35
Longman, 411.
32
13
Spirit in the form of tongues of red fire over the heads of the Apostles gathered together
in a space safe from hostile street crowds.36 After being infused and inflamed by those
flaming tongues, the Apostles left their refuge and boldly preached the risen Christ to any
people they would encounter.37 The inspired, aroused, and exalted state that the apostles
exhibited showed such a great external lack of contact with reality that they were judged
to be in a drunken, otherworldly condition.38 Fervent religious attitudes are often
associated with this type of passionate fire. Fiery religious devotion can create an ardent
desire to convert others as the Holy Spirit has transformed the minds and hearts of
believers in Christianity.
Divine love can cause spiritual fire through influence and inspiration, especially
in the case of the arts. St. Cecilia, patron saint of music, has been the object of many
artistic works, often inspiring artistic creativity as an intermediary with fiery influence.
The complex Greek mythological character, Orpheus, has also been an inspiration for the
arts. The subject of at least three pioneering operas at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Orpheus is the voice of Music, and “presides over the transformations and
interaction of poetry and science in the period 1600-1800.”39 Orpheus as a myth
metamorphosed through the centuries into a figure with Christian and pagan implications.
As a singer who moved animate and inanimate creatures with his music, Clement of
Alexandria interpreted Orpheus to be a character who aides in the understanding of Christ
and His power.40
During the Renaissance, the Orpheus myth took on a fiery affect which influenced
subsequent artistic works. The writer Marcilio Ficino compares the power of the sun to
the power of God, and thereby burns divine inspiration into the eyes of Orpheus:
The singer (or artist) performs in an inspired state ‘aroused by the Muses’ frenzy.’
‘Then his eyes burn, and he rises up on both feet and he knows how to sing tunes
that he has never learnt….’ It is this state of God-given frenzy, this furor divinus,
that enables the mind to perceive and understand the symbolic structure of the universe.
It is divinus because it comes from God and raises to God. The artist under the
influence of this madness is free to range beyond his normal limits, he is lifted
36
G. Paul Parr, ed. St. John the Baptist Book for Catholic Worship. Reading, PA: St. John’s Press, 1974,
260-261.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.
39
John Warden, ed. Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1982, 4.
40
Warden, 51.
14
to the height of heaven like Ganymede on the back of the divine eagle. The state of
inspiration is visible in the rapt expression on the face and the ‘Orphic’ pose. 41
Orpheus is said to possess the four phases of furor: the poetic, which calms the agitation
of the soul, the sacerdotal, which prepares the soul for exaltation, the prophetic, which
raises the soul to the level of the angels, and the erotic, which unites the soul with God.42
The Holy Spirit, Orpheus, and St. Cecilia are exemplars of the type of spiritual
love which can burn, change us like a fire, or inspire us to create. During the Baroque
period, the power of Christianity mixed with the spiritual overtones of well-known myths
provided a source of deeply affective concepts for artistic expression.
Fire of Hell
These last two emotive categories are combinations of the above fire qualities.
Fiery rage combined with religious fire leads us to the fiery pits of Hell, where sinners
are punished eternally for their evil actions.43 Artists were certainly aware of the Biblical
implications of Hell. Texts which reference this fiery place often contain the word
“Hell.” The fires of Hell are depicted as extremely intense, as are musical settings of
such ideas.
Fiery Love for God
The final category of fire used here is a combination of the ardent passionate love
for God by the religiously fervent. Deep, burning love for God, showing ardent devotion
and Christian ideals, is characterized as having the capacity to purify one’s soul.44 In a
book on the Catholic liturgy, William Zumbar further describes this fire: “The Holy
Spirit helps to move our hearts to feel the love of Christ and to realize that this fire is
communicated not only from the Holy Spirit to the person, but also between the person
and his neighbors.”45 Many liturgical texts, especially the Stabat Mater, include words
such as inflammatus, accensus, and ardeat that have often been interpreted as this type of
fire and set to music in an appropriately corresponding manner. In Baroque terms,
41
Warden, 98.
Ibid.
43
Simpson, 942.
44
Kurath, 582.
45
Parr, 260-261.
42
15
understanding the greatness and glory of God led to spiritual ecstasy, such as when St.
Theresa described herself as “all on fire with a great love of God” after an angel thrust a
golden spear into her heart.46 The fire-like ecstasy of comprehending the glory of God is
very often represented by a profound intensity in music.
A Framework for the Fire Affect
From the time of Plato, music has impelled the human heart to momentary
emotional states and to permanent shaping of character. The power of music to express
passion became known as a device of musical affect during the Baroque period. The
connection between passion and bodily causation led composers to attempt to elicit
emotional and bodily response through music in a single, focused affect.
The philosophical writings of the Baroque point to fire as a key concept in the
causation of such affect. The heat and agitation caused by the excitation of fire changes
the quality of the passion felt. Fire is an affect on its own in pure form, or as an
intensifier of a passion or mixture of passions. Composers and musical theorists of the
Baroque period were well aware of Descartes’s writings, as well as the idea of using
music to depict an affect vividly in a manner similar to an impassioned rhetorical
delivery.
The French composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau affirms this idea of
music and affect stirring the audience in his Observations sur notre instinct pour la
musique, et sur son principe (1754):
Pour joüir pleinement des effets de la Musique,
il faut être dans un pur abandon de soi-même,
& pour en juger, c’est au Principe par lequel
on est affecté qu’il faut s’en rapporter.
Ce principe est la Nature même,
c’est d’elle que nous tenons ce sentiment qui
nous meut dans toutes nos Opératons musicales,
elle nous en a fait un don qu’on peut appeller
Instinct.
46
The full enjoyment of the effects of music
calls for a sheer abandonment of oneself,
and the judgment of it calls for a reference
to the principle by which one is affected.
That principle is Nature itself;
it is through Nature that we possess that
feeling which stirs us in all our musical
instinct. 47
Martin, 103.
French from Jean-Philippe Rameau, Observations sur notre instinct pour la musique, et sur son
principe. From Facsimile of 1754 Paris edition. New York: Broude Brothers, 1967, aij.
English from Edward A, Lippman, The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1999, 111.
47
16
A Transitionary Example
Before delving into Baroque examples of fire and affect, it is important to note
that Renaissance composers were already concerned with expressing ideas of fire in their
compositions.
Thomas Morley (1557/8-1602) “Fyer, Fyer!” (1595)
This musical example from the Renaissance period serves as a bridge to the
Baroque. The text is fairly explicit in describing burning love and desire, including cries
for help (“Ay me”). Morley uses polyphonic imitative technique to achieve a sense of
this burning desire. One voice consistently enters just a bit earlier than the rest to drive
the madrigal forward. The “my heart” entrances are also staggered and the placement
paints an anxiously beating heart. Instead of using typical polyphonic technique with
voices entering at even rhythmic intervals, Morley chooses to offset just one voice for the
“fyer” entrances, and then offset more of the voices, but in quick succession for the
beating heart entrances. The unpredictability of these imitative entrances and their close
proximity to each successive entrance give this piece its fiery quality of love desperate
for fulfillment.
Composers during the Baroque continued to paint words in manners similar to
Renaissance style and in more innovative ways. The framework of categories of fiery
affect described above will serve as an aesthetic framework for the following chapters. It
is important to qualify carefully what constitutes an idea that has not been defined
previously, especially when that idea has such affective/emotive qualities. The idea of
music and affect combining into a concept of intense, exciting musical fire has been
presented in this chapter. The following chapter will focus on the musical, cultural, and
social background of the Baroque period leading up to 1700. It will begin by examining
some musical examples, both literal (when the text contains “fire” or related words) and
figurative (implied fire). Use of the framework to establish clear cases of the fire affect
leading up to the early eighteenth century will commence with this chapter.
17
Example 1.1. Morley “Fyer, Fyer!” 1595.
Source: Oxford Book of English Madrigals. Ed. by Phillip Ledger. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
18
CHAPTER 2
KINDLING FIRE: MONTEVERDI AND THE STILE CONCITATO
Before examining the late Baroque, it is important to provide a historical
background of the preceding century in Europe. This chapter will present an overview of
the history and musical styles of Italy, France, Germany, and England focusing on the
musical expression of fire leading up to the eighteenth century. The musical examples
will provide a basis for showing types of musical fire in various contexts. The examples
in this chapter will show how a key fire-like word was more often painted by itself rather
than presented as an affect lasting for an entire section of a piece.
Europe in 1600
It is important to note that Europe in 1600 was in the midst of a number of
changes in political, religious, and artistic practice. The Protestant Reformation had a
significant impact on the previous century that continued into the seventeenth century.
The Renaissance mentality of reclaiming classical ideas and widening intellectual
horizons led to certain radical notions which would greatly shape Western thought. In
addition to Martin Luther’s religious ideas, Galileo’s publications in the early 1600s
questioned earlier scientific beliefs as to the nature of the cosmos. The beginning of the
Baroque brought about a progressive mentality. This mentality was not widespread in
1600, but pioneers in science, religion, politics, and the arts began to pave the way for
change.
Music in the 1600s began to diversify and distinct national musical styles began
to take shape. In the sixteenth century, musical style and performance was more
homogenous; roughly the same type of music was being performed from England to
Italy.1 The aesthetic of musical rhetoric–placing emphasis on the dramatic setting of text,
or word-painting–greatly influenced this change. Because of the emphasis on a clear
evocation of text in music, words became a foremost consideration to composers. As
discussed in the previous chapter, rhetoric in music became a prevailing concern during
1
David Schulenberg. Music of the Baroque. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 2.
19
the Baroque period. The inherent linguistic differences of accent, inflection, and vowel
and consonant sounds led to music that reflected nationality.
Music migrated southward from northwest Europe during the Middle Ages, but
this trend reversed by the beginning of the Baroque.2 Italy became a key instigator in
changing musical style. Italian artists and musicians traveled to Germany, England, and
France, while German, English, and French musicians also traveled to Italy to learn from
the creators of opera.3 While this thesis focuses on Western art music, it should be noted
that the omission of discussion on Spanish and Portuguese music has to do with its
limited influence on the rest of Europe. This chapter will set up the years 1700-1750 by
discussing the new compositional styles and representative examples of growing musical
fire in Italy, Germany, France, and England.
Italy, Monteverdi, and the seconda pratica
The rise of new genres, strikingly distinct national musical styles, the use of
specific instruments with correspondingly idiomatically composed parts, ornamentation,
and improvisation all contributed to the changing practice of musical composition
beginning around 1600. Opera was just one of many new genres (oratorio, cantata,
concerto, etc.) that emerged during the Baroque period. The importance of affect and
rhetoric in musical composition also became more prominent. Along with Giulio Caccini
(1551-1618) and Jacopo Peri (1561-1621) of the Florentine Camerata, Claudio
Monteverdi (1567-1643) prioritized affect and musical rhetoric in helping to establish
opera as a new musical genre. The musical style of Monteverdi, Peri, and Caccini
focused on a clear elucidation of the text. Such an emphasis led Monteverdi to use
traditional Renaissance techniques of musical rhetoric, but also led him to the creation of
new devices to present the text more vividly and dramatically in music. Because of his
new techniques, music theorist Giovanni Maria Artusi (1546-1613) accused him of
deviating from traditional methods of composition.4 Monteverdi defended himself by
saying that his method, the seconda pratica, was justified as a means to the clear
2
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque. 8.
Ibid.
4
Margaret Murata, ed. Source Readings in Music History, Vol. 4, The Baroque Era. Leo Treitler, general
editor. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998, 18.
3
20
expression of the meaning and emotion in the text.5 This debate is emblematic of the
controversy over artistic expression going on at the beginning of the seventeenth century
as musical conventions were undergoing a transition. Prima pratica composers, such as
Palestrina, used strict compositional techniques of counterpoint, voice leading, and
harmony. The more adventurous (harmonically and otherwise) seconda pratica was used
by Monteverdi and his followers.
Monteverdi explored new compositional techniques, such as unprepared
dissonances in accordance with the meaning of the text, in search of similitudine del
affetto, “resemblance of emotion.”6 In this goal, he shows a clear stress on text and
affect, and his compositions reflect such concerns. His contemporary, Caccini, also
stresses the importance of affect, saying that it is:
…nothing other than the expression of the words chosen to be sung
and their ideas, by means of the power of different notes and their
varied stresses, tempered by softness and loudness, a power capable
of moving the affection of the listener. 7
Monteverdi’s early approach to the expression of fiery text is reminiscent of
Renaissance word painting techniques. His Quattro libro de madrigali (Venice, 1603),
displays a mixture of old and new techniques. The dissonance treatment reflects his new
seconda pratica, but some of the word painting reflects traditional techniques from
Renaissance music. For example, word painting occurs in “Luci serene,” as the words
foco and strugge are set by a vivid, quick twisting figure and syncopated rhythm (in the
tenor line m. 42 and 44).8 The text below provides the context behind painting a fiery
affect. The fiery imagery throughout the text clearly indicates a fiery desire and love.
Luci serene e chiare,
Voi m’incendete, voi, ma prov’il core
Nell’incedio diletto, non dolore.
Dolci parole e care,
Voi mi ferite, voi, ma prov’il petto
Non dolor ne la piaga, ma diletto.
O miracol d’amore:
Alma ch’è tutta foco e tutta sangue
Si strugg’e non si duol, muor e non langue.
Eyes serene and clear,
You inflame me, you, but my heart feels
In burning delight, not pain.
Sweet words and dear,
You pierce me, you, but my breast feels
Not pain in the wound, but delight.
Oh, miracle of love:
That a spirit that is all fire and all blood
Is consumed but does not suffer, dies
but does not languish.
5
Murata, 27.
Murata, 157.
7
Murata, 223-224.
8
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque. 36.
6
21
In “Quell’ augellin che canta,” the word ardo is set in a melismatic scalar
ascending line. The figure is first sung by the first soprano and is quickly imitated by the
second soprano. Such quick imitation between the two upper voices reflects the ardency
of both the word and the overall affect.
Example 2.1. Monteverdi “Luci serene” 1603.
Source: Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. Ed. by David Schulenberg. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001.
Quell’ augellin che canta
Si dolcemente e lascivetto vola
Or da l’abete al faggio
Ed or dal faggio al mirto,
S’avresse umano spirto,
Direbbe: “Ardo d’amore,”
E chiam’ il suo desio che li rispomd’:
“Ardo d’amor anch’io.”
Che sii tu benedetto
Amoroso, gentil, vago augelletto
That little bird which sings
So sweetly and flies merrily
Now from the fir to the beech
And now from the beech to the myrtle,
If it had human understanding,
It would say: “I burn with love.”
And his love would say
“I also am burning with love.”
Blessings on you,
loving, gentle, charming little bird.
22
Example 2.2. Monteverdi “Quell’ augellin che canta” Monteverdi 1603.
Source: Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. Ed. by David Schulenberg. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001.
Monteverdi went on to pioneer new ways of achieving figurative fire in music.
He narrowed the passions or affections down to three (as opposed to the five listed by
Descartes): anger, moderation, and humility.9 He equated these passions with
corresponding musical terms of “agitated, soft, and moderate,” with agitated being a new
kind of musical expression.10 The Italian word for agitated is concitato, which can also
be translated as “excited” or “emotional.”
Monteverdi refers to Plato as a source for his reasoning that there should be such
an affect, especially to express war. Monteverdi pioneered an extremely important
compositional technique of achieving agitation in music, the stile concitato or agitated
style.11 He accomplished this affect through the use of tremolo and pizzicato.12 He used
contrasting figurations to heighten the affect–by juxtaposing a fast tempo, repeated
sixteenth notes, and agitated leaps with a slower tempo and a calmer texture.
9
Murata, 157.
Murata, 158.
11
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque. 76.
12
Ibid.
10
23
The combination of Monteverdi’s expertise as a violinist along with the
instrument’s nature as an articulator of pitch at a pace faster than most instruments led to
the violin’s crucial role in the achievement of agitated textures in music. We cannot be
certain whether it was an occasional improvisatory practice to use string tremolo at
appropriate dramatic moments before Monteverdi’s writings. However, his 1638 preface
to his eighth book of madrigals, Madrigali guerrieri, et amorosi, actually implies that
Monteverdi believes that his creation of this affect was “the first essay in this genus.”13
Monteverdi emphasized the dramatic setting of text in music with his adventurous
use of various styles, dissonances, and rhythmic gestures. He used instruments both to
prompt and reflect changes in characters’ moods and emotions as well as changes in the
setting. In his Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda Monteverdi uses the stile
concitato to effect a warlike scene–galloping horses, heated emotion, and actual battling.
The result is quite effective. The narrator’s rapid declamation of the text and the strings’
quick, short rhythmic figures set the tone of the scene and the fiery anger and battle-ready
attitude of the characters. The first instance of the strings’ tremolo occurs when the Testo
is describing the two battlers as Quai due tori gelosi e d’ira ardenti (“Like two bulls
jealous and with anger burning”).14
13
14
Murata, 158.
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. 56.
24
Example 2.3. Monteverdi from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda 1624.
Source: Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. Ed. by David Schulenberg. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001.
Later in the scene the actual battle is described in the agitated style, when the
narrator sings of the violence, rage, and the warriors’ quest for revenge. As he describes
the two warriors closing in on each other and the fight growing (D’hor in hor più si
mesce e più ristretta Si fa la pugna e spada oprar non giova; “Closer and closer they
move, and closer grows the fight, so that swords are useless”), the tessitura of the Testo’s
vocal line jumps a third higher. The strings tremolo also leaps in pitch twice and
crescendos to forte to heighten the battle intensity further, thereby creating a fiery rage
affect. Monteverdi’s foreword to this piece directs that the singer and instruments
“reflect the changing emotional character of the text, implying changes of tempo and
dynamics beyond those indicated in the score.”15
15
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. 62.
25
Example 2.4. Monteverdi from Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda 1624.
Source: Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. Ed. by David Schulenberg. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001
Monteverdi’s seemingly unprecedented use of these compositional techniques
paved the way for later Baroque composers to use this agitated style in their musical
writing of fiery moments. Handel actually labeled a musical passage in Jephtha
“concitato” over 100 years after Monteverdi first used this style.16
Example 2.5. Handel from Jephtha 1751.
Source: Music of the Baroque. By David Schulenberg. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Rhetoric, affect, and the influence of Monteverdi northward
Monteverdi’s radical innovations in musical composition greatly influenced the
future of Western art music. However, even though Italian musical influence traveled
northward during the 1600s, the boldness of the Italian style did not take hold
16
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque. 202-203.
26
immediately in other countries. Distinctive national attitudes toward music and its
function were forming in France, Germany, and England. In eventually absorbing Italian
musical styles, each country adapted the new techniques to the vernacular language of the
people there. Countries became identified with national temperaments, which then
corresponded to national musical styles.
Athanasius Kircher (1601/2-1680) was a teacher and writer well-versed in
national styles of music-making, particularly in Germany, France, and Italy. In his
treatise, Musurgia universalis (Rome, 1650), he stressed that “there is an appropriate
style according to the customs of the nation.”17 Kircher also emphasizes the musical
leadership and boldness of the Italians, saying that:
Italy justly appointed to itself the first place in music from the beginning,
for there has not been a single age when all the principal composers did
not produce music out of Italy, to the continual wonderment of all,
with the most precious works. . . They used all styles appropriately
and with the best judgment, and were truly born for music. . . They do
not affect just the ears with this variety, but they also draw out both
the torments and the passions of the soul, arousing them in every possible
way with great power. 18
This distinction between musical styles manifested itself in the musical treatment of
agitated feelings. Italians were quick to be excited by emotion, but other countries were
more accustomed to restraint, preferring a studied dignity to free, natural expression of
affect.19 This does not mean there was never an occasion for a fiery passion to be
portrayed in the music of other regions, but it does indicate why such bold gestures were
rarer.
In German-speaking regions, the favored musical style according to Athanasius
Kircher was “serious, moderate, sober, and choral,” corresponding to the national
temperament that was “serious, strong, constant, solid, and toilsome.”20 Heinrich
Schütz’s career and compositional output as the leading German composer of the midseventeenth century is representative of the emerging German musical style of the
Baroque.
Schütz (1585-1672) served as Capellmeister in Dresden through the Thirty
17
Murata, 200.
Murata, 202-203.
19
Ibid.
20
Murata, 201.
18
27
Years’ War. He took trips to Venice in 1609 and 1629 and studied with both Giovanni
Gabrieli (c1554-7-1612) and Monteverdi. His compositional style reflects these
influences. Much of Schütz’s music consists of polychoral textures in a style reminiscent
of Gabrieli. While his compositions do indicate an emphasis on spatial relations between
sounds and the harmonic language of his early works reflects Gabrieli’s style, Schütz was
clearly influenced by Monteverdi’s emphasis on clear declamation of text. Schütz did not
use many of the new devices Monteverdi pioneered, but he did use word painting
techniques to elicit the meaning of the text in music. His music shows the integration of
musical figuration with the stresses and texture of the German language.
Schütz did not use an agitated style, per se, but he certainly was aware of fire as a
stirring intensity. The following example from his Historia der Auferstehung Jesu
Christi, SWV 50 (1623) depicts the reaction of two disciples after speaking with the risen
Christ. They are surprised and spiritually inflamed as they say Brannte nicht unser Herz
in uns (“Did not our heart burn within us”). Schütz sets the word brannte (“burn”) on a
quick ascending gesture which is closely imitated by the second voice. The figuration is
repeated three times, climaxing the third time on the highest pitches of the section (the G
in the first tenor part). The effect paints the idea being aroused by Jesus’ presence and
excited by the fire inspired in their hearts which causes them to exclaim their passionate
response.
According to Kircher, the French are “more changeable” than the Germans,
possessing a style that is “cheerful and lively.”21 The French heavily integrated dance
rhythms into their music and emphasized a fluidity through sections, evident in the lack
of clear section demarcations between recitative and aria in French opera.
In France, the music of the seventeenth century was dominated by Jean-Baptiste Lully
(1632-1687) who served in the court of Louis XIV for most of his career. Lully
established the genre of French opera with its court airs and ballets. French language is
inherently without accent and French music of the period often reflects this with the
absence of regular meter. Meter shifts fluidly and stress is achieved through trills,
duration, and melismatic embellishments.
21
Murata, 201.
28
Example 2.6. Schütz from Historia der Auferstehung 1623.
Source: Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Neuen Schütz-Gesellschaft. Ed.
Walter Simon Huber. Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 1956.
Extreme moments of passion do occur in French opera, but the agitated affect was
not prominent in the court music of the seventeenth century. It seems that such musical
intensity is displayed only in moments of divinely inspired madness. In Lully’s Atys
(1676), the title character is cursed by Cybele and driven so mad that he kills his beloved
Sangaride thinking she is a monster. A messenger from Hell comes with a flaming torch
with which to cast an evil spell on Atys. Lully uses wild string figures to paint the flame
cursing Atys. The intense violin texture presages the fire of Hell that condemns Atys at
the beginning of the next scene when he kills Sangaride in a fit of insanity. The agitated
quality reflects the agitation of both the cursed and the cursers, the trembling fear and
vengeful anger.
29
Example 2.7. Lully from Atys 1676.
Source: Les Chefs-d’oeuvre classiques de l’opéra français. Volume 16. [microfilm] Ed. by Theodore
Michaelis. Piano/Vocal reduction. Washington D.C., 1880?-1883?
Near the end of the final act an instrumental passage concludes with the quaking
of the earth and flashes of lightning, representing nature’s violent response to the horror
of Atys’s act. The thunder and lightning are painted with agitated string figurations (see
second system of Example 2.8).
30
Example 2.8. Lully from Atys 1676.
Source: Ibid.
While England maintained a strong musical heritage of madrigals and lute songs
during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the rich tradition was virtually
gone by the mid 1600s. This was caused by war and the Commonwealth government’s
ban on elaborate sacred and theatrical music.22
22
Schulenberg, Music of the Baroque. 126.
31
English musical style during the sixteenth century was influenced by Italian and
French styles. During the Restoration, composers such as John Blow (1649-1708) and
Henry Purcell (1659-1695) began composing more dramatic works in the form of
masques. Before the growing wealth and prosperity brought an influx of Italian
composers and musicians to England at the beginning of the eighteenth century, English
passion was reflected in the affect of airs in these semi-operas. The lament affect was
most prominent in these works, displayed in airs such as Dido’s lament “When I am laid
in earth” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas (1689).
Agitated passion in English Baroque music of the seventeenth century is not
clearly discernible until late in the century with the emergence of the mad song genre.
“Let the dreadful engines” (c. 1696) is an example of such a Purcell aria. It is nearly a
showpiece mad song that was used as incidental music for a theatrical setting of “The
Comical History of Don Quixote” by Thomas D’Urfey. In a style reminiscent of
Monteverdi, Purcell uses quick declamatory text to express such heated anger, in many
quasi-recitative sections of the piece. Rapid rhythms and angular vocal lines climaxing
on high pitches express the driven, burning tone of the text.
The mad song begins with a vivid depiction of fiery lightning and thunder roaring
in melismatic phrases in the voice. The heat of anger is then expressed with repeated text
growing in intensity and increasing in pitch (“my rage is hot, is hot, is hot”). The fire of
Hell is represented by mounting flames on a mounting dotted run reaching its height at
the high pitch on “skies” (E flat). Rapid declamation of fiery text is also evident in
recitativo passages of the song, indicating the incensed passion and mad fury of the
singer though quickly articulated text. While not explicitly indicated in the continuo part,
quick pulsing and rapid tremolo figurations would certainly fall within the norms of
performance practice, thereby aiding the painting of the fire of the character’s madness,
during and between sections.
Let the dreadful engines of eternal will,
The thunder roar and crooked lightning kill,
My rage is hot as theirs, as fatal too,
And dares as horrid executions do.
32
Or let the frozen North its rancour show,
Within my breast far greater tempests grow;
Despair’s more cold than all the winds can blow.
Can nothing warm me? Yes, Lucinda’s eyes.
There Etna, there Vesuvio lies
To furnish Hell with flames that mounting reach the skies.
Ye pow’rs, I did but use her name
And see how all the meteors flame!
Blue lightning flashes round the court of Sol
And now the globe more fiercely burns than once at Phaeton’s fall.
Ah! Where are now those flow’ry groves
Where Zephir’s fragrant winds did play?
Where guarded by a troop of loves,
The fair Lucinda sleeping lay.
There sung the nightingale and lark,
Around us all was sweet and gay,
We ne’er grew sad till it grew dark,
Nor nothing fear’d but short’ning day.
I glow, but ‘tis with hate.
Why must I burn for this ingrate?
Cool it then, and rail,
Since nothing can prevail.
When a woman love pretends,
‘Tis but till she gains her ends,
And for better and for worse
Is for marrow of the purse.
Where she jilts you o’er and o’er.
Proves a slattern or a whore.
This hour will tease and vex,
And will cuckold ye the next.
They were all contriv’d in spite,
To torment us, not delight,
But to scold and scratch and bite
And not one of them proves right
But all are witches by this light.
And so I fairly bid ‘em, and the world goodnight.
This chapter has examined the beginnings of new compositional techniques for
the expression of agitated passion in music. Monteverdi’s new devices and seconda
pratica techniques led to the incorporation of this affect in music of Italy and later in the
music of Germany, France, and England, albeit in national musical styles representative
of the respective temperament and language of the respective countries.
33
The end of the seventeenth century leads us to the height of the Baroque period.
In the following chapters we will see how composers express fire even more vividly
during the high Baroque era from 1700-1750.
Example 2.9
34
Example 2.10
Example 2.11
Examples 2.9-2.11 H. Purcell “Let the dreadful engines of eternal will” 1696.
Source: Henry Purcell Songs, Volume 5. Ed. by Tippett and Bergmann. London: Schott and Company,
Limited, 1996.
35
CHAPTER 3
THE FLAMES OF FRANCE AND GERMANY
France
In the early eighteenth century French music was still very court centered. Louis
XIV was king until his death in 1715, and the shadow of Lully extended well into the
1700s. Paris was the center of political, social, and musical life. Jean-Philippe Rameau
(1683-1764), composer, harpsichordist, and theorist greatly contributed to many musical
genres, including the cantata, motet, keyboard music, and opera. He dominated the
French music scene once he established himself as a composer of opera with Hippolyte et
Aricie (1733). Early eighteenth-century French composers such as Marc-Antoine
Charpentier (1643-1704) continued the Lullian tradition of composing tragedies,
embracing the idea of depicting physical phenomena in music.1
Rameau traveled to Italy for a brief period around the turn of the eighteenth
century, and the premiere of his first opera (in France) met with mixed reviews because
of the apparent Italian influence.2 He adopted the basic forms that Lully established in
his operatic works, but he intensified the emotional outbursts, declamation of text, and
agitated scenes with tremolo, scalar melismatic phrases, and generally agile orchestral
textures.3 Italian influence is further evident in the more virtuosic vocal lines and
emotionally-charged monologue arias full of pathos. Diderot claimed that before Rameau
"no-one had distinguished the delicate shades of expression that separate the tender from
the voluptuous, the voluptuous from the impassioned, the impassioned from the
lascivious."4
1
François Lesure. “France.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L. Macy. (Accessed [23
May, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
2
Graham Sadler. “Rameau, Jean-Philippe.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L. Macy.
(Accessed [23 May, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
3
Ibid.
4
Ibid.
36
Rameau expressed fire in music as a word to paint and as an overriding affect.
The following is an example of the former use, showing a vivid depiction of fire with
melismatic vocal writing.
Jean-Philippe Rameau Scene 5 from Pygmalion 1748
In this scene Pygmalion sings praise to Amour, god of Love, for infusing him
with his fire. Rameau uses a joyfully buoyant musical setting to show the intense
happiness spurred by the love arrow fired by Amour. Coloratura and a quick entrance
that darts to the forefront on the word Lance (the verb “to fire”) characterize his
compositional approach in representing the fire of love. Pygmalion urges Amour to fire
arrows and set his fire burning bright. The brilliant melismatic phrasing, sparkling string
gestures, and flaring onsets on the word Lance set the fire affect clearly.
Regne, Amour, fais briller tes flammes,
Lance tes traits dans nos âmes.
Sur des cœurs soumis à tes lois
Epuise ton carquois.
Tu nous fais, dieu charmant,
le plus heureux destin.
Je tiens de toi l’objet dont mon âme est ravie,
Et cet objet si cher respire, tient la vie
Des feux de ton flambeau divin.
Reign Love, make your flames shine,
Fire your power into our hearts.
Our hearts subjected to your laws
Exhausted by your quiver.
You make for us, charming god,
the happiest destiny.
I show you the object who has delighted my heart,
And this precious object breathes, sustaining the life
Of my fires and your divine torch.
Rameau used various orchestral and vocal gestures to express particularly fiery
moments in his dramatic works. He used such writing in moments of extreme fury,
natural disasters or lightning storms, and ardent desire.
In his Platée (1745), Jupiter appears accompanied by une pluie de feu tombe du
ciel (“a rain of fire falling from the sky”) demonstrating his power. The god’s
thunderbolts continue as Platée cries out Ciel! Qu’elle terrible rosée! (“Heavens! What a
terrible visitation!”). Rameau uses string tremolo and scalar melismatic gestures in the
violins punctuated by the continuo and probably non-notated manufactured sounds of
thunder to depict lightning and Jupiter’s sudden arrival musically. The harmony is fairly
static as the instrumental texture is the primary means of expressing fire. Musical fire is
used as an atmospheric affect to set the image of lightning as a “rain of fire.”
37
Example 3.1. Rameau from Scene 5 of Pygmalion 1748.
Source: Oeuvres Complètes. Tome XVII Première Partie. Published under the direction of C. Saint-Saëns.
Ed. by Henri Büsser New York: Broude Brothers, 1968.
38
Example 3.2. Rameau from Act II, Scene 3 of Platée 1745.
Source: Oeuvres Complètes Tome XII. Ed. by Georges Marty. 1968.
Later in the opera Jupiter’s jealous wife Juno arrives on stage in a rage. Her
jealous rage is often the disposition that is emphasized in mythologically-based dramatic
39
works. While not a rage aria in the Italian tradition (see the following chapter), this scene
paints the word rage, with an agitated string gesture reminiscent of the stile concitato.
Descartes connected jealousy, anger, and rage together under the general Hate passion.
This use of an agitated string figure is an example of fire expressed as rage.
Example 3.3. Rameau from Act III, Scene 1 of Platée 1745.
Source: Oeuvres Complètes Tome XII. Ed. by Georges Marty. 1968.
Juno arrives later in the act even angrier, as she attempts to stop Jupiter from
marrying Platée. Juno arrive en fureur (“arrives in a fury”) accompanied by a constant
stream of string tremolo through her entire display of blazing anger. The fire affect is
40
more pronounced than her first outburst with more active harmonic and melismatic
figurations.
Example 3.4. Rameau from Act III, Scene 7 of Platée 1745.
Source: Oeuvres Complètes Tome XII. Ed. by Georges Marty. 1968.
41
It is interesting to note that when Platée herself becomes angry and rages the
music reflects her lesser power. Rameau’s music lightly portrays her anger seemingly
making fun of her lack of godlike powers and her laughable looks (grotesque and ugly).
Beyond Rameau
Joseph-Nicolas-Pancrace Royer (1700-1755) was one of the many overshadowed
French contemporaries of Rameau. He was a prolific composer and an excellent
harpsichordist. Royer’s operatic output (he wrote at least six operas) is reflected in one
of his most dramatic keyboard pieces, Le Vertigo, from his Pieces de Clavecin, Premier
Livre (1746). While the title does not directly connote fire, it does suggest a disposition
which would certainly have been thought of as a stirring of blood rushing to the brain
causing dizziness. As a physicist looking to the passions to explain physiological states,
Descartes compared the spirits that move the mind to states of trembling, fear, and
general excitation to “the parts of a flame that emanates from a torch.”5 This heated,
excited blood would be caused by an active fire in the heart that stirs those animal spirits
to the point of dizziness.
The varied musical passages in this piece can easily be imagined to be different
emotional states brought on by a general state of vertigo, which during the 1700s was
thought of as “a disordered state of mind, . . . comparable to giddiness” and as
accompanied by a “throbbing in the forehead” reflecting nervous affections.6 The fire in
the brain is also reflected by Royer’s expression marking of Vif, which means “excited”
or “sharp” and during the eighteenth century was associated with les passiones violentes
(“violent passions”), being brillans et pleins de feu (“brilliant and full of fire”), and
extrêment enflamée (“extremely fiery”).7 Royer uses very thick chordal sonorities,
quickly repeated sixteenth notes, tremolo figurations, and colorful ascending scalar
gestures to depict this fiery affect.
5
Descartes, The Passions of the Soul. 134.
Simpson, www.oed.com.
7
Dictionnaire de L’Académie française, fifth edition. 1798. University of Chicago - Database of Historical
French dictionaries. Accessed [23 May, 2003]. <http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/dicos/>
6
42
Example 3.5. Royer Le Vertigo1746.
Source: Pièces de Clavecin. Ed. by Lisa Goode Crawford. Paris: Heugel and Company, 1990.
43
Jean-Fery Rebel Les Elèments 1737-1738
In this example from the French Baroque, Rebel treats fire as one of the four pure
elements, along with earth, water, and air. In Le cahos, Rebel uses harmonic confusion
through a near cluster chord which is used as a rhythmic chord motive throughout the
movement. The elements battle each other, leading to this chaos in nature. The bulk of
the chord is voiced in the strings, which are the instruments used to represent fire. In his
Avertissement to this work, Rebel writes:
Enfin les violins par des traits vifs
et brillans représentent l’activité du feu.
Finally the violins, by means of lively
and brilliant music, represent the activity of Fire.8
In the above quote, Rebel indicated that fire is represented by the violins. In Le
chaos the prominence of the violins in the opening reflects the great importance of fire in
creating the dramatic confusion of the first movement. Rebel starts the pattern with a
measure of quarter notes, followed by a measure of eighth notes, and then three measures
of sixteenth notes. This gradual rhythmic acceleration is reminiscent of the agitated style
of Monteverdi. The pedal point D in the bass and the sustained A natural played by the
flute heighten the tension already created by the pulsing of the other instruments. In fact,
the repetition of this chord actually prolongs the tension by functioning as a diminished
C<7 chord leading to d minor, hence Rebel’s use of the D and A. The resulting sonority
sounds like a confusion of harmony, but the tension suddenly resolves after the fiery and
agitated chord repetitions, i.e., poetic chaos before order. The combination of the
elements results in a blazing whirlwind of chaotic sound remarkably innovative for its
time. After the opening, le feu is labeled in the score as the violins play a quick, agitated
figure and is later given its own movement.
Le feu musically portrays fire in a chaconne. Rebel represents fire in brilliant
string figurations. The sweeping motivic gestures, often in ascending scalar motion,
illustrate a playful fire with darting flames.
While Rameau's dramatic works provide the clearest and most numerous
examples of French musical fire from the first half of the eighteenth century, other
French composers definitely felt compelled to express extremely intense emotional and
8
Jean Fery Rebel. Les Elèments. Ed. by Catherine Cessac. Responsible scientifique, Sylvie Bouisson.
Paris: Musica Gallica, 1993. XIV.
44
elemental images in music. The boldness of Italian gesture greatly influenced the free
expression of such agitated moments, heard in string tremolo and melismatic phrases.
Example 3.6. Rebel “Le cahos” from Les Elèment 1737-8.
Source: Les Elèments. Ed. by Catherine Cessac. Responsible scientifique, Sylvie Bouisson. Paris: Musica
Gallica, 1993.
45
Example 3.7. Rebel “Le feu” from Les Elèments 1737-8.
Source: Ibid.
Germany
During the early eighteenth century, music in Germany was centered in a few
courts, such as Dresden (heavily influenced by Italian composers) and Berlin. While
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) did not directly influence musical composition until
much later in the 1700s, his music stands as the pinnacle of German music during the late
Baroque. Bach's prolific compositional output in a variety of genres reflects his selfsufficiency as a composer. Known during his time as a virtuoso keyboardist, his
compositional style was influenced mainly by other keyboard composers, such as
Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Frescobaldi, and various French composers.9 In composing a
9
Ludwig Finscher. “Germany.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L. Macy. (Accessed [23
May, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
46
cantata every week during his appointment in Leipzig, Bach encountered great textual
variety that led to the musical expression of a variety of affects, including fire.
J.S. Bach Cantata No. 34, O ewiges Feuer
O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe,
Entzünde die Herzen und wehen sie
Lass himmlische Flammen
Durch dringen und wallen,
Wir wünschen, o Höchster,
Dein Tempel zu sein.
Ach! Lass dir die Seelen im Glauben gefallen.
O eternal fire, o wellspring of love,
Inflame our hearts and kindle
In us a heavenly flame
Penetrating us and boiling within us,
We wish this, o heavenly Father,
To be your temple.
Ah, let our souls please you with our faith.
In this fiery cantata, Bach paints a picture of fervent faith in God. Angular, quick
violin passagework and melismatic phrases in high vocal tessituras depict this ardent
yearning prayer. The ritornello before the voices enter introduces the fiery figures in the
violin line as well as the flickering gestures by the trumpet. Fiery words such as Feuer,
Entzünde, and Flammen are all painted musically with melismatic figures along with
Liebe to reflect the ardent rapture of love for God. The frenetic activity of the violins is
constant throughout this movement, emphasizing the eternity of the fire, representing
God, and the undying faith in Him.
47
Example 3.8. J.S. Bach from first movement of O ewiges Feuer, Cantata No. 34, 1746-7
Source: Bach Cantata No. 34: “O Ewiges Feuer.” Ed. by Arnold Schering. Based on the BachGesellschaft Edition. New York: Broude Brothers, 1950.
This violin fire is also represented in the last choral movement along with a scalar
ascending figure on dankt, which paints the earnest gratitude and constant fire felt in
eternal devotion to God. This cantata was written for Pentecost, a strong indication that
Bach was well aware of the fiery implications of the Holy Spirit during this time in
Christian liturgy.
J.S. Bach “Sind Blitze, sind Donner” from Matthäus-Passion 1727
In this chorus from J.S. Bach’s Matthäus-Passion, the fire of Hell is musically
depicted by a demanding motive underscored by quick string figurations and sequencing.
The striking lightning, thunder, and heated desire for destruction and punishment in Hell
is described in the text are heard in the music of this furious chorus, where certain words
are accentuated, such as Blitze, Donner, and Hölle giving the music a striking,
destructive, fiery affect.
Sind Blitze, sind Donner in Wolken verschwunden? Has lightning, has thunder vanished in the
clouds?
Eröffne den feurigen Abgrund, o Hölle;
Open your fiery pit, o Hell;
Zertrümmre, verderbe, verschlinge, zerschelle
Wreck, ruin, engulf, shatter
Mit plötzlicher Wut
With sudden force
Den falschen Verräter, das mördrische Blut!
The false betrayer, the murderous blood.
Telemann Die Donner Ode 1756
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), while actually a contemporary of Handel
and J.S. Bach, is more often referred to as a pre-Classical composer than a Baroque
composer. His mixed galant and affective styles are apparent in his music, which often
uses more homophonic textures, diatonic harmonies, and less strict counterpoint and
chromaticism. His music also reflects a strong commitment to the evocation of text.
Telemann was one of the most respected and influential composers of his time.
His music is less demanding and less virtuosic than that of Handel and Bach, but its
accessibility probably contributed to his reputation.
48
49
Example 3.9 J.S. Bach “Sind Blitze, sind Donner” from Matthäus-Passion 1727.
Source: Matthäus- Passion, BWV 244. Ed. by Közreadja Máriássy István. Budapest: Editio Musica, 1988.
In these examples from Telemann’s Die Donner Ode, the fire affect is expressed
in three consecutive arias, portraying the voice of God as thunderous and flaming. The
first aria, for tenor, is actually marked Feurig (“fiery”). Telemann was one of the first
composers to use extensive and varied expressive tempo markings in German. A fairly
constant sixteenth-note pulse in the strings sets the fiery tone of this aria. The second
half contains thirty-second note gestures in the voice and strings, depicting the flashes of
lightning and thunder. The final swirling vocal melisma on donnert (“thunders”) paints
the frenzied nature of the power of God’s voice.
50
Part 1 No. 4 – Aria (Tenor)
Die Stimme Gottes erschüttert die Meere.
Gewitter wandeln vor ihm her.
Der Höchste donnert, gekleidet in Ehre,
Auf grossen Wassern donnert er.
The voice of God rocks the seas.
Storms go before Him.
The Highest thunders, clothed in glory,
He thunders on great waters.
Example 3.10. Telemann No. 4 from Die Donner Ode1756.
Source: from Musikalische Werke, Band XXII. Ed. by Wolf Hobohm. Basel: Bärenreiter, 1971.
In the next aria, the bass voice continues to describe the fierce power of God’s
voice, as the violins express the idea of shattering with quick descending scalar gestures
between vocal statements and constant tremolo pulsing over the word zerschmettert
(“shatters” or “smashes”). While there are no actual fiery words in this aria, the
overriding affect of the piece is very similar to the previous and the subsequent arias, all
describing the power and ferocity of God’s voice. The marking Nachdrücklich
(“emphatic”) also underscores the destructive tone of the aria.
No. 5 Aria (Bass I)
Die Stimme Gottes zerschmettert die Zedern,
Den Ruhm, den er den Bergen gab,
Die Stimme Gottes zerschmettert die Zedern
Vom hohen Libanon herab.
51
The voice of God shatters the cedars,
The glory He gave to the mountains,
The voice of God shatters the cedars
Of high Lebanon.
Example 3.11. Telemann No. 5 from Die Donner Ode 1756.
Source: Ibid.
Telemann continues the fiery, thunderous character in a third aria, again for bass
voice. The expressive marking of Kräftig (“powerful”) again informs the overall
character of the aria. String tremolo is again the chosen musical device by which
Telemann emphasizes the fire of the God’s thunderous voice as it punctuates the beats
with melismatic phrases on Donners. The strong pulse prepares the word Flammen.
Frequent rests in both the instruments and the voice parts break up the already piecemeal
texture and add to the accented, punctuated tone of the aria.
52
No. 6 Aria (Bass II)
Sie stürzt die stolzen Gebirge zusammen;
Der Erdkreis wankt, wenn er sie hört:
Er hört des Donners Stimme, die Flammen
Rund um sich sprüht, zerschlägt, zerstört.
It makes the proud mountains collapse;
The whole world rocks, when it hears:
The world hears the voice of the thunder,
Which sends forth flames, shatters, and destroys.
Example 3.12. Telemann No. 6 from Die Donner Ode 1756.
Source: Ibid.
53
In these arias, Telemann uses string figurations in depicting musical fire, but the
static tremolo and lack of harmonic drive make the affect less intense than some of the
previous examples. Fire becomes more a character than an outburst of passion.
Telemann’s use of the expressive marking Feurig is, however, pioneering. Later
composers, especially in Germany, would make extensive use of fiery tempo and
expression marks, such as Allegro con fuoco, e.g., in Weber’s Der Freischütz.
The German expression of fire in music centered greatly on the expression of
intense love and devotion to God, and God's fiery power. The Protestant (specifically
Lutheran) idea of profound expression in sacred music contrasts with the French tradition
of dramatic expression in secular writing, i.e., opera. German composers pioneered
compositional genres and styles in sacred music, while French composers pursued
musical pathos in secular genres, staying in a more traditional stile antico (like France)
for sacred compositions. The next chapter, will examine how Italy continued to express
affect more often in secular works and that prosperous eighteenth-century England
sought intense expressive modes in both sacred and secular genres, in opera and oratorio.
54
CHAPTER 4
INFLAMED WITH PASSION: ITALY AND ENGLAND
Italy
During the eighteenth century, Italy’s music differed according to its intended
audience. Opera originated in Italy and the genre’s popularity in the public sphere grew
immensely in the 1700s. Instrumental and chamber music was intended more for a
private audience, but it too expanded as a genre, with the rise of the instrumental
concertos of Corelli and Vivaldi. While the power of Catholicism continued to dominate
sacred musical genres, the conservative stile antico of Palestrina was not the only style of
music heard in cathedrals. Because performers often worked in both opera houses and
churches, liturgical musical idioms grew increasingly similar to those of opera.1
Italian composers set the operatic standard for recitative and da capo aria form,
the use of ritornelli, establishing affect, and character types. The virtuosity, vocal power,
and charisma of castrati no doubt influenced the voicing of characters and the florid style
of arias. Composers from all over Europe, most notably George Frideric Handel (16851759), were profoundly influenced by the Italian opera seria style.
Plot in Italian opera was advanced through recitative, both solo and in dialogue.
Arias were moments of reflective and expressive reaction to the preceding action. Arias
usually contained a single affect, although it was also common for the A section affect to
be contrasted by a more or less extreme emotion characterizing the B section. By this
time of the high Baroque, Italian opera had incorporated many of Monteverdi’s seconda
pratica techniques and depicted the idea of the aria text as a single musical affect.
Individual words were still painted, but the overall passion of the moment took
precedence. The opening and intervening ritornelli of the aria often set up these affects.
With the stile concitato, Monteverdi introduced musical elements to depict
moments of agitation, such as war. These brief moments became extended arias by the
time of Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725).
1
Antonio Rostagno. “Italy.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy. (Accessed [28 May,
2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
55
Alessandro Scarlatti No. 67 “Sull’altar della vendetta” from La principessa fedele
1709
Discolpe con ammette una fiamma
d'amor ch'è fatta sdegno.
A loving flame which has been despised
admits no excuses.
Sull’altar della vendetta
Svenerò l’infausto amor.
Lampo, fulmine e sacette
Caderan sul traditor.
On the altar of vengeance
I shall sacrifice this unfavorable love;
Flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, and arrows
Shall fall upon the traitor.
In this scene Rosana sets up her vengeance aria by discussing the burning love she
has for Ersindo. This “loving flame” is not reciprocated and this realization drives
Rosana to exclaim that she shall sacrifice that love for vengeance. She likens this
revenge to lightning, thunder, and arrows, transferring the flame of love into the flame of
hate, into the fire of lightning. Scarlatti musically expresses the fire-as-hate idea with the
active string parts in the ritornello setting the scene. The vocal line continues this affect
with the flame of love, which is now infausto or “unfavorable,” with lengthy melsimas.
The B section depicts the consequences of Rosana’s vengeful oath, i.e., lampo, fulmine, e
sacette (“flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, and arrows”). Scarlatti uses ascending and
descending melismatic phrases in both the voice and the strings to paint the idea of a rain
of lightning and thunder falling on her object of revenge. The instrumental gestures
puncture the vocal line, driving the music forward with the quick, scalar motion taking
over just before the end of the vocal phrase.
A. Scarlatti No. 62 “Sdegnato mio core” from La Statira 1690
Ed io t'attendo, O caro,
tutta accesa nel sen di dolce amore,
se consegno a te solo il mio furore.
And I await you, my dear,
My breast burning with my love.
If I can only deliver my fury.
Sdegnato mio core preparati all’armi.
Voi furie d’Averno unitivi a me,
E già che discerno tradita mia fé,
Il vostro veleno venite a prestarmi.
My disdained heart, prepare to arms.
You furies of Hell, join me,
and now that I see my faith betrayed,
Come lend your poison to me.
The affect for this aria reveals its fire in the preceding recitative. Campaspe’s
burning love is so strong that she wishes revenge on those preventing her from expressing
that love. She calls on the powers of Hell to help her in this aria. The fires of Hell serve
as the image portrayed by the strings in this section. Scarlatti uses a short furious
ritornello to set up her entreaty to Hell. The strings paint the Hellish furies with
repeated sixteenth-notes overlapping the declamatory vocal lines.
56
Example 4.1. A. Scarlatti No. 67 from La principessa fedele “Sull’altar della vendetta” 1709.
Source: from The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Volume IV. Ed. by Donald Jay Grout. Cambridge, MA
and London: Harvard University Press, 1977.
57
Example 4.2. A. Scarlatti No. 62 from La Statira “Sdegnato mio core” 1690.
Source: from The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Volume IX. Ed. by William C. Holmes, 1985
58
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) “Inflammatus et accensus” from Stabat Mater, Date
of composition uncertain 1713-1719
Alessandro Scarlatti’s son is mostly known for the sonatas he wrote while in
Spain. He also wrote choral works, which display the Italian influence of his heritage.
Domenico Scarlatti’s Stabat Mater, though less popular now than the Pergolesi setting,
has nonetheless many moments of brilliance. The text of this movement directly points
to fiery love and empathetic pain for God. It is a prayer to the Virgin Mary to feel an
intense love for Christ and some of the burning torment He suffered.
Inflammatus et accensus per te,
Virgo sim defensus in die judicii.
Inflamed and burning, may I be defended
By thee, O Virgin, at the day of judgement.
Scarlatti sets the words inflammatus (“inflamed”) and accensus (“burning”) in a
fiery vocal coloratura passage which is elaborated at each reiteration, becoming longer,
more complex, more angular, and more quickly imitated. The melismatic phrases are
mostly sweeping in ascending scalar gestures, a common technique in portraying fire
musically. Each time a voice enters on the word inflammatus, the musical energy is
thrust forward because of the rhythmic and melodic writing.
The coloratura drives towards the word accensus, arriving on the accented second
syllable of the Latin word. Scarlatti uses that syllable as the goal of the vocal line. The
created sense of urgency and final arrival point emphasize the burning affect of the text.
The first entrance uses upward leaps in pitch to a dotted note followed by a quick scalar
descent driving the line forward. The echo occurs after the completion of that theme.
The next entrance and imitation overlap, intensifying the melismatic thrust forward. The
final entrances are elaborated versions that use more upward and downward swirling
scalar movement and trills to heighten this feeling of being inflamed and burning with
love for God. This desire to feel the burning suffering of Christ directly connects to the
Baroque psychological notion that learning and experiencing some of that pain imbues
one with a “new pathos and a new comprehension of suffering, cruelty, and
steadfastness.”2
2
Martin, 13.
59
60
Example 4.3. D. Scarlatti “Inflammatus et accensus” from Stabat Mater 1713-1719
Source: Musica Sacra Gesamtausgabe Band 3. Ed. by Robert Scandrett. Carus-Verlag, 1986.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736) “Fac ut ardeat” from Stabat Mater, Date of
composition uncertain 1730-1736
Pergolesi is often studied not as a Baroque but as a pre-Classical composer.
Indeed, his style of writing uses a mix of affect within movements, and his harmonic
language is often more straightforward than the quick-moving harmonies of most
Baroque composers. He does however paint single affects for some musical movements.
In Pergolesi’s setting of the Stabat Mater text, he uses two-part fugal writing to impart
the “Fac ut ardeat” section. This text is a plea to Mary for a burning love of Christ.
Fac ut ardeat cor meum
In amando Christum Deum
Ut sibi complaceam.
Make my heart burn
with love for Christ my God
so that I may please Him.
Pergolesi seems to interpret the text musically as a desperate plea, with a driven, angular
subject along with tense ascending imitative sequencing and suspensions. The two
voices build off one another, gaining intensity as the movement progresses, yielding an
extremely expressive and contrapuntally clean setting of the text. The urgent desire to
please God with burning love is expressed by steadily ascending pitch, with notes on the
strong pulses for one voice being accentuated by offbeat sets of three tones in the other
voice, the first two on the same pitch and the third a step higher, pushing the musical line
forward and yielding an intense yearning affect (Example 4.4 measure 25). These
progressively ascending, intensifying passages are further enhanced by trills which
increase the tonal uncertainty, building more tension and expectation of a musical and
dramatic resolution or answer. Pergolesi also uses repeated fugal subject entrances and
sequences of suspensions alternating with descending scalar passages to further delay
resolution and prolong this fiery plea.
61
62
Example 4.4. Pergolesi “Fac ut ardeat” from Stabat Mater 1730-1736.
Source: Stabat Mater, for Soprano, Alto, Strings, and Basso continuo. Ed. by Jürgen Neubacher. London:
Ernst Eulenberg, 1992.
63
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) “Armatae face” from Second Part of Juditha
Triumphans 1716
Armatae face, et anguibus
Armed with fire and serpents
A caeco regno squallido
Furoris sociae barbari
Furiae venite ad nos.
Morte, flagello, stragibus
Vindictam tanti funeris
Irata nostra pectora
Duces docete vos.
From the dark and dreadful kingdom
You mad, savage companions,
Furies come to us.
With death, the lash, and havoc
Teach us to avenge
The death of our leader
With our enraged feelings.
Vivaldi portrays the fire of rage in this aria from one of his oratorios. Rage arias,
common in many of the large-scale, Italianate dramatic works, are generally depicted by
fiery music, and this aria is no exception. He uses quick descending scalar motion in the
strings to set up the rageful scene in the ritornello. The vocal line is quite active and lies
in a high tessitura for much of the enraged coloratura. The affect paints the fire of hate
and the urgency of the oath to unleash the dark rage in the heart. The armament of fire
indicates that the warlike passion is associated with an intense burning. The word fax
(here in the ablative case–face) has many fiery connotations–fiery torment, love, and fire
weapons. The poetic use of the word in the text reflects a general burning urgency to
prepare for a vengeful attack. Vivaldi's heightened string intensity and driving vocal line
(complete with three repetitions of the word furiae at successively higher pitches) paint
the rage and fire of the affect.
Vivaldi “Summer” (“L'Estate”) from Le Quattro Stagioni 1730s
Allegro non molto
Sotto dura Staggion dal Sole accesa
Langue l' huom, langue 'l gregge,
ed arde il Pino;
Scioglie il Cucco la Voce, e tosto intesa
Canta la Tortorella e 'l gardelino.
Zeffiro dolce spira, mà contesa
Muove Borea improviso al Suo vicino;
E piange il Pastorel, perché sospesa
Teme fiera borasca, e 'l suo destino;
Beneath the blazing sun's relentless heat
Men and flocks are sweltering,
pines are scorched.
We hear the cuckoo's voice; then sweet
Songs of the turtledove and finch are heard.
Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening
North wind sweeps them suddenly aside.
The shepherd trembles, fearful of
Violent storm and what may lie ahead.
Adagio e piano - Presto e forte
Toglie alle membra lasse il Suo riposo
Il timore de' Lampi, e tuoni fieri
E de mosche, e mossoni il Stuol furioso!
His limbs are now awakened from their repose
By fear of lightning's flash and thunder's roar,
as gnats and flies buzz furiously around.
Presto
Ah che pur troppo i Suo timor Son veri
Tuona e fulmina il Ciel e grandioso
Tronca il capo alle Spiche e a' grani alteri.
Alas, his worst fears were justified,
As the heavens roar and great hailstones
Beat down upon the proudly standing corn.
64
Example 4.5. Vivaldi “Armatae face” from Second Part of Juditha Triumphans 1716
Source: Juditha Triumphans: Sacrum Militare Oratorium. Ed. by Alberto Zedda. Milan: Ricordi, 1971.
65
Vivaldi uses the fire affect quite often in his set of musical seasons. The piece is
full of many different affects, which seem to follow closely some accompanying sonnets
outlining the nearly programmatic work.
The summer movement's sections each contain clear examples of musical fire.
The first section of this movement begins with languorous motives and birds singing,
followed by a flowing dotted rhythm in the strings signifying a gentle breeze (Zeffira
dolce spira, “sweet breezes moving the air”). This breezy motive descends gradually in
anticipation of the sudden whirlwind burst as the strings lead the frenetic motion which
follows. The quick onset of the fiery music presages the impending storm (terne fiera
borasca, “fearful of a fierce storm”) of the third section of summer.
The second movement contains a repeated agitated motive which seems straight
out of a stile concitato moment in a Monteverdi opera. The string tremolos continue to
foreshadow the coming storm (e tuoni fieri, “and thunder’s fierceness”).
Example 4.6. Vivaldi “Summer” Movement 1 (“L'Estate”) from Le Quattro Stagioni 1730s.
Source: Le Quattro Stagioni (The Four Seasons): “Il Cimento dell’ Armonia e dell’ Inventione,” Op. 8,
Nos. 1-4. Ed. by Newell Jenkins. London: Ernst Eulenberg, 1958.
66
Finally, the fiery storm is unleashed in the third section. Vivaldi uses many of the
techniques already mentioned to achieve this stormy, fiery affect–rapid string figurations
and sequencing, brilliant coloratura, and tremolo.
Example 4.7. Movement 2
Source: Ibid.
67
Example 4.8. Movement 3
Source: Ibid.
68
England
Early eighteenth-century London experienced unprecedented prosperity. London
was a center for trade and the manufacturing of goods. It was also becoming an
international center for musicians to live and visit. Composers from Italy, France, and
Germany moved to London to make their living because of London’s reputation as a
musical center. During the 1700s, Britain maintained a reputation in Europe as “a liberal
creative environment where it was possible for a man of talent to make his way without
losing his creative liberty.”3 Many German-born composers settled in London, including
Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752), John Galliard (1687?-1747), and Handel.
Audiences at music concerts were growing, as the middle class became more able
to afford leisure activities such as music. During the reign of George I, England
supported a “vast increase of concerts and other public musical occasions.”4 Early on,
Italian opera was the preferred musical genre of English audiences. By 1728, the year of
John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, Italian opera in London was in the midst of its demise.
Italian opera arrived in England in 1705, where Giovanni Bononcini’s (1670-1747)
operas were some of the first to triumph.5 There had indeed been objections to Italian
opera in London as early as 1706,6 but it took at least twenty years for English frustration
to culminate in a large-scale mocking of the genre.
Growing dissatisfaction with Italian opera also evidenced itself with a new regard
for ancient music. The rise of musical classes and the desire to celebrate older works led
to the creation of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1726. Pepusch co-founded this
organization, which was the first of its kind “to perform old works regularly and
deliberately.”7
The societal context of early eighteenth-century England reveals an increasing
musical audience, growing more dissatisfied with Italian opera. English composers
3
Matthew Craske. Art in Europe 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented
Urban Economic Growth. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. 83.
4
Roy Porter and Marie Mulvey Roberts, ed. Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century. Washington Square,
New York: New York University Press, 1996. 30.
5
Lorenzo Bianconi. “Italy.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy. (Accessed [2 July,
2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
6
Porter, 143.
7
William Weber. The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon,
Ritual, and Ideology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. 56.
69
became more grounded in musical styles of France and Italy, often mixing elements of
each with their own tastes, sometimes creating a distinctively English style. Italian opera
seria flourished at the beginning of the 1700s, but English oratorio and public concerts
took its place soon after the appearance of The Beggar’s Opera.
John Eccles (c1668-1735) Semele 1707
While Handel’s music certainly dominated much of England’s musical life after
his arrival in 1710, English composers did attempt to create their own amalgamations of
English and Italian musical traditions in their works. John Eccles’s Semele, though never
produced during his lifetime, serves as an exemplar of English compositions exhibiting
both English and Italian styles at the beginning of the eighteenth century. While an
Italian emphasis on affect is quite apparent in this opera, the language is English and the
aria structures are not as often da capo as in opera seria.
As seems to be often the case in Baroque opera, musical fire is present when
jealous Juno appears, swearing vengeance because of Jupiter’s indiscretions. The fire is
one of rage and anger. She swears by Hell, implying all the fires and furies of that
infernal place, and the music is characterized by quick, pulsing strings and dotted,
declamatory, warlike rhythms, and melodic motion in the vocal line.
When Juno appears in Act III, a similarly bold, agitated string ritornello entrance
signifies her return even before she sings and her song of the pleasure of revenge is
punctuated by fiery violin interludes.
When Jupiter tries to seduce Semele into consummating their love, he urges her to
“speak your Desire” because “I’m all over Fire.” “Desire” and “Fire” are marked by
quick string figurations, painting the image of Jupiter’s fiery desire, as he sustains the
words.
Finally, after Juno tricks Semele into making Jupiter swear to show his true self to
her, Semele’s death by his lightning and thunder is musically depicted by an instrumental
interlude in a fire affect.
70
Example 4.9. Eccles from Act III, Scene 1, Semele 1707.
Source: from Musica Britannica: A National Collection of Music, LXXVI. Ed. by Richard Platt. London,
Stainer and Bell, 2000.
Example 4.10. Act III Scene 6.
Source: Ibid.
71
Example 4.11. Act III Scene 4.
Source: Ibid.
Example 4.12. Act III Scene 7.
Source: Ibid.
72
Semele’s preceding recitative explains the relation between fire and lightning
quite well:
Ah me! Too late I now repent
My Pride and impious Vanity.
He comes! Far off his Lightnings scorch me.
I feel my Life consuming: I burn, I faint,
For Pity I implore- O help, I can no more.
The fiery instrumental scene is achieved with chromatically ascending string
tremolo with quickly changing harmonies. The intensity of the scene depicts the power
and fire of Jupiter’s lightning and thunder.
Johann Pepusch “By great Cecilia’s Influ’nce Fir’d” from The Union of the Three
Sister Arts 1723
Pepusch was clearly aware of and enamoured with older styles and musical
traditions. Although he was not a native Englishman, his dramatic compositions showed
a decided attempt to accept English traditions in musical compositional style. He wrote
many English secular cantatas, which although sometimes in an Italianate style, had
English texts.
Pepusch’s works show that he was aware of the English tradition of setting text to
music in honor of St. Cecilia. The Union of the Three Sister Arts was written in honor of
St. Cecilia and follows a line of such works by English composers which began in the
late seventeenth century, with John Blow (1648/9-1708) and Henry Purcell. St. Cecilia’s
connection to music and divine inspiration served as an appealing duality to English
poets and composers. Composers from Blow to Purcell to Eccles to Handel and Pepusch
set texts honoring Cecilia with great textual and musical freedom–a mixture of ecstasy
and sanctity, because of her connection to such a passionate art as music and her identity
as a virgin. In many of the works there are elements of both the comic and the serious.
By great Cecilia’s Influ’nce Fir’d
The Pen and Pencil never tir’d
Are still with Nobler Thoughts inspir’d
Both Vot’ries at her Sacred Shrine,
The Poet and the Painter joyn,
And all their Honour here resign.
The duet for Apelles and Homer expresses the idea that both Poetry and Painting
are inspired by Cecilia’s fire and that they join together at her shrine. This duet focuses
on Cecilia’s ability to inspire artistic fire and Pepusch’s writing establishes a fiery affect
73
for the piece. The active, melismatic, and scalar writing for strings and oboe sets the
fiery tone in a lengthy ritornello. Motives of this ritornello (the longest in the entire
work) separate the sung phrases and drive the music forward throughout the duet. The
word “inspir’d” is often set on long, sustained tones above which the instruments
sequence, building harmonic expectation and driving the musical thought forward. In the
B section of the duet, descending scalar melismatic lines in the violins between fairly
smooth vocal phrases reiterate the fire inspired by Cecilia, driving the music back to the
A section. The constant barrage of exciting violin lines and forward motion in this duet
are reflective of the ecstatic, inspired passion that dominates the piece.
Example 4.13. “By great Cecilia’s Influ’nce Fir’d” from The Union of the Three Sister Arts. Pepusch, 1723.
Source: Facsimile of copy of first edition, published 1723 in London by John Walsh.
74
George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) “Why do the nations so furiously rage
together?” from Messiah 1742
Why do the nations so furiously rage together?
And why do the people imagine a vain thing?
The kings of the earth rise up
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and his anointed.
Among the many rage arias Handel composed is the familiar example from his
Messiah–“Why do the nations so furiously rage together?” The furious instrumental
introduction is led by the swirling strings and their sweeping ascending motives, which
create a clear sense of forward motion leading to the entrance of the voice, which
continues with various coloratura passages on the word “rage.” This is another example
of fire as hate or anger in music. The word “rage” is the key to Handel’s musical
interpretation of this text. While the agitation of the music does suggest the singer’s
frustration with and questioning of that rage, it is the fury of the rage itself that Handel
sets as the fiery affect. As is often the case with Handel, the emotive affect of the text is
painted quite clearly by the music. There is usually at least one rage aria such as this one
in Handel’s many operas and oratorios. Jealous rage, vengeful wishes, and hatred all
compel the corresponding character to sing such an aria, complete with a fire-as-rage
affect.
Handel “But who may abide” from Messiah
But who may abide the day of his coming?
And who shall stand when he appeareth?
For he is like a Refiner’s fire.
In this aria from Messiah, Handel is ingenious in his clear and exciting
representation of the fire of the Christ. The opening Larghetto section sets up and
actually prepares the listener for the sudden onset of the fire section. The opening
questions – “But who may abide the day of His coming and who shall stand when He
appeareth?” – lead right into the Prestissimo where tremolo strings and the rapid
coloratura of the vocal line paint the words “For He is like a Refiner’s Fire.”
75
Example 4.14. Handel “Why do the nations so furiously rage together?” from Part II of Messiah 1742.
Source: Der Messias: Oratorium in drei Teilen. Ed. by John Tobin. Basel: Bärenreiter Kassel, 1965.
A refiner’s fire softens metal so that is may be shaped. To say that God is like
such a fire is to say that the Holy Spirit breaks down human walls and allows people to be
shaped by God, changed profoundly as Christians. Handel musically interpreted this as
quite a fiery change, using a shift to a faster tempo, dramatic tremolo in the strings, and
rapid coloratura. These techniques are quite effective in building excitement, intensity,
76
and in a sense kindling the fire which is metaphorically supposed to burn in the hearts of
Christians, as God works to mold them.
Example 4.15. from Part I of Messiah.
Source: Ibid.
It should be noted that this is not the first of Handel’s versions of this aria. The
first text setting contained no tempo changes, and although it contained melismatic
passages, it did not use them to elicit a sense of fire. Handel may have been inspired by
the words or perhaps a different singer to create the second setting, which gives quite a
musical spark to the text.
77
From these examples, it is clear that the Italian tradition of bold expression of
passion in music heavily influenced other countries, especially England. Musical fire at
the height of the Baroque period is often expressed in moments of extreme anger, rage,
jealousy, sexual desire, and love of God. The freneticism of the string texture seems to
be a constant in these examples. The violin and vocal coloratura are quite connected to
the expression of fiery feelings. While composers such as Monteverdi, Caccini, Schütz,
Lully, and Purcell all used such devices to paint quick fiery scenes, their depiction of fire
was often limited to the painting of a single word. During the first half of the eighteenth
century, musical fire was often depicted as an affect, continuing for an entire movement
or section of a piece. Rage arias maintain that fire-as-rage affect for the entire piece.
Scenes of thunder and lightning are extended to entire instrumental interludes (e.g.,
Rameau and Eccles). Love of God becomes an ecstatic fire brimming with intensity in
works such as Bach’s Cantata No. 34 and Handel’s aria “But who may abide.” By the
late Baroque period, fire is an established affect that occurs often in moments of high
dramatic intensity.
78
CHAPTER 5
BEYOND THE BAROQUE TRAILBLAZERS
Composers and listeners alike often testify to a belief in the emotional power of
music. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, composers sought to use
musical rhetorical manipulation to provoke passionate responses in listeners. A
fundamental notion of the power of music is that music can mean something, that it can
signify by sounding happy, sad, frantic, or “Italian,” etc., and thereby translate into a
physical response in the listener.
In musicology, there is often the temptation to base theory on a personal
emotional response to music. One would hope that most people who study music have
been and are greatly moved by its power. This response to music may indeed be one of
the main reasons people decide to pursue further musical studies. However, basing
theory on these responses risks the stigma of the pathetic fallacy, where the theory has no
scholarly grounding and is wholly based on personal response.
Any paper dealing with emotions and affect in music runs this risk because the
music causes such a singular emotive response. It is important to note that the
composer’s intention to evoke such a response makes the subject of affect an emotive and
scholarly one. Composers of vocal and dramatic music during the Baroque era strove
foremost to arouse an intense response in the listener based on the scene and the meaning
of the text. The main Baroque aesthetic was to elicit a passionate response through the
use of rhetorical musical devices.
Before Monteverdi, the expression of extreme agitation in music was not
commonplace. Even after Monteverdi’s groundbreaking seconda pratica and stile
concitato, composers reserved expressions of extreme excitation for rare instances where
the text or dramatic situation called for such a display. During the Renaissance, words of
heightened, fiery intensity were painted as individual words, the hypotopsis rhetorical
device mentioned in Chapter 1. During the early Baroque, composers such as Lully and
Schütz continued to represent individual fiery words to create impressions of musical
fire. By the high Baroque period, composers such as Rameau, Bach, and Handel used
79
entire sections of charged musical fire to depict the corresponding image of elemental fire
(fire itself, or lightning and thunder), fiery desire, fiery rage, or fiery love of God. In
addition to rendering individual words, these composers painted the fiery idea as a scenic
intensified affect. Fire not as an emotion, per se, but as an affective intensifier.
Through all the examples in this thesis, the variety of contexts that inspired
composers to write appropriately fiery musical settings is vast. Fire has many synonyms,
related adjectival and verb forms, Latin derivatives, and related concepts in the main
Western European languages used in Baroque vocal music (Latin, Italian, French,
German, and English). This may seem to weaken the idea that there is something special
to the idea of fire represented in music. However, the fact that fire applies to so many
contexts in so many intensifying ways demonstrates its uniqueness as a musical concept
growing out of rhetorical aesthetic principles and points to its far-reaching implications
past the Baroque period.
While a systematic examination of Classic music is beyond the scope of this
thesis, the stylistic and chronological overlap of composers from this period and the
Baroque is evident in composers such as Pergolesi and Telemann. This overlap and later
philosophical thought about the artists and fire suggest the importance of thinking about
musical fire as a concept and identifying the implications beyond the Baroque.
When music appreciators think of musical fire today, Beethoven's music is often
the first to come to mind. Beethoven clearly thought of musical fire as an essential aspect
of music, saying that "music ought to strike fire from the soul of a man."1 However, as
has been shown in this thesis, the idea of making a fiery musical moment did not begin
with Beethoven. Baroque composers used tremolo, vocal coloratura, harmonic
sequences, and brilliant string gestures to heighten the fire affect, in pieces such as "But
who may abide" from Handel's Messiah, Rebel's Les Eléments, and Vivaldi's Le Quattro
Stagioni.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment movement
affected the way composers approached making music. Instead of using Baroque affect
to elicit particular audience reactions, Enlightenment composers ("Classic" composers)
1
Virginia Beahrs. “’Artists Are Made of Fire’: An Exploration of the Role of Fire in the
Music of Beethoven.” The Beethoven Newsletter 7/2: 43.
80
began to use more human characterizations rather than exaggerated states of heightened
emotions. Feeling, or Empfindsamkeit, aimed at achieving "intimate, sensitive, and
subjective expression," became one of the musical aesthetics associated with this period.2
This stylistic change did not eliminate fire from composers' musical vocabulary. During
the so-called "Classic" period, fire music manifested in a variety of pieces, some of which
harkened back to Baroque affect, while others reflected contemporary philosophical
thought.
Why Do Composers Write Fire Music?
In Baroque music, signifying emotive meaning was achieved using affect. The
goal was to move the listener by means of clearly painted passions. Composers wished to
sustain the sense of the emotion for an entire section, aria, or movement. Fire served as
an affect on its own and as an intensifier of particularly excited feelings, such as love and
anger.
In Classic music, musical signification shifts more rapidly. Moods and dramatic
directions may change within a movement or aria rather than remaining constant
throughout the piece as in a Baroque lament or rage aria. There are of course exceptions,
but the idea of fluctuating emotions in a more human manner is reflected in the
compositional styles. Ritornelli may set the tone, but it is not necessarily the tone of the
entire piece. Binary form and other conventional musical gestures, such as Mannheim
rockets and steamrollers serve as compositional tools to aid in eliciting these emotions.
As has been demonstrated in fiery pieces by Vivaldi and Rebel, fiery feelings are
not limited to vocal music. Purely instrumental music can and does similarly affect
listeners. However, these instrumental fiery moments are not as immediately evident
without the word cues of fiery moments in vocal music. Nevertheless, one can certainly
feel moments of musical fire in high intensity moments in Classic pieces such as
Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, no. 35, K. 385; fire is certainly evident in the Allegro con
spirito first movement. While in Vienna, Mozart even wrote a letter to his father, dated
August 7, 1782, explaining that the “first Allegro must be played with great fire.”3
2
Daniel Heartz and Bruce Alan Brown. “Empfindsamkeit.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001. 8:190.
3
Emily Anderson, ed. The Letters of Mozart and his Family. London: Macmillan, 1938. 3:1212.
81
The idea of fire in the Classic period should also be considered in relation to
Enlightenment psychology. Artists and philosophers were quite interested in moral
sentiment and believed that the arts should awaken feelings within the listener.4 They
were preoccupied with not simply representing various feelings, but also eliciting them in
others. The Swiss aesthetic theorist Johann Georg Sulzer wrote that the composer must
“remember that music is written not for the mind or imagination, but for the heart.”5 He
thought that the composer should seek simply to arouse feelings, without imposing his
own ideas.6 According to Sulzer, “musical sounds originated as passionate emotions and
have the power to ‘depict, arouse, and strengthen such emotions.’”7
The German theorist Heinrich Christoph Koch also believed that music could and
should arouse emotions and passions.8 He felt this ability was unique to the fine arts and
that music could affect listeners in this manner through a variety of compositional
choices, including modulation and form.9
This is not to say, however, that the Classic period ignored the very extremes of
emotion though. The German Sturm und Drang artistic movement aimed “to frighten, to
stun, to overcome with emotion.”10 Classic composers achieved this storm and stress by
using musical contrasts which alternate quickly and extremely. The attitude headed
towards dramatic realism in expressing a plot. Actual literary circumstances such as
otherworldly forces (spirits, God, Hell, etc.), natural terrors (storms, fire, etc.), and
extreme human emotions prompted composers to use a bold vocabulary of “syncopations,
wild leaps, and tremolo passages” in addition to certain keys (often minor), driving
rhythms, and otherworldly instruments such as the trombone.11 This aesthetic of contrast
led to the composition of many pieces with fiery moments. A clear example is found and
implied by the subtitle of Haydn’s Symphony No. 59, his Fire Symphony.
4
Nancy Kovaleff Baker and Thomas Christensen. Aesthetics and the Art of Musical Composition in the
German Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 28-29.
5
Baker, 90.
6
Ibid.
7
Baker, 118.
8
Ibid.
9
Baker, 192.
10
Daniel Heartz and Bruce Alan Brown. “Sturm und Drang.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan, 2001. 18:631.
11
Heartz, “Sturm und Drang.” 632.
82
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) Symphony no. 59 in A major, Hob I:59, 1767-68
(his Fire Symphony)
This Haydn symphony displays the Sturm und Drang aesthetic with many and
extreme dynamic contrasts and extreme mood swings. Haydn’s “Fire” Symphony (no.
59) was so named in a later manuscript because of its possibly programmatic character
and obviously fiery opening Presto movement. The repeated note theme propels the
movement forward along with the punctuated rhythms and regular forte/piano contrasts
which become more violent during the transition section. The obsessive drive of the
repeated note theme is accompanied by a monotone pedal by the horn, which further
builds the fiery momentum, and increases the wish for release from the driving-butgoing-nowhere melodic motion. The nervous energy of this movement does not become
overpowering though, because of the regularity of the fp contrasts during the more
intense passages.12 The energy does support the symphony’s eventual fiery appellation.
This late eighteenth-century style of storm and stress leads to the Romantic
aesthetics of the nineteenth century. By this time, the idea of fire became more of a
concept rather than an affect. The above-mentioned Mozart letter discusses playing a
movement with fire. This idea of performing in a generally fiery manner carried over
into compositional expression markings by the early 1800s.
Telemann’s marks of expressions such as Feurig were certainly ahead of their
time. In the early nineteenth century, composers commonly began to use direct Italian
tempo markings to indicate that a movement or section should be performed with fire.
Such a marking usually appeared as Allegro con fuoco, as can been seen in the following
example from Weber’s Der Freischütz.
The lengthy scene and aria from which this example is taken builds to this last
fiery section. The intense climax at a fff dynamic and at a fiery tempo shows just the
beginnings of the extremes of Romantic expression.
12
Landon, H.C. Robbins. The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn. London: Universal Edition, 1955. 280.
83
Example 5.1. Max’s aria from Act I of Der Freischütz. Carl Maria von Weber, 1821.
Source: Der Freischütz. Complete Vocal/Orchestral Score. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1977.
84
Fire during this century became the trademark association of the Romantic artist,
who was seen as a Promethean figure in society, bringing fire from the gods to man.13 It
is not within the scope of this paper to examine fire thoroughly in music beyond the
Baroque period, but it is important to point out how far the idea is carried in later artistic
aesthetics.
Conclusion
From its origins in the music of Monteverdi and his stile concitato, composers
have continued to use the fire affect to elicit a sense of agitation in the listener. Stylistic
techniques such as vocal and instrumental coloratura, rapid motivic string figurations,
quick, successive imitations, contrapuntal writing, tremolo, harmonic sequencing, and
modulation may combine in any number of permutations to effect this fire. This is not to
say that any musical work utilizing these techniques will achieve a fire moment. First
and foremost, fire music must affect the listener, causing a sense of anxiety, excitement,
vitality, anger, or general intense feeling. The musical gestures described above aid in
the creation of fire moments. Composers made choices based upon the overriding affect
of the text or dramatic scene. If the fire of love, nature (lightning), God’s love and
power, or of rage is the main affect of the moment, then an appropriately fiery musical
setting is often the expression of such an intensified feeling. Musical moments of fire
from this period reflect the Baroque philosophical emphasis on the arousal of heartfelt
feeling within the listener through musical-rhetorical devices.
This thesis has shown that musical depictions of fire grew from Monteverdi’s
innovative compositional techniques to achieve agitation in music. Painting a fiery word
became painting a fiery scene or feeling for an entire movement, section, or aria.
Certainly, later composers developed other stylistic techniques to achieve their own
version of musical fire. Mozart’s “Haffner” Symphony, Haydn’s “Fire” Symphony,
Weber’s Der Freischütz (with tempo indications including Allegro con fuoco),
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and Firebird Suite, Mendelssohn's "Is not his word like a
fire?" from Elijah, and much of Beethoven’s music are just a few of the many possible
13
Plantinga, Leon. Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe. New York
and London: W.W. Norton, 1984. 16.
85
examples of fire in later periods of music history. This idea of wanting to be thrilled,
excited and aroused by music transcends historical periods. Fire is an essential musical
concept, not just in moments where fire is explicitly described in any of the forms
described in this paper. An overall image of music's essential qualities would not be
complete without mention of such vivid fire-like moments.
86
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Emily, ed. The Letters of Mozart and his Family. London: Macmillan, 1938.
Baker, Nancy Kovaleff and Thomas Christensen. Aesthetics and the Art of Musical
Composition in the German Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1995.
Barnhart, Robert K., ed. The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.
New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1995.
Beahrs, Virginia. “‘Artists Are Made of Fire’: An Exploration of the Role of Fire in the
Music of Beethoven.” The Beethoven Newsletter 7/2: 42-45.
Bianconi, Lorenzo. “Italy.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online ed. L. Macy.
(Accessed [2 July, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
Borden, Arthur R., ed. A Comprehensive Old-English Dictionary. Washington D.C.:
New College of the University of Florida, Press of America, 1982.
Breed, Paul F. and Desiree de Charms, ed. Songs in Collections: An Index.
Detroit, MI: Information Service, 1966.
Buelow, George J. “Affects, theory of the.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. New York: Macmillan,
2001. 1:181.
Buelow, George J., Blake Wilson, and Peter A. Hoyt. “Rhetoric and music.” In The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Edited by Stanley Sadie and
John Tyrrell. New York: Macmillan, 2001. 21:260-275.
Burmeister, Joachim. Musical Poetics. Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by
Benito V. Rivera. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993.
Craske, Matthew. Art in Europe 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of
Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1997.
Descartes, René. The Passions of the Soul. Translated and Annotated by Stephen Voss.
Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1989.
Dictionnaire de L’Académie française, fifth edition. 1798. University of Chicago database of Historical French dictionaries.
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/efts/ARTFL/projects/dicos/
87
Finscher, Ludwig. “Germany.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L.
Macy. (Accessed [23 May, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
Gaukroger, Stephen, ed. The Soft Underbelly of Reason: The Passions in the Seventeenth
Century. London and New York, Routledge: 1998.
Heartz, Daniel and Bruce Alan Brown. “Empfindsamkeit.” In The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell.
London: Macmillan, 2001. 8: 190-92.
Heartz, Daniel and Bruce Alan Brown. “Sturm und Drang.” In The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell.
London: Macmillan, 2001. 18: 631-33.
Kurath, Hans, ed. Middle English Dictionary. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan
Press, 1952.
Landon, H.C. Robbins. The Symphonies of Joseph Haydn. London: Universal Edition,
1955.
LeCoat, Gerard. The Rhetoric of The Arts, 1550-1650. Bern, Switzerland: Herbert Lang,
1975.
Lesure, François. “France.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L. Macy.
(Accessed [23 May, 2003]), http://www.grovemusic.com
Lippman, Edward A. A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1992.
Lippman, Edward A. The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Longman, Addison Wesley, ed. Longman Synonym Dictionary. New York: Rodale
Press, 1979.
Martin, John Rupert. Baroque. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977.
Mathiesen, Thomas J. “Pyrrhic.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online. ed. L.
Macy. (Accessed [18 June, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
Murata, Margaret, ed. Source Readings in Music History, Vol. 4, The Baroque Era. Leo
Treitler, general editor. New York: W.W. Norton, 1998.
Parr, G. Paul, ed. St. John the Baptist Book for Catholic Worship. Reading, PA: St.
John’s Press, 1974.
88
Plantinga, Leon. Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century
Europe. New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1984.
Porter, Roy and Marie Mulvey Roberts, ed. Pleasure in the Eighteenth Century.
Washington Square, New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Sadler, Graham: “Rameau, Jean-Philippe.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music Online.
ed. L. Macy. (Accessed [23 May, 2003]), <http://www.grovemusic.com>
Schulenberg, David. Music of the Baroque. New York: Oxford University Press,
2000.
Schulenberg, David. Music of the Baroque: An Anthology of Scores. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2001.
Simpson, J.A. and E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, Volumes
5, 7, and 13. Clarendon Press, Oxford: 1989.
www.oed.com
Takahashi, Louisa. “Alessandro by George Frideric Handel: A Study of Rhetorical
Elements.” D.M. Treatise Florida State University School of Music: 1989.
Todd, Robert B. “Stoicism.” In The History of Science and Religion in the Western
Tradition: An Encyclopedia. Edited by Gary B. Ferngren. New York and
London: Garland Publishing, 2000.
Warden, John, ed. Orpheus: The Metamorphoses of a Myth. Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1982.
Weber, William. The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A
Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
89
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Sean M. Parr
Education
Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
M.M. in Historical Musicology
Awarded a University Fellowship for the 2002-2003 academic year
Paper presentation for Society for Musicology
“A Tremulous Distinction: The Case of a Vibrant Voice” Fall 2002
President of Society for Musicology 2003-2004
Fall 2004
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
June 1999
B.A. with a Double Major in Music and Mathematics modified with Computer Science
Graduated cum laude overall and with High Honors in Music.
Handel Society Award, Marcus Heiman-Rosenthal award for music.
Teaching Assistant for introductory music theory and opera history courses.
Royal College of Music, London Music Foreign Study Program
90
Spring 1998