The document discusses the concerto, a musical composition usually composed in three movements where a solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It originated from the Latin words meaning "to tie, to join, to weave" indicating the soloist and orchestra alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence. The concerto arose in the Baroque period alongside the concerto grosso which contrasted a small group with the full orchestra. The solo concerto has remained popular from its inception to today. Examples of early concertos involved voices and instruments with independent parts, unlike Renaissance works where instruments only doubled the vocal parts. The concerto took its modern form in the late Baroque era evolving from the concerto grosso into a
The document discusses the concerto, a musical composition usually composed in three movements where a solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It originated from the Latin words meaning "to tie, to join, to weave" indicating the soloist and orchestra alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence. The concerto arose in the Baroque period alongside the concerto grosso which contrasted a small group with the full orchestra. The solo concerto has remained popular from its inception to today. Examples of early concertos involved voices and instruments with independent parts, unlike Renaissance works where instruments only doubled the vocal parts. The concerto took its modern form in the late Baroque era evolving from the concerto grosso into a
The document discusses the concerto, a musical composition usually composed in three movements where a solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It originated from the Latin words meaning "to tie, to join, to weave" indicating the soloist and orchestra alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence. The concerto arose in the Baroque period alongside the concerto grosso which contrasted a small group with the full orchestra. The solo concerto has remained popular from its inception to today. Examples of early concertos involved voices and instruments with independent parts, unlike Renaissance works where instruments only doubled the vocal parts. The concerto took its modern form in the late Baroque era evolving from the concerto grosso into a
The document discusses the concerto, a musical composition usually composed in three movements where a solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band. It originated from the Latin words meaning "to tie, to join, to weave" indicating the soloist and orchestra alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence. The concerto arose in the Baroque period alongside the concerto grosso which contrasted a small group with the full orchestra. The solo concerto has remained popular from its inception to today. Examples of early concertos involved voices and instruments with independent parts, unlike Renaissance works where instruments only doubled the vocal parts. The concerto took its modern form in the late Baroque era evolving from the concerto grosso into a
A concerto (from the Italian: concerto, plural concerti or, often,
the anglicised form concertos) is a musical composition usually composed in three parts or movements, in which (usually) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello or flute) is accompanied by an orchestra or concert band.
The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words conserere(meaning to tie, to join, to weave) and certamen (competition, fight): the idea is that the two parts in a concerto, the soloist and the orchestra or concert band, alternate episodes of opposition, cooperation, and independence in the creation of the music flow.
The concerto, as understood in this modern way, arose in the Baroque period side by side with the concerto grosso, which contrasted a small group of instruments with the rest of the orchestra. The popularity of the concerto grosso form declined after the Baroque period, and the genre was not revived until the 20th century. The solo concerto, however, has remained a vital musical force from its inception to this day.
Early Baroque concerto
The term “concerto” was initially used to denote works involving voices and instruments in which the instruments had independent parts—as opposed to the Renaissance common practice in which the instruments that accompanied voices only doubled the voice parts. Examples of this earlier form of concerto include Giovanni Gabrieli’s “In Ecclesiis” or Heinrich Schütz’s “Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich.”
Late Baroque concerto
The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late Baroque period. Starting from a form called Concerto grosso popularized by Arcangelo Corelli, it evolved into the form we understand today as performance of a soloist with/against an orchestra.
The main composers of concerti of the baroque were Tommaso Albinoni, Antonio
Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel,Pietro Locatelli, Giuseppe Tartini, Francesco Geminiani and Johann Joachim Quantz. The concerto was intended as a composition typical of the Italian style of the time, and all the composers were studying how to compose in the Italian fashion (all’italiana).
The baroque concerto was mainly for a string instrument (violin, viola, cello, seldom viola d’amore or harp) or a wind instrument (oboe, trumpet, flute, or horn). During the baroque period, before the invention of the piano, keyboard concertos were comparatively rare, with the exception of the organ and some harpsichord concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach. As the harpsichord evolved into the fortepiano, and in the end to the modern piano, the increased volume and the richer sound of the new instrument allowed the keyboard instrument to better compete with a full orchestra. Cello concertos have been written since the Baroque era if not earlier. Among the works from that period, those by Antonio Vivaldi and Giuseppe Tartini are still part of the standard repertoire today. Classical concerto
Sonata form in the Classical Concerto.
The concerti of the sons of Johann Sebastian Bach are perhaps the best links between those of the Baroque period and those of the Classical era.
It is conventional to state that the first movements of concerti from the Classical period onwards follow the structure of sonata form. Final movements are often in rondo form, as in J.S. Bach’s E Major Violin Concerto.
