Styles

Vivaldi

Listen to this example by Vivaldi, from a concerto called 'Spring', one of a group of four concertos called 'The Seasons'. This was one of the first pieces of music written to tell a story which tries to portray the words of a poem in music. 

  Notice that the music is very dance-like, as was the custom at this time, that it is written for string orchestra and has two solo violins which imitate one another and also that it uses ornaments to decorate the music. The bright character of the music is made possible by the music being written in a major key and it has four beats in a bar.

Here is another excerpt from the same work, 'The Seasons' - 'Winter'. In this beautiful slow excerpt a solo violin plays arco, with the bow, while the accompanying strings play mainly pizzicato, or plucked notes. Also listen for ornaments and the sequences in the music as the pattern of the main tune falls.

J S Bach

J S Bach was another very important composer of this period and wrote hundreds of works for different instruments and combinations of instruments and voices. He wrote much of his work for performance in church. Listen to this famous excerpt from a work for organ, ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’. Notice how much of the music is played in unison with both hands playing the same notes an octave apart. 

Notice after the first three short phrases the use of a pedal note, a long sustained note in the bass part, while a diminished chord is built above.

Musicians through the centuries have interpreted music from earlier times in different ways. Here is the same piece of music played in two different ways. First, listen to this excerpt where the music is performed as jazz and notice the improvisation and syncopation at the end of the excerpt.

In this second example you can clearly hear the music being played in a rock style. Notice in all the excerpts the use of sequences, patterns of notes which are repeated as the music rises and falls, and that each excerpt is in the minor key.