Describe your choice by relating key terms from the textbook to the selection you hear. Can you compare this to a modern soundtrack or song that evokes a similar mood?

Identify one composition by Monteverdi or Vivaldi that demonstrates the qualities of the Baroque musical style. Describe your choice by relating key terms from the textbook to the selection you hear. Can you compare this to a modern soundtrack or song that evokes a similar mood?

I chose Vivaldi’s “Gloria”. One of the most popular pieces written in 1708. It is about two minutes long and has a pushing sense of timing to it. It is cheerful and defined as allegro, which means cheerful in Italian. This work reminds me of scenes in movies where the characters are in rush doing something frantically with no spoken dialogue.

Gloria consists of twelve movements and orchestration of trumpet, oboe, strings, and continuo. The wonderfully sunny nature of the Gloria, with its distinctive melodies and rhythms, is characteristic of all of Vivaldi’s music, giving it an immediate and universal appeal. The opening movement is a joyous chorus, with trumpet and oboe obbligato. The extensive orchestral introduction establishes two simple motives, one of octave leaps, the orher a quicker, quaver – semiquaver figure, that function as the ritornello. The choir enters in chorale-like fashion, syllabically declaiming the text in regular rhythms, contrasting with the orchestral ritornello, which contains most of the melodic interest of the movement.