3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

This course examines composers, works, artistic trends, and contexts of music-making coexisting at a single moment in time, the year 1724. Subjects include familiar figures (e.g., Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi) and lesser-known individuals (e.g., Christoph Graupner, Carlo Tessarini). Works include staples of the performance repertoire (e.g., Handel’s Giulio Cesare, Bach’s John Passion) and others that never caught on (e.g., Ariosti’s Vespasiano). The synchronous approach of the course emphasizes shared styles, intersecting genres, and overlapping spheres of influence. The reading list emphasizes primary materials. All this combines to provide a novel perspective of baroque music, a snapshot of composers and works as they circulated within a contemporaneous landscape.