The Rise of Italian Baroque

In the history of music, the XVII century is often considered as a transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque era. Like any transitional phase we can spot elements of steady traditions blended together with new flourishing ideas. Until this period, all melodies have been based on human singing; moving towards the end of the century we begin to see the first violin virtuosos basing their compositions on their skills and on the range provided by their instrument, freed by boundaries and limitations of the human voice, which will bring the violin itself to become one of the main protagonist of the next century, along with composers such as Corelli and Vivaldi.

Another process that takes place in this transition regards the bass instruments of the violin family, the Cello, who began a slower process of emancipation from being only an accompaniment instrument to being a solo instrument as well. In the composition forms, the sonata of the 1600 moved from a flawless sequence of sections with sudden rhythmic changes to a more structured composition with clear separated movements, as we can spot in Alessandro Stradella production. All these processes fit perfectly into the European cultural context, which was developing from a “human focused” philosophy, the Renaissance, to an “intellectual focused” one, the Baroque, reaching its peak at the Age of Enlightenment and allowing the composers to explore the musical expression beyond the old boundaries. The Italian Baroque was just starting to rise.