Dido

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Dido and Aeneas website
Features of Purcell's compositional technique.
'When I am Laid'
Synopsis(The Plot)

Main features of Baroque Music
  • Basso continuo - a kind of continuous accompaniment notated with a new music notation system, figured bass, usually for a sustaining bass instrument and a keyboard instrument
  • Monody - music for one melodic voice with accompaniment, characteristic of the early 17th century, especially in Italy
  • Homophony - music with one melodic voice and rhythmically similar accompaniment (this and monody are contrasted with the typical Renaissance texture, polyphony)
  • Text over music - intelligible text with instrumental accompaniment not overpowering the voice
  • Vocal soloists
  • Dramatic musical expression
  • Dramatic musical forms like opera, dramma per musica
  • Combined instrumental-vocal forms, such as the oratorio and cantata
  • New instrumental techniques, like tremolo and pizzicato
  • Clear and linear melody
  • Notes inĂ©gales, a technique of applying dotted rhythms to evenly written notes.
  • The aria
  • The ritornello aria (repeated short instrumental interruptions of vocal passages)
  • The concertato style (contrast in sound between orchestra and solo-instruments or small groups of instruments)
  • Precise instrumental scoring (in the Renaissance, exact instrumentation for ensemble playing was rarely indicated)
  • Idiomatic instrumental writing: better use of the unique properties of each type of musical instrument
  • Virtuosic instrumental and vocal writing, with appreciation for virtuosity as such
  • ornamentation
  • Development to modern Western tonality (major and minor scales)
  • Cadenza- an extended virtuosic section for the soloist usually near the end of a movement of a concerto.