Preludes by northern German composers such as Dieterich Buxtehude (c.1637–1707) and Nikolaus Bruhns (c.1665–1697) combined sections of free improvised passages with parts in strict contrapuntal writing (usually brief fugues). The development of the prelude in 17th century Germany led to a sectional form similar to keyboard toccatas by Johann Jakob Froberger or Girolamo Frescobaldi. The last unmeasured preludes for harpsichord date from the 1720s. Louis Couperin (c.1626–1661) was the first composer to embrace the genre, and harpsichord preludes were used until the first half of the 18th century by numerous composers including Jean-Henri d'Anglebert (1629–1691), Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665–1729), François Couperin (1668–1733) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764), whose very first printed piece (1706) was in this form. Keyboard preludes started appearing in the 17th century in France: unmeasured preludes, in which the duration of each note is left to the performer, were used as introductory movements in harpsichord suites. These were closely followed by freely composed preludes in an extemporary style for the lute and other Renaissance string instruments, which were originally used for warming up the fingers and checking the instrument's tuning and sound quality, as in a group of pieces by Joan Ambrosio Dalza published in 1508 under the heading tastar de corde (in Italian, literally, "testing of the strings"). The first preludes to be notated were organ pieces that were played to introduce church music, the earliest surviving examples being five brief praeambula in the Ileborgh Tablature of 1448.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |