I Musici with Pina Carmirelli Wednesday, April 25, 1984

Abstract

"The modern concert-goer can recognize the music dating from the approximately one hundred fifty years now known as the Baroque Era (1600-1750) in various ways. The most easily heard clue, perhaps, is the presence of a "general rhythm" created by regular, typically decisive figurations that pervade the musical fabric from top to bottom and start to finish. This controlled but insistent approach to rhythmic energy is the justification for labelling pieces from this epoch with faster tempos "sewing-machine music." General rhythm is, in fact, a manifestation of a fundamental rule of Baroque composition--that each movement of music must exhibit only one "affection." Accordingly, each movement is intended to conjure up only one mood or one passion, and there is a corresponding uniformity of musical gesture within a movement. Dramatic contrast is consequently heard only between movements."--Program Notes.