Baroque and Classical Wordpainting Techniques

Renaissance and Baroque composers were faced with the task of creating complex pieces that express both human emotion and ideas. While this is primarily one of the main purposes of all forms of music itself, including genres today, in the 15th through 18th centuries, this was largely done through the musical composition of a piece rather than the lyrics. Composers utilized several different techniques in order to portray to the listener the purpose and meaning of the piece. Renaissance composers were focused on furthering the texts in music, fully developing the lyrics Therefore, the use of word painting, the musical representation of a literal word, phrase, or poetic image, is clearly seen in many pieces. Baroque music, with the institution of the opera being created, was able to fully examine human emotion and the expression of characters. While word painting continued to be used, the use of the aria in operas enabled the audience to witness an outpouring of emotions through a soloist. The techniques used during the Renaissance era were carried over into the Baroque era and were expanded upon in order to provide for more in depth expression.

The madrigal originated in Italy in the 16th century. This type of a piece, which was designed for several soloists with the text being a short poem, was the result of an outpouring of Italian poetry during the Renaissance. As a result, the madrigal has very poetic images and its musical composition speaks to that same idea. The English madrigalist, Thomas Weelkes, displays typical characteristics of a madrigal in his work, As Vesta Was Descending from The Triumphes of Oriana (1601). This madrigal paints the image of Vesta, who is the Roman goddess of the hearth (her flame was protected by the nine “Vestal virgins”), descending a hill with her attendants, while Oriana, who is Queen Elizabeth, is climbing the same hill with her young shepherds. The main text of the song, and its parallel musical composition, depicts the act of Vesta’s attendants deserting her to join the “fair Oriana.”

Weelkes makes excellent use of word painting in order to create a piece that is as musically colorful and useful in telling a story as are the lyrics. As Vesta Was Descending utilizes six voices, which allows for quite complex harmonies and layers of vocals. The first two lines of the piece contain the words “descending” and “ascending,” and the lines are put to descending and ascending scales respectively in order to illustrate the idea that Vesta is making her way down the hill while Oriana is climbing the hill. Continuing through the piece, the words “running down” are portrayed through vocalists quickly descending their voices one after another. Weelkes fully utilizes the multitude of voices in the piece through the next portion. When describing how Vesta’s attendants ran down “first two by two, then three by three together,” he literally has at first two voices singing, then three singing, then all voices singing together. This provides an audible effect of the building and collecting of bodies ultimately all uniting. The next line, “leaving their goddess all alone,” is both physically and emotionally represented by a single voice. A soloist sings the words “all alone” which both clearly portrays to the listener the idea of solitude and Vesta’s feeling of abandonment. Lastly, the concluding line of the piece, “Long live fair Oriana,” contains the longest bass note on the word “long” in comparison to the other words of the line. This again is a clear musical representation of a word of the text, a common technique used by Weelkes. The last line, in general, is a joyful one, and that is represented through the voices’ quick and joyful reproduction of the phrase through their vocals. Weelkes is able to produce emotion and ideas simply through his musical composition. When placed alongside with the lyrics of the piece, As Vesta Was Descending takes on a fully developed piece of expression.

The word painting technique was carried over from the Renaissance period and used quite often in the Baroque. The first opera created, Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), utilizes techniques in order to musically illustrate human emotion. In the piece Tu Se’ Morta this idea can be heard from the very first notes. After being told of Eurydice’s death, Orpheus declares his emotions in Tu Se’ Morta. The piece begins an organ and a bass lute, the lute representing Orpheus’ harp, which speak to the song’s dark tones. The singer’s vocal lines are also fairly free, they have no set beat, meter, or phrase pattern. This, therefore, creates the sense of a monologue or soliloquy, an actor’s expression of inner emotion.

Monteverdi, like other Baroque composers, frequently used word painting. The opening words, “You are dead,” repeated and culminating in “You have left me forevermore, never to return, and I remain,”