In this introductory lecture to Part 3 of the Complete History of Music series, J. Anthony Allen surveys 17th‑century Western music, framing it within the philosophical doctrine of the affections—an emerging belief that music should deliberately evoke and nurture human emotions. He outlines the era’s major developments: the rise of opera, exemplified by Monteverdi’s early opera Orpheus; the evolution of sacred and instrumental music; and the diverse regional styles across France, England, Spain, the Americas, Italy, Germany, and Austria. Allen also touches on the uncertain etymology of the term “Baroque” and explains the early 17th‑century use of the word “sonata.” The lecture sets the stage for the transition into the 18th century, preparing listeners for the later Baroque masters such as Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel.
Chapters
Hey everyone, and welcome to the complete history of Music. Part three, the Early Baroque period. Now, in this class we are going to be Talking about the 17th century and everything happening in the 17th century in west music. We're going to talk about the philosophy that's happening in Europe and other parts of the world. And this idea of the affections. There was this prevailing idea that the affections were the emotions of humans and they needed to be taken care of. And one of the ways that we nurtured the affections was, was through music. So music is written really in a way that evokes the affections for the first time. So we really see composers trying to stir up emotions, happy, sad, and everything in between. In this period we're going to talk a lot about opera. This is the era where opera is having its, its first kind of big moment. We're going to talk about sacred music, instrumental music, and then we're going to go through the music happening in all the different main parts of the world. France, England, Spain, the Americas, Italy, Germany, Austria. And that will kind of tell us everything that's happening in the world here in the 17th century and prepare us to launch into the 18th century where we get Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and some other familiar names. So it's an action packed class of 17th century music. So I hope you decide to join us. It was a lot of fun to make. I will see you inside. In the first lecture, Sam. Now, the word baroque itself has a lot of different possible origins. We don't really know. There's a, you know, it could be from a French word, it could be from a Portuguese word, but the overall meaning of it is not far away from. Okay, I've been doing a lot of talking about what this music is all about, but we really ought to hear something, right? So let's listen to Monteverdi. So early Baroque composer. And this is an excerpt from an opera, earliest known opera that we have, that still exists. We have scores for it and it's still performed rarely, but on occasion it's by Jacopo Perry and it's a setting of Orpheus. So the, the story of Orpheus and specifically it's about famous oratorios. Was this one Japhet? It's based on Judges 11, 29 through 40 from the Bible. There's some paraphrasing, there's a little bit of added material, not uncommon to kind of bend the story to make. Next, let's talk about the sonata. A sonata was a term used early in the 17th century. Just to mean any kind of.
