“A genius on paper,” sums up Johann Sebastian Bach is as little words as possible. He’s a composer with such a tremendous influence that musicologist, students, scholars and musians are still studying his works 258 years after his death. His 2-part inventions and fugues are among the very first thing any serious music student will be introduced to. They are of such importance because they are, in my opinion, the backbone of a large majority of music; both popular and classical.

Many new, exciting and inventive operas came from the mind of George Caspar Schurman. He was one of the predecessors of Keiser to Hamburg’s opera theater. Although he was only there for a short while his more prominent works were done in his later years. Schurman was noted for his unique structure and care in voice writing as well as his orchestration. The operas that he produced had magnificent string arrangements which rivaled that of Johann Sebastian Bach. In one of his more famous pieces, Ludovicus Pius, oder Ludewig der …

During this time Handel join Hamburg’s opera orchestra as a violinist in 1703. There he wrote his first opera Almira in 1705 (“Encyclopedia” 292). The libretto from which it was based was written by Friedrich Christian Feustking and derived from the Venetian libretto by Guilio Pancieri (Hogwood 26). It’s a three act opera that was primarily sung in German with few Italian arias and a single aria that was sung in both German and Italian. The Opera involved dance as well, including ballet, a saraband and chaconne which had brought …

With our condensed history lesson in Classical Music vs. Popular Music: Where Music Parted Ways we discussed how and why Popular Music and Classical Music parted ways. Popular Music began to venture itself away from Classical Music in many forms including culture, notation, instrumentation, etc. However, in many ways these two entities are still actually very close and only have but a few things separating them. To expose the similarities we must also look into the differences.

The next and second German opera to be composed was in likeness to Schutz’s. It shared the same title; however, it was set to a different libretto written by Opitz in 1627. This version was longer than the original one that Schutz used. This Dafne was composed by Giovanni Andrea Bontempi and Marco Gioseppe Peranda in 1671. The song style within this opera seems to reflect upon the style of Monteverdi than that of typical German characteristics. It is unclear whether either intellectually knew Monteverdi but it is certain that …