Cappella Mediterranea

Early music is a modern performance movement devoted to the repertoire of the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque eras (roughly before c. 1750), approached with historically informed performance (HIP) practices. It emphasizes period instruments (or faithful replicas), historical tunings and temperaments, original notations and sources, and performance conventions documented in treatises of the time. The sound world ranges from monophonic chant and modal organum, to intricate Renaissance polyphony, to the emergence of basso continuo and dramatic affect in the early Baroque. Rather than being a single historical style, early music is a contemporary practice of reviving diverse pre‑Classical musics with scholarly rigor and artistic vitality.

Baroque is a period and style of Western art music spanning roughly 1600–1750. It is characterized by the birth of functional tonality, the widespread use of basso continuo (figured bass), and a love of contrast—between soloist and ensemble, loud and soft, and different timbres. Hallmark genres and forms of the era include opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto (especially the concerto grosso), dance suite, sonata, and fugue. Textures range from expressive monody to intricate counterpoint, and melodies are richly ornamented with trills, mordents, and appoggiaturas. Baroque music flourished in churches, courts, and theaters across Europe, with regional styles (Italian, French, German, English) shaping distinctive approaches to rhythm, dance, harmony, and ornamentation.

Baroque singing is the vocal practice of the Baroque era (c. 1600–1750), centered on expressive text delivery, rhetorical phrasing, and codified ornamentation. It grew from the shift toward solo song with continuo (monody) and the burgeoning of opera, cantata, and oratorio. Stylistically, it balances two complementary worlds: declamatory recitative (to advance text and drama) and highly ornate aria (to display beauty and virtuosity). Singers employ trills, appoggiaturas, mordents, properly prepared cadential trills, messa di voce, passaggi (rapid runs), and extempore diminutions—always guided by the words’ meaning and Baroque “affects.” Performance practice emphasizes clear diction, flexible but discreet vibrato (often a predominantly straight tone with vibrato as ornament), historically-informed tempi and articulation, and continuo-led textures (harpsichord, theorbo, organ, cello/violone). Pitch and temperament are often historical (e.g., A≈415). Treatises by Caccini, Tosi, and Mancini remain core references for technique, style, and ornamentation.

Latin American Baroque is the repertoire of sacred and festive art music written and performed in the cathedrals, missions, and courts of colonial Spanish and Portuguese America during the Baroque era. It blends European contrapuntal craft, basso continuo, and ceremonial grandeur with local languages, dance rhythms, and timbral practices. Typical forms include masses, motets, litanies, and villancicos (often for Christmas and major feasts), set in Latin as well as Spanish and sometimes indigenous languages such as Nahuatl, Quechua, or Guaraní. Instrumentation combines European forces—violins, cornetts, sackbuts, bajón (dulcian), harp, organ, and guitars—with local percussion and distinctive rhythmic cells (notably the sesquiáltera 3:2). The result is music that can be both solemn and architectonic for liturgy, and exuberant and dance-inflected for feast-day devotions.

Opera is a large-scale theatrical genre that combines music, drama, and visual spectacle, in which the story is primarily conveyed through singing accompanied by an orchestra. It unites solo voices, ensembles, and chorus with staging, costumes, and often dance to create a total artwork. Emerging in late Renaissance Italy and flourishing in the Baroque era, opera developed signature forms such as recitative (speech-like singing that advances the plot) and aria (lyrical numbers that explore character and emotion). Over the centuries it evolved diverse national styles—Italian bel canto, French grand opéra, German music drama—while continually experimenting with orchestration, harmony, narrative structure, and stagecraft.

Renaissance music (c. 1400–1600) marks the shift from medieval sonorities to a clearer, triad-based polyphony in which multiple independent voices are treated with near-equal importance. It favors modal counterpoint, pervasive imitation, smooth voice-leading, and carefully prepared cadences. Text intelligibility and expressive text-setting become central concerns, especially in sacred motets and masses and in secular forms like the Italian madrigal and the French chanson. While much of the repertory is a cappella, instrumental consorts (viol, recorder, sackbut, cornett, organ) play a growing role. A steady tactus underpins rhythms, and tuning systems such as meantone temperament shape its characteristic color. Music printing (from 1501) accelerates stylistic diffusion across Europe.