Ensemble Music-Making in the Mirror Reflection of 17th and 18th Century Western European Painting

During the Baroque era ensemble music-making was a favorite pastime. For the nobility and the middle class “communication by means of music” was an inherent part of life: the musical language was the means of expressing respect, presenting “musical offerings” and confessions of love. In musical competitions virtuosi demonstrated their exceptional performing skills, and high-society ladies accompanied readings of poetical works with playing the harp or the lute. The desire to make music in the form of solo or ensemble performance was shared by players on various instruments endowed with different levels of preparedness. This “social demand” resulted in the appearance of the two-staff form of notation, endowed with traits of a quasi-score, which it was customary to call the keyboard urtext. However, this music can be termed as being for the keyboard only upon the condition of their performance on the organ or the harpsichord. The structure of the “two-staff scores” from the 17th and 18th centuries possesses immense possibilities, since it presents a universal form of notation for ensemble and orchestral compositions in convolved form. As the result of the traits of the quasi-score, the baroque urtext became a unique phenomenon, a peculiar “mirror of the epoch”, which registered numerous 17th and 18th century musical instrumental clichés, scenes of music-making in duos, trios, and even images of groups of the baroque orchestra — the solo and the continuo. A sort of mirror reflecting pictures of music-making and ensemble groups was provided by the art canvases of 17th and 18th century painters.