Roccoco Music

January 19, 2006 11:59 AM

Many years ago in Boston when WBCN was a classical station, it broadcast a program called Dekovan (SP?) Presents. The commentator on this program made a distinction between Baroque and Rococo music. He did not elaborate on the differences between the two and implied they were too subtle for most of his listeners to understand. I do not remember after 40-45 years any of his examples of Rococo. Does Rococo music exist or was Dekovan the only one that recognized it? Do any elderly AskMefs remember Dekovan and know anything about him? The show was syndicated throughout the country.
posted by Raybun to media & arts (3 comments total)

Well, a quick google search for "rococo music" turns up this and a few similar links. I'm not sure how much that helps.

If you scroll down to "Variations on a Rococo Theme" at this link, they discuss the term Rococo music and how it relates/doesn't relate to Rococo art. They imply the term has somewhat fallen into disfavor.
posted by JMOZ at 12:07 PM on January 19, 2006

I won't add to the research pool, but here's my personal understanding of the difference. The link above puts a date on the Rococo period in music, but I had always understood it to be more of a stylistic thing.

There's a very distinct progression from the Baroque to the Classical period. Baroque (as defined by Bach) is horizontal music, defined by counterpoint, interaction between voices, melodic lines, and so forth. It is extremely complex. On the other hand, Mozart, as he defines the Classical period, is simple and straightforward, etc. I'm not demeaning either, I love them both; but those two composers are certainly masters of very different qualities. I always felt like you could shove Rococo in between the two, in style, if not in chronology. On one hand, it's a reaction against heavy Bach-like music ("turgid and complex"), but on the other hand, it's heavily ornamented, extremely stylistic, and sometimes overbearing (as can be Rococo art.) I really feel like Couperin defines the genre. If you listen to him I think you will get the best feel for what people defined as Rococo.

Another thing which I think helps define Rococo is that Couperin and Rameau are both French. Rococo is a French term, and I think that French idea of style is very important. It's especially important in that it's not German, i.e., not of Bach.

I don't know what to say to the evidence in the second link that the term is falling into disfavor. It seems to me that there is a fair amount of music that falls into this style. However, I'm not a musicologist of anything of the sort, so you can take this with a grain of salt, and honestly I'd love to hear others weigh in on their conceptions and set me straight if I've erred anywhere in the above.

However, I can answer definitively: your commentator was not the only one to use this term, and it was definitely at some point an accepted term to describe a certain type of music. I suggest Couperin as a pinnacle of the style.
posted by cacophony at 1:00 PM on January 19, 2006

Also, information about Seymor DeKoven from Wikipedia.
posted by JMOZ at 4:10 PM on January 19, 2006