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| Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750.The original meaning of "baroque" is "irregular pearl", a strikingly fitting characterization of the architecture of this period; later, the name came to be applied also to its music.Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to.The Baroque period saw the development of diatonic tonality.During the period composers and performers used more elaborate musical ornamentation; made changes in musical notation, and developed new instrumental playing techniques.Baroque music expanded the size, range and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established opera as a musical genre.Baroque versus Renaissance style
1.Baroque versus Classical style
1.Influence on later music
4.Style and trends
Music conventionally described as Baroque encompasses a wide range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed during a period of approximately 150 years.The application of the term "Baroque", which literally means "pearl of irregular shape", to this period is a relatively recent development, first used by Curt Sachs in 1919, and only acquiring currency in English in the 1940s.Indeed, as late as 1960 there was still considerable dispute in academic circles whether it was meaningful to lump together music as diverse as that of Jacopo Peri, Domenico Scarlatti and J.It may be helpful to distinguish it from both the preceding (Renaissance) and following (Classical) periods of musical history.Baroque and Mannerist periods to conform to the divisions that are sometimes applied in the visual arts.Baroque instruments including hurdy gurdy, harpsichord, bass viol, lute, violin, and baroque guitar.Baroque music shares with Renaissance music a heavy use of polyphony and counterpoint.In the Renaissance, harmony is more the result of consonances incidental to the smooth flow of polyphony, while in the early Baroque era the order of these consonances becomes important, for they begin to be felt as chords in a hierarchical, functional tonal scheme.Around 1600 there is considerable blurring of this definition: for example essentially tonal progressions around cadential points in madrigals are noted, while in early monody the feeling of tonality is still rather tenuous.Another distinction between Renaissance and Baroque practice in harmony is the frequency of chord root motion by third in the earlier period, while motion of fourths or fifths predominates later (which partially defines functional tonality).In addition, Baroque music uses longer lines and stronger rhythms: the initial line is extended, either alone or accompanied only by the basso continuo, until the theme reappears in another voice.These stylistic differences mark the transition from the ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas of the Renaissance to the fugue, a defining Baroque form.Claudio Monteverdi called this newer, looser style the seconda pratica, contrasting it with the prima pratica that characterized the motets and other sacred choral pieces of high Renaissance masters like Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.Monteverdi used both styles; he wrote his Mass In illo tempore in the older, Palestrinan style, and his 1610 Vespers in the new style.There are other, more general differences between Baroque and Renaissance style.Baroque music often strives for a greater level of emotional intensity than Renaissance music, and a Baroque piece often uniformly depicts a single particular emotion (exultation, grief, piety, and so forth).Baroque music was more often written for virtuoso singers and instrumentalists and is characteristically harder to perform than Renaissance music, although idiomatic instrumental writing was one of the most important innovations of the period.Baroque music employs a great deal of ornamentation, which was often improvised by the performer.Instruments came to play a greater part in Baroque music, and a cappella vocal music receded in importance.Baroque versus Classical style
In the Classical era, which followed the Baroque, the role of counterpoint was diminished (albeit repeatedly rediscovered and reintroduced), and replaced by a homophonic texture.Works tended towards a more articulated internal structure, especially those written in sonata form.Modulation (changing of keys) became a structural and dramatic element, so that a work could be heard as a kind of dramatic journey through a sequence of musical keys, outward and back from the tonic.Baroque music also modulates frequently, but the modulation has less structural importance.Works in the classical style often depict widely varying emotions within a single movement, whereas Baroque works tend toward a single, vividly portrayed feeling.Classical works usually reach a kind of dramatic climax and then resolve it; Baroque works retain a fairly constant level of dramatic energy to the very last note.Many forms of the Baroque served as the point of departure for the creation of the sonata form, by creating a "floor plan" for the placement of important cadences.If you study composers like Bach, you see the difference between him and the composers of the Classical Period.In his music, articulation (the touch and how you plays notes) is stressed more than the dynamics; not that the dynamics are left out, but the piano during this time couldn't make as wide a range of dynamics as we know today.Genres
Baroque composers wrote in many different musical genres.Opera, invented in the late Renaissance, became an important musical form during the Baroque, with the operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Handel, and others.The oratorio achieved its peak in the work of Bach and Handel; opera and oratorio often used very similar music forms, such as a widespread use of the da capo aria.In other religious music, the Mass and motet receded slightly in importance, but the cantata flourished in the work of Bach and other Protestant composers.Virtuoso organ music also flourished, with toccatas, fugues, and other works.The concerto emerged, both in its form for a single soloist plus orchestra and as the concerto grosso, in which a small group of soloists is contrasted with the full ensemble.The French overture, with its contrasting slow and fast sections, added grandeur to the many courts at which it was performed.The conventional dividing line for the Baroque from the Renaissance begins in Italy, with the Florentine Camerata, a group of academics who met informally in Florence in the palace of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss arts, as well as the sciences.Concerning music, their ideals were based on their perception of ancient Greek musical drama, in which the declamation of the text was of utmost importance.As such, they rejected the complex polyphony of the late renaissance and desired a form of musical drama which consisted primarily of a simple solo melody, with a basic accompaniment.The early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peri's Dafne and L'Euridice, marked the beginning of opera.Harmonic thinking had existed among particular composers in the previous era, notably Carlo Gesualdo; however the Renaissance is felt to give way to the Baroque at the point where it becomes the common vocabulary.Some historians of music point to the introduction of the seventh chord without preparation as being the key break with the past.This created the idea that chords, rather than notes, created the sense of closure, which is one of the fundamental ideas of what came to be known as tonality.One of the most important musical centers was Venice, which had both secular and sacred patronage available.However, his innovations came to be considered foundational to the new style.This created the demand for a more intricate weaving of the vocal line against backdrop, or homophony.Monteverdi was a master of both, producing precisely styled madrigals that extended the forms of Marenzio and Giaches de Wert.These included features which are recognizable even to the end of the Baroque period, including use of idiomatic writing, virtuoso flourishes, and the use of new techniques.The rise of the centralized court is one of the economic and political features of what is often labeled the Age of Absolutism, personified by Louis XIV of France.The realities of rising church and state patronage created the demand for organized public music, as the increasing availability of instruments created the demand for chamber music.The middle Baroque is separated from the early Baroque by the coming of systematic thinking to the new style and a gradual institutionalization of the forms and norms, particularly in opera.The middle Baroque, in music theory, is identified by the increasingly harmonic focus of musical practice and the creation of formal systems of teaching.This culminated in the later work of Fux in systematizing counterpoint.Lully's instinct for providing the material that his monarch desired has been pointed out by almost every biographer, including his rapid shift to church music when the mood at court became more devout.His 13 completed lyric tragedies are based on libretti that focus on the conflicts between the public and private life of the monarch.Musically, he explored contrast between stately and fully orchestrated sections, and simple recitatives and airs.In no small part, it was his skill in assembling and practicing musicians into an orchestra which was essential to his success and influence.Observers noted the precision and intonation, this in an age where there was no standard for tuning instruments.One essential element was the increased focus on the inner voices of the harmony and the relationship to the soloist.Whereas Lully was ensconced at court, Corelli was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed all over Europe.Dynamics were "terraced", that is with a sharp transition from loud to soft and back again.Fast sections and slow sections were juxtaposed against each other.Numbered among his students is Antonio Vivaldi, who later composed hundreds of works based on the principles in Corelli's trio sonatas and concerti.In England the middle Baroque produced a cometary genius in Henry Purcell, who despite dying at age 36, produced a profusion of music and was widely recognized in his lifetime.Rather than being a painstaking craftsman, Purcell was a fluid composer who was able to shift from simple anthems and useful music such as marches, to grandly scored vocal music and music for the stage.He was also one of the first great keyboard composers, whose work still has influence and presence.Rather than publishing, he relied on performance for his income, and rather than royal patronage, he shuttled between vocal settings for sacred music, and organ music that he performed.Buxtehude's employment of contrast was between the free, often improvisatory sections, and more strict sections worked out contrapuntally.The dividing line between middle and late Baroque is a matter of some debate.Dates for the beginning of "late" Baroque style range from 1680 to 1720.Italy is generally regarded as the first country to move to the late Baroque style.The important dividing line in most histories of Baroque music is the full absorption of tonality as a structuring principle of music.Philippe Rameau, who replaced Lully as the important French opera composer.At the same time, through the work of Johann Fux, the Renaissance style of polyphony was made the basis for the study of counterpoint.The overall form of pieces was generally simple, with repeated binary forms (AABB), simple three part forms (ABC), and rondeau forms being common.These schematics in turn influenced later composers.Antonio Vivaldi is a figure who was forgotten in concert music making for much of the 19th century, only to be revived in the 20th century.Vivaldi's reputation came not from having an orchestra or court appointment, but from his published works, including trio sonatas, violin sonatas and concerti.It is in these instrumental genres of Baroque sonata and Baroque concerto, which were still evolving, that Vivaldi's most important contributions were made.Vivaldi's career reflects a growing possibility for a composer to be able to support himself by his publications, tour to promote his own works, and have an independent existence.Domenico Scarlatti was one of the leading keyboard virtuosi of his day, who took the road of being a royal court musician, first in Portugal and then, starting in 1733, in Madrid, Spain, where he spent the rest of his life.His father, Alessandro Scarlatti, was a member of the Neapolitan School of opera and has been credited with being among its most skilled members.Many of these works were written for his own playing but others for his royal patrons.As with his father, his fortunes were closely tied to his ability to secure, and keep, royal favour.Handel borrowed from others and often recycled his own material.Even as his economic circumstances rose and fell with his productions, his reputation, based on published keyboard works, ceremonial music, constant stagings of operas and oratorios and concerti grossi, grew exponentially.The practice of ornamentation in the Baroque style was at a very high level of development under his direction.He travelled all over Europe to engage singers and learn the music of other composers, and thus he had among the widest acquaintance of other styles of any composer.Johann Sebastian Bach has, over time, come to be seen as the towering figure of Baroque music, with what Bela Bartok described as "a religion" surrounding him.During the Baroque period, he was better known as a teacher, administrator and performer than composer, being less famous than either Handel or Georg Philipp Telemann.His varied experience meant that he became the leader of music, both secular and sacred, for the town, teacher of its musicians and leading figure.Bach's musical innovations plumbed the depths and the outer limits of the Baroque homophonic and polyphonic forms.He was a virtual catalog of every contrapuntal device possible and every acceptable means of creating webs of harmony with the chorale.As a result, his works in the form of the fugue coupled with preludes and toccatas for organ, and the baroque concerto forms, have become fundamental in both performance and theoretical technique.He composed two complete cantata cycles for Sunday services, as well as sacred oratorios.Some of his finest works were in the 1750s and 1760s, when the Baroque style was being replaced by simpler styles but were popular at the time and afterwards.The phase between the late Baroque and the early Classical era, with its broad mixture of competing ideas and attempts to unify the different demands of taste, economics and "worldview", goes by many names.Bach, Handel and Telemann all composed well beyond the point at which the homophonic style is clearly in the ascendant.Musical culture was caught at a crossroads: the masters of the older style had the technique, but the public hungered for the new.This is one of the reasons Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was held in such high regard: he understood the older forms quite well and knew how to present them in new garb, with an enhanced variety of form; he went far in overhauling the older forms from the Baroque.The practice of the Baroque era was the standard against which new composition was measured, and there came to be a division between sacred works, which held more closely to the Baroque style from secular or "profane" works, which were in the new style.Especially in the Catholic countries of central Europe, the Baroque style continued to be represented in sacred music through the end of the eighteenth century, in much the way that the stile antico of the Renaissance continued to live in the sacred music of the early 17th century.The masses and oratorios of Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, while Classical in their orchestration and ornamentation, have many Baroque features in their underlying contrapuntal and harmonic structure.The decline of the baroque saw various attempts to mix old and new techniques, and many composers who continued to hew to the older forms well into the 1780s.Many cities in Germany continued to maintain performance practices from the Baroque into the 1790s, including Leipzig, where J.Bach worked in the end of his life.After 1760
Because Baroque music was the basis for pedagogy, it retained a stylistic influence even after it had ceased to be the dominant style of composing or of music making.Even as Baroque practice fell out of use, it continued to be part of musical notation.In the early 19th century, scores by Baroque masters were printed in complete edition, and this led to a renewed interest in the "strict style" of counterpoint, as it was then called.With Felix Mendelssohn's revival of Bach's choral music, the Baroque style became an influence through the 19th century as a paragon of academic and formal purity.In the 20th century, Baroque was named as a period, and its music began to be studied.There was also a revival of the middle Baroque composers such as Purcell and Corelli.There are several instances of contemporary pieces being published as "rediscovered" Baroque masterworks.Baroque such as Gaetano Pugnani and Padre Martini.Today, there is a very active core of composers writing works exclusively in the Baroque style, an example being Giorgio Pacchioni.Musicologists attempted to complete various works from the Baroque, most notably Bach's The Art of Fugue.Because the Baroque style is a recognized point of reference, implying not only music, but a particular period and social manner, Baroque styled pieces are sometimes created for media, such as film and television.Composer Peter Schickele parodies classical and Baroque styles under the pen name PDQ Bach.Baroque performance practice had a renewed influence with the rise of "Authentic" or Historically informed performance in the late 20th century.Texts by Quantz and Leopold Mozart among others, formed the basis for performances which attempted to recover some of the aspects of baroque sound world, including one on a part performance of works by Bach, use of gut strings rather than metal, reconstructed harpsichords, use of older playing techniques and styles.Several popular ensembles adopted some or all of these techniques, including the Anonymous 4, the Academy of Ancient Music, Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, the Academy of St.Jazz
The Baroque style of music shares many commonalities with jazz.In addition to the small ensembles that most Baroque pieces were intended for (during that time there was no feasible way of generating a 100 piece orchestra), similar to a jazz quartet, most Baroque pieces used a variety of improvisation on the performer's part.The most similar aspect of Baroque music and Jazz music is improvisation of the lead instrument.For example, in most Baroque vocal solo pieces, there are two verses.Baroque
Hendrik Bouman, a contemporary composer writing in Baroque style.References
Claude Palisca: "Baroque", Grove Music Online, ed.Christensen, Thomas Street, and Peter Dejans.Towards Tonality Aspects of Baroque Music Theory.Essays on the Performance of Baroque Music Opera and Chamber Music in France and England.Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate, 2008.ISBN 9780754659266
Foreman, Edward.Bel Canto Method, or, How to Sing Italian Baroque Music Correctly Based on the Primary Sources.ISBN 0131834428
Schulenberg, David.Music of the Baroque.New York: Oxford UP, 2001.The World of Baroque Music New Perspectives.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.Baroque Chronology
Orpheon Foundation, Vienna, Austria
baroquemusic.See Copyrights for details.Baroque period, era in the history of the Western arts roughly
coinciding with the 17th century.The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is
stylistically complex, even contradictory.In general, however, the
desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses, often in
dramatic ways, underlies its manifestations.Some of the qualities
most frequently associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous
richness, drama, vitality, movement, tension, emotional exuberance,
and a tendency to blur distinctions between the various arts.English it is now current with three principal
meanings.Primarily, it designates the dominant style of European art between
Mannerism and
Rococo.Baroque science', and so on.Baroque' (often written without the initial
capital) is applied to art of any time or place that shows the
qualities of vigorous movement and emotional intensity associated
with Baroque art in its primary meaning.Caravaggio and
Annibale Carracci
are the two great figures who stand at the head
of the Baroque tradition, bringing a new solidity and weightiness to
Italian painting, which in the late 16th century has generally been
artificial and often convoluted in style.In doing so they looked
back to some extent to the dignified and harmonious art of the High
Renaissance,
but Annibale's work has an exuberance that is completely his own,
and Caravaggio created figures with an unprecedented sense of sheer
physical presence.From the Mannerist style the Baroque inherited
movement and fervent emotion, and from the Renaissance style solidity
and grandeur, fusing the two influences into a new and dynamic whole.Slightly later,
Andrea Pozzo
marks the culmination in Italy of the Baroque tendency towards
overwhelmingly grandiose display.In the 17th century, Rome was the artistic capital of Europe, and
the baroque style soon spread outwards from it, undergoing modification
in each of the countries to which it migrated, as it encountered
different tastes and outlooks and merged with local traditions.In France, the Baroque found its greatest
expression in the service of the monarchy rather than the church.Baroque fusion of the arts to create
an overwhelmingly impressive whole.In France, as in other countries, the Baroque style merged imperceptibly
with the Rococo style that followed it.What is baroque music?Special CD Double Album sampling Bach's varied output.What is the essence of baroque music?Baroque music expresses order, the fundamental order of the universe.Yet it is always lively and tuneful.Follow the development of music through this brief outline, from the earliest times to the present day, with baroque music in historical context.Music and its performance has its fashions, like everything else.Over two hours of baroque music samples for you to listen to.Examples of the works of major baroque composers, and of course, Johann Sebastian Bach.Get to know the major baroque composers better through their portraits.Why not delve yet further into the world of baroque performance?Or discover the difference between the Italian violin bow which we know today, and the German baroque bow which is never seen nor heard today, though popular in baroque Germany (check the accompanying illustration from 1732).Bach's pieces for solo violin infinitely more interesting, not to mention accurate!We prepared this site for, and in conjunction with the Silbermann Museum in Frauenstein, Saxony.Builder of the German Baroque.Courtesy Baroque Music Club
Over two hours of music samples, Bach, and major baroque composers.Musician Biographies:
Malcolm Hamilton, Harpsichordist Extraordinary.Sylvia Marlowe: Grande Dame of the Harpsichord.Accademia MonteverdianaMusical Society founded by Denis Stevens.Builder of the German Baroque.Selected for inclusion in StudyWeb as"one of the best educational resources on theWeb".The Baroque Music GuideAll you need for the full enjoymentof baroque music in one handy volume.Looking for artworks or an artist?Pietro da Cortona)
Room XIV.Paintings after 1670
Pieter de Hooch
Paintings (page 1)
Paintings (page 2)
Gerard ter Borch
Paintings (page 1)
Paintings (page 2)
Paintings (page 3)
Gabriel Metsu
Frans van Mieris the Elder
Jan Steen
Genre paintings (page 1)
Genre paintings (page 2)
Gillis van Coninxloo
Roelant Savery
Hendrick Avercamp
Esaias van de Velde
Hercules Seghers
Pieter de Molyn
Jan van Goyen
Solomon van Ruysdael
Paintings up to 1647
Paintings from 1648
Jacob van Ruisdael
Paintings (page 1)
Paintings (page 2)
Paintings (page 3)
Aert van der Neer
Frans Post
Aelbert Cuyp
Paintings (page 1)
Paintings (page 2)
Meyndert Hobbema
Paulus Potter
Philips Wouwerman
Willem van de Velde
Hendrick Vroom
Simon de Vlieger
Jan van de Cappelle
Cornelis Poelenburgh
Allaert van Everdingen
Caesar van Everdingen
Pieter van Laer (Bamboccio)
Michael Sweerts
Jan Both
Nicolaes Berchem
Jan Baptist Weenix
Jan Asselyn
Karel Dujardin
Adam Pynacker
Michiel van Miereveld
Thomas de Keyser
Johannes Verspronk
Pieter Saenredam
Emanuel de Witte
Gerrit Berckheyde
Jan van der Heyden
Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder
Pieter Claesz
Willem Heda
Jan Davidsz.Louvre, Paris
Dutch Art: 17th century, more than 800 pictures (through artpx.Baroque
(part of the site Periods in Art History, Anne S.Baroque Architecture in France (through Vitruvio.The Baroque's Beginnings
Some Baroque Projects and Masters
France Adopts the Revived Classicism
French Explorations of the New Classicism
Further French Experience with the New Classicism
Design on the Land
Buildings in the Land and a Land of Buildings
The Holy Roman Emperor Rediscovers the Empire
England Accepts Classicism
England Exploits Classicism
(in preparation)
Baroque Architecture (Professor C.Giuseppe Torretti
Alessandro Vittoria
Baroque Sculpture (through Mark Harden's Artchive)
Basilica of St.Peter's, Rome (through Christus Rex),
with links to:
Interior of St.Versailles
Les Invalides
Palace of Whitehall
Blenheim Palace
St.The Artchive needs EVERYONE to help!If you enjoy this site, please click here to find out how YOU can help to keep it online.Reformation Catholic Church that a radical new style, the Baroque, developed.Rome was the most important centre of patronage at this period and the return to compositional clarity was facilitated by a renewed interest in the antique and the High Renaissance in the work of Annibale Carracci and his Bolognese followers, Domenichino, Guido Reni and Guercino.Peter's and the Cornaro Chapel, Sta.Catholic saints represented before, above and all around them.After Bernini, the greatest architect of the period was Borromini, and this was also an age when some of the greatest masterpieces of illusionistic ceiling painting were executed, the leading artists being Pietro da Cortona, Lanfranco, Baciccio and, slightly later, Andrea Pozzo.Contemporaneous with these exponents of the High Baroque, however, was a continuance of the Classical strand, characterized by the work of Algardi, Sacchi and Maratta."Although Baroque art had its origins in the Catholic church the possibilities for propaganda afforded by the involving and illusionistic techniques of the Baroque style were not lost on secular patrons.The Barberini family employed Cortona to proclaim their divine right to the papacy in his ceiling painting for their palace in Rome, while Colbert, chief minister to Louis XIV of France, was instrumental in the adoption of Baroque in France for the sole purpose of exalting the reign of Louis XIV.Consequently, Versailles is one of the most grandiose of Baroque palaces.Indeed, French Baroque is, by virtue of its use chiefly as political propaganda, characterized by a certain pomposity."Baroque art soon spread through the other Catholic countries of Europe.Rubens in Flanders produced religious and secular works with equal success, while in Spain religious art reached new heights of religious fervour and in South Germamy and Austria the beginning of the 18th century saw some of the most remarkably elaborate and overwhelming church architecture ever erected (e.Reformation, Baroque was resisted in Protestant countries such as Holland and Britain, although Rembrandt in Holland and the painter John Thornhill and architect Vanbrugh in Britain are exceptions.During the 18th century, Baroque gradually gave way to the lighter, more decorative Rococo style."The Baroque: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, by Rolf Toman.Published by Konemann, with the usual excellent quality reproductions; covers all aspects of Baroque Art.Bernini: Genius of the Baroque, by Charles Avery.Colombian art history professor, and you will want to see this book.Painting of the Baroque, by Andreas Prater.Styles" series, great reproductions and erudite text make this the perfect introduction to Baroque Art.Baroque Painting: Two Centuries of Masterpieces from the Era Preceding the Dawn of Modern Art, by Stefano Zuffi.Westfall and used in his survey course, Renaissance
and Baroque Architecture (ARH 102), University of Virginia, School of
Architecture, Department of Architectural History.These images are provided for the personal use of students, scholars,
and the public.Any commercial use or publication of them is strictly
prohibited.Music of the Baroque. |
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