What is “baroque” and when was the baroque period?
Derived from the Portuguese barroco, or “oddly shaped pearl,” the term “baroque” has been widely used since the nineteenth century to describe the period in Western European art music from about 1600 to 1750. Comparing some of music history’s greatest masterpieces to a misshapen pearl might seem strange to us today, but to the nineteenth century critics who applied the term, the music of Bach and Handel’s era sounded overly ornamented and exaggerated. Having long since shed its derogatory connotations, “baroque” is now simply a convenient catch-all for one of the richest and most diverse periods in music history. In addition to producing the earliest European music familiar to most of us, including Pachelbel's Canon and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the baroque era also greatly expanded our horizons. The acceptance of Copernicus’s 16th century theory that the planets didn’t revolve around the earth made the universe a much larger place, while Galileo’s work helped us get better acquainted with the cosmos. Advances in technology such as the invention of the telescope made what was believed to be finite seem infinite. Great thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke tackled the big questions of existence. Geniuses like Rubens, Rembrandt and Shakespeare offered unique perspectives through their art. European nations grew more and more involved with foreign trade and colonization, bringing us into direct contact with parts of the globe that were previously unfamiliar. And the growth of a new middle class breathed life into an artistic culture long dependent on the whims of church and court.
Who were the major baroque composers and where were they from?
Many of the well known personalities from the first part of the baroque period hail from Italy, including Monteverdi, Corelli and Vivaldi. (By the mid eighteenth century, our focus shifts to the German composers Bach and Handel.) Many of the forms identified with baroque music originated in Italy, including the cantata, concerto, sonata, oratorio and opera. Although Italy played a vital role in the development of these genres, however, new concepts of what it meant to be a nation increased the imperative of a “national style.” Differences between nations are often audible in music from the period, not only in the way music was composed, but also in conventions of performance; particularly obvious was the contrast between Italy and France. While certain countries may seem to claim a larger piece of our experience of baroque music today, however, every nation played a role. As musicians and composers traveled all over Europe and heard each other’s music, the new conventions they encountered made subtle impressions on them.
Some of the best known composers from the period include the following:
Italy: Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Corelli, Vivaldi, Domenico and Alessandro Scarlatti
France: Couperin, Lully, Charpentier and Rameau
Germany: Praetorius, Schein, Scheidt, Schutz, Telemann, Handel and Bach
England: Purcell
What is the philosophy of baroque music?
Although a single philosophy cannot describe 150 years of music from all over Europe, several concepts are important in the baroque period. A belief in music as a potent tool of communication One of the major philosophical currents in baroque music comes from the Renaissance interest in ideas from ancient Greece and Rome. The Greeks and Romans believed that music was a powerful tool of communication and could arouse any emotion in its listeners. As a result of the revival of these ideas, composers became increasingly aware of music’s potential power, and cultivated the belief that their own compositions could have similar effects if they correctly emulated ancient music.
--from http://www.baroque.org/
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