Baroque Music

Baroque music, from the Baroque period of Western Classical Music, was composed in the range of the late 1600's to 1700's AD. The first Baroque composer is widely recognized to be Claudio Monteverdi. The death of Johann Sebastian Bach (1750) is generally considered to mark the end of the Baroque period.

Important Features of Baroque music:

• '[basso continuo]?' - new music notation system for bass parts
• Monody? - music for one voice without accompaniment
• Homophony - only one independent musical party
• text over music - intelligible text with humble (not overpowering) instrumental accompaniment
• vocal soloists ('bel canto')
• dramatic musical expression
• new instrumental techniques, like 'tremolo?' and 'pizzicata?'
• new musical forms like opera, 'drama per musica'
• clear and linear melody?
• the aria?
• the 'ritornello' aria (repeted short instrumental interruptions of vocal passages)
• virtuosity
• the 'stile concertato' (contrast in sound between orchestra and solo-instruments or small groups of instruments
• better use of properties of each type of instrument
• ornamentation
• development to modern Western tonality (maj./min.)
• more??

Forms of Baroque music include:

• [Concerto grosso]?
• Fugue
• Oratorio?
• [Passion music]?
• Cantata?
• Opera
• Mass
• Suite?
• Sonate?
• (others?)

Famous Baroque composers include, in chronological order:

• Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
• [Jean-Baptiste Lully]? (1632-1687)
• [Dietrich Buxtehude]? (1637-1707)
• Alessandro Scarlatti (1660-1725)
• Tomasso Albinoni (1674-1745)
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)
• [Georg Philipp Telemann]? (1681-1767)
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
• George Friderich Handel (1685-1759)
• [Domenico Scarlatti]? (1685-1757)
• Domenico Alberti (1710-1740)
• [Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach]? (1714-1788)
• Karl Friedrich Abel (1725-1787)
• [Johann Christian Bach]? (1735-1782)