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Essay on The Baroque Period
The Baroque era (approximately 1600 to 1750) is the longest-running musical period to have a distinctive style. The music came into prominence in the aftermath of the Renaissance and Reformation, and its elaborate adornments have parallels in the ornate architecture and fashions of the time.The word "baroque" comes from an Arabic root, "buraq," which means "pebbly place." First applied to jewelry and then to building styles, it came to mean "irregular” or "whimsical" -- which, compared with the more an austere pleasures of Renaissance music, the Baroque is.The Baroque gave us many of Western music's salient features, including our concepts of keys and tonality, forms like opera, concertos, oratorios, and others. This style of music seems formal and proper (and, sometimes, indistinguishable) in our time, but in its day it was perceived as wildly emotional.
Many of the composers from this era were famed for their prowess on keyboard instruments -- organ and harpsichord -- and that's reflected in the period's best works. Several big Baroque choral pieces appeared in the "Choral-Orchestral" feature in this series, so they don't appear here. Operas and most liturgical music have also been saved for future reference.In music, we think of the Baroque style as lively, with different melodic lines going on at the same time, and musicians adding ornamental notes and trills. The music of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) is from the Baroque period. New musical instruments were being designed at this time and the art of the opera was being developed also.
In Baroque music, however, the word is the master of synchronization or, music is submissive to the words. The outmost voices get hold of a prevailing position figuring the framework of the composition. The respite could be filled in by the managing continuo player in this structural form......
