Baroque music

Baroque music is European classical music written during the Baroque era, approximately 1600 to 1750. This era occurred after the Renaissance and before the Classical music era. Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon and is widely performed and enjoyed.

Late Baroque music (1700-1750)

In the late Baroque, the leading figures include J.S. Bach (1685-1750), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759), Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) and Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764).

Related Topics:
J.S. Bach - George Frideric Handel - Georg Philipp Telemann - Domenico Scarlatti - Antonio Vivaldi - Jean-Philippe Rameau

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Transition to the Classical era

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. It is sometimes called "Galant", "Rococo", or "pre-Classical", or at other times, "early Classical". It is a period where composers still working in the Baroque style are still successful, if sometimes thought of as being more of the past than the present—Bach, Handel and Telemann all compose 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 C.P.E. 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.

Related Topics:
Classical era - Galant - C.P.E. Bach

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The practice of the baroque era was the norm 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.

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