Baroque

In arts, the Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the style that dominated it. Baroque style used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur from sculpture, painting, literature, and music. The style started around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. In music, the Baroque applies to the final period of dominance of imitative counterpoint.

Baroque music

Main article: Baroque music

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The term Baroque also is used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art, but usually covers a slightly later period. J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel are its leading lights. It is an interesting question to what extent Baroque music shares aesthetic principles with the visual and literary arts of the Baroque period. A fairly clear, shared element is a love of ornamentation, and it is perhaps significant that the role of ornament was greatly diminished in both music and architecture as the Baroque gave way to the Classical period. It should be noted that the application of the term to music is a relatively recent development: the first use of the word to apply to music was only in 1919, by Curt Sachs, and it was not until 1940 that it was first used in English (in a published article by Manfred Bukofzer); even as late as 1960 there was still considerable dispute in academic circles over whether music as diverse as that by Peri, Couperin and J.S. Bach could be meaningfully bundled together with a single term.

Related Topics:
J.S. Bach - G.F. Handel - Curt Sachs - Manfred Bukofzer - Peri - Couperin

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Examples of typical Baroque music

• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), The Art of Fugue
• Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), L'Estro Armonico
• Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757), Sonatas for Cembalo or Harpsichord
• Georg Friedrich Handel (1685–1759), Water Music Suite for Orchestra
• Georg Philipp Telemann (1681 - 1767), Der Tag des Gerichts The Day of Judgement (1762)