Musical Style: the Baroque

Baroque 1600 - 1760 Baroque music uses and perfects the art of counterpoint.  In the Renaissance, harmony happened as a side effect of polyphony.  In early Baroque music we start to hear chord progressions, a bass line, and more of a sense of all the voices working together to produce direction and structure.  Baroque style Baroque music uses more sustained themes and stronger rhythms. Baroque structure Instead of the ricercar, fantasia and canzona of the Renaissance it is the fugue that defines Baroque structure. Baroque music has more emotional intensity than Renaissance music, and a Baroque piece often depicts a single emotion or affect (such as joy, grief, or piety...). This period also sees a growing amount of music written for virtuoso singers and instrumentalists, so is harder to perform than Renaissance music.  There is more ornamentation, often improvised. Baroque instruments Instrumental pieces gradually became more important than a capella vocal music.  The harpsichord and the organ were the important keyboard instruments of the time.While much music was produced for church and court, the leisured classes also gathered to make music socially. A Baroque English organ is played here:  A harpsichord is heard in this clip:  Here, Vladimir Horowitz, using all the tone colour of the piano, plays Domenico Scarlatti's Sonata in E K532:  Try to play a piece from one of these Baroque composers:    Couperin     Vivaldi     Bach     Handel     Telemann     Purcell     Domenico Scarlatti