Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately to This era followed the Renaissance, and was followed in turn by the Classical era. Later, the name came to apply also to the architecture of the same period. The baroque period saw the creation of tonality. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate musical ornamentation, made changes in musical notation, and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto, and sonata as musical genres. Many musical terms and concepts from this era are still in use today.
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Advances in technology, such as the invention of the telescope, made what was believed to be finite seem infinite. Great thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke tackled the big questions of existence. Geniuses like Rubens, Rembrandt, and Shakespeare offered unique perspectives through their art. European nations grew more and more involved with foreign trade and colonization, bringing us into direct contact with parts of the globe that were previously unfamiliar. And the growth of a new middle class breathed life into an artistic culture long dependent on the whims of church and court. Many of the well known personalities from the first part of the Baroque period hail from Italy, including Monteverdi , Corelli and Vivaldi. By the mid- eighteenth century, our focus shifts to the German composers Bach and Handel. Many of the forms identified with Baroque music originated in Italy, including the cantata, concerto, sonata, oratorio, and opera. While certain countries may seem to claim a larger piece of our experience of Baroque music today, however, every nation played a role.
Introduction
The early-music movement has changed not only how musicians play—tuning, timbre, technique, style—but also what they play. A couple of generations ago, programs of Baroque music were dominated by such starry names as Monteverdi , Vivaldi , Handel , and Bach. It became clear, though, that an auteur theory of the Baroque, one that limits the repertory to a few masters, suppressed vast quantities of excellent music. The obvious next question was which other works of theirs are worth hearing. In recent years, the Baroque repertory has undergone a dizzying democratization, as two midwinter concerts in New York made plain. The absence of historical celebrities hardly hurt attendance; both events played to full houses. Duarte, who lived from to around , belonged to the converso community of Antwerp—Jews who fled Portugal and Spain and converted to Catholicism.
Baroque music , a style of music that prevailed during the period from about to about , known for its grandiose, dramatic, and energetic spirit but also for its stylistic diversity. One of the most dramatic turning points in the history of music occurred at the beginning of the 17th century, with Italy leading the way. While the stile antico , the universal polyphonic style of the 16th century, continued, it was henceforth reserved for sacred music, while the stile moderno , or nuove musiche —with its emphasis on solo voice, polarity of the melody and the bass line, and interest in expressive harmony—developed for secular usage.
