Derived from the Portuguese barroco, or “oddly shaped pearl,” the term “baroque” has been widely used since the nineteenth century to describe the period in Western European art music from about 1600 to 1750. Comparing some of music history’s greatest masterpieces to a misshapen pearl might seem strange to us today, but to the nineteenth century critics who applied the term, the music of Bach and Handel’s era sounded overly ornamented and exaggerated. Having long since shed its derogatory connotations, “baroque” is now simply a convenient catch-all for one of the richest and most diverse periods in music history.
Select a box below to hear a representative sample of music from that time period.
Track Listing
Medieval: Te Deum laudamus (Solemn Tone)
Renaissance: Ave Maria (Gregorian Plainchant)
Baroque: Gloria from the Mass in B Minor (Johann Sebastian Bach)
Classical: Symphony No. 104, Movement IV (Franz Joseph Haydn)
Romantic: Coriolan Overture (Ludwig van Beethoven)
Modern: O Magnum Mysterium (Morten Lauridsen)
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Baroque music
Style of Western classical music
Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and George Frideric Handel are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Domenico Scarlatti, Claudio Monteverdi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, Tomaso Albinoni, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rame
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Baroque
Artistic style in Europe and colonies, c. 1600–1750
For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation).
The Baroque (bə-ROK, -ROHK; French:[baʁɔk]) is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s.[1] It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well.[2]
The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep color, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to the rest of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany, and Poland. By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, w