Baroque
Around the late 1600s, it was fashionable for the royalty and rich households to employ a composer. Composers also resided in churches and wrote music for mass. So writing music wasn't a hobby for composers like:
It was a high-pressure job. They each created hundreds of pieces that are still played and enjoyed today. Along with hundreds of others that are lost forever, because composers wrote and performed their music so casually.
Themes
- The increasing importance of scientific investigation
- The culmination of royal despotism
- Development of the New World
- Artificiality and marvelous effect were valued in the arts
Musical Context
A time of experimentation
Expanding roles for music
A growing awareness of national styles
The full equality of instrumental music
Style
The basso continuo is ever-present in Baroque music.
Textures are primarily melody and accompaniment or contrapuntal.
Voices and instruments were freely mixed.
Newly developed instruments provided a rich palette of tone color.
Rhythms are often derived from dance rhythms.
Melodies are ornate and often make use of dramatic leaps.
Harmony is based on major/minor tonality, and dissonances become more common.
Repetition and simple binary and ternary forms provide the basis for musical structure
Double reeded instruments like the oboe and bassoon became somewhat standardized in this time frame.
