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Periods
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Looking
up the definition of Baroque in the Webster dictionary you would probably
end up with a whole lot of technical words that no one except the people
who wrote it would understand. Even though the word itself sounds
pretty complicated it simply means, different or irregular. This
era was a time of adventure when wars erupted all over the world causing
either shocking poverty or wasteful luxury. It was a world of opposites
and it’s music showed the strains of a bold, vigorous spirit.
Perhaps some of the most popular musicians such as Bach, Handel and Vivaldi we know have existed during the Baroque period. But that is not the main reason it is considered one of the greatest periods of music. In fact, as mentioned before, it is know as the period of ‘change’, obviously because several critical changes occurred during the 16th and 17th century that produced the stepping stones towards the classical music we know today. To begin with, music started being created for a different purpose other than church use. (in other words people could listen to music that wasn’t always a hymn) It soon changed in quantity(size) and quality(kind) into music that could be enjoyed as entertainment. By the 1700 several unique forms of music, such as the development of a system of major and minor tonality, that only existed in the composer’s mind became a reality. For the readers familiar with musical terms, the traditional major scales (eg: D major, and the deadly C sharp major) gave way to other scales like minors, and diatonic majors that most modern musicians are familiar with. In short, without this period there would be no modern music and it would be virtually impossible for opera and large scale orchestras to take place. |