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Period: 1567 to
Claudio Monteverdi
Monteverdi, a composer who bridged the Renaissance period and the Baroque, can be justly considered one of the most powerful figures in the history of music. Among his most notable works are the operas Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea. -
Period: to
Heinrich Schütz
Schütz was the greatest German composer of the 17th century and the first of international stature. -
Melody (Early)
Melody became very expressive in early Baroque Music. One innovation from Italian opera was something called "Recitative", which was emphasized the rhythms of speech. Recitative usually repeated many words and had a very confined pitch ranges. Another huge innovation in the early Baroque period was improvisation of embellishments and ornamentation from musicians. -
Melody (Middle)
Melody in the middle Baroque era leaned more towards the style of "bel canto" operas and solo songs. The melodies were also more in line with other musical terms such as rhythm and form. -
Melody (late)
Improvisation became even more important in music as phrases were repeated more for an interesting twist. Melodic lines usually developed more and more to the end of phrases ending in cadences. -
Rhythm (Early)
Rhythms were now bing used to emote. Certain rhythms expressed the desired emotion o the composers were and could most frequently be seen in vocal pieces. This was even more apparent in recitative. -
Rhythm (Middle)
The use of rhythm became more of a central element to instruments. Dotted rhythms and melodies that centered around 16th note rhythm also became more popular in the mid baroque era. -
Rhythm (late)
The basso continuo was a vital part to rhythm in the late baroque era and essentially drove music. 16th note notation was most commonly used during this time. -
Harmony (Early)
Harmony came to be thought of as chords that laid the foundation for the melody. Major and minor as we know them today became established as keys instead of modes, and the harmonic patterns of tonality began to evolve. This became such a fundamental element of Western music that even today we expect chords to follow each other in a particular order in order for the music to sound familiar. -
Harmony (Middle)
The tonal system of 24 major and minor keys continued to develop. -
Harmony (late)
The diatonic system of 24 major and minor keys were fully developed! Chromatics and modulation was used to show expression and musical interest. -
Form (Early)
Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. -
Form (Middle)
Fuges was created from imitation, rhetoric, and organization. De Capo Arias were developed to show virtuosic characteristics by showing human emotion when improvising. -
Form (late)
Da Capo arias, fuges, and ritornello were now the most popular forms used in the late baroque era. -
Baroque Texture
Baroque texture was often polyphonic with multiple melodies and countermelodies, a continuous bass line, and occasional homophony . -
Instruments used in the Baroque Era
String instruments such as the lute, violin, viola, cello and double bass. Brass instruments like the trumpet, horn and sackbut were used. Popular wind instruments included the recorder, flute, oboe and bassoon. -
Innovations in the Baroque Era
Opera is one of the foremost innovations of the Baroque era which allowed the realization of extreme affections in music. It represents melodic freedom. In early Baroque era, no tonal direction existed, but experiments in pre-tonal harmony led to the creation of tonality. -
Period: to
Arcangelo Corelli
Corelli was the main founder of modern orchestral playing and the composer who fashioned two new musical forms, the Baroque trio and solo sonata, and the concerto grosso. -
Period: to
Henry Purcell
Many regard Purcell as the greatest English composer of all time. Among his most influential works are the opera Dido and Aeneas and the semi-operas The Fairy Queen and King Arthur. -
Period: to
Antonio Vivaldi
With Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Baroque music reached its zenith. The prosperous, cultivated world of contemporary Venice shines through all his works, composed with innate craftsmanship. -
Period: to
Georg Philipp Telemann
Telemann was probably the most prolific composer in musical history. He wrote almost as much as Bach and Handel put together (and each of them wrote a perplexing amount) including 600 French overtures or orchestral suites, 200 concertos, 40 operas and more than 1000 pieces of church music. -
Period: to
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Though he was no judge of librettos, he raised the musical side of opera to a new level and in his ballets introduced many novel descriptive effects – the French loved these – such as the earthquake in Les Indes galantes. -
Period: to
Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach has been called 'the supreme arbiter and law-giver of music'. He is to music what Leonardo da Vinci is to art and Shakespeare is to literature, one of the supreme creative geniuses of history. -
Period: to
George Frideric Handel
Handel is one of the giants of musical history. His is happy, confident, melodic music imbued with the grace of the Italian vocal school, an easy fluency in German contrapuntal writing and the English choral tradition inherited from Purcell. -
Period: to
Domenico Scarlatti
Scarlatti produced the vast body of instrumental music for which he’s best known, and in particular the keyboard sonatas. These works extended the genre immeasurably, introducing a virtuosity and brilliance that broke new ground.