Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The baroque period musical style
Summary of baroque period
The Baroque Period Quizlet
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Baroque Period and Famous Composers
The baroque period was characterized by a heroic, dramatic and emotional theme. With well know names like Rembrant, Bach, Pennini, Caravaggio, Bernini, Tintoretto, Velasques, Poussin, Handel, and Rubens, the period produced many popular pieces of music and art. The art of the period was filled with movement, light versus shadow, and the use of the whole surface. The composers incorporated new ideas into their music such as different major and minor scales, the use of the violin, a regular rhythm, a melody that was hard to sing to, terrace dynamics, the basso continuo, and instrumental music was now considered as good as vocal music. The baroque period was an important piece of history in the shaping of the music and art world.
George Frideric Handel was a composer of amazing talents and abilities. Although in today’s society he is not as well known as Bach, his work was kept in high regards by the people of the time. Both Handel and Bach were born in 1685 about a month apart, and together the world was stunned by the masterpieces created by these great minds. Handel, being born on February 23, in Halle, Germany, was not from a musical family. As a child he was introduced to the harpsichord by his aunt, and soon after he began to practice the art that he loved. His father showed no interest in Handel’s music and disowned him saying, " Then let him be a clown, a tightrope walker, a minstrel or a bear trainer!" On a business trip, Handel accompanied his father to the city of Weissenfels, where he happened to slip away into the town church, and began to play an improvised rendition of the postlude to the service. After seeing the remarkable talent of the young boy, the duke...
... middle of paper ...
...ee the wonderful art produced from the baroque period. Each man had his contribution to the world, whether it be in the form of a painting, a drawing, or a piece of music, and without these contributions, the world would have missed out on the phenomenal talents shared with us from the baroque period.
Bibliography:
1. George Frideric Handel First Edition Lang, Paul Henry, George McLeod Limited, Toronto, 1966
2. The New Grove Handel Dean, Wilton, Macmillan Publishers Ltd 1982
3. George Frideric Handel Second Edition Lang, Paul Henry, George McLeod Limited, Toronto, 1977
4. Baroque and Rococo Art Bazin, Germain, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers, 1964
5. Rubens Selected Drawings volume 1 Held, Julius S., Phaidon Press Ltd., 1959
6. Rubens Selected Drawings volume 2 Held, Julius S., Phaidon Press Ltd., 1959
With the rejection of complicated Baroque style of music, the classical era came about. The idea of simpler music would appeal to a broader audience, thus making the classical era more popular. The change was not sudden; rather, the Rococo style was like a transition period. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was an important character in the changing of styles. The Rococo style was known as an expressive or sensitive style. Baroque music usually remained in the same mood throughout a piece, whereas this new style would sometimes change moods abruptly with highly contrasting ideas. The use of ornaments in music gradually went out with the complicated baroque music. Simpler, more original melodies emerged with this new style. During the Baroque era, instrumental music and vocal music were equally important. This contrasts the Classical era where instrumental music was more prominent than vocal.
As the late Baroque period morphed into the new period known as the classical period, technological advances and new compositional techniques and ideas created new opportunities for the musicians of the period. The changes allowed for new performance techniques, forms, performance venues, and newly available compositional orchestrations to be improved and evolved into something new and improved for the new period.
From the concrete structure of the Baroque period to the free-form structure of the Modern period each composer brings forth a new understanding and value to their time period. Within these pieces that they creatively compose it brings new light and displays the culture of the time period. The composers each have story to tell and has each creatively constructed their own works within the diameters of their era.
This book by John Rupert Martin is a good introductory book in the understanding of Baroque artists and their tremendous variety. Martin defines the Baroque characteristics, but only very broadly leaving a significant amount of room for the reader to make his own deductions. In general, Martin believes that the typical definitions of the Baroque are "too restrictive and hence likely to create more problems of classification and interpretation than it solves." Even the time of the Baroque is left open to the reader when Martin says the Baroque is roughly comprehended by the seventeenth century. It is important to note at the outset that this is only a convenient approximation; for epoch as a whole can certainly not be fitted into such a strait-jacket." This helps to define the Baroque much more generally as a gradual change which can much easily be noticed from the present than the past.
Classicism of the Renaissance has been replenished during the Baroque period. During the Baroque artistic period, the exploration of the fundamental components of human nature and the realm of senses and emotions were very crucial. The Baroque era was a very dynamic time that showed an abundance of radiance and color. Artists of this time are passionate and sensual. Their works were many times considered to have an overpowering emotional effect.
... and features highlighted have shown the many of the main characteristics of Italian Baroque arts. Specifically, they have shown the movement, dramatics, contrasts, and other dynamics. Hopefully, you have enjoyed our learning adventure.
Bach was born in 1685 in Germany amongst the turmoil of national reconstruction. He lived a quiet life with little musical influence, until the death of his parents at age ten. After their death, Bach’s older brother, who taught the very young Bach to play clavichord and harpsichord, raised Bach. Now, his life had the musical influence that is associated with Bach’s greatness. At the age of eighteen, he joined an orchestra where he learned to play the violin and organ. During this time the musical genius of Bach began to emerge (Jackson 15).
George Frideric Handel was born musically inclined. As a child he was deprived of musical instruments because his father wanted him to pursue the law profession. However, George was allowed to take music lessons from a local organist, by the name of Friedrich Wilhelm Zachau, after Handel had impressed the Duke when he played the organ at the chapel. In his following years, Handel would travel to many places, accepting many different musical occupations. As Handel traveled, he was introduced to many of his musical influences. He wrote operas, oratorios, anthems, secular cantatas, and also wrote scarred music. Throughout his life, Handel would become famous for his compositions, particularly for his English Oratorios, however the most popular ones today include: “Messiah”, “The Water Music”, and “Royal Fireworks.”
...ike today. The period between the baroque and renaissance paved a new way for not only music, but for art. The change that took place was gorgeous causing art to become so vivid and images are portrayed to be so real. I never was a fan of art nor music, but if one actually pays attention to the evolvement of it throughout time one would have great appreciation.
German-English composer, George Frederick Handel, is one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period if not of all time. His work, Messiah, is one of the most famous and beloved works of music in the world. During his career in music, Handel composed Italian cantatas, oratorios (like Messiah), Latin Church Music, and several operas. Handel moved around from country to country writing, composing, and producing music for royalty such as Queen Anne and George of Hanover. In his life, Handel mastered several instruments including the violin and the harpsichord.
...ic landscapes. The baroque marked the time in which painters considered using subjects other than scenes from the Bible and from classical traditions. The baroque period also was the period in which artists painted portraits, and everyday life scenes. Baroque artist broke away from trying to make the calm balance known to the renaissance artists. Artists from the baroque era were interested in no longer tried in the extreme. They wanted to paint subjects possessing strong emotions; they wanted to capture those emotions and feelings in their work. Instead of just extremes of feeling sometimes, these strong emotions were personal. More often artists tried to portray intense religious emotions. Baroque art attempted to explain how and why their subjects fit as strongly as they did by representing their emotional states as vividly and analytically as possible.
“Music” as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is “vocal or instrumental sounds combined in such a way as to produce the beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.” Emotion, and the treatment of emotion, is indubitably an important aspect of music from all eras, but the manner in which emotion is expressed, has changed over time. Throughout the Baroque period (c. 1600 – 1750) musicians attempted to cause a specific extreme emotion in the listener, while during the Classical period (c. 1750-1825) composers sought to produce a balance of emotions. Due to philosophical and artistic movements that occurred, emotion, a critical element of music, was conveyed differently between the Baroque and Classical periods.
Concerto Grosso George Frideric Handel was born on February 23, 1685 in Halle, Germany. George Frideric Handel had a passion for music even at an early age. At the age of seven he was a skilful performer on harpsichord and pipe organ. In his early years, up until he went to college, he had not yet composed a piece; rather he simply kept learning different types of instruments to play. George Handel was allowed to take lessons in musical composition and keyboard technique from a composer named Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, an organist of the Liebfrauenkirche.
George was a very talented composer but, unlike many others he didn’t come from a family with a long line of musicians. At very early age Handel had his mind set on studying music even though his father disapproved. Because his father wanted him to become a lawyer he didn’t allow Handel to play musical instruments. Despite his father’s wishes, historians believed he studied music by candlelight. To make his father proud he studied law for a short time but knew this was not what he wanted to do. George followed his dreamed and went on to join an orchestra in Germany that would change his life forever.
The Baroque era was the age of magic. Flat surfaces became three-dimensional and paint on plaster became alive. It was the age of masterful illusion. Nothing exhibits this mastery better than Baroque ceiling paintings.