The Baroque Period and Famous Composers

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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...

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...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

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