What is Baroque?
The origins of Baroque music
Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. The baroque era was the most prolific period ever in music.
After the reforms of Luther and Calvin, the Pope called for the Council of Trente (1542-1563). The Catholic Church aimed at bringing back the believers using art that would impress and please.
Kings and Nobility understood the impact that arts had on people and decided to use them to demonstrate their power.
Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of musical performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and many instrumental forms.
Some famous Composers
The Renaissance of Baroque
A large part of the Baroque repertoire became forgotten during the 19th and 20th centuries, While some productions of important and famous pieces (Haendel, The Messiah, Bach Saint-John’s Passion etc.) took place, they were then played according to the Romantic taste of the time with much larger ensembles and slower tempos.
In the 1970s, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, then followed by musicians such as William Christie, Jean-Claude Malgoire, John Eliot Gardiner etc. paved the way for a newer generation of musicians who have now established baroque music as a significant part of the «classical» music repertoire in concerts and in recordings in Europe and the US.
They re-discovered forgotten instruments, and while researching on how this music was played during the Baroque era made it much more meaningful to a contemporary audience.
In brief…
The most prolific and innovative period in musical history, Highly sophisticated music yet composed to be accessible to all.
300 years before Broadway and Hollywood, the first «complete » shows mixing dance, theatre and music.
A renewed and modernized practice that appeals to a younger audience, ancient instruments together with modern technologies for contemporary performances.
Music that develops a strong artistic sense through improvisation