Baroque Music Research Paper

Improved Essays
Baroque music used highly ornamented lines, much like gothic buildings.

Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images

The Baroque period was a time in which changes were being made to music, and the sophistication of composers was growing. Rather than writing for undefined instruments, composers began to think about how the timbre of the instruments affected the overall sound. New types of ensembles and pieces started to form in the Baroque period while others were developed based on past forms. Exploring Baroque music begins with the understanding of the types of music available. Baroque music includes material written from 1600 to 1750.

Opera and Oratorio

An oratorio is a religious vocal work that contains arias, chorus sections and recitatives. It's similar to opera, except that operas were generally multi-movement dramatic works that didn't necessarily have religious connotations. These two types of vocal works were
…show more content…
The Baroque period had two main types of Sonatas: the church sonata and the chamber sonata. Sonatas written for performances in homes were considered secular and were concerned primarily with entertainment. Sonatas written for the church were more serious and dealt with religious issues. Later, in the Classical period, the exposition, development and recapitulation became parts of the established sonata form.

Fugue

The fugue is one of the highest accomplishments of Baroque music. Bach was a famous composer who wrote countless fugues. Fugues are complex musical forms that combine several different elements to complete a three-, four- or even five-part texture. The subject is the opening musical idea that serves as the basis for the rest of the musical development. Following the subject is another musical idea called the answer. These two elements form the basis for the development of a fugue as they are twisted and developed through the composition.

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    9/11: A Song Analysis

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Songs that are in honor of an specific person or event; usually don’t attract too much audience because people don’t feel represented with the song since is from someone already. Baroque music main focus was on religion and also in some…

    • 146 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Baroque Music Dbq

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages

    During the Baroque era, music generally expressed the same mode throughout the whole piece. This means that specific melodic patters and set rhythms appeared throughout the pieces. In this era, they began to have a continuous rhythm throughout the whole piece, which gave the music better flow. This era created a large demand for more music.…

    • 737 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Johann Sebastian Bach Dbq

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The conditions that composers had to work under during the Baroque era were very difficult. Johann Sebastian Bach had to overcome many obstacles to get to where he wanted. Some of them were that he was not free to create his own music, the Duke Wilhelm only wanted him to practice the Hymns he did not think that they needed new music he just liked the old hymns. Also, the concertmaster was about to retire and he was the most qualified person to fill his position but they only lied to him.…

    • 263 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the Baroque period, some important choral forms such as the motet represented the continued development of the Renaissance ideas. However, others such as the cantata and the oratorio were completely new creations of the time period. These vocal forms of the Baroque period were based on the monadic style. In some cases, some of these forms like the cantata crossed over boundaries of sacred and secular and were used for both. Specifically, the cantata was one of the most prominent composition forms of the baroque period and it originated in Italy.…

    • 619 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The 'basso continuo' was the chordal assistant to most music in the Baroque era. This is where the harpsichord comes in. Harpsichord and a low strung instruments make up the basso continuo. The texture in the early Baroque is all in all homophonic with the help of the basso continuo. Chamber cantata's mostly sang with the accompanied basso ostinato.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This movement, unlike most of other fugal movements in its time, does not begin with a fugue. Rather, the start of the movement could not have been more galant. The first violin’s “Fux” theme in whole note rhythm is accompanied by an alberti bass in the second violin, which is a hallmark of the galant style. This opening is thus both galant and…

    • 844 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    The word Baroque is attained from a Portuguese word (barrocco) referring to a warped or distorted pearl. Handel worked hard to get recognized in which touring in Italy over three opera seasons he introduced himself to Italy’s major composers. These composers expressed interest in his music work and invited him to go to London. Moreover, while in London Handel met with the manager of the King’s Theatre, who commissioned Handel to write an opera. Within just two weeks, Handel composed Rinaldo.…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Anthony Vu Mrs. Gunter History and Music, Period 3B 6 December 2016 An Examination of the Life of Johann Sebastian Bach The Baroque era of European music is intrinsically connected to one essential man: Johann Sebastian Bach. The breadth and achievements of his career and unrivaled musical influence to this very day marks him as a man of remarkable talent and undisputed genius. Bach’s command of a variety of instruments, combined with his distinctive compositional voice and his mastery of technique, produced hundreds of compositions, including the famous cantata “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and the organ piece “Toccata and Fugue in D minor.”…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Music Concert Critique

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Baroque era style of music was between 1600-1750 and applied to art and architecture before music. The baroque era consisted of humanism which included universities and the invention of geometry and the laws of physics, renaissance trends, arts and economics, and values of art and music. The general music styles I learned about the Baroque era style of music include emotional expressiveness, a sense of drama and dramatic contrast, and increasing ornamentation and virtuosity. During the 17th century, Baroque era music goes from polyphony to transforming into homophony which is one main melody supported by accompaniment basso continuo. Vertical harmonies, new instruments like the harpsichord, and rhythm, because more and more important and composers start to only have to write bass note and key.…

    • 1387 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Such movements are usually regarded as consisting of a slow dotted section followed by a fugue, but many can also be viewed as sort of binary form. Often the second half is, as here, a fugue in concerto style having little in common with the first half. Yet the tonal structure is that of a binary…

    • 1065 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It broke boundaries set forth by other periods that had come before it, such as the Classical period, which also reflected society at the time. However, these expressions of society differed greatly. Classical composers had a more gleeful mood in their works, whereas Romantic composers wrote for the inhumane and unjust moods that flooded their time. Classical music was supposed to be an era of variety, where in reality most of the music matched in style due to the normativity of society. Romantic music was personal.…

    • 877 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Classical Period and The Romantic Era of classical music have many similarities and differences in form, texture, and articulation. Ultimately, the Classical period is known better for being extremely structured, usually having binary or rondo form, whereas the Romantic era is known for the more flowing, unorthodox structures. This is because the Classical period focused more on form, whereas the Romantic period focused on emotion. Also, the Romantic period allowed for the use of rubato, or the forward and backward motion of tempo that strays just a bit from conventional tempo. The Classical period is different in regards to tempo because it does not allow for any rubato or modifications to the tempo in any kind.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The instrumentations between the two periods were also noteworthy with the Classical period having more focus on bigger and better instrument sections for pieces, as opposed to the Baroque period where the instrumentation was less important. The Baroque period was different from the Classical period because of the complexity of the instrumentation. The Baroque period music was more complex than Classical era music. One of the final striking differences in the periods was also the dynamic usage. The Baroque period tended to not even use dynamics while the Classical era did not miss an opportunity to use them.…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Diversity and dissimilarity within a piece became more distinct than before. Composers used a variety of keys, melodies, rhythms, and dynamics. Classical pieces energetic changes such as crescendo, diminuendo. Classical pieces had frequent changes of dynamics, and mood in contrast to Baroque music. Melodies tended to be shorter than those of Baroque music.…

    • 152 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Another different feature was the rhythm of each era. During the classical era, rhythm was flexible and contained many other rhythmic patterns. On the other hand, in Baroque music there was one basic, regular, continuous motion of rhythm in a piece. Texture, also played a difference because during the Baroque era texture of a music piece was “polyphonic”. It means that it had more then one melodic part.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays