Characteristics of music in the Baroque

Each time in history gives us unique findings and discoveries that form part of our collective knowledge; these teachings evolve and develop to become part of our life today. The same happens in art and music. The Baroque was the time that began a journey in music that would establish all the formal rules of classical music, so knowing this type of music can give us a greater appreciation in this discipline. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about the characteristics of music in the baroque and we will be able to locate which elements have transcended through history.

The Baroque was a movement in Europe, especially with a boom in Italy, Germany, England, France and Spain during the s. XVII. Many place it from the birth of opera in 1600 to the death of the composer Johann Sebastian Bach in 1750.

The music in the Baroquehad a strong artistic appreciation for extremes, lto workmanship and contrast. Many people define the baroque as "heavy" and "twisted". Leaving aside the subjective, for music this time in history is crucial, since it was a moment of reforms where music became a powerful element as

public show and was used as a means of influence. For the musician it was advantageous because he many times he became a servant of the nobility and thus ensure his subsistence (in some cases throughout his life) thanks to his orders.

Some important Baroque composers were Georg Fredrich Händel, Georg Phillip Telemann, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Henry Purcell, Domenico Scarlatti, Claudio Moteverdi and perhaps one of the most influential musicians of the story: Johann Sebastian Bach.

Musically the baroque was a time that determined and instrumental language developmentof the orchestra, thanks to the popularity of opera. Since this was performed in large spaces such as theaters, the works were also great, with the voices accompanied by instrumental groups.

In the baroque orchestra, the predominant instruments in the orchestra were the rubbed string instruments, that is, the section of violins, violas, cellos and double basses.

If we talk about specific musical and technical elements of Baroque music, we find the following patterns:

The emergence of the concept of tonality

The works obtain a harmonious direction and a structure that the work develops, without changing suddenly. The tonality provides consistency and harmonic rules to the pieces of this time.

Low of continuous use

Almost always in baroque music the bass is used as the fundamental guiding note of the structure throughout the works, this being the harmonic central pillar and insisting to have a solid, clear and transparent sound.

Clear and simple time signature

Unlike more modern classical music, the meter (time signature) used to be established from beginning to end, without numerous variations.

Using simultaneous extreme voices

This is also called bipolar texture and it is when two voices or melodic lines sound simultaneously having a great pitch distance between them, that is to say that while a voice could be very high, another that sounds at the same time could be very serious.

Chords of functional progressions

Chords and cadences (chord progression) were used that had a clear musical direction, without many surprises or unexpected changes that could harmonically misplace the viewer.

Wide spaces for improvisation and virtuosity

Virtuosity was highly appreciated during this time, so within the structure of a work a space reserved for a soloist to improvise on said structure and show her skills with her instrument.

Strong sound contrasts

It is related to the use of bipolar textures and allows to offer clarity and transparency in the sound.

Instrumentation

As we mentioned earlier, stringed instruments they were a crucial part of baroque music. Besides, the use of wind instruments such as the flute and the oboe as a solo instrument. As for instruments with chord capacity we have harp, organ, harpsichord and lute, among others.

Baroque musical forms

The Baroque musical forms They can be divided into two categories: vocal forms and instrumental forms. It is at this time that important musical forms such as opera, oratorio, cantata, concert, sonata and suite are established. In general we can divide the forms into vowels and instrumentals.

Vowel forms

The most prominent is the Opera, which is a theatrical genre and contributed widely to the popularity and development of music as a formal discipline. The opera has a basic argument that is embodied in a libretto and performed mainly by singers on stage, accompanied by instrumentalists. Similar to opera, there was also the Oratory. Within other forms we have the cantata, liturgically, and the motet, but less popular and almost obsolete during this time.

Instrumental forms

Among the instrumental forms of the Baroque we can mention thesonata, the concertgross, thesuite room and some solo forms dedicated to improvisation such as the prelude, the toccata, the fantasy and the leakage.

So that all this information is not only in theoretical form and you can apply your knowledge, it would be worth it if you can search and listen to music, in such a way you will better understand the data that we have given you in this article by a PROFESSOR about the characteristics of music in the Baroque.