The Music of the Baroque Period from 1600-1750
The Music of the Baroque Period from 1600-1750
The geographical center of the Baroque Era was Europe, with Italy as the place of origin with the movement later spreading throughout Europe via Germany, France and England. Music was the main source of pastimes, with the lower class making up most of the musicians and composers. As these people climbed in fame however, they were given substantial pay increases, but they still remained servants with little or no rights at all. Many musicians were sons of musicians who were given as apprentices to town musicians to live in their homes in return for their servitude doing odd jobs and copying music for them. Women were not taught or allowed to perform as composers and artists in those days, even though a few did manage to become successful composers.
Major influences in the coming of the Baroque era were the increased demands of the nobles and kings for entertainment. The church was also a contributing factor because they began to use the emotion and theatrics of art to make worship services more interesting. The major characteristics of the Baroque period were the discoveries and developments in science and mathematics (this was the age of Galileo and Newton).
The Baroque era was divided into three periods, early (1600-1640), middle (1640-1680), and late (1680-1750). Most of the music we know today was produced in the late period but the major changes associated with the Baroque era took place in the early period. Composers of the early Baroque period strove to bring forth as much emotion and passion into their pieces as possible, they composed the music to very emotional pieces of drama, which was conveyed into the music. This was also the setting for the emergence of opera. Art of that period was also affected, and pictures came alive with even more depth than the Renaissance period. Statues now took on the appearance of utilizing space and incorporated movement and actions.
The musical forms of this period were a continuance of the polyphonic texture of the Renaissance, (after a brief return to the homophonic texture of old). Major and minor scales replaced the medieval sounds of the music coming from the church. The orchestra of the Baroque period was increasing in size and consisted of ten to forty players on instruments mainly from...