The Baroque Era’s genesis lay in Italy, established during the Council of Trent between 1545 and 1653. The Council’s mission was simple: How could they inspire people to follow the Catholic faith and come back to the Church’s fold? Where the Protestants opted for simplicity, the Catholic Church offered sumptuous art and drama — an offer few could resist.
While the Renaissance music style was simple, during the early Baroque Era, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction creating luxurious music that would stir emotions to new heights.
Leaving the Renaissance: The Birth of the Baroque Era
While the (late) Renaissance arts focused on being naturalistic, the Baroque Era introduced drama, light, shadow, movement, and contrast. Its artwork draws the viewer in and invites them to experience the subject’s emotions.
Carlos Gesualdo (1566-1613), Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza is a prime example of a composer who pushed the Late Renaissance Mannerist Style to its extreme. Gesualdo’s music is guided by dramatic emotional expressions, linear chromaticism, an interrupted texture, and harmonic freedom.
Gesualdo’s music is characterized by a unique and experimental sound that would not be heard again until the 19th century, introduced by composers such as Igor Stravinsky. His music straddles the line between the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque Period.
Below is one of his famous madrigals, Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (“I shall die, miserable, in my suffering”).
This interactive timeline from Western Michigan University shows how the Renaissance gave way to the Baroque. When you click on a term, it will lead you to a study guide defining it. Clicking on a name or title will navigate to a detailed discussion and relevant YouTube clips of performances.
Conventionally, the Baroque Period can be divided into three major periods, with overlapping elements crossing over each other. They are the “Early Baroque” from 1580 to 1630, the “Middle Baroque” from 1630 to 1680, and the “Late” or “High Baroque” between 1680 and 1730.
Early Baroque Period: ca. 1580 to 1630
The Early Baroque flowed out of the Renaissance; reviving the ideals of classical nations like the ancient Greeks and Romans was at the forefront of the Florentine Camerata’s agenda. The Camerata was a group of intellectuals who influenced all spheres of the musical environment. They emphasized monody (a single melody with accompaniment), which became known as the “second practice” (seconda pratica).
While the Renaissance offered rich, luxurious, and polyphonic music (known as “first practice,” or prima pratica), the Camerata felt it drew attention away from the text. Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli is often cited as one example of prima pratica.
Palestrina’s mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II and is believed to date from 1562. The mass is notable for its clear, declamatory style, and careful use of dissonance. It was composed to show the Council of Trent that polyphonic music (music with multiple voices sounding simultaneously) was still worthy of use in the church. The Council’s concern was that secular songs had made their way into churches and detracted from worship. Additionally, secular songs were sometimes used as the cantus firmus (a preexisting melody or chant).
Early Baroque composer Monteverdi is often credited with composing the first opera, L’Orfeo (performed in 1607), although this is not the whole truth. The honor of the first opera performed goes to Jacopo Peri’s Dafne — performed in 1598. It was an attempt to revive Greek drama, set to new standards. Although it was different from what the Greeks would have approved of, it provided the genesis for a genre that would continue to develop; even into our own time. The first surviving opera is Peri’s L’Euridice.
What made Monteverdi’s opera so different from its predecessors? He was daring and embraced the ideals of humanism in music: music is a human expression, and different emotions could be portrayed by different instruments. Additionally, he used a large orchestra when compared to other early baroque composers, and different groups of instruments were used to create atmospheres for the situation on the stage. The pastoral scenes are accompanied by the harp, harpsichord, strings, and recorders while the underworld scenes are portrayed by the heavy-sounding brass instruments.
Middle Baroque: 1630 to 1680
The centralized courts of Europe, known as the Age of Absolutism (coinciding with the Age of Enlightenment), is one of the most salient features that defined the Middle Baroque Period. King Louis XIV of France personified this period — his palace and court system became the model for the rest of Europe to follow.
The demand for public music was fueled by several factors: state and church patronage, the increasing availability of instruments, and the rise of chamber music (music for small ensembles that could be performed in a room at the palace). Telemann’s Tafelmusik/Musqiue de Table is a prime example of chamber music from the period. It was aimed at wealthy patrons and music lovers. The Tafelmusik suites were meant to accompany a meal, hence the name “table music.”
In Italy, forms like the cantata, opera, and oratorio gained popularity around the 1630s and spread across Europe. The new concept that melody and harmony were equal partners meant that the status of the music itself was on equal footing with the lyrics. Previously, the focus was on giving the words precedence and music was a mere accompaniment. Dance forms like the courante and sarabande influenced how melodies were composed and led to the rise of cadences to end musical phrases.
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) is one example of a preeminent court-style composer. He was a crafty businessperson too. He purchased patents from the monarch which enabled him to be the sole opera composer for the king and prevented others from having theirs staged. His music is especially known for its powerful liveliness during fast movements and its emotional depth during the sad movements.
He did not establish the string-dominated norm for orchestras — this was inherited from the Italians. However, Lully frequently doubled up the upper string parts in compositions with flutes, oboes, and recorders, and the bass string parts were enhanced (or doubled) by bassoons. Trumpets and kettledrums were frequently used to depict heroic scenes.
High Baroque: 1680-1750
When J.S. Bach died in 1750, it was as if the whole Baroque Era died with him. Figuratively speaking. While J.S. Bach held steadfast to his ideals of composition, other composers were already leaving the Baroque principles behind and embracing the future: the Classical Period (ca. 1750-1800).
The Early Baroque focused on clarity and shied away from the Renaissance’s intertwining and almost-floating polyphonies with voices intertwining. The High Baroque embraced all the drama it could, and highly ornamented music was in vogue again.
Antonio Vivaldi is today perhaps best known for his composition The Four Seasons. It was composed as, “programmatic” music in which each movement is accompanied by a sonnet describing the sights and sounds of the season. You can hear many of the characteristics of the Baroque Period in this work: ornamentation, a focus on the melody, contrasting dynamics, and the dramatic influence of the overall Baroque ethos. Vivaldi also composed a multitude of religious music for the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice.
Notable Musical Developments During the Baroque
With Monteverdi and his contemporaries pushing the Renaissance into the past and embracing the seconda pratica, the foundations of the Baroque Period were firmly established.
Contrast
When you look at a painting from the Baroque period, you’ll notice the contrast between light and dark. Dramatic contrast is a defining characteristic of Baroque music too — slow vs fast tempos, contrasting ensembles (few instruments pitted against a large group, or a choir against instruments), and contrasting dynamics — sudden changes from soft to loud, or vice versa: “terraced dynamics” (an example starts at 00:42 in the video clip below).
However, once a piece starts in a certain mood, it will not shift to another, it will prevail throughout. Because the works became longer, they were divided into separate movements with contrasting elements. A movement will have a prevailing pulse and mood to evoke an emotional response. The emotional response a composer tried to capture aligned itself with a concept called the “Doctrine of the Affections.”
Ground Bass
Contrast alone did not make Baroque music dramatic, it needed other elements too to drive the drama forward. The ground bass—a repeated bass line upon which variations are superimposed (e.g. JS Bach’s Chaconne, BWV1004, or Handel’s Sarabande, from the Keyboard Suite in D minor, HWV 437)—was used to heighten tension.
While the ground bass was not developed during the Baroque Period, it reached its peak. The ground bass has been used, particularly in Western music, from as early as the 13th century, often used in dance forms.
Henry Purcell’s aria, Dido’s Lament (also known as When I am Laid in Earth) from his opera Dido and Aeneas is a prime example of Baroque-filled emotion and dramatic expression. The ground bass provides the structure upon which the simple, yet elegant, melody should stir the listener’s emotions. The aria is performed at the end of the opera when Dido realizes Aeneas betrayed her, and it serves as her last farewell while she accepts her death.
Melody
Melody became important and for the melody to take center stage, the basso continuo (“continuous bass”) became a prominent feature of Baroque music. The basso continuo is an improvised harmonic accompaniment usually played on a melodic bass instrument like the cello or viola da gamba in combination with a keyboard instrument like the harpsichord or organ.
These instruments are usually played from figured bass where the vertical harmonies and chords are provided in a musical shorthand. Harmonic progressions of chords following each other (and providing a foundation for the melody) became increasingly important.
Ornamentation and Embellishment
Baroque buildings can be viewed as ornamental architecture that is all at once “grand, dramatic, full of contrasting surfaces, a multitude of curves, twists, and gilded statuary” (Anisia Iacob). Admittedly, it is difficult for a building to “move one’s affections,” but therein lies the beauty of the Baroque Period—it is the culmination of the mastery of all elements from the past—the “manifestation of ultimate mastery” cast into one grand mold.
When we think about adding ornamentation to something it evokes the idea of embellishment as in buildings, paintings, or clothing. However, for the Baroque composer and musician, it was a vehicle for moving the affections (emotions).
Ornamentation can be divided into two broad categories:
1. Ornaments, like trills (at 00:11 in the video below), turns (at 00:59), mordents (at 00:20), and appoggiaturas were added to certain notes to emphasize important points in the music. An in-depth explanation and audio examples can be found here. Some scholars believe that the practice was extended to “lengthening” the sounding note value of some notes because the sound would not last as long as intended due to the instruments’ inherent sound production qualities.
2. More elaborate ornamentation includes scales (notes running up and down in sequence — at 03:00 in the video below), broken chords (at 01:44), and arpeggios (at 01:49) were used to create a free and elaborate paraphrase of the vocal line. The aria below by Dominico Scarlatti (1685-1757), a contemporary of J.S. Bach, based in Italy, places various technical difficulties on the singer. Perfect breath control, phrasing the music correctly, and overall great stamina is required to sing the aria perfectly.
Tonality
Tonality also became important. Composers in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance relied on the church modes to govern music. During the Middle Ages, the chant line (cantus firmus) was predetermined, and composers composed the melody line on top of it. The inner voices were filled in last to ensure the music avoided unstable and undesirable intervals.
The Baroque saw the rise of a tonal center or key signature — the major keys sound “happy” while their minor counterparts sound “sad.” This gave composers a palette for expressing emotions. J.S. Bach’s two books, the Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1 and Book 2) illustrated that music could be composed in the twelve major and minor key signatures. Additionally, certain distances between notes (intervals) or combinations of notes and intervals altogether did not have to be avoided when using equal temperament tuning.
Exoticism
The European Age of Exploration, which began during the Renaissance in the 15th century, also made a mark on the music of the Baroque Period. “Exoticism,” during the Baroque led to a fascination with other cultures, albeit through a Western lens.
Different forms of music and instruments were imported to Europe and absorbed into the musical fabric — Lully’s Marche des Turcs for example evokes a feeling of “Turkishness” through the use of cymbals, tambourines, and drums.
Themes from foreign lands found their way into operas too. Often, these places and cultures are portrayed through the European lens through which the West would perceive these cultures. Jean-Philippe Rameau’s opera Les Indes Galantes is set in an exotic land — an idealized North America. In the video below Rameau’s music (Les Sauvages) is used and set against a dance form known as krump (the intention is not to evoke stereotypes but to show how music can evolve and be transported to different contexts).
In the video below, the cultural exchanges between Europe and the New World are exemplified. Hanacpachap Cussicuinin is a hymn in Quechua, a native language of the Andes. The musical style relies heavily on Western formulas while elements of native Andean music are also present. It can be seen as a form of “passive resistance” against the colonizers.
While it is a hymn to the Virgin Mary, it contains rich metaphors from Quechua cosmology and Andean nature. The hymn creates an intersection between Catholic theology and Andean symbolism allowing for interpretation and appreciation from both sides of the spectrum.
The composition is usually credited to the missionary Juan Pérez de Bocanegra, but there is still some debate because of its “mistakes” according to Baroque conventions — the credited composer was well-versed in the conventions of his day. It is possible that a student of Bocanegra composed the piece. Historically Hanacpachap Cussicuinin is an important work because it is the first printed polyphonic musical composition from the Americas. The composition date is between 1620 and 1631.
The Baroque Period, spanning about 150 years between 1600 and 1750, saw the musical landscape transformed. The Renaissance’s intricate, weaving musical lines were replaced by clarity and a focus on the music. It placed equal value on music and vocals.
But, as time progressed, the Baroque absorbed influences from its surroundings and became more intricate again. Contrast and drama were the keywords. Through contrasting tempos between movements and dynamics within a single movement as well as ornamentations, the aim was to stir emotions. Encounters with other cultures also led to new innovations and instruments being imported into the music to further enhance the musical palette.
