Baroque music refers to the main style of Western classical music written from about 1600 to 1750. This style came after the Renaissance period and was followed by the Classical period after a short time called the galant style. Baroque music is an important part of the "classical music" collection and is still widely studied, performed, and listened to today. Important composers from this time include Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first operas; Alessandro Stradella, who helped create a new musical style called the concerto grosso; and Arcangelo Corelli, who was one of the first composers to publish his music and have it played across Europe.

During the Baroque period, a way of writing music using specific keys became more organized. This method of harmony is still used in Western classical and popular music today. Composers tried to make each instrument sound fuller, which led to the creation of the modern orchestra. They also developed new ways to write music, such as figured bass, and improved how musicians played instruments. Baroque music increased the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performances. It also helped establish musical forms like opera, cantata, oratorio, solo concerto, and sonata. These works often included many independent melody lines played at the same time.

During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be skilled at improvising both solo melodies and accompaniment parts. Concerts during this time usually included a basso continuo group, where instruments like the viol, cello, or double bass played the bassline. A common musical form from this period was the dance suite.

Definition

The French word "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word "barroco," which means an irregularly shaped pearl. Although many believed the term was first used to describe architecture, it was actually first used to describe music. In 1733, an anonymous critic wrote a satirical review of a musical performance of Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie. The review, published in 1734, described the music as "du barocque," meaning it was confusing, filled with dissonance, and changed keys and rhythms quickly.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, writers used "baroque" as a negative term to describe music that was overly complex or strange. For example, Noel Antoine Pluche compared baroque music to "pearls pulled from the sea" when "diamonds" (simpler music) were already available. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in 1768 that baroque music had confusing harmonies, harsh singing, and difficult rhythms.

Historians began applying the term "baroque" to music in the 20th century. In 1919, Curt Sachs used Heinrich Wölfflin’s ideas about visual art to describe music, but critics questioned this approach. While art historians often say the Baroque period began in the 16th century, some music historians, like Robert Haas, argued it started later, in 1594, after the deaths of important composers.

In the 1940s, scholars like Manfred Bukofzer and Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune tried to study baroque music using technical analysis instead of comparing it to visual art or literature. These efforts led to disagreements about when the Baroque period began and ended, as musical styles changed at different times in different places.

The term "baroque" is now used to describe music between the Renaissance and Classical periods. It is often divided into three phases: "early Baroque" (1580–1630), "middle Baroque" (1630–1680), and "late Baroque" (1680–1730). Other scholars divided it differently, such as "primitive Baroque" (mid- to late 16th century), "full Baroque" (17th century), and "tardy Baroque" (1700–1740 or 1765).

It is hard to list exact features that define Baroque music, as it was very diverse. Some suggested characteristics include energy, open structure, decoration, contrast, and mixing of styles. However, musicologist Claude V. Palisca noted that styles varied widely, even within the same period. For example, some composers used dynamic, open forms, while others did not.

Baroque music can be described by its focus on expressing emotions. This came from a renewed interest in classical rhetoric and Aristotle’s Poetics, which emphasized moving audiences emotionally. The spread of Humanism and poetry inspired by Petrarch also influenced this focus on personal expression.

Composers also studied ancient sources, like Ptolemy and Aristoxenus, to create more complex music beyond Renaissance scales. Scientific discoveries about sound and pitch led to innovations like equal temperament and modulation. The rise of the middle class in trade centers created demand for opera houses and more realistic or historical operas, rather than mythological stories.

History

During the Baroque era, new musical ideas began in Italy and took about 20 years to spread across Western classical music. For example, Italian composers started using the galant style around 1730, while German composers like Johann Sebastian Bach continued writing in the Baroque style until about 1750.

The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets, and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence. They met under the support of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and influence trends in music and drama. They believed in the ideals of ancient Greek musical drama, which focused on speech and storytelling. They disliked the use of polyphony (multiple independent melodies) and instrumental music. Instead, they studied ancient Greek techniques like monody, which involved a solo singer accompanied by a kithara (an ancient string instrument). Early examples of these ideas, such as Jacopo Peri’s Dafne and L’Euridice, helped create opera, which became important for Baroque music.

In music theory, the use of figured bass (also called thorough bass) showed how important harmony was becoming in music. Harmony comes from counterpoint, and figured bass used numbers, symbols, or accidentals above the bassline to guide keyboard players, such as harpsichordists or organists. These symbols told the player which intervals to play above each bass note. Keyboard players would then improvise chords for each note. Composers started focusing more on harmonic progressions and used the tritone, an unstable interval, to create dissonance (found in dominant seventh and diminished chords). While some Renaissance composers, like Carlo Gesualdo, used harmony, the shift to tonality (a focus on a central key) marked the move from the Renaissance to the Baroque period. This change led to the idea that chord sequences, not just notes, could create a sense of closure in music—a key idea of tonality.

Claudio Monteverdi helped change music from the Renaissance to the Baroque style. He developed two styles: the Renaissance polyphony (prima pratica) and the Baroque basso continuo technique (seconda pratica). With basso continuo, a small group of musicians played the bassline and chords that supported a melody. This group usually included keyboard players, a lute player, and bass instruments like viola da gamba, cello, or double bass. Monteverdi’s operas, such as L’Orfeo and L’incoronazione di Poppea, helped popularize this new genre. The Venetian style influenced German composers like Heinrich Schütz, whose music evolved into later periods.

Idiomatic instrumental textures became more common. The style luthé, which involved irregular and unpredictable chord breaks, was later called style brisé. French composers like Robert Ballard and Ennemond Gaultier used this style in their lute music. Later, it was adapted for the harpsichord in works by Louis Couperin and Jean-Henri D’Anglebert. This style remained influential in keyboard music through the 18th and early 19th centuries, even in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frédéric Chopin.

The rise of centralized courts, such as those of Louis XIV of France, was a key feature of the Age of Absolutism. The palace style and court culture he promoted became a model for Europe. As church and state patronage grew, so did the demand for public music. More instruments became available, leading to the popularity of chamber music, which is music for small ensembles.

Jean-Baptiste Lully was a leading court composer. He gained exclusive rights from the French monarchy to compose operas for the king. He wrote 15 lyric tragedies and left Achille et Polyxène unfinished. Lully was one of the first conductors, using a large staff to keep his ensembles in time.

Musically, Lully did not create the string-dominated orchestras common in Italian opera. Instead, he used a French five-part ensemble (violins, violas, and bass violins) that had been used in ballet since Louis XIII’s time. He added recorders, flutes, and oboes to the upper parts and bassoons to the lower parts. Trumpets and kettledrums were often used for dramatic scenes.

In Italy, the middle Baroque period (1630s) saw the rise of vocal styles like cantata, oratorio, and opera. A new approach to melody and harmony made music equal in importance to words. The complex, ornamented monody of the early Baroque gave way to simpler, more refined melodies. These melodies often used short, rhythmic ideas based on dance patterns like the sarabande or courante. Harmonies became simpler to express emotion more clearly, with longer notes used for crescendos and diminuendos. Bass lines were more closely tied to melodies, creating a balance between parts. This led to the development of recitative (spoken-like sections in opera) and aria (melodic sections). Important composers of this style included Luigi Rossi (cantatas), Giacomo Carissimi (oratorios), and Francesco Cavalli (opera). Later composers like Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Alessandro Stradella helped develop the concerto grosso style in their works.

Arcangelo Corelli was influential as a violinist and composer. He helped organize violin technique and promoted the concerto grosso, a form with strong contrasts between sections. Unlike Lully, who worked at court, Corelli published his music widely, making it popular across Europe. His work, like Lully’s, used clear contrasts, but the concerto grosso alternated between full ensemble and smaller groups.

Styles and forms

A feature of the Baroque style was the dance suite. Some dance suites by Bach are called partitas, though this term is also used for other collections of music. While the pieces in a dance suite were based on actual dance music, these suites were meant for listening, not for dancing. Composers included a variety of movements in their dance suites. A typical dance suite includes these movements:

• Overture – The Baroque suite often began with a French overture, a slow movement followed by a series of four different dances:
• Allemande – Often the first dance in an instrumental suite, the allemande was a popular dance from the German Renaissance. It was played at a moderate tempo and could start on any beat of the measure.
• Courante – The second dance is the courante, in triple meter. It could be fast and lively or slow and stately. The Italian version is called the corrente.
• Sarabande – The sarabande, a Spanish dance, was the third of the four basic dances. It was one of the slowest Baroque dances and was in triple meter. It could start on any beat of the measure, but the second beat was emphasized, creating a "halting" rhythm.
• Gigue – The gigue was an upbeat and lively Baroque dance in compound meter. It was usually the final movement of an instrumental suite and the fourth basic dance type. It could start on any beat of the measure and was easily recognized by its rhythmic feel. The gigue originated in the British Isles. Its counterpart in folk music is the jig.

The four dance types (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) made up most 17th-century suites. Later suites sometimes added one or more dances between the sarabande and gigue:
• Gavotte – The gavotte was in duple meter, with phrases starting on an offbeat. It was played at a moderate tempo, though Italian-style gavottes were sometimes faster.
• Bourrée – The bourrée was similar to the gavotte, as it was in 2/4 time. However, it started on the second half of the last beat of the measure, creating a different rhythm. It was usually played at a moderate tempo, though some composers, like Handel, played it faster.
• Minuet – The minuet was in triple meter at a moderate tempo. It did not have an anacrusis (a starting note before the first beat). Italian minuets were typically faster with longer phrases.
• Passepied – The passepied was a fast dance in binary form and triple meter. It originated as a court dance in Brittany.
• Rigaudon – The rigaudon was a lively French dance in duple meter, similar to the bourrée but with a simpler rhythm. It originated as a family of related southern-French folk dances in regions like Vavarais, Languedoc, Dauphiné, and Provence.

Other dances and pieces could also be included in a suite, such as the polonaise, loure, scherzo, and air.

• Prelude – A suite might begin with a prelude, a slow piece written in an improvisatory style. Some Baroque preludes only indicated a sequence of chords, leaving the melodic part to be improvised by the performer. The prelude was not based on a type of dance.
• Entrée – An entrée was sometimes part of a suite. It was purely instrumental music, not connected to a dance. It was an introduction, often played during the entrance of a dancing group or before a ballet. It was usually in 4/4 time and related to the Italian "intrada."
• Basso continuo – A continuous accompaniment written using figured bass notation. It typically involved one or more sustaining bass instruments (e.g., cello) and one or more chord-playing instruments (e.g., harpsichord, pipe organ, or lute).
• Concerto – A solo piece with orchestral accompaniment.
• Concerto grosso – A type of concerto featuring a small group of soloists and an orchestra.
• Monody – An accompanied Italian solo song, developed from ensemble music for solo instruments in the late 16th century.
• Homophony – Music with one main melody and rhythmically similar, supporting chordal accompaniment. This contrasts with the Renaissance texture of polyphony (multiple independent melodies).
• Dramatic musical forms – Such as opera and dramma per musica.
• Combined instrumental-vocal forms – Like the oratorio and cantata, which used both singers and an orchestra.
• New instrumental techniques – Such as tremolo (rapid repetition of notes) and pizzicato (plucking strings).
• Da capo aria – By 1680, this form of aria (a solo vocal piece) became the most common.
• Ritornello aria – A vocal piece with short, repeated instrumental sections interrupting the singing.
• Stile concertato – A contrast in sound between groups of instruments.
• Extensive ornamentation – Often improvised by singers and instrumentalists, such as trills and mordents.

Genres

• Opera Singspiel Ballad opera Semi-opera Zarzuela Intermezzo Opera buffa Opera seria Opéra comique Opera-ballet Tragédie en musique
• Ballet de cour
• Masque
• Oratorio
• Passion (music)
• Cantata
• Mass (music)
• Anthem
• Monody
• Chorale

• Chorale composition
• Concerto Concerto grosso
• Fugue
• Suite Allemande Courante Sarabande Gigue Gavotte Minuet
• Sonata Sonata da camera Sonata da chiesa Trio sonata
• Partita
• Canzona
• Sinfonia
• Fantasia
• Ricercar
• Toccata
• Prelude
• Chaconne
• Passacaglia
• Chorale prelude
• Stylus fantasticus