Instrumental Baroque Music

The 17th and early 18th centuries saw a dramatic change in musical styles, particularly with regard to instrumental music. Until the early 1600s, instrumental music was secondary to music for voice. Words were a key part of music, with instruments serving largely as accompaniment. That began to change as technology brought about better instruments and more varied instruments capable of producing varying dynamics and with a wider range in tones. Increasingly, composers focused on the intricacies of instrumental music, in some cases using the instruments as a substitute for the human voice. The Baroque musical period, as this time became known, saw the rise of opera·particularly in Italy·and also gave rise to one of the greatest composers of Western music, Johann Sebastian Bach. It is with Bach's death that the period is generally considered to come to an end and the Classical period to begin. The 150 years designated the Baroque period borrows the title from architecture, and is marked by a time of increased energy and movement. To understand the Baroque musical styles, it is also necessary to understand the style that preceded it and which formed the basis for the Baroque "reaction." This research examines the key characteristics of the Baroque period in instrumental music.

The starting point of the new epoch is usually taken as the year 1600, when the Italian melodrama (opera) came into

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liturgy gave scope for the development of another genre, the choral prelude for organ, which extended the range of that instrument by providing it with a highly impressive repertoire most closely associated with the Johann Sebastian Bach. Among the illustrious names linked with the harpsichord are those of Frescobaldi and Rossi, and later Pasquini, Scarlatti, Couperin, Bach and Handel. But the harpsichord was also used to accompany instruments on which the melody was played, especially the violin, the repertoire for which culminates in the sonata and the concerto, the two great ideal forms of the Baroque period, whether composed as church music or as chamber music. Later, the development of the concerto followed two paths: that of the concerto grosso·in which a group of solo instruments is heard in contradistinction to the whole orchestra, the tutti·and that of the concerto solo in which a single instrument is used to showcase impressive feats of virtuosity. THE EARLY BAROQUE PERIOD The earliest years of the Baroque period marked the departure from the Renaissance period music. During this time, generally identified as the shortest of the three Baroque periods from 1600 to 1630, stylistic changes from Renaissance music came
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Approximate Word count = 2552
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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