3.3 Music in the Baroque Era (1600-1750)
Philosophies and Innovations
Music as Status
Society in Baroque Europe saw an explosion of wealth and grandeur at the largest courts in
Europe. Kings and Queens had massive wealth, and they wanted everyone to know it. One way they
displayed their wealth was to hire the best musicians to become servants at their courts. In this way, fine
music increasingly became a symbol of status, and some of the sounds that we still associate with
power today—trumpet fanfares and overtures—became commonplace during the Baroque. In fact,
instrumental music, in general, became equally as important as vocal music during the Baroque,
partially because of this emphasis from the courts.
Ornamentation
The term “Baroque” actually comes from a French word meaning “misshapen pearl,” and it was
originally a term of derision from those who did not like the richly decorated artistic style that covered
every available surface in micro-detail. Baroque musicians, similarly, avoided plain or simple sounds,
and often filled every moment with tiny musical details called ornamentation. You can think of
ornamentation like ornaments on a Christmas tree; they are usually small details that are added to the
larger or longer notes to decorate them. In Baroque music, composers usually did not write ornaments
down—they expected performers to improvise them, or add them as they performed. One of the ways
that performers distinguished themselves was by adding more (or more tasteful) ornaments than the
next singer or instrumentalist.
Doctrine of Affections
In Renaissance music, we observed how Humanist thinking encouraged composers to add
emotions into their music. Baroque composers extended this philosophy. They frequently believed that
listening to music could adjust the chemical makeup of the body, and therefore change the emotions
and improve mental health. Although their philosophy wasn’t grounded in scientific methods, they
weren’t too far from the truth! We now know that listening to music does indeed change the amounts
of chemicals in the brain responsible for emotions, like dopamine. We now call the Baroque belief, that
music could directly affect the emotional health of the body, the Doctrine of Affections. This doctrine
affected music in numerous ways, but it often resulted in composers trying to express a single, basic
emotion very strongly in each piece (or section of a piece). To do this, they repeatedly used small
musical motives of just a few notes that they felt expressed an emotion.
Chiaroscuro & Concertato Principles
Baroque artists and musicians were also interested in contrasts. In visual art, the imbalance of
very strong, focused light and vast, obscure darkness is called chiaroscuro (chiaro means “light” in
Italian, while oscuro means “dark”). In music, the same principle—a balance of unequal, opposing forces
—is called the concertato principle, and the resulting music is often called a concerto. Baroque
concertos often featured a tiny group of just a few solo instruments playing in dialogue with a much
larger ensemble. This arrangement is called a concerto grosso. Concertos like this often adopted a
ritornello form, in which the large group of instruments performed a repeating passage (called the
ritornello) that was sometimes subject to variation, while the soloists performed more intricate and
technically demanding passages of contrast. In addition to concertos, the same ideals of contrast also
led composers to write the first dynamics into their music, to write contrasting tempos in different
movements of longer works, and to compose a different basic emotion (affect) into each separate piece
or movement.
Basso Continuo
A popular musical convention during the Baroque called a figured bass used musical
shorthand to allow composers to write only a bass line and numbers below the notes to create the main
structure of a composition. A basso continuo was the flexible group of instruments responsible for
performing these figured bass lines. The basso continuo group normally includes one bass instrument,
like a cello or bassoon, along with a harmony instrument, like a harpsichord or organ. In some cases,
instruments like the organ or theorbo (a bass lute) could perform both the bass line and the harmonies,
but the normal practice was to have multiple instruments performing the figured bass part. This bassdriven style of composition created a very different musical style than the equal-voiced polyphony of
the Renaissance. It led to an emphasis on harmony and harmonic rhythm in Baroque works.
Because the basso continuo contained all of the necessary harmonic information in a piece,
composers did not need to rely as much on polyphonic textures like Renaissance composers. Many
Baroque composers turned toward a type of homophonic texture called monody, which features a
single, prominent, normally ornamented, and highly expressive melody line above the basso continuo
accompaniment. The development of monody was important for the creation of operas and sonatas.
Baroque Musicians’ Roles
Church musicians were still an important part of Baroque musical life. Many of the most
famous composers of the Baroque, such as Johann Sebastian Bach, were regarded primarily as
church musicians. Many larger churches in the Baroque employed full orchestras and singers for every
Mass, and composers were often expected to compose, rehearse, and perform new pieces of music for
every Sunday service.
Court musicians were usually paid even more than church musicians by the end of the
Baroque era, and musical positions at the largest courts held considerably more prestige than
anywhere else. Musicians at court were considered servants, and normally were given salaries (in
addition to room and board) as compensation for providing a soundtrack for courtly life.
Another possible, and often very lucrative, musical career was in the Baroque opera house.
Baroque operas were the popular music of this period. Impresarios managed the business of
rehearsing, producing, and promoting operas. Composer George Frederic Handel first gained fame
and wealth as an opera impresario. In addition, opera singers were musical superstars of their day.
The most famous ones often toured Europe, demanding (and receiving) extraordinary fees for
performing.
Baroque Genres
Opera was the most important new genre of music in the Baroque era. Like a play, an opera
tells a story with actors, scenery, costumes, and props, but all of the dialogue in an opera is sung. Opera
was an outgrowth of Renaissance Humanist thought. Ancient Greek musicians accompanied theatrical
productions with music, and then wrote about how it enhanced the emotion of the story. When late
Renaissance composers tried to apply this principle to their own music, they created the first operas.
Opera has been an enduring genre in Classical music ever since, and some of these Baroque operas are
still performed and enjoyed today.
During Lent (a season of penitence between Ash Wednesday and Easter), the Catholic church
placed a ban on operas because they were thought to be too sensual. Composers like G.F. Handel
responded by writing oratorios to supply the paying public with musical entertainment. An oratorio
tells a story entirely through singing, but there are no costumes, props, or scenery. The plot of oratorios
are generally sacred, due to the church’s original desire for more penitence during Lent.
The main sacred genre of the time was called a cantata. Cantatas began as the German
Lutheran equivalents of sacred motets in Catholic services, but quickly grew in scope and length. Early
cantatas were written for a single vocalist and a small group of instruments, but by the time J.S. Bach
wrote his church cantatas, they often had multiple contrasting movements, full orchestras, and multiple
vocal soloists. The texts for cantatas were often like an essay or a sermon, and functioned similarly
during the course of a Lutheran service.
As instruments became more and more important to church and courtly life, so did purely
instrumental genres. A sonata is a piece written for a solo instrument, with or without accompaniment.
Sonatas started as instrumental music played during church services, but they quickly became a genre
of their own. The concerto grosso was another genre of instrumental music that used a small group of
instrumental soloists (called the concertino) and a larger orchestra (called the ripieno). Because social
standing at courts partly depended on one’s skill at dancing, the Baroque dance suite was a
particularly important genre. Composers often grouped together dances that conveyed contrasting
emotions.
In the Baroque era, the primary form of polyphonic composition was called a fugue. A fugue
was a highly elaborate type of imitative polyphony that featured a recognizable musical melody (called
a subject) that was passed around between all of the voices. In addition, fugues normally feature a
countermelody, called a countersubject, which often appears with the subject. Finally, a fugue
typically contains modulating passages without a subject, which are called episodes. An episode leads
to the statement of the subject melody in a new key, sometimes with a change from major to minor (or
vice versa) for variation. The climactic point in many fugues features a stretto, which is when multiple
voices have overlapping versions of the subject at the same time and possibly in different keys. Because
of its complexity, the fugue was considered a highly artistic and academic style of composition.
Typical Musical Elements
Rhythm: steady, consistent tempos; driving rhythms that propel the music forward
Melody: ornamented melodies
Harmony: triads, tonal harmony in major and minor keys
Timbres: voices and instruments had equal importance; strings, flutes, oboes, trumpets, timpani
Textures: polyphonic (fugue) and homophonic (monody, chorales)
Forms: ritornello form, ground bass, fugue
Dynamics: composers used piano and forte to create contrasts
Articulation: used by performers for emotional effect, but not normally written into musical scores