Guiding Through
Western Music
Part 1
Music History- Cuyahoga Falls High School
Baroque Music
The Texture
• From the Years 1600-1750
• This era was called Baroque
because of the extravagant and
bizarre qualities.
The Sound
The Other Arts
The Composers
• Music now made room for
homophony, one voice was
clearly more important that
the others.
• Click here to go to a website to
learn more facts about
Baroque Music.
• Click on links to the left to
learn more about baroque
music!
Texture of Baroque
Music
•Composers started writing more
homophonic music, this made one
voice more important than the
others...thus the emergence of opera.
Click to hear an
example:
Bach: Cantata #211, BWV
211, "Schweigt Stille
(Coffee Cantata)" - 2. Hat
Man Nicht Mit Seinen
Kindern
•This also made concertos popular. A
concerto is when an instrumental
soloist or small group play as the
foreground and there is a
background of accompanying music.
Click house to go
back.
The Sound of
Baroque Music
Music began to exhibit bold
contrasts in sounds; the contrasts
would be between something loud
and soft or something high and loud.
Baroque music also became highly
ornamented with flourishes and
trills.
Click here
to learn
about the
instrument
s of the
Baroque
Period
Click to listen to Music for the
Royal Fireworks:La Réjouissance
by Handel. Notice the flourishes
and trills in the trumpet part.
Music often had a melody line
coupled with a basso continuo.
Click house to go
back.
The Instruments of
Baroque Music
•Instruments start to take over the
music, rather than it being primarily
vocalists like in the Renaissance
period.
•The “star” instruments of the
baroque era were: (Click on
instrument name for more information
about those instruments.)
•The harpsichord
•The Strings
•Flutes , oboes, and bassoons
•Trumpet and French Horn
Back to “The
Sounds”
What was going on
during the time of
Baroque Music?
•Artists were using a lot of contrast
between light and darkness in their
paintings.
•Architecture was becoming highly
ornate. Churches spent large a lot of
money on lavish decorations to
display the churches authority.
•Arts (music, painting, architecture)
was being used to project the power
of the church and to convey sacred
teachings.
Click
house
To go
back
Click here to
learn more
about other
Baroque Art
Some Main Composers
Click on the
pictures to learn
more about each
person!
Click to
go on...
The End!