About the Baroque Period

Derived from the Portuguese barroco, or oddly shaped pearl, the term baroque has
been widely used since the nineteenth century to describe the period in Western
European art music from about 1600 to 1750. Comparing some of music historys
greatest masterpieces to a misshapen pearl might seem strange to us today, but to the
nineteenth century critics who applied the term, the music of Bach and Handels era
sounded overly ornamented and exaggerated. Having long since shed its derogatory
connotations, baroque is now simply a convenient catch-all for one of the richest and
most diverse periods in music history.

Select a box below to hear a representative sample of music from that time period.

Medieval Renaissance Baroque Classical Romantic Modern

476 c.e. 1475 1600 1750 1820 1900

BAROQUE MUSIC
What is "baroque," and when was the Baroque period?
Who were the major Baroque composers, and where were they from?
What is the philosophy of Baroque music?
What are the characteristics of Baroque music?
What musical forms came to define the Baroque era?
What was it like to attend a concert in the Baroque era?
What came after the Baroque period?
The Baroque era in the modern age

MAJOR BAROQUE COMPOSERS

Johann Sebastian Bach
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Antonio Corelli
Franois Couperin
Girolamo Frescobaldi
George Frideric Handel
Jean-Baptiste Lully
Claudio Monteverdi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Michael Praetorius
Henry Purcell
Jean-Phillippe Rameau
Alessandro Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti
Samuel Scheidt
Johann Hermann Schein
Heinrich Schtz
Georg Philipp Telemann
Antonio Vivaldi