LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Baroque: Music
built 288 days ago
The most similar aspect of Baroque music and Jazz music is improvisation of the lead instrument. For example, in most Baroque vocal solo pieces, there are two verses. The piece is played/sung through once, straight through, and then played a second time, where the vocalist will improvise ornaments, grace notes and non-harmonic tones. However, in contrast to jazz, neither the original rhythm nor the original notes/melody are altered. Instead, they are appended with improvisation rather than changed with improvisation.
Source:
* Homophony: In late Baroque music homophony was held in check by the fast-moving continuo. In the relation between melody and chord progression, the consideration of the latter began to weigh more heavily (a process finally led to the homophony of the Mannheim school). The continuo-homophony differs from the plain homophony of the Mannheim school in its fast harmonic rhythm, and its energetic and sweeping rhythmic patterns that prevailed in both melody and bass
Source:
Baroque music has a polyphonic texture. This means the music has many voices playing different things all at the same time. It's like listening to five people talking to you at once! Just think how hard it would be to keep track of what everyone was saying to you.
Source:
Johann Sebastian Bach has, over time, come to be seen as the towering figure of Baroque music, with what Bela Bartok described as "a religion" surrounding him. During the Baroque period, he was better known as a teacher, administrator and performer than composer, being less famous than either Handel or Georg Philipp Telemann. Born in Eisenach in 1685 to a musical family, he received an extensive early education and was considered to have an excellent boy soprano voice. He held a variety of posts as an organist, rapidly gaining in fame for his virtuosity and ability. In 1723 he settled at the post which he was associated with for virtually the rest of his life: cantor and director of music for Leipzig. His varied experience meant that he became the leader of music, both secular and sacred, for the town, teacher of its musicians and leading figure.
Source:
Baroque composers manifested their second ideal in the ubiquitous basso continuo, a fixture that perhaps yet more than Affekt was the essential characteristic of baroque style. The score of a continuo part, known as figured bass, consisted of a bass line accompanied by numbers (figures) representing the remaining pitches of each chord. The bass line was played by a sustaining low-pitch instrument, typically 'cello or bassoon, while the figures were "realized" by a chording instrument such as the harpsichord, organ, or lute. Above this fundamental bass/chord structure the baroque musician played other parts with the expectation that copious ornaments and improvisations might be invoked. The basso continuo idiom is, in many respects, analogous to a contemporary jazz lead sheet.
Source:
Baroque musicians were not concerned with expressing their own feelings and emotions, rather they sought to describe with objectivity, feelings and emotions which were distinct from what they actually felt. One result of the musicians' distancing themselves from the emotions they depicted was a certain emotional detachment. Some critics have, as a result, found Baroque music to be somewhat cold. However, this evaluation ignores the ultimate goal of Baroque music, a goal attained then as now when Baroque music is properly performed. Composers' and performers' skillful and accurate musical depictions of objectively described emotions did and still do evoke emotional, feeling responses in its listeners. Baroque music stirs "the passions of the soul".
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Music