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Baroque
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Because Baroque music was the basis for pedagogy, it retained a stylistic influence even after it had ceased to be the dominant style of composing or of music making. Even as Baroque practice fell out of use, it continued to be part of musical notation. In the early 19th century, scores by Baroque masters were printed in complete edition, and this led to a renewed interest in the "strict style" of counterpoint, as it was then called. With Felix Mendelssohn's revival of Bach's choral music, the Baroque style became an influence through the 19th century as a paragon of academic and formal purity. Throughout the 19th century, the fugue in the style of Bach held enormous influence for composers as a standard to aspire to and a form to include in serious instrumental works.
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The Baroque was a time when people liked large spaces and a lot of ornamentation. In architecture you can think of St Peter’s, Rome, or St Paul’s Cathedral, London. They were built at this time. In Venice there were churches with galleries on either side of the church. Composers liked to write music for two groups of musicians placed in opposite galleries. Giovanni Gabrieli wrote a lot of music like this.
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Baroque music has unique idioms (specific style/character) and it is an idiomatic form. Composers began to write music specifically for a particular medium, such as the violin or the solo voice, rather than music with interchangeable or no idioms that might be either sung or played by almost any combination of voices and instruments, as had previously been the case. Before 1600, as the church had been the centre of music, vocal music had been dominating, and the instrumental music had been written for any instrument. After 1600, the violin became the main instrument and developed its idioms. Instrumental and vocal styles began to be differentiated, eventually becoming so distinct that the composers could borrow vocal idioms in instrumental writing, and vice versa. This transfer of idioms between instruments forms one of the most fascinating aspects of Baroque music.
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Baroque art has continuous overlapping of figures and elements where the Renaissance and clear defined planes that recede in depth. Baroque art often has a sweeping diagonal element that crosses many planes.
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In England the middle Baroque produced a cometary genius in Henry Purcell, who despite dying at age 36, produced a profusion of music and was widely recognized in his lifetime. He was familiar with the innovations of Corelli and other Italian style composers; ... his patrons were different, and his musical output was prodigious. Rather than being a painstaking craftsman, Purcell was a fluid composer who was able to shift from simple anthems and useful music such as marches, to grandly scored vocal music and music for the stage. His catalog runs to over 800 works. He was also one of the first great keyboard composers, whose work still has influence and presence.
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"Baroque art soon spread through the other Catholic countries of Europe. Rubens in Flanders produced religious and secular works with equal success, while in Spain religious art reached new heights of religious fervour and in South Germamy and Austria the beginning of the 18th century saw some of the most remarkably elaborate and overwhelming church architecture ever erected (e.g. Neumann and Hildebrandt). Because of its base in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, Baroque was resisted in Protestant countries such as Holland and Britain, although Rembrandt in Holland and the painter John Thornhill and architect Vanbrugh in Britain are exceptions. During the 18th century, Baroque gradually gave way to the lighter, more decorative Rococo style."
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Baroque