1600 – 1750

Baroque

Drama · Ornament · Bach & Handel
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The World It Came From

Baroque means "irregular pearl" — a term originally used as an insult for the era's ornate, dramatic style. Music became theatrical, emotional, and grand. The period opened with the invention of opera (Peri's Euridice, 1600) and closed with Bach's death in 1750.

The key development was the basso continuo — a bass line with chords improvised above it, giving music a harmonic foundation. This enabled the concerto, the sonata, and the suite to flourish. Courts and churches competed to hire the best composers; music became a profession.

The era produced two of the greatest composers who ever lived — Bach and Handel — both born in the same year (1685), in the same region of Germany, and never meeting.

Where to start: Bach's St. Matthew Passion is the summit of the era — two hours of music that feels like a complete universe. For something shorter: Vivaldi's The Four Seasons or Purcell's Dido and Aeneas.

Composers of the Baroque

Jacopo Peri
1561–1633 · Italian
The inventor of opera. Peri was part of the Florentine Camerata — a group of intellectuals who wanted to revive ancient Greek drama by setting it to music. His Euridice (1600) is the earliest surviving opera. The new style he invented — recitative, speech-like singing that follows the natural rhythms of language — became the foundation of all opera.
  • Euridice1600
  • Dafne (lost)1598
Start with: Euridice — the first opera ever written.
Claudio Monteverdi
1567–1643 · Italian
The first great opera composer and the bridge between Renaissance and Baroque. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) transformed Peri's experiment into a fully realised art form — with a large orchestra, dramatic arias, and genuine emotional depth. His late operas, written in his 70s, are astonishingly modern. His Vespers of 1610 is one of the greatest choral works ever written.
  • L'Orfeo1607
  • Vespers of 16101610
  • L'incoronazione di Poppea1643
  • Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria1640
Start with: L'Orfeo — the first great opera.
Henry Purcell
1659–1695 · English
England's greatest composer, dead at 36. Purcell wrote in every genre — opera, church music, chamber music, songs — and excelled in all of them. His Dido and Aeneas is the first great opera in English, and its final aria, "When I am laid in earth," is one of the most heartbreaking things in music. His death was a catastrophe for English music; it never fully recovered.
  • Dido and Aeneas1689
  • The Fairy Queen1692
  • Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary1695
Start with: Dido and Aeneas — 50 minutes, perfect.
Arcangelo Corelli
1653–1713 · Italian
The father of the concerto grosso and the violin sonata. Corelli established the tonal harmonic language that would govern Western music for the next 200 years. His Concerti grossi, Op. 6 — published posthumously — were the most influential orchestral works of the Baroque, studied and imitated by every composer who followed.
  • Concerti grossi, Op. 61714
  • Violin Sonatas, Op. 51700
Start with: Concerto grosso Op.6 No.8 — the "Christmas Concerto."
Antonio Vivaldi
1678–1741 · Italian
The "Red Priest" spent most of his career at the Ospedale della Pietà in Venice, a home for orphaned girls, where he taught violin and composed prolifically. He wrote over 500 concertos, essentially inventing the three-movement concerto form that Mozart and Beethoven would inherit. The Four Seasons (1725) is the most performed classical work in history. His influence on Bach was enormous.
  • The Four Seasons1725
  • Gloria in D major, RV 589c.1715
  • L'estro armonico, Op. 31711
  • Stabat Mater, RV 621c.1712
Start with: The Four Seasons — then the Gloria for the choral Vivaldi.
Johann Sebastian Bach
1685–1750 · German
The greatest composer who ever lived — a claim almost universally accepted. Bach synthesised every musical tradition of his era into a body of work of incomprehensible richness and depth. He was not famous in his lifetime (Telemann was considered greater), and much of his music was forgotten after his death. Mendelssohn's revival of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829 began the rediscovery. His music encompasses the full range of human experience.
  • St. Matthew Passion, BWV 2441727
  • The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1–21722/1742
  • Goldberg Variations, BWV 9881741
  • Brandenburg Concertos, BWV 1046–10511721
  • Cello Suites, BWV 1007–1012c.1720
  • Mass in B minor, BWV 232c.1749
Start with: Cello Suite No. 1 — 20 minutes, perfect. Then the Goldberg Variations.
George Frideric Handel
1685–1759 · German-British
Born the same year as Bach, in the same region of Germany, and never meeting him. Handel was the opposite of Bach in almost every way — cosmopolitan, theatrical, commercially savvy. He conquered London with Italian opera, then reinvented himself with English oratorio when opera went out of fashion. His Messiah is the most performed choral work in history.
  • Messiah1741
  • Water Music1717
  • Music for the Royal Fireworks1749
  • Giulio Cesare1724
Start with: Messiah — then Water Music for the orchestral Handel.
Jean-Baptiste Lully
1632–1687 · Italian-French
The dictator of French music under Louis XIV. Lully controlled all musical life at Versailles and invented the French overture — a slow, dotted-rhythm opening followed by a fast fugal section — that became a standard form across Europe. He died from an abscess caused by striking his own foot with a conducting staff while beating time.
  • Armide1686
  • Le bourgeois gentilhomme1670
Start with: Armide — the summit of French Baroque opera.
François Couperin
1668–1733 · French
"Couperin le Grand" — the greatest French keyboard composer of the Baroque. His four books of Pièces de clavecin contain over 200 pieces, each with a poetic title and a world of character. He also wrote the L'art de toucher le clavecin, the definitive guide to French harpsichord technique.
  • Pièces de clavecin, Books 1–41713–1730
  • Les Nations1726
Start with: Les Barricades mystérieuses — one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for keyboard.
Domenico Scarlatti
1685–1757 · Italian
Son of Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico spent most of his career in Spain and Portugal, writing 555 keyboard sonatas — each a single movement, each a miniature world. His sonatas are unlike anything else in the Baroque: percussive, rhythmically wild, full of Spanish guitar effects and hand-crossing acrobatics. They anticipate the Classical era by decades.
  • Keyboard Sonata in D minor, K. 9c.1738
  • Keyboard Sonata in E major, K. 380c.1754
  • 555 Keyboard Sonatasc.1720–1757
Start with: Sonata K. 9 in D minor — then explore at random.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
1683–1764 · French
The greatest French composer of the 18th century and the founder of modern harmonic theory. Rameau didn't write his first opera until he was 50, then produced a series of masterpieces that transformed French opera. His Traité de l'harmonie (1722) laid the theoretical foundations for tonal music that are still taught today.
  • Hippolyte et Aricie1733
  • Les Indes galantes1735
  • Pièces de clavecin en concerts1741
Start with: Les Indes galantes — spectacular and exotic.
Dieterich Buxtehude
c.1637–1707 · Danish-German
The greatest organist of the generation before Bach. Buxtehude's evening concerts in Lübeck — the Abendmusiken — were famous across northern Europe. The young Bach walked 400km to hear him play. His organ works, with their improvisatory freedom and dramatic contrasts, were the direct model for Bach's early organ music.
  • Praeludium in G minor, BuxWV 149c.1690
  • Membra Jesu nostri1680
Start with: Membra Jesu nostri — a cycle of seven cantatas of great beauty.
Georg Philipp Telemann
1681–1767 · German
The most prolific composer in history — over 3,000 works. In his lifetime, Telemann was considered greater than Bach. His music is elegant, accessible, and full of wit. His Musique de table (1733) — three suites for different chamber combinations — is his masterpiece, and one of the most charming collections of the Baroque.
  • Musique de table1733
  • 12 Fantasias for Solo Flute1732
Start with: Musique de table, Production I — elegant and endlessly inventive.
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