Talk:Baroque music

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[edit] List of baroque composers

I have moved the list of baroque composers to a new article. Why? The article minus the list is c.1500 words, while the list took up c.1900 words. 202.147.72.158 05:02, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Most important?

I've taken out indications of which composers are the "most important". Everyone will disagree about who is important and who isn't. Personally, I would certainly have marked Monteverdi (I assume him not being marked was an oversight) and Sweelinck, and probably not marked A.Scarlatti, but that's just me, and everyone will have different views. What would be useful is a prose commentary on the baroque period wherein we can explain who was significant and exactly why they were significant. --Camembert

[edit] Homophony

Uhh ... how does homophony jibe with fugues?!? Kwantus

I suppose it's in the list because some some baroque music is homophonic, it's not meant to indicate that all baroque music is homophonic. It's not very clear, I agree. The whole article needs a lot of work really - feel free to work on it (I said I was going to work on it ages ago, but haven't got round to it yet... one day...) --Camembert

[edit] Dowland and Campion

Why if John Dowland is listed under baroque composers, why shouldn't Thomas Campion, who is four years younger? --65.73.0.137

Sorry, I didn't notice Dowland was there. You're right, he doesn't belong, I'll take him out (the same goes for John Bull and Thomas Tomkins). These stylistic divisions are somewhat artificial and tricky, of course, but I feel reasonably confident that these English composers are usually considered to be Renaissance rather than Baroque. --Camembert

Hmmm, yes, but Banchieri (born c1557), Sweelinck (born 1562), and Titelouze (born 1563), and Claudio Monteverdi (born 1567) are listed. For instance Titelouze was born about the same year as Dowland, and Monteverdi about the same year as Campion. Now we're getting into composers that are really associated with Baroque (esp. Monteverdi). Any clarity? --65.73.0.137

Well, it's not really a question of birthdates, it's a question of style. Banchieri and Titelouze I don't know about, but I would say Sweelinck and Monteverdi show enough Baroque characteristics to make listing them on this page reasonable. But as I say, dividing things up stylistically (Baroque vs Renaissance) is somewhat artificial and rather tricky. If you're looking for clarity, you've come to the wrong place ;) --Camembert
(Following this comment, 65... readded Campion, Dowland, Bull and Tomkins to the article - edit summary: "until there is reasonable disproof of Baroqueness (on talk page), it wouldn't hurt for Campion, Dowland, Bull, and Tomkins to reappear" --Camembert 14:57, 27 May 2004 (UTC))

I can speak to Dowland, in particular, because I'm familiar with his work. His compositional style is clearly late Renaissance, as is his choice of small forms (songs, airs) and his scoring for the lute and for consorts of limited size, made up most often of recorders and viols. These can hardly be considered baroque instruments. I've performed some of his work (when I was an aspiring lute player) and listened to other of it, and whatever else might be said of it, it isn't baroque.

As for the others, I would tend to defer to Camembert's judgement since he is more of a musicologist than I. I would only add that the transition from Renaissance forms to classical ones occured at different times in different places. That and the presence of leading-edge composers alongside laggards who sought to polish the existing forms serves to explain the difference in dates.

I think the encyclopedia would be best served by categorizing the prominent composers in one era or another, and noting any crossover in the articles on each composer. In closing, I observe that the distinction between eras, while somewhat artificial, is still an important one inasmuch as there are so many shared compositional elements among composers in each era.

UninvitedCompany 20:28, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

You know, the recorder and viol were used during the Baroque Period. For example, Georg Philipp Telemann composed for the recorder, and Marin Marais was a viol player. 65.73.0.137

Telemann included basso continuo (a uniquely baroque phenomenon) in many of his compositions, while Dowland did not. Do you really believe that Dowland is better understood in the context of Baroque music than in the context of Renaissance music? UninvitedCompany 21:24, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Actually, no. It is not that I think Dowland belongs any more in Baroque than Renaissance. I think that he deserves mention in both. The Baroque period is said to begin about 1600 anyway, when non-Renaissance styles were emerging, and Dowland died 26 years later. Dowland is also listed in the Renaissance section, and have kept him there. And don't you think that "basso continuo" came out of the closet somewhere in the middle of the Baroque Period? --65.73.0.137

Other than the date of his death, is there anything to suggest that Dowland was a part of the Baroque era? I would think not, and don't consider the dates to be particularly important. Therefore, Dowland should stay off this list. There may be a few composers who arguably worked in both styles, but he isn't one of them. UninvitedCompany 22:48, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, some of his music does sound a little Baroque to me (ex. Galliard a 5 for strings). Is there any reason for being too confident about 0% of Dowland's music being baroque? --65.73.0.137

Hmmmmmmmm...very debatable.I'll Get back to you. What would you say the 5 main things that make Baroque different from all other genres?

[edit] Vandalism

This page seems to have been vandalised (by IP: 217.205.250.130) - I've reverted the changes. --User:Dawidl (3 Nov 2005, 17:15 SAST)


While I was looking through many sites through a google search i seemed to find that this site is exactly word for word plagerized from www.infoweb.co.nz/baroque-period for many of the paragraphs i would advise changing this —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.228.182.126 (talk • contribs).

Actually they took it from us, and that site is not in compliance with the GFDL license, i.e. they don't say anywhere that I can see that they scraped their content from Wikipedia. Indeed, they slapped their own copyright tag on it. Makes me laugh to see some of my own writing under someone else's copyright. But whaddya gonna do... Antandrus (talk) 16:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Beginning the Baroque history section

This will eventually have to be factored out, as it is going to include a great deal of text, however it should remain here until there is a consensus version, which can be moved to the subsidiary article at that point. By no means is the version I am writing canonical or in any sense a "best" version, merely an attempt to get some text up so that we can get to work on it, and decide the best way of presenting the huge volume of material that the subject requires. We are, after all, talking about 400 years of music, and almost two centuries of core practice. (unsigned comment by User:Stirling Newberry)

[edit] 1750 or 1760

We have two quoted end dates of the Baroque period as 1750 in the opening para and 1760 in the table. I note that the original date in the opening was 1760 but changed by an anonymous users who also seems to be one source of vandalism. It would be useful to have a consistent view here. Velela 19:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I had ever understood that the Baroque period is usually deemed to have closed with the death of J.S. Bach in 1750. Of course this is an arbitrary cut-off, but it's as good as any. There seems to have been a consensus that Bach's style was already old-fashioned at the time. Smerdis of Tlön 20:38, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with this; 1760 is awfully late. Some composers continued to write in a more-or-less "Baroque" style after 1750, but they were a minority. Antandrus (talk) 20:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
The Student's Desk Reference by the New York Public Library ((c) 1993) says the end date to the Baroque period is 1760. Handel was a Baroque composer and he lived to 1759, which is pretty close to this date. Marcus2 23:04, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd argue that the date is even later. Telemann died in 1767, Tartini in 1770, and many of the lesser English Handelian composers (Arne, Stanley) were active until they died in the mid-1780s. These composers certainly weren't a minority--the late 18th century was a period of considerable diversity in styles and compositional techniques, often dictated by geography, religion, and social climate.

[edit] Key signatures

Any differences between the rules for key signatures then and those for now?? Was the 2-flat key signature the flattest key signature in common use then?? Georgia guy 17:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "common use". Josquin Desprez used a four-flat signature around 1500. Sometimes one less flat was used for a piece than we expect, e.g. a piece in C minor might have only two flats in the signature (the A flats being added via accidentals); Bach's Dorian toccata is an example of this, with no key signature yet in D minor (not really Dorian). It's true that exotic key signatures like F-sharp major weren't used at this time, but I don't think we could draw a line with any consistency or verifiability. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
In what piece did Josquin use four flats? Having looked at facsimiles of his music I find this highly unlikely, although possible. Remember that modern editors tend to transpose Renaissance music. Makemi 17:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mannerist Music: Reference?

"A small number of musicologists argue that it should be split in to Baroque and Mannerist periods to conform to the divisions that are sometimes applied in the visual arts." This would be a good place for a more specific reference. "A small number of musicologists, such as ..."? --Christofurio 15:11, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Johann Mattheson

Is there any particular reason for not including Johann Mattheson in the Baroque Composers Timeline?

[edit] Baroque Trill?

This seems to be a recurrant feature of baroque music, if I recall correctly, partly because the harpsichord couldn't sustain a note. How about a section on the instruments of the baroque period and how they influenced the style? The baroque trill isn't mentioned in the article and it is arguably the most identifiable feature of most baroque music. I am not comfortable enough with the genre to add it (nor do I have references). --Tbeatty 05:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Ornamentation is indeed an important aspect of music of the Baroque, but I'm not sure about the "Baroque trill". Ornaments are a whole can of worms, and when you look at Baroque treatises which have written out ornaments, you can see that there is no single "Baroque trill". Perhaps what you are thinking of is more something which is a modern habit of generalist performers of Baroque music, especially Bach etc. I don't quite know. Perhaps there should be more discussion of ornamentation, but I don't think talking about a "Baroque trill" is the way to go about it. Mak (talk) 05:37, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baroque Copyright

Is it possible to get copies of the sheet music in PDF and upload to Wikipedia? That would be an awesome expansion project to bring out of copyright sheet music to everyone. Are there still copyrights on this music or is it public domain? I don't ever recall having to pay a performance royalty for baroque performances.--Tbeatty 05:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Baroque music itself is not under copyright anymore, except, I think, for the Messiah, because of an odd quirk which might actually just be apocryphal. The problem is that most of it exists in modern editions, which as far as I understand are under copyright. Wikipedia generally discourages uploading tons of media which isn't being used in any articles. Wikimedia commons might be a more appropriate place to set up a project of finding, scanning, and uploading music which is out of copyright. I don't know what the whole deal is with the copyright on facsimiles either though, so it would have to be approached with caution. Mak (talk) 05:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] timeline

is there anyway for us to expand the timeline?

The timeline can be edited on a separate page, Template:Timeline Classical Composers Baroque. Mak (talk) 14:56, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Baroque versus Renaissance styles?

I am not sure if this part of the article is accurate (Baroque versus Renaissance style):

These stylistic differences mark the transition from the ricercars, fantasias, and canzonas of the Renaissance to the fugue, a defining Baroque form. Monteverdi called this newer, looser style the seconda pratica, contrasting it with the prima pratica that characterized the motets and other sacred choral pieces of high Renaissance masters like Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

1 - Fugue is in no way a defining Baroque form: as early as the 15th century, the word fugue was already the established term for any piece in which all voices participated in the canonic performance of a single melodic line, as for example, the fugues by Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376-1445).

2 - For both Vicenzo Galilei and Michael Praetorius, ricercare and fugue were about the same thing. The difference, if any, is in their form rather than the stylistic differences mention in the article.

3 - Monteverdi would never refer to a fugue as seconda pratica, as the article implies. The main characteristic of the Seconda pratica, in fact, was the absence of polyphony. Grove online reads: The first major composers of vocal music in the new Baroque style, however, all but abandoned fugal techniques for their seconda pratica music. (A piece such as Monteverdi’s Piagne e sospira, from the fourth book of madrigals, is a rare exception.) Fugue found no place in the new genres of opera, monody or cantata, nor, surprisingly, did it play a role in the early development of the oratorio.

4 - Opera, monody, cantata and oratorio, are, thus, the defining Baroque genres, since they did not exist during the Renaissance. The organization of a tonal harmony did not take place until the the middle Baroque.

As most of the stylistic features mentioned in the article are not manifestations of the Early Baroque, maybe it is not appropriate to try comparing it to the Renaissance style. Probably it would work better if the section was about "EARLY Baroque vs. Renaissance styles".

What are your opinions? --Narazadd 06:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

You've identified an important problem with the article; feel free to have a go at fixing it. I don't think anyone has worked on this article in a while. Indeed, the importance of "fugue" is overstated and quite misunderstood in the article. The development of functional tonality, the concertato style, the polarisation of bass line versus melodic line, the innovations of the Camerata and the Venetian School, the development of idiomatic instrumental writing and specific instrumentation, the development of big musical forms performed on a stage, -- all this is more important than fugue. Cheers, Antandrus (talk) 16:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
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