Music in the Baroque Era

Between the 17th and 18th century, music made an incredible leap forward, from Renaissance to baroque. Whether is was opera, famous musician's such as Bach and Handel , or new innovations in instruments like the harpsichord, music continually grew during the sixteen and seventeen hundred's.

Operas are theatrical presentations in which a dramatic performance is set to music. These musical performances originated in Europe, but were, at first, only presented to the higher courts. It has, since the beginning, been an argument on whether the music or the words are more important in an opera, but its how these two components work together that create a truly phenomenal opera. The singers in an opera even purified their voices to take on the tones of instruments. The term El Canto (meaning "beautiful singing" in Italian) was used to represent the types of voices the opera singers had. The early themes of opera's mostly consisted of mythology and deviated to other plots later down the road.

Johann Sebastian Bach was one of the most respected musicians during the early seventeen hundreds. Born in Thuringia, Germany, 1685 he was famous at the turn of the century. Even though most other composers around that time traveled all over Europe, Bach's life was relatively contained he stayed in the area where he was born most of his life, and when he traveled, it was not very far at all. Bach tried something most musicians hadn't with the music; he was bold. Because of this, Bach was not really very famous until after he passed.

George Frideric Handel is another monumental composer of the baroque era. He was also born in Germany, and the same year as Bach. He, along with Bach, is considered to be the masters of the baroque era. Handel was not born into music but clearly had a natural gift from the start. Later in his career Handel left for England and became a successful musician there as well. Aside from Handel being an excellent composer, he mastered many instruments such as the organ, oboe, violin and harpsichord.

The change in instrument affected the type of music that was being composed in that error. The harpsichord is a very primitive from of a piano. It could generate many tones but only one volume. This lead to music with only two volumes forte and piano (called "terraced dynamics") because there was the harpsichord sound and then the modification that could be done to make the sound louder. Also, strings matured during this period so many orchestra's had fuller sounds.

In total, the time period from sixteen hundred to seventeen fifty, the baroque era was when opera, composers, and instruments morphed from homophonic style (or one melody with an accompanying harmony) to a polyphonic style (or many melodies and harmonies working together) and then, with the help of Bach's music, led into the classical error that followed.