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Baroque Period

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Baroque Period
Baroque music describes a period or style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical music era. The word "baroque" came from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl", a strikingly fitting characterization of the architecture of this period; later, the name came to be applied also to its music. Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. It is associated with composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Jean-Baptiste Lully,
George Frideric Handel, Arcangelo Corelli, Claudio Monteverdi, and Henry Purcell. The baroque period saw the development of functional tonality. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate musical ornamentation; made changes in musical notation, and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established opera as a musical genre. Many musical terms and concepts from this era are still in use today.
History of the name
Music described as Baroque is a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in
Europe, composed during a period of approximately 160 years. The systematic application of the term "baroque" to music of this period is a relatively recent development. It was in 1919 that Curt Sachs was the first to attempt to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflin’s theory of the Baroque systematically to music. In English the term only acquired currency in the 1940s, in the writings of Lang and Bukofzer. Indeed, as late as 1960 there was still considerable dispute in academic circles, particularly in France and Britain, whether it was meaningful to lump

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