Genre Day: Music of the Baroque
Today, Saturday February 6th, we explore the music of the Baroque era. We’ll be including the work of a wide range of composers. Many will be familiar; other perhaps less so — or they may have written pieces that we know well but have no idea of who composed them — for example English composer Thomas Arne, who wrote Rule Britannia but also a range of other pieces which deserve more interest than is usually paid to them.
Says Wikipedia:
Baroque music is a period or style of Western music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, with the galant style marking the transition between Baroque and Classical eras.
The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750.
Baroque music forms a major portion of the “classical music” canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term “baroque” comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning “misshapen pearl”.
Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dieterich Buxtehude, and others, and you will hear many of them today.
Today also marks the official launch of this station, and if you are a Second Life resident we would be pleased to see you at our Grand Opening Ball in the impressive VCR Theatre created by Honey Heart, from 2pm Pacific / 22:00 GMT. Join us for 90 minutes of waltzes, foxtrots and other more surprising pieces of music, presented for your delectation and pleasure by DJ Caledonia Skytower.
Image: Baroque Instruments, by Elias van Nijmegen
