Baroque Music

    Baroque music is a style of music composed from approximately 1600 - 1750. This era followed the Renaissance, and was followed in turn by the Classic era. The negative use of the word comes from a description by Charles de Brosses of the ornate and heavily ornamented architecture of the Pamphili Palace in Rome. Although the term was used in architecture and art criticism in the 19th century, it wasn't until the 20th century that the term "baroque" was applied to music.
    Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, being widely studied performed and listened to. Composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also created opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto and sonata as musical genres. In addition to producing the earliest European music familiar to most of us, the baroque era also greatly expanded our horizons.
    Although the baroque period ended over 250 years ago, traces of the era can be heard everywhere. Some of the most influential compositions are regularly performed in concert halls, many of the musical genres still in use today, like the oratorio, concerto and opera, originated in the period. Twentieth century composers such as Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Benjamin Britten paid homage to the baroque in their works. Its influence can be heard outside art music and into free movement between solo and jazz can be sometimes compared to baroque music, and parts of Bach and Vivaldi have been known to appear in solos of heavy metal guitarists.