baroque (music)

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Baroque. A term used in the literature of the arts with both historical and critical meanings and as both an adjective and a noun. The term has a long, complex, and controversial history. Until the late 19th century it was used mainly as a synonym for ‘absurd’ or ‘grotesque’ (it possibly derives from a Portuguese word for a misshapen pearl), but in English it is now current with three principal meanings. Primarily, it designates the dominant style of European art between Mannerism and Rococo. This style originated in Rome and is associated with the Catholic Counter-Reformation, its salient characteristics—overt rhetoric and dynamic movement—being well suited to expressing the self-confidence and proselytizing spirit of the reinvigorated Catholic Church. It is by no means exclusively associated with religious art, however, and aspects of the Baroque can be seen even in works that have nothing to do with emotional display—for example in the dynamic lines of certain Dutch still-life paintings. Secondly, it is used as a general label for the period when this style flourished: broadly speaking, the 17th century and in certain areas much of the 18th century. Hence such phrases as ‘the age of Baroque’, ‘Baroque music’, ‘Baroque poetry’, ‘Baroque politics’, ‘Baroque science’, and so on. This type of usage can be more confusing than helpful, for what literary historians call ‘Baroque’, for example, more often shows characteristics that the art historian would label ‘Mannerist’. Thirdly, the term ‘Baroque’ (often written without the initial capital) is applied to art of any time or place that shows the qualities of vigorous movement and emotional intensity associated with Baroque art in its primary meaning. Much Hellenistic sculpture could therefore be described as ‘baroque’. The older meaning of the word, as a synonym for ‘capricious’, ‘overwrought’, or ‘florid’, still has some currency, but not in serious criticism.

Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci are the two great figures who stand at the head of the Baroque tradition, bringing a new solidity and weightiness to Italian painting, which in the late 16th century had generally been artificial and often convoluted in style. In doing so they looked back to some extent to the dignified and harmonious art of the High Renaissance, but Annibale's work has an exuberance that is completely his own, and Caravaggio created figures with an unprecedented sense of sheer physical presence. From the Mannerist style the Baroque inherited movement and fervent emotion, and from the Renaissance style solidity and grandeur, fusing the two influences into a new and dynamic whole. The supreme genius of Baroque art was Gianlorenzo Bernini, an artist of boundless energy, total spiritual conviction, and the utmost virtuosity, whose work dominates the period sometimes called the ‘High Baroque’ (c.1625–75). Slightly later, Andrea Pozzo marks the culmination in Italy of the Baroque tendency towards overwhelmingly grandiose display.

In the 17th century Rome was the artistic capital of Europe, and the Baroque style soon spread outwards from it, undergoing modification in each of the countries to which it migrated, as it encountered different tastes and outlooks and merged with local traditions. In some areas it became more extravagant (notably in the fervent religious atmosphere of Spain and Latin America) and in others it was toned down to suit more conservative tastes. In Catholic Flanders it had one of its finest flowerings in the work of Rubens, but in neighbouring Holland, a predominantly Protestant country, the Baroque made comparatively slight inroads; nor did it ever take firm root in England. In France the Baroque found its greatest expression in the service of the monarchy rather than the Church. Louis XIV realized the importance of the arts as a propaganda medium in promoting the idea of his regal glory, and his palace at Versailles—with its grandiose combination of architecture, sculpture, painting, decoration, and (not least) the art of the gardener—represents one of the supreme examples of the Baroque fusion of the arts to create an overwhelmingly impressive whole. (The term Gesamtkunstwerk—‘total work of art’—has been applied to this ideal.) In France, as in other countries, the Baroque style merged imperceptibly with the Rococo style that followed it.

baroque in music, a style that prevailed from the last decades of the 16th cent. to the first decades of the 18th cent. Its beginnings were in the late 16th-century revolt against polyphony that gave rise to the accompanied recitative and to opera . With opera and recitative came the figured bass , used consistently in ensemble music throughout the baroque era. Renaissance polyphony persisted, however, being called the stile antico and considered more appropriate to the church than the nuove musiche. The baroque period was thus one of stylistic duality; it was an era that displayed emotional extremes (see romanticism ). By the end of the era major and minor tonality had replaced the church modes . Contrapuntal writing was resumed in the middle baroque period, but it now had a harmonic basis. Idiomatic writing, taking account of the individual character and capacities of instruments and voices, was characteristic of baroque music. Originating in Italy, opera, oratorio , and cantata were the principal vocal forms. In instrumental music the sonata , concerto , and overture were creations of the baroque. In France and Italy the baroque had by 1725 been overshadowed by its outgrowth, the rococo , and it remained for Germany, where the baroque saw the flowering of Protestant church music, to bring the era to culmination in the works of J. S. Bach . The fugue , chorale prelude, and toccata were important forms of the late baroque.

Bibliography: See C. V. Palisca, Baroque Music (1968); R. Donington, A Performer's Guide to Baroque Music (1974); E. Rosand, Baroque Music (2 vol., 1986); H. Gleason and W. Becker, Music in the Baroque (3d ed. 1988).

baroque relating to or denoting a style of European architecture, music, and art of the 17th and 18th centuries that followed mannerism and is characterized by ornate detail. In architecture the period is exemplified by the palace of Versailles and by the work of Wren in England. Major composers include Vivaldi, Bach, and Handel; Caravaggio and Rubens are important baroque artists.

The word comes (in the mid 18th century) from French, originally denoting a pearl of irregular shape.