www.armusicanthology.com Do Not Copy A-R Online Music Anthology
A-R Online Music Anthology
www.armusicanthology.com
Introduction to the Baroque
Era
Jonathan Rhodes Lee is Assistant Professor of
Music at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas,
with interests in both eighteenth-century topics
(particularly the works of George Frideric Handel)
and film music. His publications have appeared in
the Cambridge Opera Journal, the A-R Online
Music Anthology, and the Hallische Händel-
Ausgabe. Jonathan is active as a harpsichordist
and has recorded on the MSR Classics label.
by Jonathan Rhodes Lee,
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Main Features
The New Musics
Operatic Invention and Affective Clarity
New Instrumental Genres
Musical Encyclopedism
Bibliography/Further Reading
Music List
© 2016 A-R Editions, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article is for authorized use only. Unauthorized copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. If you have
questions about using this article, please contact us: http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Contact.aspx
Introduction to the Baroque Era
1
______________________________________________________________________________
Introduction to the Baroque Era
Jonathan Rhodes Lee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Music historians typically define the Baroque era as spanning 1600–1750.1 The word “baroque”
was applied to music near the end of this period; in 1734, an anonymous author drew on the
Portuguese term barroco, which referred to a misshapen pearl, something that was supposed to be
beautiful, but had been distorted. This idea nicely described the author’s attitude toward Jean-
Philippe Rameau’s opera of 1733, Hippolyte et Aricie:
[The opera] had no tune . . . [and] the music had no relationship to the dance except for its
more or less lively movement. There was consequently no thought, no expression at all. It
ran through every trick with speed, unsparing of dissonances without end. . . . Continually
it was sadness instead of tenderness. The uncommon had the character of the baroque, the
fury of din.2
Despite the invective nature of this quotation, it is useful for understanding the coherence of
grouping as “baroque” works as different as Monteverdi’s madrigals, François Couperin’s
character pieces, and Bach’s fugues. The critic of Rameau’s opera shows three clear
preoccupations of his day: a concern with the newness and complexity of the musical material
(“the uncommon had the character of the baroque”); a desire for musical sound to have coherence
and meaning, particularly tied to some extramusical association (“no thought . . . no relationship
to the dance”); and a claim that music transmitted a clear, unambiguous emotional charge
(“sadness instead of tenderness”). These were recurring motifs in both the aesthetic writing about
music and in musicians’ compositional approaches throughout this period.
Main Features The main features of the era are discussed in the sections that follow:
• The New Musics
• Operatic Invention and Affective Clarity
• New Instrumental Genres
• Musical Encyclopedism
1 Claude Palisca has traced the emergence of this term among modern historians, showing that it only gained traction
in the 1940s. (“Baroque.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/02097.) 2 “Lettre de M *** à Mlle *** sur l’origine de la musique,” Mercure de France, May 1734, 868/61–70. Trans. in
Claude Palisca, “Baroque as a Music-Critical Term,” in French Musical Thought: 1600–1800, ed. Georgia Cowart,
7–8 (Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1989). Rousseau gives a similar definition of this term in his
Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1768), s.v. “baroque”: “A baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused,
laden with modulations and with dissonances, the melody hard and unnatural, the harmony difficult, and the tempo
constrained.” [Une Musique Baroque est celle don’t l’Harmonie est confuse, chargée de Modulations & de
Dissonances, le Chant dur & peu naturel, l’Intonation dificile, & le Mouvement contraint.]
Introduction to the Baroque Era
2
______________________________________________________________________________
The New Musics Two events at the turn of the seventeenth century marked, in the perception of writers of the time,
a clear break from tradition; together, they might be considered the inception of the Baroque era.
First, the publication of one of the most famous disputes in music history, between the
Augustinian monk Giovanni Maria Artusi (1546–1613) and the composer Claudio Monteverdi
(1567–1643), proclaimed the emergence of a new tradition. In 1600, Artusi had encountered
Monteverdi’s madrigal titled “Cruda Amarilli” (“Cruel Amaryllis,” published 1605). Artusi, who
had studied with the great sixteenth-century contrapuntist, Gioseffo Zarlino (1517–1590), was
distressed by the “Imperfections of Modern Music” emblematized by this madrigal.3 He accused
Monteverdi of abrogating the rules that Zarlino had so carefully delineated:
[This music] introduces new rules, new modes, and new turns of phrase. . . . They violate
the good rules [of counterpoint], . . . [and] we must believe them deformations of the
nature and propriety of true harmony.4
Artusi cited no fewer than seven blatant contrapuntal errors in the 67-measure piece. Measure 13
of Example 1 shows the first of these errors, which, Artusi charged, created a double offense: as
the basso holds its g, the canto sings first an aʹʹ and then an fʹʹ, creating the dissonant intervals of a
ninth and a seventh, without the proper preparation of these dissonances, or proper resolution of
the ninth. (Boxes in Example 1 show the contrapuntal error.)
Such dissonances could have been easily avoided, Artusi asserted, as he illustrated in notation
transcribed as Example 2. This solution creates a sonic result that might strike the modern ear as
dull and lifeless in comparison to Monteverdi’s counterpoint; even Artusi admitted that the
sounds of “Cruda Amarilli” yielded “a not unpleasing harmony at which I marvel.”5 Yet seductive
sounds were not to be trusted when judging music’s value. Artusi claimed that Monteverdi and
his advocates enjoyed this music because “sensuous excess corrupts the sense [i.e., reason].”6
This claim—of a conflict between sensual perception and rational deduction—
was an old one, dating back at least to Plato. Artusi therefore put himself firmly on the
conservative side of what came to be called the conflict between the “Ancients” and the
“Moderns.”7
3 Giovanni Maria Artusi, L’Artusi, ovvero, delle imperfezioni della moderna musica (Venice, 1600), trans. Oliver
Strunk and Margaret Murata in Source Readings in Music History, Section IV: The Baroque Era, ed. Margaret
Murata, 526–34 (New York: Norton, 1998). 4 Artusi, L’Artusi, 527. 5 Artusi, L’Artusi, 531. 6 Artusi, L’Artusi, 532. 7 The argument between the advocates of “ancient” and “modern” practices continued well into the eighteenth
century. See, for instance, the documents reprinted from the 1770s and ’80s debating these issues in Enrico Fubini,
Music and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe: A Source Book (Chicago and London: University of Chicago
Press, 1994), 340–51.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
3
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 1. Claudio Monteverdi, “Cruda Amarilli,” from the Fifth Book of Madrigals (1605).
This example is from the A-R Online Music Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=294).
Introduction to the Baroque Era
4
______________________________________________________________________________
Monteverdi responded to these charges in the preface to his fifth book of madrigals, an argument
expanded upon by the composer’s brother (Giulio Cesare Monteverdi [1573–1630/1]) in the
preface to the Scherzi musicali of 1607. Artusi, the Monteverdis claimed, had missed the point of
these deviations from normal contrapuntal practice, which arose not from mere sensual excess,
but from a firmly rational—and very old—idea:
My brother says that he does not compose his works by chance because, in this kind of
music, it has been his intention to make the words the mistress of the harmony and not the
servant, and because it is in this manner that his work is to be judged. . . . Of this Plato
speaks . . .: Quin etiam consonum ipsum et dissonum eodem modo, quando-quidem
rithmus et harmonia orationem sequitur non ipsa oratio rithmum et harmonium sequitur.”
[And so of the apt and the unapt, if the rhythm and the harmony follow the words, and not
the words these.]8
Monteverdi thus alleged that Artusi, by ignoring the relationship between the music and the text,
showed his own ignorance of the ancient sources upon which he claimed to found his reasoning.
The text that underlay the passage that so offended Artusi in Example 1, m. 13 is marked in bold
below:
Cruda Amarilli che col nome ancora Cruel Amaryllis, who with your very name
d’amar, ahi lassa, amaramente insegni. teach bitterly of love, alas!
8 Giulio Cesare Monteverdi, “Dichiaratione della lettera stampata nel quinto libro de’ suoi madregali,” in Scherzi
musicali a tre voci di Claudio Monteverde (Venice, 1607), trans. Oliver Strunk in Source Readings in Music History,
538.
Example 2. Artusi’s illustration of the “correct” counterpoint behind Monteverdi’s
“erroneous” counterpoint in m. 13 of Example 1.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
5
______________________________________________________________________________
The most salient words, the interjection that expressed the anguish and suffering of the speaker
(“ahi lassa”), received this striking double-dissonance.
Monteverdi coined the term “seconda prattica” (second practice) to describe his word-centric
approach, emphasizing simultaneously its newness and its rootedness in ancient ideals. The
“Moderns” were thus paradoxically more ancient than the “Ancients,” having followed Plato’s
instructions to use music to augment the meaning of poetry, rather than subjugating poetry to the
mandates of pure sound as had, Monteverdi argued, the generations of Josquin des Prez (d. 1521)
and Zarlino, with their cautious control of dissonances.9 Music need not always be consonant and
beautiful, Monteverdi implied; if the words expressed dissonant concepts, then they called for
musical dissonances.
Contemporaneous with Monteverdi’s seconda prattica, a group of poets, musicians, and
intellectuals in Florence were adopting similar aesthetics. They formed a coterie called the
Camerata de’ Bardi (or simply “the Florentine Camerata”), which attempted to recapture the lost
powers of music that the ancients had recorded, such as Plato’s description of particular musical
modes spurring citizens to war or peace, orderliness or drunkenness, etc.10 Among the Camerata’s
members was Giulio Caccini (1551–1618), who claimed to have invented “a kind of music in
which one could almost speak in tones.”11 Caccini published examples of this invention in Le
nuove musiche (The New Musics) of 1601. The somewhat awkward plural title referred to the fact
that Caccini included two types of music in this volume, which he called “madrigali” and “arie”
(Example 3). The former were free, through-composed works of great emotion; the latter were
more metrically regular songs, usually strophic, and requiring greater technical virtuosity.
9 Monteverdi, “Dichiaratione,” 539–40. 10 See, for instance, Plato, Republic, Bk. 5, 398b–403c. 11 Giulio Caccini, Le nuove musiche (1602), trans. and ed. H. Wiley Hitchcock, Recent Researches in the Music of
the Baroque Era 9, 2nd ed. (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 1977), 44.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
6
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 3. Examples from Giulio Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1601): (a) “Vedrò ‘l mio sol,”
in madrigal style. This example is from the A-R Online Music Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=226; (b).
(b) “Belle rose porporine,” in aria style. This example is from the A-R Online Music
Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=600)
The newness in Caccini’s approach lay in two major features. First, Caccini stressed that his
music aimed
. . . to conform to that manner so lauded by Plato and other philosophers (who declared
that music is naught but speech, with rhythm and tone coming after; not vice versa) with
the aim that it enter into the minds of men and have those wonderful effects admired by
the great writers. But this has not been possible because of the counterpoint of modern
Introduction to the Baroque Era
7
______________________________________________________________________________
music. . . . Thus [I] originated those songs for a single voice (which seemed to me to have
more power to delight and move than several voices together).12
Here was an even more radical approach to Monteverdi’s concept of making words “mistress of
the harmony”: the abandonment of the complex counterpoint that had been the high water mark of
Renaissance musical artistry. Caccini had produced a texture that we now call “monody,” derived
from the Greek words for “mono” (μονο) and “ode” (ῳδία)—in other words, music with just one
important melodic line. Instead of polyphonic contrivance, Caccini’s art lay in the power of a
single voice to express a clear emotional state—what Caccini referred to as “affetto” (affect), and
what the Germans would later term “Affekt.”13 This was music designed to communicate a
sustained, clear emotional message.
The second major innovation in these new musics lay in the technical features required to support
their stripped-down texture. Monody comprised essentially two voices—a main line (the singer)
and the accompaniment (the continuo)—but with supporting harmonic scaffolding made possible
by Caccini’s purported invention of figured bass (as shown in Example 3a). The figures, which
showed intervals above the bass line, allowed the instrumentalist to provide full and rich
accompaniments, but without the stipulation that these accompaniments move in strict multi-
voice counterpoint. The player was therefore free to thicken or lighten the texture in response to
the affect and meaning of the text being sung. The singer, too, was urged to provide added
emotional swells by means of ornamentation. Caccini authored a lengthy preface illustrating a
battery of trills, runs, and dynamic ornaments that singers should employ on strong moments
where syllable stress, musical interest, and affect coincided (examples are shown in brackets in
Example 3a). Both instrumentalist and singer, therefore, were granted a great deal of freedom—
and a great deal of responsibility—in the effectiveness of the new musics. Ornamentation and
performer expertise continued to be essential traits of music throughout the baroque era.
Operatic Invention and Affective Clarity The ideas that Monteverdi and Caccini pioneered around 1600 remained the guiding aesthetic
principles for most of the major genres of the Baroque era. Their inventive spirit of newness
persisted, as did their mandate that music be coherent and communicative. This latter feature
became more independent from texts as the period moved on, with the development of self-
standing formal structures that saw increasing proliferation and standardization.
These concerns attached themselves firmly to the dominant public genre of the period: opera,
which emerged in precisely these circles. In 1600, Caccini and Jacopo Peri (1561–1633) both
contributed music to the first such work, Euridice, and Monteverdi soon thereafter created his
own Orfeo (1607). With the addition of characters, costumes, and storylines, the expressive early
monodic experiments achieved their full potential, and a further crystallization of the aesthetic
principles that they had established. These early operas contained both arias and recitatives
(related to Caccini’s arie and madrigali). Unlike later examples, they often placed their most
12 Caccini, Le nuove musiche, 44–45. 13 Caccini, Le nuove musiche, 45. See Hitchcock’s n. 12.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
8
______________________________________________________________________________
expressive music in the recitatives. For instance, Orfeo’s aria in Example 4a is sung while the
hero sits in rural retreat with his shepherd friends, blissfully unaware that his wife, Euridice, has
been killed by a venomous snake. The aria is a sing-song expression of pastoral pleasure,
interspersed with ritornelli (Ex 4b); the regularity of the formal structure serves to communicate a
certain naivety, and also perhaps a hint of artificiality. But when Orfeo learns of the death of his
beloved Euridice, the music turns to recitative (Example 4c)—essentially an extended setting of
Caccini’s “madrigal” style—for the opera’s moment of highest pathos.
Example 4. Excerpts from Claudio Monteverdi, Orfeo (1607), act 2. (a) Orfeo’s aria “Vi ricorda
o boschi ombrosi”, mm. 86–95) This is from the A-R Online Music Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=297):
Introduction to the Baroque Era
9
______________________________________________________________________________
(b) formal chart of the aria
(c) Orfeo’s lament, “Tu se’ morta” (mm. 215–226).
In the operas of the generation after Monteverdi, this weight of expression began to shift, with
formally bounded arias becoming the sites of both tender lamentation and fiery pyrotechnics.14
Many seventeenth-century arias continued to be based on the strophic principle, but mid-century
composers increasingly sought ways to manipulate aria forms to reflect the meaning and structure
of the texts they set, generating a creative profusion of approaches, from rondo structures to two-
part arias, to various treatments of textual and musical refrains.15 These pieces can be effectively
excerpted from operas as individual, self-standing works that foreshadowed the “number operas”
of the eighteenth century. Antonio Cesti’s “Intorno all’idol mio” (Example 5) provides a famous
example from 1656. It possesses a simple, strophic form with intervening ritornelli, but with an
ornamented vocal line in the second strophe (Example 5b). This unfolding transformation
14 For speculations about the origins of the new style out of the madrigal comedies and the entertainments of the
commedia dell’arte, see Nino Pirrotta, “‘Commedia dell’ Arte’ and Opera,” The Musical Quarterly 41, no. 3 (1955):
305–24, esp. 320–22. 15 Ellen Rosand offers an extensive typology of arias in Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a
Genre (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991). Jennifer Brown similarly explores
the multiplicity of aria types used by Cavalli in her preface to La Calisto (Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2007).
Introduction to the Baroque Era
10
______________________________________________________________________________
reflected both the strophic nature of the poetry and Cesti’s desire to maintain the dramatic
linearity of the expressive recitative of early opera. The chart in Example 5c shows the dual
nature of this formal approach.
Example 5. Excerpts from Antonio Cesti, “Intorno all’idol mio” from Orontea (1656). This
example if from the A-R Online Music Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=277): (a) orchestral
introduction and opening of first strophe (mm. 1–18);
Introduction to the Baroque Era
11
______________________________________________________________________________
(b) opening of second strophe (mm. 44–55);
(c) formal chart of the aria.
The comprehensible, closed form with clearly articulated affects eventually proved triumphant. It
was but a small step from an aria like “Intorno all’idol mio” to the full-fledged da capo aria of the
late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as comparison of Examples 5 and 6 makes clear.
Example 6 shows Alessandro Scarlatti’s “Agitata da fiera procella” (1721), an example of the
prototypical da capo aria, with a clear two-part structure distinguished by affective change in both
text and music. The first half of its poem speaks of a flower “agitated” by a storm, while the
second half describes that flower’s return to its former pastoral splendor. The key word “ma”
(but) separates the A section from the B, with a concomitant change in musical mode (minor to
major) and gesture (leaps/scalar patterns in the voice vs. arpeggiation and sighing gestures).
Following the B section, the A section is to be repeated, usually with florid ornamentation as
utilized by the expertly trained singers (particularly the castrati) of the eighteenth-century
operatic stage.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
12
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 6. Excerpts from Alessandro Scarlatti, “Agitata da fiera procella” from Griselda
(1721), act 2. This example is from the A-R Online Music Anthology:
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=173): (a) opening of A
section (mm. 1–14);
Introduction to the Baroque Era
13
______________________________________________________________________________
(b) opening of B section (mm. 64–68);
(c) formal chart of the aria.
The da capo approach became a major formal vehicle of the eighteenth century, crystallizing
many of the seconda prattica’s ideas. The formal regularity allowed the clear expression of
affects in a simple and sustained way by focusing on one idea for an A section and a contrasting
(or sometimes expansive) idea in the B section. The da capo form avoided undue abstraction by
directly expressing texts that were written to-order, in symbiosis with the expectations of the
musical form. Finally, it created a balance of clear comprehensibility and dramatic forward
progression; each section of a da capo aria introduces something new to the listener, including the
change of affect in the B section and even the repetition of the A section, with its unpredictable
ornamentation. The da capo’s flexibility allowed composers to continue to implement it for
decades. By the middle of the eighteenth century, audiences were so familiar with the scheme that
composers could manipulate it to great dramatic effect; George Frideric Handel was the supreme
commander of the form, interjecting bits of recitative in the midst of an aria in his operas, or
creating da capo aria/chorus hybrids in his oratorios, playing with audience expectations in order
to reflect the unfolding dramas of the libretti at his disposal. “V’adoro pupille” in the A-R Online
Music Anthology provides an example of the suppleness and dramatic power of this seemingly
schematic form when wielded by so virtuosic a composer.
New Instrumental Genres Seventeenth-century composers of instrumental music were just as innovative as vocal
composers, particularly in their creation of the stile moderno, a modern instrumental style that
Introduction to the Baroque Era
14
______________________________________________________________________________
stood in sharp contrast to vocally-oriented counterpoint (the stile antico, or “old style”).16 The
expressive monodic approach quickly made its way into instrumental genres, as in Dario
Castello’s Sonate concertate in stil moderno (1621–29). This collection featured sonatas for
continuo and soloists ranging from two to five parts, as shown in Example 7. Castello emphasized
the monodic nature of these compositions by labeling the sonatas solely on the basis of the solo
lines. For instance, he called a “solo” sonata a piece that required at least two instrumentalists:
one treble (“sopran”) and continuo. Those requiring at least three (two treble instruments and
continuo) were labeled “à 2”; those requiring at least four (three treble instruments plus continuo)
were “à 3,” and so forth. This continuo-treble juxtaposition became one of the defining features of
the majority of music of the Baroque era, and some historians have even suggested referring to
this period as the “Generalbass-Zeitalter” (thoroughbass period) or “L’ère du style concertant”
(the era of the concerted style).17
Example 7. Dario Castello, Sonate concertate in stil moderno, table of contents for Bk. 2,
continuo part (Venice, 1644).
16 For the earliest uses of this term, see Marco Scacchi, Cribrum musicum (1643) and Severo Bonini, Discorsi e
regole. See also Claude Palisca, “Marco Scacchi’s Defense of Modern Music (1649),” in Words and Music: The
Scholar’s View, ed. L. Berman, 189–235 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972). 17 Hugo Riemann, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, vol. 2, part 2 (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1914); Encyclopédie
de la Pléiade (Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1960), s.v. “Histoire de la musique.”
Introduction to the Baroque Era
15
______________________________________________________________________________
This idea of juxtaposed parts applied whether there was just one solo line plus continuo or
multiple soloists or groups playing together in concert—hence Castello’s use of the term
“concertate,” signaling another of the major generic inventions of the baroque. The term
“concerto” first emerged in the late sixteenth century in sacred vocal repertoires, particularly
those in which two groups of choirs were juxtaposed as cori spezzati (split choirs), or in which
groups of instruments joined in counterpoint with vocal ensembles: the stile concertato. (For an
example, see Giovanni Gabrieli’s In ecclesiis in the A-R Online Music Anthology.) This idea of
the concerto as a piece in which two groups of performers were juxtaposed as competing forces
continued throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and was adapted in instrumental
music to form two major generic subdivisions: concerto grosso and solo concerto.
The former was a direct outgrowth of the sonata—particularly the sonata à 2, or trio sonata,
consisting of two treble parts and continuo. In order to transform this texture into a concerto
grosso, composers needed only to add supporting instrumentalists. The main trio sonata soloists
came to be known as the concertino, while the supporting instrumentalists received the somewhat
dismissive designation of ripieno, which means “stuffing.”18
The second type of instrumental concerto, the solo concerto as developed by northern Italian
composers—and particularly Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)—was a fundamentally different type
of work than the concerto grosso. No longer reliant on the concept of a core concertino and a
supporting ripieno, the solo concerto more dramatically emphasized the contrast element of the
concerto principle by juxtaposing a soloist, or sometimes multiple soloists, with a supporting
orchestra. In this northern genre, the Venetian opera continued to exert its influence: for many of
his concerto movements, Vivaldi adopted a ritornello structure akin to that used in da capo arias;
Example 8 diagrams the structure of his Concerto, RV 522; comparison with Example 6c shows
the clear relationship between the vocal and instrumental forms.
18 See Arthur Hutchings, “Origins” and Michael Talbot, “The Instrumental Concerto: Origins to 1750,” in Arthur
Hutchings et al, “Concerto,” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40737.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
16
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 8. Formal chart for Vivaldi, Concerto in A minor, RV 522 (A-R Online Music
Anthology: http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=606)
Like the concerto, the baroque sonata increasingly adopted abstract formal models to grant the
genre coherence. Both concerti grossi and later seventeenth-century sonatas moved away from
the pure monodic examples of recitative-like madrigal and aria, turning to other abstract models
to grant them coherence. One aid came from the dances that developed in European courts. By the
late seventeenth century, dance music featured binary forms (Example 9, top) that utilized a
sophisticated and fully tonal language, with a first half that cadenced in a related key (usually the
dominant or relative), and a second half that began in that subsidiary key and returned to the
home key by the work’s end; occasionally, composers added a thematic logic atop this harmonic
plan, resulting in a “rounded” binary form (Example 9, bottom), which influenced the
development of later eighteenth-century sonata form. Composers turned repeatedly to the same
dances, which had discernible formal and gestural characteristics: meters, typical rhythmic
gestures, tendencies toward imitative textures or homophonic ones, etc. The allemande, courante,
sarabande, and gigue were virtually omnipresent, and other dances (which J.S. Bach called
“galanteries”) made regular appearances.19 The order of these dances was changeable, although it
was fairly typical that an allemande would open a set (sometimes preceded by a prelude), and that
a gigue would conclude it. Hence developed the immediately recognizable, stable multi-
movement collections of chamber dances called sonatas da camera (chamber sonatas) and
concerti da camera (chamber concertos).
19 The title page of the first volume of Bach’s Clavier Übung (Leipzig, 1731) indicates that it contains “Præludien,
Allemanden, Couranten, Sarabanden, Giguen, Menuetten, und andern Galanterien.”
Introduction to the Baroque Era
17
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 9. Baroque dance forms and their typical harmonic schemes
More abstract was the model for the sonata da chiesa (church sonata), so named because of its
apparent use in the Proper of the Mass, and (perhaps more importantly) because of its
incorporation of stile antico polyphonic textures associated with church music.20 Such sonatas
(rarely called “da chiesa” in period sources) were very flexible in the late seventeenth century,
with the definitive factors being the alternation of slow and fast movements (generally four) and
the incorporation of at least one polyphonic movement. It was perhaps Arcangelo Corelli (1653–
1713) who exerted the most standardizing influence on these works, with his publications of
“church” sonatas and concertos that follow a fairly uniform pattern: an opening slow,
homophonic movement in common time; a second, fast movement with at least some imitation; a
slow third movement in triple time; and a final movement often resembling a gigue (marked by
compound meter or strings of running triplets). The “church” works were thus more abstract and
further removed from vocal models than the dance-based music, and it was eventually this ideal
of the sonata that prevailed, with the late eighteenth century’s developmental sonata principle and
the rise of “absolute music” as a concept.
Musical Encyclopedism By the eighteenth century, the new musics of the previous generation provided a wealth of
options to composers, as well as a new urge: the codification and stabilization of generic
concepts. The most striking trend among late baroque composers was their tendency toward
encylopedism. This was an age of dictionaries and encyclopedias in many fields, including music,
20 One of the earliest explanations of the differences between sonatas da chiesa and sonatas da camera is given by
Sébastien de Brossard in his Dictionnaire de musique (Paris, 1703), s.v. “sonata.”
Introduction to the Baroque Era
18
______________________________________________________________________________
with Sébastien de Brossard’s Dictionnaire de musique (1701/3) inaugurating the century; the first
English-language example followed just over twenty years later in 1724,21 and Johann Walther’s
monumental Musikalisches Lexicon appeared in 1732. Composers themselves demonstrated this
same encyclopedic urge with an over-the-top complexity reflective of the negative connotations
of the word “baroque.”
The Italians had long been interested in a sort of musical completeness in their instrumental
publications. Castello’s Sonate concertate, for instance, had included pieces for such a wide array
of instrumentalists that it must have been hard to imagine that any more complex arrangements
would be necessary. But Italian experiments did in fact become more complex. The formal clarity
of Vivaldi’s type of solo concerto allowed composers to explore the coloristic possibilities of
various instruments, creating vast quantities (more than 500 by Vivaldi alone) of such pieces for
violins, cellos, bassoons, recorders, and other soloists. The most famous Italian contributor to this
encyclopedism was Corelli, who emphasized his division of works into “church” and “chamber”
types by either publishing them in separate sets (as in his op. 1 sonatas da chiesa and his op. 2
sonatas da camera), or in single volumes divided into clearly distinguished sections, as in his
famous op. 5 set of solo sonatas (Example 10).
Example 10. Arcangelo Corelli, Sonatas, Op. 5 (Rome, 1700), title page for second part,
Sonatas da camera (p. 40).
Among French composers, this encyclopedism manifested itself in two ways. First was their
adoption by the mid-seventeenth century of the dance suite, closely related to the sonata da
21 A Short Explication of Such Foreign Words, as are Made Use of in Musick Books (1724).
Introduction to the Baroque Era
19
______________________________________________________________________________
camera. Here, composers gathered pieces into loose groupings by key, including a few core
dances. These dances, by their very names, hinted at a sort of musical imperialism: the allemande
(German), the courante (French), the sarabande (originating in the New World and Spain), and the
gigue (derived from the English “jig”). When combined with the typical performing conventions
of French baroque music—particularly the use of notes inégales (unequal notes) and the French
ornamentation style of so-called agréments—the suites both formed the quintessence of French
musical tastes and demonstrated accumulation of the world’s musical vocabularies. A second
stage of this project emerged in the publications of François Couperin (1668–1733), who
advocated a more sophisticated musical encyclopedism with what he termed the goûts-réunis
(styles reunited), a sonic wedding of the Italian and French national styles.22 In Example 11 he
even represented this marriage orthographically, with the implementation of both the cléf
françoise (French clef, G1, or what we today call the French violin clef) and the cléf italienne
(Italian clef, G2, or what we today call the treble clef). This combined art would create, Couperin
promised, la perfection de la Musique (the perfection of music).23
Example 11 François Couperin, Apotheosis of Lully (Paris, 1725), 12.
22 François Couperin, Les goûts-réunis, ou Nouveaux concerts (Paris, 1724). 23 Couperin, Concert instrumental sous le titre d’Apotheose composé à la mémoire immortelle de l’incomparable
Monsieur de Lully (Paris, 1725), 12.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
20
______________________________________________________________________________
The Italian and French styles remained the best-known and most frequently incorporated
throughout the Baroque era, by composers inside and out of these countries. The French influence
was particularly strong in seventeenth-century England, where the French violin orchestras and
the operatic tragédie en musique pioneered by Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) served as models
for Henry Purcell (1659–1695) in his musical stage works. But the other European nations also
created their own, legible traditions. Purcell, for instance, continued to produce the types of full
and verse Anthems that had been pioneered by Thomas Tallis (1505–1585) and William Byrd
(1539/40–1623). This tradition helped Handel in his invention in the 1730s of the English
oratorio, a genre cemented as markedly British in the minds of Handel’s contemporaries, despite
the composer’s foreign background. The Germans, after all, had their own genres rising out of the
Lutheran tradition. Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672), for instance, who studied with Gabrieli,
produced mostly Italianate choral music, but also utilized more specifically Germanic techniques
in a handful of his works, such as incorporation of Lutheran chorales (in, for instance, his setting
of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, SWV 301), and settings of the story of Jesus’s Passion.24
These approaches came to capture the imagination of the next generation, particularly that of
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), who can be considered both the most renowned purveyor of
Germanic musical traditions and also the most virtuosic encyclopedic musical thinker of the entire
era. Ever the great compiler, Bach drew on the examples provided by his forebears and
contemporaries in nearly every genre. In sacred music, he wrote polyphonic choruses in the style
of Schütz, chorale (hymn) settings like those pioneered by Johann Walter (1496–1570), and
recitatives and arias in the modern operatic style as part of his cycles of concerted vocal and
instrumental music for every Sunday and feast day of the church calendar. His ambitions were no
less grand in the realm of secular music, which he also frequently organized into cycles. His
perennially popular Well-Tempered Clavier, two full sets of preludes and fugues in all keys and
modes (1722 and 1742), showcased various styles, ranging from the very simplest arpeggiated
prelude (see Example 12a) to virtuoso showpieces (Example 12b) to the most complex
polyphonic works (Example 12c). The fugue subject shown in Example 12c was that of the last
entry in the first volume. Its dodecaphonic nature (i.e., the subject uses all twelve tones)
symbolized the capaciousness of this volume not only in terms of style but also in terms of
harmonic accomplishment: Bach was the first composer to have provided pieces in all twenty-
four keys and modes, a fact that no player who encountered the sets could have missed, given its
simple chromatic key scheme (Example 11d)
24 On the historiographical problems of consider Schütz as a progenitor of the Germanic baroque tradition, see Bettina
Varwig, Histories of Heinrich Schütz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), esp. pp. 48–53).
Introduction to the Baroque Era
21
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 12. Johann Sebastian Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Bk 1 (1722), MS copy (D-B
Mus. ms. Bach P 2021722), excerpts: (a) Prelude 1, mm. 1–6;
(b) Prelude 15, mm. 1–4;
Introduction to the Baroque Era
22
______________________________________________________________________________
(c) Fugue 24, mm. 1–7;
(d) Key scheme.
C–c–C-sharp–c-sharp–D–d–E-flat–D-sharp–E–e–F–f–F-sharp–f-sharp–
G–g–A-flat–G-sharp–A–a–B-flat–b-flat–B–b
Bach, like Couperin before him, was a purveyor of the goûts-réunis. The first volume of his
Clavier-Übung (Keyboard Practice) showed his mastery over the international dance suite. The
second volume completed Bach’s demonstration of musical polylingualism, showcasing an Italian
concerto (BWV 971) and a French overture (BWV 831). That Part 1 and Part 2 fit together as one
continuous musical lexicon is made clear by the keys of the individual pieces (see Example 13).
The F-Major orientation of Part 2's Italian Concerto continued the cyclical key scheme that Bach
established in Part 1; the French Ouverture's B minor both reflected a further conclusion to the
complex set, returning us to the same area of the keyboard from which we began (B-flat/B), and
emphasized the internal unity of Part 2 by sitting in a tritone relationship with the Italian concerto,
reflecting the distinction of the national styles. Parts 3 and 4 of the Clavier-Übung included
frankly Germanic music, both sacred and secular. Part 3 featured organ music for the Lutheran
service. Part 4 was a set of variations incorporating humorous folksongs at the work’s close (“Ich
bin so lange nicht bey dir gewesen, Ruck her, Ruck her” and “Kraut und Rüben haben mich
vertrieben”), and modeled after the work of one of Bach’s much beloved teachers, Dietrich
Buxtehude (1637–1707), which had included the same bass line, the same number of variations
(32 movements in all), and one of the same folk songs (BuxWV 250).25 The Clavier-Übung was
the most ambitious of Bach’s very few publications, and it bore its encyclopedic, synthesizing,
and multi-national aims quite proudly.
25 Laurette Goldberg, "Forerunners of/inspirations for the Goldberg Variations, selected by and with commentary by
Laurette Goldberg," in The Goldberg Variations Reader (Berkeley: MusicSources, 2002), ed. Laurette Goldberg and
Jonathan Rhodes Lee.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
23
______________________________________________________________________________
Example 13. Key scheme of Johann Sebastian Bach, Clavier-Übung 1 (1731) and 2 (1735).
Introduction to the Baroque Era
24
______________________________________________________________________________
The concerto concept, too, provided Bach with a seemingly inexhaustible source of inspiration
and models. He composed polychoral vocal works in the stile concertato (for example, BWV 71),
concerti grossi (BWV 1048), and solo concertos employing the ritornello principle (BWV 1042).
Bach showcased his virtuosity in these varied styles in another cyclic collection, the so-called
“Brandenburg Concertos” (BWV 1045–1051), which the composer deemed Concerts avec
plusieurs instruments (Concertos for Several Instruments); the encyclopedism here lay in Bach’s
tour of concertino groupings (Example 14), leaving virtually no timbral possibility left untried.
Example 14. Instrumentation of Johan Sebastian Bach, Brandenburg Concertos (1721).
Bach’s encyclopedism serves today as a valuable conspectus of the genres and aesthetics of
Baroque musical art. His spirit of experimentation captured the period’s preference for musical
novelty. His self-aware demonstration of mastery of contemporary dance forms and abstract
generic plans epitomized the baroque desire to tie musical vibrations to coherent, extramusical
models. And he embraced the era’s showy virtuosity, which included the creation of new genres,
massive catalogs of works, mastery and fusion of national styles, and a firm control over music’s
ability to communicate through the affects.
In his own lifetime, Bach’s complexity was critiqued for its “turgidity,” which led “from the
natural to the artificial, and from the lofty to the somber,” on toward “onerous labor and
uncommon effort . . . [in] conflict with Nature.”26 These critiques, issued in 1737, were
remarkably similar to the ones levied against Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie three years earlier,
when “baroque” was first applied in music criticism. Bach and Rameau worked at the precipice of
a marked change in musical aesthetics. Both “baroque” and “classic” ideals were born of the same
desires for formal and affective clarity, but the later styles favored an international, tuneful, and
simpler approach, sharply differentiated from the ornateness of the seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries.
26 [Johann Adolph Scheibe], “Letter from an Able Musikant Abroad” (1737), translated in The New Bach Reader: A
Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, ed. Hans. T. David and Arthur Mendel, rev. Christoph
Wolff (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998), 338.
Introduction to the Baroque Era
25
______________________________________________________________________________
Bibliography/Further Reading Artusi, Giovanni Maria. L’Artusi, ovvero, delle imperfezioni della moderna musica, trans. Oliver
Strunk and Margaret Murata in Source Readings in Music History, Section IV: “The
Baroque Era,” rev. ed., edited by Margaret Murata, 526–34. New York: Norton, 1998.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/source-readings-in-music-history-vol-4-the-baroque-
era/oclc/40802655&referer=brief_results
Baron, J.H. Baroque Music: A Research and Information Guide. New York: Garland, 1993.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/baroque-music-a-research-and-information-
guide/oclc/26014403&referer=brief_results
Brossard, Sébastien de. Dictionnaire de musique. Paris, 1701.
Available free via IMSLP: http://imslp.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_de_musique
(Brossard,_S%C3%A9bastien_de)
Bukofzer, Manfred. Music in the Baroque Era, from Monteverdi to Bach. New York: Norton,
1947.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/music-in-the-baroque-era-from-monteverdi-to-
bach/oclc/426637&referer=brief_results
_____. “The Baroque in Music History.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 14 (1955): 152–
56.
JSTOR (subscription required):
https://www.jstor.org/stable/425852?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Caccini, Giulio. Le nuove musiche (1602). H. Wiley Hitchcock, ed. Recent Researches in the
Music of the Baroque Era 9. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2009.
This scholarly edition contains an introduction in English (including historical
information and guides to performance), a full translation of Caccini’s original
Italian preface, and explanatory footnotes.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/nuove-musiche/oclc/306210&referer=brief_results
Cavalli, Francesco. La Calisto (1651). Edited by Jennifer Williams Brown. Collegium Musicum:
Yale University, 2nd series, 16. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2007.
This scholarly edition contains a lengthy preface in English, with a valuable
typology of mid seventeenth-century aria types.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/calisto/oclc/80562477&referer=brief_results
Introduction to the Baroque Era
26
______________________________________________________________________________
Clercx, Suzanne. La Baroque et la musique: essai d’esthétique musicale. Brussels: Éditions de la
Librairie encyclopédique, 1948.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/baroque-et-la-musique-essai-desthetique-
musicale/oclc/818483&referer=brief_results
Fubini, Music and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Europe: A Source Book (Chicago and London:
University of Chicago Press, 1994), 340–51.
Contains many translations of important primary sources from the eighteenth century.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/music-culture-in-eighteenth-century-europe-a-
source-book/oclc/28847804&referer=brief_results
Goldberg, Laurette with Jonathan Rhodes Lee. The Goldberg Variations Reader. Berkeley:
MusicSources Press, 2002.
Grout, Donald. Alessandro Scarlatti: An Introduction to His Operas. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/alessandro-scarlatti-an-introduction-to-his
operas/oclc/6330238&referer=brief_results
Heller, Wendy. Music in the Baroque. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2014.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/music-in-the-
baroque/oclc/807025410&referer=brief_results
Lang, Paul Henry. “The Baroque” and “The Late Baroque,” in Music in Western Civilization,
314–429, 430–529. New York: Norton, 1941.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/music-in-western-
civilization/oclc/384807&referer=brief_results
“Lettre de M *** à Mlle *** sur l’origine de la musique.” Mercure de France, May 1734: 861–
70.
Provides the earliest known use of the term “baroque” in connection to music.
Available free (in the original French) through Gallica, the digital library for the
Bibliothèque nationale de France:
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6354912v/f35.item.r=barocque.zoom
Introduction to the Baroque Era
27
______________________________________________________________________________
Monteverdi, Giulio Cesare. “Dichiaratione della lettera stampata nel quinto libro de’ suoi
madregali.” In Scherzi musicali a tre voci di Claudio Monteverde (Venice, 1607), trans.
Oliver Strunk in The Baroque Era, Source Readings in Music History, ed. Margaret
Murata, 536–44. New York: Norton, 1998.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/source-readings-in-music-history-vol-4-the-baroque-
era/oclc/40802655&referer=brief_results
Mueller, John H. “Baroque: Is It Datum, Hypothesis, or Tautology?” Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism 12 (1953–54): 421–37.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/journal-of-aesthetics-and-art-
criticism/oclc/50075052&referer=brief_results
Strunk, Oliver and Leo Treitler, ed. Source Readings in Music History, Section IV: The Baroque
Era, edited by Margaret Murata. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1998.
This revised version of one of the standard historical sourcebooks provides
invaluable English-language access to many of the foundational documents of the
baroque era, evidence of the aesthetic debates that raged during the period, and
examples of the period’s musical theory.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/source-readings-in-music-
history/oclc/31011770&referer=brief_results
Palisca, Claude. “Baroque.” Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press,
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/02097.
Login required for full viewing and print (subscription information at the site).
_____. “Baroque as a Music-Critical Term.” In French Musical Thought: 1600–1800, edited by
Georgia Cowart, 7–21. Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1989.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/french-musical-thought-1600-
1800/oclc/18878674&referer=brief_results
_____. Baroque Music. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/baroque-music/oclc/437181&referer=brief_results
Introduction to the Baroque Era
28
______________________________________________________________________________
_____. “Marco Scacchi’s Defense of Modern Music (1649).” In Words and Music: The Scholar’s
View. A Medley of Problems and Solutions Compiled in Honor of A. Tillman Merritt by
Sundry Hands., ed. L. Berman, 189–235. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1972.
Contains a historical overview of the use of the terms “stile antico” and “stile
moderno.”
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/words-and-music-the-scholars-view-a-medley-of-
problems-and-solutions-compiled-in-honor-of-a-tillman-merritt-by-sundry-
hands/oclc/333488&referer=brief_results
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Dictionnaire de musique, s.v. “Baroque.” Paris, 1768.
Contains a contemporary definition of the term “Baroque.”
Available free in the original French online through IMSLP:
http://hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e5/IMSLP72006-PMLP144356-
Dictionnaire_de_musique__1768_.pdf.
Rosand, Ellen. Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice: The Creation of a Genre. Berkeley, Los
Angeles, and Oxford: University of California Press, 1991.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/opera-in-seventeenth-century-venice-the-creation-of-
a-genre/oclc/45732734&referer=brief_results
Schulenberg, David. Music of the Baroque. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2014.
Worldcat:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/music-of-the-
baroque/oclc/43708678&referer=brief_results
Varwig, Bettina. Histories of Heinrich Schütz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Walther, Johann Gottfried. Musicalisches Lexicon. Leipzig, 1732.
Available free in the original German through IMSLP:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Musicalisches_Lexicon_(Walther,_Johann_Gottfried)
Introduction to the Baroque Era
29
______________________________________________________________________________
Music List
Rameau, Hippolyte et Aricie
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=169
Monteverdi “Cruda Amarilli”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=294
Caccini, “Vedrò ’l mio sol”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=226
Caccini, “Belle rose porporine”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=600
Monteverdi, “Vi ricorda o boschi ombrosi” (Orfeo, Act 2)
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=297
Monteverdi, “Tu se’ morta” (Orfeo, Act 2)
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=297
Cesti, “Intorno all’idol mio”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=277
Scarlatti, “Agitata da fiera procella”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=277
Handel, “V’adoro pupille”
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=100
Castello, Sonate concertate in stil moderno
http://imslp.org/wiki/Sonate_concertate_in_stil_moderno,_libro_secondo_(Castello,_Dario)
Gabrieli, In ecclesiis
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=421
Vivaldi, Concerto for two violins and orchestra, op. 3, no. 8 (RV 522)
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=606
Corelli, Trio Sonatas (da chiesa), op. 1
http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/e/e1/IMSLP280129-PMLP04939-
Corelli_Op_1_Parts__1681_.pdf
Introduction to the Baroque Era
30
______________________________________________________________________________
Corelli, Trio Sonatas (da camera), op. 2
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/0/01/IMSLP280118-PMLP04948-
Corelli_Op_2_Parts__1685.pdf
Corelli, Solo Sonatas, op. 5
http://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/f/fb/IMSLP74741-PMLP28348-Corelli_-
_12_Sonatas_Op_5.pdf
Couperin, Les goûts-réunis
http://petrucci.mus.auth.gr/imglnks/usimg/9/91/IMSLP29449-PMLP65940-
couperin_gouts-reunis.pdf
Couperin, Concert instrumental sous le titre d’Apotheose composé à la mémoire immortelle de
l’incomparable Monsieur de Lully
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/27/IMSLP31210-PMLP71132-2347662-
Concert-instrumental-F-Couperin.pdf
Handel, Saul, Act 2, nos. 65–68
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=102
Schütz, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, SWV 301
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Nun_komm_der_Heiden_Heiland,_SWV_301_(Hei
nrich_Sch%C3%BCtz)
Schütz, Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz, SWV 478
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=175
Walter, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/AdvancedSearchMA.aspx?music_id=208
Bach, Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, Book 1
http://imslp.org/wiki/Das_wohltemperierte_Klavier_I,_BWV_846-
869_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Bach, Prelude in C from Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, Book 1 (BWV 846)
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/79/IMSLP81759-PMLP05948-
BWV_846.pdf
Bach, Prelude in G from Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, Book 1 (BWV 860)
http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/b/bd/IMSLP81783-PMLP05948-BWV_860.pdf
Bach, Prelude in B Minor from Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, Book 1 (BWV 869)
http://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/6/6c/IMSLP81802-PMLP05948-BWV_869.pdf
Introduction to the Baroque Era
31
______________________________________________________________________________
Bach, Das Wohltemperierte Clavier, Book 2
http://imslp.org/wiki/Das_wohltemperierte_Klavier_II,_BWV_870-
893_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)
Bach, Clavier-Übung, Book 1
http://hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/1/10/IMSLP281777-PMLP03276-Bach_-
_Clavir_Ubung__Juilliard_Copy_.pdf
Bach, Clavier-Übung, Book 2
http://imslp.nl/imglnks/usimg/0/08/IMSLP417050-PMLP02955-Bach_-
_Zweyter_Theil_der_Clavier_Ubung_-SBB__mono-.pdf
Bach, Gott ist mein König (BWV 71)
http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/7/75/IMSLP104561-PMLP149572-
BWV_71.pdf
Bach, Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Brandenburg Concertos)
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=443 (nos. 1–3)
http://www.armusicanthology.com/anthology/Default.aspx?music_id=444 (nos. 4–6)*