The Baroque Period Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Baroque Period - Essay Example The Baroque Era of Music is traditionally considered the period of time between 1580 and 1760. As with other art forms of the period, the Baroque Era of music is noted for its ornate qualities. One of the most notable music forms coming out of this period was the Opera. Although there were variations of the Opera throughout Europe, including Italy, Germany, England and France, during the Baroque Period, they all contained several interlocking threads: the ornate set designs, beautiful melodies and professional presentation. The opera was originally designed as a form of entertainment for the court and as such usually spared no expense in their set design and elaborate costumes. Operas of this time period used â€Å"different approaches to singing and embellishment (even bowing) and freer attitudes toward improvisation.One of the main focuses in Baroque style music was the expressiveness of the era itself was expressed so beautiful in the music of this time period – bold, arti culate and free flowing. â€Å"There are people -- actors, preachers, and public speakers, singers -- called upon to use their voices in public spaces with bigger or smaller voices. And these Baroque composers, Handel for example, understood the human voice probably like nobody before or after.† (Giles, 1999, 43). By far the Baroque Era can be summed up musically, as with the era itself, grand. It was larger that life. The elaborate spectacles were designed to entrain while vocalizing with flare and flash the grandeur of the period. Thought provoking always; it was reaching out and questioning with a style and grandeur that can only be termed is Baroque. This style of music and its very nature, like the development of counterpoint itself during this era was a period of exploration and growth with heavy influences of the church the music was almost a release from any societal conceived limitations. It was freedom of expression beautiful performed with the flourish and bold vis ual impact, intricate musical embellishment and theatrical dramatization. This age of conceptualizing and wondering had respect for the past but also an eye on the future. This was expressed also through the literary works focusing on one of the artistic masters of the time period, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. Using the inquisitive, questions style typified by many of the writers of the Baroque period Pino Di Silvestro, the author, beautifully rediscovers the literary flair of the time period. Like the renewed emergence of the importance of the church as an entity during this time period literature and art marked "a similar subversion of the status quo is to be found in those of