My favourite Baroque composers 🎹🏛🎶

The definition of Baroque music encompasses a rather long period of time in Western music, between 1600 and 1750, before the Renaissance music era and the Classical music age. During this phase composers developed specific roles for the various instruments and human voice in combination with each other. For example, this is the time opera was invented as a music form that encapsulates instrumental music within a narrative context.

Out of the many composers of this period I have made a selection of my favourites based on their significance for this style of music and the personal meaning of their compositions in my musical journey.

Johan Sebastian Bach is widely considered to be one of the greatest geniuses in the history of music. His works are remarkable for intellectual depth, mastery of technical and expressive means and for artistic beauty. Born in a family of musicians in 1685, in what is now Central Germany, the young Johan Sebastian was exposed to music making and music playing since his tender age and naturally absorbed the essential skills of a musician and a composer.

Glenn Gould interpreting the Prelude and Fugue in A from the Well Tempered Clavier BWV 888

Antonio Vivaldi, the Red Priest, here depicted wearing scarlet red clothes. In reality his nickname was most probably due to the colour of his hair, a characteristic family trait. His music is indissolubly associated with Venice and its lagoon, where Vivaldi spent most of his creative life and was recognised as a prolific and influential composer. Paradoxically, Vivaldi died almost in poverty in Vienna where he had moved briefly to seek royal support.

Georg Friedrich Händel was a German composer, naturalized English, who spent most of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, big concertos and organ concerts. He was heavily influenced by both the great Italian Baroque composers and the Middle German polyphonic choral tradition but established his own personal style of Baroque music which remains so popular to these days.

Lascia ch’io pianga, by Handel, interpreted by boy soprano Aksel Rykkvin

Henry Purcell is the highest expression of English baroque, combining stylistic elements of French and Italian music but establishing his own brand of Baroque music. His international fame remained unrivalled as native English composer until a generation of 20th century musicians of the like of Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten. His vocal and trumpet music is amongst the most popular of the Baroque period.

Music for a While by Henry Purcell reinterpreted by the Kings Singer’s and Jakob Josef Orlinski

Born in the Upper Palatinate, currently in Germany, in 1714 and raised in Bohemia, Christoph Williband Gluck spent his most creative years in Paris, where he reached high popularity on the very vibrant operatic scene. He is credited for refashion the opera format from its baroque beginnings to a more fluid and popular art. His later opera are on average half the length of a typical baroque opera.