# Is Baroque music early or common-practice?



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

I personally find the transition between Baroque and the Classical period quite significant, I find Baroque to still be similar to Renaissance, and the Classical period to be not that different from the Romantic period, yet Baroque is still a breakthrough, and so I consider it to be broadline.


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

It's considered common practice, as baroque music is still played as much as the music from the following eras.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Schoenberg said:


> It's considered common practice, as baroque music is still played as much as the music from the following eras.


Interesting point, is there such a thing as a "Renaissance concert" today?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Most Baroque music adheres to the same general tonal schematic and uses similar ideas regarding the functionality of harmony as the music of Classical and Romantic eras and is therefore considered to be in the Common Practice Period. Very early Baroque music (some Monteverdi perhaps?) may predate the widespread adoption of this tonal system and thus be considered "early" (I don't know that period well enough to make my own judgement), but the music of say, Bach or Handel is definitely Common Practice.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I've wondered similarly, for the same reasons you have. Baroque and Classical are night and day. Up until Bach, the harmonic structures of the Baroque were seemingly quite different than what would follow. And as you said, the move from Classical to Romantic was more of a smooth transition. And as they have called the move from Romantic into Modern the end of the "common practice period", I sometimes wonder if the Baroque was really the culmination of an earlier tradition rather than the start of a more recent one.

In any case, the world of Baroque music recordings is totally dominated by Early Music groups these days, and many groups who specialize in Renaissance make great recordings of the Baroque as well. Some of them paint the music in more of a Renaissance vein than others (Jordi Savall comes to mind as kind of doing this in his recordings of Handel, Bach, etc.), while other groups tend to make it look toward the Classical.

But in the end, I believe others are right. According to the prevailing definitions of our times, Baroque is the beginning of the common practice. If you think about it, it is here that modern harmony was really codified, mostly by Bach himself.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

The beginning of the common practice period is defined by the consolidation of the modern tonal system and standard functional harmony in the mid-17thc, around 1660. The music of Archangelo Corelli is an early representative of this consolidation. This is where progressions by circles of 5ths became standard and pervasive. The early 17thc had been a time of great experimentation as the modal system broke down and chromatic motions of many kinds were explored. Of course this breakdown and experimentation had begun in the late Renaissance in the work of madrigal composers and others. Italy was where the common practice style was established first. In England the early Baroque experimentation continued a bit longer, as in the music of Purcell, where elements of common practice are heard mixed with wonderful and colorful chromatic effects.

As for whether the Baroque links more closely to the Renaissance or the Classical Era, it's really a mixed bag. Tonal harmony and the triumph of the major-minor system link it to the Classical, and emphasis on contrapuntal practice links it to the Renaissance. Half and half?


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## guranbanan (Jun 4, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> In England the early Baroque experimentation continued a bit longer, as in the music of Purcell, where elements of common practice are heard mixed with wonderful and colorful chromatic effects.


It was only a year ago I discovered that Michael Nyman's "Memorial" is just a "remix" of Purcell's "What power art thou?" and I was in shock! I never would have dreamed that this kind of chords and progressions (non resolved sus4, augmented 5ths & chords moving in chromatic steps) was in use so long ago. It left me wondering what people thought of Purcell's treatment of chords, was it applauded or frowned upon?


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

People define it differently. Robert Donington (1907 - 1990) was a great authority upon interpretative matters. His important book "The Interpretation of Early Music" includes Baroque music as well.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> I find Baroque to still be similar to Renaissance, and the Classical period to be not that different from the Romantic period, yet Baroque is still a breakthrough, and so I consider it to be broadline.


A lot of development happened in the baroque period


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

premont said:


> People define it differently. Robert Donington (1907 - 1990) was a great authority upon interpretative matters. His important book "The Interpretation of Early Music" includes Baroque music as well.


For Donnington, who was concerned with issues of performance practice, early meant any time period for which the conventions of performance practice were no longer common knowledge and required specialized study. When early is used to refer to historical periods, as in music history sequences and the like, the category early means pre-Baroque. Different contexts, different usages.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

guranbanan said:


> It was only a year ago I discovered that Michael Nyman's "Memorial" is just a "remix" of Purcell's "What power art thou?" and I was in shock! I never would have dreamed that this kind of chords and progressions (non resolved sus4, augmented 5ths & chords moving in chromatic steps) was in use so long ago. It left me wondering what people thought of Purcell's treatment of chords, was it applauded or frowned upon?


There was craziness much earlier than that. Check out Orlando di Lasso's (Lassus) Prophetiae Sibyllarum or Gesualdo's Sixth Book of Madrigals. This is from the latter - much weirder than anything Purcell wrote and 60 years earlier:






Purcell was well respected and short-lived. His fantasias for viols are really wild and interesting.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> There was craziness much earlier than that. Check out Orlando di Lasso's (Lassus) Prophetiae Sibyllarum or Gesualdo's Sixth Book of Madrigals. This is from the latter - much weirder than anything Purcell wrote and 60 years earlier:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes and they were pretty early I think. By the way I discovered a composer who is earlier than Purcell who wrote some viol fantasies which seem to be very inventive in the same way, a man called William Cranford (1613-1621)


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## guranbanan (Jun 4, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> There was craziness much earlier than that. Check out Orlando di Lasso's (Lassus) Prophetiae Sibyllarum or Gesualdo's Sixth Book of Madrigals. This is from the latter - much weirder than anything Purcell wrote and 60 years earlier:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the examples and tips, I have some discovering to do!

Regarding early craziness, I heard some "ars nova" music on the radio some time ago. The tonality in that music also surprised me considering it was from the 14th century. However, I found myself wondering if the "complexity" of the piece was the result of a composer not knowing what he was doing. (Surely I was wrong though, my not appreciating it is probably just a demonstration of my lack of taste )

I think what got me so fascinated by the Purcell piece was that it isn't really weird or crazy, just ahead of it's time.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I agree with BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist, that mid and late period Baroque qualifies as CP.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I hear a certain intimacy and charm in the Renaissance, then less intimacy and more elaborate presentations and harmonic development in the Baroque, though there are always exceptions to the rule with the geniuses... I also notice a great difference between the Classical and Romantic eras when the Classical period was highly influenced by the classical ideals of Greek antiquities, and the Romantics went beyond the classical ideals to greater experimentation, fewer rules, new forms, personal self-expression and amazing individuality... Music has to evolve. It cannot stand still because the world continues to change because of the invisible frequencies of energy from an ineffable dimension that influences art and music. When those energies of life change, people start to think and create differently because they sense these energies. All four eras sound highly distinctive to me and the differences became more noticeable with exposure and the passing of the years. Society appeared highly distinctive within each period. Some might refer to these changes as a paradigm shift: “an important change that happens when the usual way of thinking about or doing something is replaced by a new and different way.”

Wonderful selections by Cloud Weeps Snowflakes!


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> I discovered a composer who is earlier than Purcell who wrote some viol fantasies which seem to be very inventive in the same way, a man called William Cranford *(1613-1621)*


Now THIS is what we call a child prodigy. :lol:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

well spotted, it looks like the only date we know is his death date, 1645. Here's some of the music, which impressed me -- bad sound on this video unfortunately


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

LeStrange are a group of viol playing musicologists who apparently sit around at night drinking beer looking for new old things to play, and disinterred the quirky Cranford. They've played a few times here in NYC.

Here's the version off the recording, the rest of which is also available on YouTube:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> LeStrange are a group of viol playing musicologists who apparently sit around at night drinking beer looking for new old things to play, and disinterred the quirky Cranford.


That's like me, except that I'm not a musicologist and I'm an amp and speakers player, not a viol player.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Larkenfield said:


> I hear a certain intimacy and charm in the Renaissance, then less intimacy and more elaborate presentations and harmonic development in the Baroque, though there are always exceptions to the rule with the geniuses... I also notice a great difference between the Classical and Romantic eras when the Classical period was highly influenced by the classical ideals of Greek antiquities, and the Romantics went beyond the classical ideals to greater experimentation, fewer rules, new forms, personal self-expression and amazing individuality... Music has to evolve. It cannot stand still because the world continues to change because of the invisible frequencies of energy from an ineffable dimension that influences art and music. When those energies of life change, people start to think and create differently because they sense these energies. All four eras sound highly distinctive to me and the differences became more noticeable with exposure and the passing of the years. Society appeared highly distinctive within each period.
> 
> Wonderful selections by Cloud Weeps Snowflakes!


So you like them? Thanks! Tell me if you want some more!


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