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van Swieten. The discovery marked his
music until his death.
We ourselves should not forget Bach,
and he can be a formidable anchor for a
Baroque playlist. However the Baroque
period saw a veritable explosion of music,
as royalty, the nobility and the Church
all became newly able to pay for it, and
paying for it was fashionable. We have
several hundred composers from which
to choose. The time period: roughly
1600 to about 1760. The style: pull up a
good photo of the interior of a Baroque
church (like the Brazilian one on this
page)! It is full of life, some would say
too much of it, too ornamented, too busy. It
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is almost a theatrical stage, yet airy, full
of light, not dark and Gothic. The eye
is led upward, yet there is a profusion of
detailed, sensual ornamentation to entice We remember when a number of competitors would
it to dally on the way.
put own. on line There only is only the the Red cover Priest image of Venice, and the school table as of a choirboy. When he was 20,
In music, opera was born. The very Antonio Vivaldi, whose contents. Four Seasons Purcell took his teacher John Blow’s
first opera, from around 1597, is lost, We would concertos tell them are that probably you don’t better go known fishing without job as organist bait. at Westminster Abbey.
but we do have Monteverdi’s 1607 Orfeo. Sure, even we live than from the what Pachelbel you spend Canon through — also our Blow, site and a well-known composer, may
Much which is modern can be traced the a pages Baroque of our piece print — issue. and then But you there could are spend have days stepped aside in favor of a young
to this highly varied form, in which Couperin, reading Telemann, material Rameau, for Handel free. man he considered his better. (After
drama, instrumental and vocal music had We think and Pergolesi. that’s the only way we can convince Purcell’s you of the early death, Blow went back
equal time, each influencing the other. Let us choose UHF one difference, of the rare com- to the post.) Three years later Purcell
Voices and instruments took up solo of why posers you might who speaks want English to trust us like with a native. the future became of your organist at the Chapel Royal
roles within a group, and vocal or voice- He is in music fact a native, or home the theatre only Baroque system. as well — which may have resulted in
like expressivity became important. We have English readers master: on Henry every continent Purcell, who except has Antarctica. scheduling problems.
Although the chord was not to become a claim Most to of be them regarded discovered as the greatest us on line. Thirteen years after that he was dead,
a foundation element until the Classical English They composer read a lot of all. of our free material. the cause undiagnosed, leaving a wife
era, music started to be composed on
And then they joined us.
and two children. Four other children
the basis of major or minor tonality, and
had predeceased him. He was buried next
support for a single, expressive melodic
to the organ at Westminster Abbey and
line.
very widely honored and mourned.
In performance, ornaments such as
Not surprisingly, given where he
the trill and the mordent (a partial trill)
worked, Purcell’s output was very largely
became common practice. Such “frills”
vocal and choral. He composed a great
were pleasing decorations, “helping” the
many hymns, anthems and choral odes
musical line but not developing it. They
for the Church and for the court, as
were used to show virtuoso ability, but
well as songs and catches (part songs),
they also served to help instruments
an opera, Dido and Æneas, which is still
like the guitar and the harpsichord,
popular, and operatic dramas like his
whose notes decayed fast, keep up with
Faery Queen. The English theatre of this
the sustained notes of the violin and the
period was lively and popular, and in the
organ. Bach wrote out a detailed table of
last five years of his life he composed
them in a little book, his Klavierbüchlein
orchestral music for more than forty
for his son Wilhelm Friedemann.
plays. He produced other instrumental
A list of even the best-known Purcell was typical of the period in work, in the form of airs, suites, trio
Baroque composers takes up a good that he worked under the patronage of sonatas and keyboard music full of
deal of a paragraph: Schütz, Monteverdi, the Church and the Crown. His father melodies which are still lifted today for
Frescobaldi, Cavalli, Lully, Buxtehüde, and uncle were singers, gentlemen of the films and popular songs.
Corelli, Purcell and the two Scarlattis, Chapel Royal; when his father died, his Purcell was a highly individual
father and son. The many Bachs of the uncle took five-year-old Henry under his creator. He wrote no concertos, a form
Baroque take up a few lines of their wing and got him admitted to the Chapel which, thanks to Vivaldi, Corelli,
ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 65
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