Instrumentalists
During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. During the period, composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part , made changes in musical notation , and developed new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical genres. Dense,complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously , was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works.
Cultural social context baroque information
The conquest of the Americas had created imaginative people with large sums of money. There was a great deal of poverty and a great deal of wealth. The term Baroque is derived from a Portuguese word that means Distorted. It is a period in which the middle class creates its own culture. It is also a very religious period with many new religions like Protestantism.
Changes and similarities with the Renaissance
The dominant trends in Baroque music correspond to those in Baroque art and literature. Some features of Baroque art included a sense of movement,energy, and tension .Opera is one of the types of music in the Baroque era. Baroque era was usually referred to as the thorough-bass period. In early Baroque era no tonal direction existed, but experiments in pre-tonal harmony led to the creation of tonality.Baroque genre included instrumental suite,ritornello, Concerto grosso and chant. There were important composers of the Baroque period such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi William Byrd Henry Purcell and George Phillip Telemann
Baroque Cultural&Social Context 