Baroque instruments in the context of Historically informed performance

Baroque music (UK: /bəˈrɒk/ or US: /bəˈroʊk/) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and continues to be widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Domenico Scarlatti, Claudio Monteverdi, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Alessandro Scarlatti, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Heinrich Schütz, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber.

The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments—viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers.

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme ('Awake, calls the voice to us'), BWV 140, also known as Sleepers Awake, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, regarded as one of his most mature and popular sacred cantatas. He composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig for the 27th Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 25 November 1731.

Bach composed this cantata to complete his second annual cycle of chorale cantatas, begun in 1724. The cantata is based on the hymn in three stanzas "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" (1599) by Philipp Nicolai, which covers the prescribed reading for the Sunday, the parable of the Ten Virgins. The text and tune of the three stanzas of the hymn appears unchanged in three of seven movements (1, 4 and 7). An unknown author supplied additional poetry for the inner movements as sequences of recitative and duet, based on the love poetry of the Song of Songs. Bach structured the cantata in seven movements, setting the first stanza as a chorale fantasia, the second stanza in the central movement in the style of a chorale prelude, and the third stanza as a four-part chorale. He set the new texts as dramatic recitatives and love-duets, similar to contemporary opera. Bach scored the work for three vocal soloists (soprano, tenor and bass), a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble consisting of a horn (to reinforce the soprano), two oboes, taille, violino piccolo, strings and basso continuo including bassoon.

The Mass in B minor (German: h-Moll-Messe), BWV 232, is an extended setting of the Mass ordinary by Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition was completed in 1749, the year before Bach's death, and was to a large extent based on earlier work, such as a Sanctus Bach had composed in 1724. Sections that were specifically composed to complete the Mass in the late 1740s include the "Et incarnatus est" part of the Credo. It is structured in four major sections and scored for five soloists, a choir that is five-part in many sections and divided in the "Osanna", and a Baroque ensemble including brass and wind instruments.

In the legacy of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, it appears as the "Great Catholic Mass" (die große catholische Messe), referring to the fact that all parts of the Catholic mass are set to music.

Baroque music (UK: /bəˈrɒk/ or US: /bəˈroʊk/) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and continues to be widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". Key composers of the Baroque era include Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first operas; Alessandro Stradella, who originated the concerto grosso style; and Arcangelo Corelli, who was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed across Europe.

The Baroque saw the formalization of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments—viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening, not for accompanying dancers.

Baroque music (UK: /bəˈrɒk/ or US: /bəˈroʊk/) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition (the galant style). Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and continues to be widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era include Jacopo Peri, who wrote the first operas; Alessandro Stradella, who originated the concerto grosso style; and Arcangelo Corelli, who was one of the first composers to publish widely and have his music performed across Europe.

The Baroque period saw the formalization of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this type of harmony has continued to be used extensively in Western classical and popular music. Baroque composers experimented with finding a fuller sound for each instrumental part, leading to the creation of the modern orchestra; modernised musical notation, including developing figured bass; 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.

Gott ist mein König (God is my King), BWV 71, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach written in Mühlhausen when the composer was 22 years old. Unusually for an early cantata by Bach, the date of first performance is known: at the inauguration of a new town council on 4 February 1708.

The text is compiled mainly from biblical sources, three different sections from Psalm 74 and several other verses. In addition, one stanza from Johann Heermann's hymn "O Gott, du frommer Gott" is sung simultaneously with corresponding biblical text, and free poetry by an unknown poet of Bach's time which relates to the political occasion. The cantata in seven movements is scored festively with a Baroque instrumental ensemble including trumpets and timpani, "four separate instrumental 'choirs', set against a vocal consort of four singers, an optional Capelle of ripienists and an organ". Stylistically it shares features with Bach's other early cantatas.