"Music of any period reflects, in its own way, some of the same influences, tendencies, and generative impulses, that are found in the other arts of that time. Thus the word "baroque," usually used despairingly by eighteenth-century art critics to describe the art and architecture of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, came to be applied also to the music of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries."
"The term has in the past, and to some extent in the present, carried implications of absurdity, grotesqueness, or abnormality. But as applied to the music of the period of 1600-1750 the term "baroque" has no such pejorative connotations, for much of the music of this time is of the finest quality."
The Baroque style is easiest seen in the Baroque churches in Europe. It is obvious in the ceiling and altar paintings, the ornate carvings and metal work, and in the highly expressive sculpture. In music, aspects of the Baroque can are flamboyance, spectacle, and emotionalism in Italian Operas. Also, the use of dramatic in religious music and the massing together of large groups of voices and instruments. …
