Baroque music
Composers, works and institutions of Baroque music, from the first operas around 1600 to the death of Bach in 1750.
Category: Culture
- 1615Heinrich Schütz moves to Dresden as court composer to the Elector of Saxony
Schütz, who had studied with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice (1609-1612), took up service at the Saxon court in Dresden in 1615 and carried Italian Baroque idioms into German church music.
- 1627Schütz's Dafne is staged at Torgau, traditionally the first German opera
Heinrich Schütz set a German translation of Rinuccini's Dafne for a court wedding at Torgau in 1627. The music is lost, but the work is traditionally regarded as the first German opera.
- 1661Lully becomes superintendent of Louis XIV's royal music
The Florence-born Jean-Baptiste Lully was made superintendent of the music of Louis XIV in 1661 and naturalised as a French subject that December, beginning his control of French court music.
- 1672Lully takes over the Académie royale de musique, the Paris opera
In 1672 Lully acquired Pierre Perrin's opera privilege and directed the Académie royale de musique, where with the poet Quinault he created French tragédie en musique, beginning with Cadmus et Hermione in 1673.
- March 22, 1687Death of Jean-Baptiste Lully in Paris
Lully died on 22 March 1687 of gangrene after striking his foot with a conducting staff during a Te Deum celebrating Louis XIV's recovery from surgery. He had refused amputation.
- c. 1689Purcell's Dido and Aeneas is performed at a girls' school in Chelsea
Henry Purcell's only fully sung opera, to a libretto by Nahum Tate, was staged at Josias Priest's boarding school in Chelsea by the end of 1689. Some scholars date its composition to about 1683, for the court.
- November 21, 1695Death of Henry Purcell in London
Purcell, organist of Westminster Abbey and the Chapel Royal and the leading English composer of his day, died on 21 November 1695 at about 36.
- 1700Corelli publishes his Opus 5 violin sonatas in Rome
Arcangelo Corelli's twelve sonatas for violin and continuo, ending with variations on La Folia, helped establish the violin as a prestigious solo instrument and became a model across Europe.
- c. 1700Bartolomeo Cristofori's piano is recorded in the Medici inventory
The Florentine instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori, employed by Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, built a keyboard that could play soft and loud. The 1700 Medici inventory is the first unambiguous record of the piano.
- 1711Vivaldi publishes L'estro armonico in Amsterdam
Antonio Vivaldi's Opus 3, twelve concertos printed by Estienne Roger in Amsterdam, spread his concerto style across Europe and strongly influenced other composers, including J. S. Bach.
- February 24, 1711Handel's Rinaldo opens at the Queen's Theatre, London
Premiered on 24 February 1711, Rinaldo was the first Italian opera George Frideric Handel wrote for the London stage and a popular success, bringing Italian opera seria to Britain.
- January 8, 1713Death of Arcangelo Corelli in Rome
Corelli, patronised by Cardinals Pamphili and Ottoboni, died in Rome on 8 January 1713. His Opus 6 concerti grossi were published in Amsterdam the following year.
- February 1719 – 1729The Royal Academy of Music is founded in London to stage Italian opera
Founded in February 1719 as a joint-stock company by aristocrats, with Handel as its key composer, it hired star singers such as Senesino and Cuzzoni. Costs and rivalries sank it by 1729.
- March 24, 1721Bach dedicates the Brandenburg Concertos to Margrave Christian Ludwig
While Kapellmeister at Köthen, Johann Sebastian Bach sent six concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, dated 24 March 1721, at the Margrave's request after meeting him in Berlin.
- 1722Rameau publishes the Traité de l'harmonie
Jean-Philippe Rameau's treatise introduced the 'fundamental bass' and the idea that chords derive from root notes, becoming the basis of later Western music theory.
- 1723 – 1750Bach becomes Thomaskantor in Leipzig
Johann Sebastian Bach succeeded Johann Kuhnau as cantor of the St Thomas School, directing music for Leipzig's main churches until his death in 1750. There he wrote most of his church cantatas and the Passions.
- 1725Vivaldi's The Four Seasons is published in Amsterdam
Antonio Vivaldi's four violin concertos, each tied to a season, were printed in 1725 as the first four of the twelve in Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, Opus 8.
- July 27, 1733Bach presents the Kyrie and Gloria of the future B minor Mass to the Saxon Elector
On 27 July 1733 Johann Sebastian Bach petitioned the new Elector Augustus III in Dresden, sending a Kyrie and Gloria. He expanded them into the complete Mass in B minor in 1748-49.
- October 1, 1733Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie premieres in Paris and divides the audience
The first opera of Jean-Philippe Rameau, staged at the Académie royale de musique on 1 October 1733, was praised and attacked for its harmonic novelty and started a pamphlet war with Lully's admirers.
- July 28, 1741Death of Antonio Vivaldi in Vienna
Vivaldi, the Venetian priest and violinist whose concertos shaped the form, died in poverty in Vienna on 28 July 1741, aged 63.
- April 13, 1742Handel's Messiah is first performed in Dublin
Composed in London in 24 days in 1741 to a text by Charles Jennens, Messiah premiered on 13 April 1742 at the Great Music Hall, Fishamble Street, as a charity concert that freed 142 imprisoned debtors.
- May 7, 1747Bach visits Frederick the Great at Potsdam and writes The Musical Offering
On 7 May 1747 Johann Sebastian Bach was received by Frederick II of Prussia at Potsdam. He printed the resulting contrapuntal The Musical Offering in September of that year.
- July 28, 1750Death of Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig
Bach died on 28 July 1750 after unsuccessful eye surgery, leaving The Art of Fugue unfinished. His death is the conventional end of the Baroque period in music.
- April 14, 1759Death of George Frideric Handel in London
Handel, a German-born naturalised British subject who had made oratorio and Italian opera central to London's musical life, died on 14 April 1759 and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 20 April.