Comments

  1. says

    Yes, it was wonderful. I’ve noticed this with all Baroque era musicians. The main conductor would also be playing an instrument, and the conducting would also move from that play to one or more other key players. It’s fascinating.

  2. rq says

    I’ve heard it said that classical music is boring because you lack a freedom to improvise and personalize the music -- but if it’s done right, it can be as creatively improvisational as anything else you can think of. It’s all teamwork!

  3. says

    Huh. That’s certainly not the case with Baroque musicians! In this video, it is variations on Folia, so this wasn’t strictly by the book, so to speak. I’m doing Baroque again tomorrow, and it’s what I mentioned above, and that’s with a Vivaldi piece. There was, perhaps, more freedom in the Baroque style because you had a smaller amount of musicians performing the work. I think when you got to large orchestras, often complete with choirs and so forth, yeah, there was a loss of individual freedom.

    It’s wildly different from the Baroque style, and I’ve been a bit obsessed with it lately. And I have a serious thing for harpsichord.

  4. rq says

    I like Baroque, mostly because of Bach, which is rather cliche, but the man really knew his stuff. Also Haydn is a big favourite, and Corelli and Scarlatti (for choir -- some stuff is just oooooooo, highly religious but very ooooooo), which are featured in the video. The music is very ordered -- not quite predictable, but highly patterned, and playful and creative within those patterns. Very mathematical, in a sense, which appeals to me a lot. A bit like chaos theory but with resolution.
    And to play it well, you have to get the expression out of it -- this is a lot harder than some people think, because it can be very subtle and intricate; it’s not all in your face, like some Romantic music (which I also love for big sound), so in some ways, it’s more difficult to perform well than other styles of music.

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