Baroque Meditation
In Baroque music, expression and perfection are held in perfect balance. This was the era in which western music’s harmonic foundations were laid. It was an era of strictness and an era of freedom, in which improvisation flourished and rules were made to be pushed to their expressive limits.
Read more…This playlist explores some of the most introspective and meditative masterpieces of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when forms like the canon and passacaglia led composers to drill deep into harmonic and rhythmic patterns that have the ability to sooth even as they engross. From voices to keyboards, from prayers to operas, we present the most pensive and absorbing music from western music’s greatest period of blossoming.