Baroque music Baroque music Baroque music ( or ) is a period or style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso Albinoni, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz,
Baroque violin choose fingerings which result in few shifts, or small "creeping" shifts. They choose their moments for shifting carefully, using open strings and points of articulation in the music where changes of position in the left hand can be made inaudibly. While in the Romantic period audible shifts are often used (portamento and glissando) these are absent from Baroque playing. Some Baroque sources indicate the deliberate use of a higher position on a lower string, typically for a piano or misterioso effect, but low positions are preferred on the whole for greater sonority. Vibrato is used much more sparingly in Baroque