Baroque orchestra and/or pipe organ. In the Baroque period, the orchestra was not standardised in size. There were large differences in size, instrumentation and playing styles – and therefore orchestral soundscapes and palettes – between the various European regions. The 'Baroque orchestra' ranged from smaller orchestras (or ensembles) with one player per part, to larger scale orchestras with many players per part. Examples of the smaller variety were Bach's orchestras, for example in Koethen where he had access to an ensemble of up to 18 players. Examples of large scale Baroque orchestras would include Corelli's orchestra in Rome which ranged between 35
Baroque music Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel. The Baroque period saw the creation of common-practice tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key; this kind of arrangement has continued to be used in almost all Western popular music. During the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass