London Festival of Baroque Music Smith Square, a classical music venue originally built as a church in the Baroque period. Concerts also take place at Westminster Abbey. Other venues in the Westminster area have included St Margaret's Church, St Peter's Eaton Square, and Westminster School. The London Festival of Baroque Music presents concerts of music from the Baroque period, performed on period instruments. It specialises in inviting non-UK performers, often making their UK debut, as well as UK musicians. Ensembles who have appeared include Musica Antiqua Köln, Collegium Vocale Gent, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Bach Ensemble, Tafelmusik, Europa
Baroque music oratorios, respectively, and the Venetian Francesco Cavalli, who was principally an opera composer. Later important practitioners of this style include Antonio Cesti, Giovanni Legrenzi, and Alessandro Stradella. The middle Baroque had absolutely no bearing on the theoretical work of Johann Fux, who systematized the strict counterpoint characteristic of earlier ages in his "Gradus ad Parnassum" (1725). One pre-eminent example of a court style composer is Jean-Baptiste Lully. He purchased patents from the monarchy to be the sole composer of operas for the French king and to prevent others from having operas staged. He completed 15 lyric tragedies and left unfinished