The majority of Bach's compositions were for choir or organ (he wrote for his church choir one cantata a week for many years, and well over 200 cantatas are extant). Most of his composing life was spent as a church musician, where he suffered from both political infighting and unappreciative audiences. His career began, however, under noble patronage, and it is from this period (which he thought his happiest) that most of his instrumental work comes.

The six Brandenburg Concerti are among his relatively few works for an orchestra ensemble. You hear in this selection a lot of what people expect in baroque music--a great deal of energy, intricate inter�weavings of melodies, but not a lot of variety in volume (a narrow dynamic range). This is in part a matter of taste and in part a matter of the capabilities of such important baroque instruments as the harpsichord: volume was increased by increasing the number of notes played simultaneously or in rapid succession, not by varying the force with which a single note was played.

Concerto is from concertare, and signals a competition, if not outright battle, between instruments. The modern concerto, with some notable exceptions, is a competition between a solo instrument (in decreasing frequency, the piano, the violin, the cello, the flute, other instruments) and an orchestra. Up to Haydn, the concerto was written for several instruments vying for prominence.

The baroque concerto has three or four sections, or movements, alternating fast and slow tempi, but always ending with a fast movement.

One of the best known of Bach's cantatas. A little too dramatic for his congregation, "Sleepers Wake!" has found a much more appreciative audience today.

Thanks to Disney's Fantasia, one of Bach's best-known works. The fugue, with its contrapuntal toying with the theme, is a standard baroque structure. Counterpoint reached its zenith under Bach, and he devoted much of his energy to explaining the Art of the Fugue. There are fugues in later periods, but after Beethoven these are almost always in homage to or imitation of Bach.

Robert Schumann was both a major Romantic composer and a noted music critic in his day. Quoting another critic, "this cantor of Leipzig is an incomprehensible manifestation of divinity", he adds, "it is only at his organ that he appears to be at his most sublime, most auda�cious, in his own element. Here he knows neither limits nor goal, and works for centuries to come."

Unlike Bach, Handel enjoyed enthusiastic royal patronage for most of his composing life. All but one of his best-known works was written for the glory not of God, but of the king. And the king so admired his composer that Handel could deny the royal taste. For the Fireworks, the king wanted only bombastic brass instruments. Handel insisted on using strings as well (without diminishing the bombast, though).

Although a large number of instrumental works exist, these were chiefly written to be performed during Handel's oratorios. His interest was in vocal music. Again unlike Bach, his audience was secular, and his music, with one small exception, was based on secular or Old Testament themes. I didn't excerpt from that exception here (though it's very easy to pull choice bits out) because you don't need this to become acquainted with the Messiah. Unfortunately, it is so commanding that it overshadows all his other choral writing. So, here's a bit from an oratorio nobody's heard of....

This was written as filler between the acts of the oratorio "Alex�ander's Feast", but became popular as a stand-alone instrumental composition. A concerto grosso has a larger ensemble than a baroque concerto. It is divided into two unequal sections, with the competition between the two groups. There are four movements here. (In a modern concerto, individual movements vary greatly internally [a fast movement may have a pensive section]; baroque concerti do not.)

Because Bach later transcribed this verse for solo organ, it (with Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring) is one of his more familiar works.

For thirty years, Monteverdi was the director of music at St. Mark's basilica in Venice, which was during the baroque period the center of high musical culture in Europe. Pageantry and piety united on feast days, when the Doge would attend, and the Vespers services on these occasions were internationally recognized. Monteverdi's most famous work is a collection of choral works to be used on these occasions. This selection, though a transcription of one of the works in that collection, seemed a good introduction to the Venetian baroque.

Vivaldi wrote over 400 concerti. A violinist, he wrote most enthusiastically for strings, but his concerti include works for oboe, flute, mandolin, and other instruments. Although experts in Vivaldi point to different stages in his development as a composer (this concerto is assumed to come from a very late stage), his music is always characterized by energy, liveliness, and motion.

This is short, even for a baroque concerto, with 3 movements played in 3.5 minutes. In general, baroque concerti take less than 15 minutes; modern concerti are larger works, generally taking a half hour or more.

Vivaldi is not considered a composer for the voice. There are several vocal works, including a Gloria, but these take second place to his concerti. One critic said a Vivaldi motet is a "concerto for voice".

The four violin concerti comprising the Four Seasons are Vivaldi's most famous works. They are program music, depicting a story in sound. In summer, a peasant moans about the heat, flies buzz around, a storm approaches. Baroque music is rarely programmatic; concerti, baroque or later, are usually pure music. The programmatic nature of this work may have contributed to its popularity.

Scarlatti wrote for a wide range of instruments (including the voice), but with 555 sonatas, he is inevitably linked to the keyboard. He broke with the contrapuntal style, using more harmony and freer forms, and is sometimes considered the first of the modern keyboard composers. Horowitz was a great champion of Scarlatti, and this most bombastic of pianists often included a quiet Scarlatti sonata on his programs. Most of his sonatas are under ten minutes in length. The modern sonata is much longer, and in its keyboard form is the piano's equivalent of a symphony.

If we except the adopted Handel, Purcell is England's last significant composer until the late nineteenth century, and one of its greatest. He was the organist at Westminster Abbey and composed much music for the court. In his short life (he was Mozart's age when he died), he composed several hundred vocal and instrumental works, many of them ceremonial, as is this work. In its flowing melodic line, it shows an Italian influence; its last movement is somewhat fugal.

Dryden wrote several ridiculous theatre pieces (including plays for cases where Shakespeare had indicated that a masque was to be performed, as at the end of the Tempest), which Purcell set to music. King Arthur is one of them. In its excuse for a plot, Cupid awakens Genius, who brings spring to England, allowing Venus and her lover to live happily under the benevolent eye of Merlin while shepherds are trying to seduce a bunch of maidens in a field somewhere. All this is after Arthur goes off to conquer the last bit of England (Kent) following a sacrifice to Woden, Thor, and Freya.... Ah, but the music! King Arthur contains a wonderful drinking song, several hornpipes, and splendid pieces for both tenor and bass, as well as this, perhaps Purcell's best known and loveliest song.

In his day more admired than was Bach (he was first offered the cantor position at Leipzig Bach later accepted), Telemann is today known primarily for his trumpet music, which is usually more in the heroic vein than is this melodic, Italianate concerto. There are four movements.

Monteverdi fairly represented, with voice. This is a setting of Psalm 150. You can hear his closeness to medieval/Renaissance music in it.

The great choral masterworks are the Mass in b minor and the Passion according to St. Matthew. If you very much like Bach and/or choral music, these are absolutely required. However, both are long (and on CD, costly) works. They are not very good choices for exploring. A better investment of time would be some of the well-known cantatas. In addition to "Sleepers Wake!", try

Cantata No.208 ("Sheep may safely graze")

Cantata BWV 80 ("Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott")

Cantata No. 147 ("Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben") has "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"

For more of Bach's instrumental music, try

All six Brandenburg concerti (esp. No.5)

the 4 orchestral suites

The Well-Tempered Clavier, the preludes and fugues of which serve double duty as the "Old Testament" of keyboard literature (Beethoven's sonatas, the "New") and as pure examples of the development of the fugue.

The Goldberg Variations (beware of transcriptions for the piano of this work; it was written for the harpsichord, which is a very different instrument).

The great choral masterwork is obviously the Messiah, which is a must know work (and because its parts are more discrete, much easier to get into than the great Bach choral works). The only better known work by Handel is the carol Joy to the World! Fairly well known is the aria "Ombra ma fu" from the opera Xerxes, often performed as an instrumental solo under the name "Largo from Xerxes". I like the four Anthems written for the coronation of George II (known as the Coronation Anthems).

Even more popular than Handel's Firework music is his Water Music, again written for a royal occasion, but with less bombast. For works similar to the Concerto Grosso, try the Op.6 concerti.

If you like Vivaldi's verve, any recording of his concerti will please. Two well-known sets of concerti are the Op.3 concerti, known as L'Estro harmonico, and the Op.4 concerti, known as La Stravaganza. Both feature the violin.

There are several odes written for feast days or royal occasions. These are often performed by early music groups (not the period instrument people, but the medieval/Renaissance specialists).

Any recording of heroic trumpet music will have something by Purcell.

Purcell wrote many theatre works. Few survive intact: the opera Dido and Aeneas is pretty much as Purcell wrote it; the Fairy Queen is largely intact, though editors have spent much energy correcting copyists' errors in the single surviving manuscript; both King Arthur and The Tempest have been reconstructed (though I don't think a performable version of the Tempest has been assembled; less of its music survived). The Tempest has perhaps Purcell's second-best known song, "Halcyon Days".

Important baroque composers omitted here are Corelli (instrumental) and Pergolesi (vocal). Corelli, slightly older than Vivaldi, was a major influence on Vivaldi. Pergolesi represents the Roman Counter-Reformation zeal.

Several classes of baroque music wouldn't fit: there are innumerable trio sonatas, double concerti, sinfonia (the baroque concerti instruments after counselling), and other instrumental works. These are by-and-large short works, written as incidental music. The big draws of the baroque period were the theatre and the church. Much of the instrumental music was performed much in the way a theatre organ was used when movies had intermissions or as orchestral interludes are used for Broadway shows. If you like baroque music, you'll enjoy listening to any good collection of these (there are fine Corelli and Handel trio sonatas); you needn't reserve time to listen to them attentively. They are, as they were intended to be, good background music.

Recommended performers (a matter of opinion only): in general, baroque music does sound best when played by a period instrument group (though a modern chamber orchestra, the Orpheus, was used for Bach's Air). Four highly regarded groups are The English Baroque Soloists (for vocal), the English Concert (for instrument), the Academy of Ancient Music, and the Gabrieli Players (though their greatest strength is in the early baroque--from, say, 1590-1650). Recording companies try to collect as many artists are they can, so you usually can't go by label alone--except for early music. The Archiv, L'Oiseau-Lyre, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi labels were set up by Deutsche-Grammophon, Decca, and BMG (=RCA), respectively, specifically to maintain a high quality standard for period music. These, plus the Hyperion label (which I think is independent) can be trusted. They might not always be to your taste, but you won't get a bad recording from these labels. I like both the artists and the recording quality on the first two labels especially. As an added bonus, both of them include extensive notes with the recording (though Archiv does reissue, at a budget price, some recordings without the notes). The old Archiv LPs were marvellously and intentionally educational.

My bias in early keyboard music is on the side of the purists. The piano did not really exist in the baroque period (late in life Bach was introduced to an early prototype). Its characteristics and sound are so very different from those of the harpsichord that it cheats both the composer and the listener to present, say, the Goldberg Variations on a piano as the work of Bach.