Baroque (Fr.). Bizarre. Term applied to the ornate architecture of Ger. and Austria during the 17th and 18th cents. and borrowed to describe comparable mus. developments from about 1600 to the deaths of Bach and Handel in 1750 and 1759 respectively. It was a period in which harmonic complexity grew alongside emphasis on contrast. So, in opera, interest was transferred from recit. to aria, and in church mus. the contrasts of solo vv., ch., and orch. were developed to a high degree. In instr. mus. the period saw the emergence of the sonata, the suite, and particularly the concerto grosso, as in the mus. of Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach. Most baroque mus. uses basso continuo. By ‘baroque organ’ is meant the 18th-cent. type of instr., more brilliant in tone and flexible than its 19th-cent. counterpart. Note that 18th-cent. writers used ‘baroque’ in a pejorative sense to mean ‘coarse’ or ‘old-fashioned in taste’.