Top 10 Lesser Famous Baroque Musical Geniuses

Music! The most beautiful of all the humanity’s cultural acts! Music is, according to French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte a universal language of the soul. German philosopher Schilling thinks of music as of counting of the self, and right he is.

Music is all about harmony, universal balance, order, beauty, peace and understanding. There is no composer in the world, among those who have earned that noble title, who hasn’t sought to obtain the sound that would make the soul stand still in a most desirable ontological peace.

Music is a divine combination of cosmic geometry and most profound moral aspirations of the soul.

Music is the closest thing to the universal order that reigned at the beginning of time, and shall reign once more as soon as the noises of evil have been silenced for good.

Music has been used in any enterprise connected to the intellect and the soul, from the mother who is kissing her toddler good night on lullaby sounds, to the priest who is calling God in his prayer on the sound of the chant or the teacher who is imprinting the knowledge onto the mind of the young student through the sounds of a little song that will never be forgotten.

Music helps the flower blossom, and the trees grow, and is a comfort for the troubled souls who seek for peace.

Every since the sound of music was discovered, which must have been very early in the history of mankind, music has never left the courts of kings, the studies of scholars, the hard work of  farmers and workers, the temples, the homes and every other corner people lived in.

Each nation of the world left an audible mark in history, and that is now treasured among the most precious legacies and called traditional music. India, China, Japan, the Americas, Africa, Greece, Persia, Egypt, all these great civilizations had music at the heart of their cultural production.

In Greece it was studied amongst the fundamental arts, in India it was a support for easier learning, in Japan it was a very intricate way of conveying states of emotion otherwise difficult to let out by a proud race such as the Japanese.

It comes as no surprise then that such an important means to convey feelings and elevated cultural emotions found its way into the Christian Europe, where it also found its most refined expression.

Speaking of Christian Europe, many are judging the cultural European landscape beginning with the Renaissance, but in reality the first court where music received its first refinement was the splendid court of the Byzantine Emperors in Constantinople.

It was there that the first Christian chants were forged at a time when Western Europe was trying to find its identity.

It doesn’t take to be a believer or to know the Greek language in order to be fascinated by the beauty of the Greek Orthodox songs, by the capacity to bridge European and Asian styles creating one of the most beautiful musical pictures of the Christian world at its most flourishing peak, a world made in the image of the kingdom of heaven the Scriptures promised their faithful.

In creating the church music, the artists continued a millenial tradition conscripted in the Bible which ascribes a very important role to music: the greatest king of the Jews, David, was a singer, one of the most profound books of the Ancient Testament is called allegorically The Song of Songs, the Psalms were being sung in the temple and so on.

Greek music left an indelible trace also in the music of the conquerors of the Byzantine Empire, the Ottomans, whose music is a combination of the Oriental warmth of heart and Greek measure and moderation.

When the cultural center of Europe shifted towards the Western part of the continent music began to adapt to the soul pattern of the people living in these parts.

Renaissance brought about the false dead gods that had been lying dead since the fourth century of the Christian era, when the Emperor Theodosius ordered the demolition of all pagan temples.

It was a sign that the people at that time were no longer content to live exclusively within the boundaries of the Christian worldview. They wanted to expand. They wanted the songs that spoke about their daily life to be Christianized.

It was so that the most beautiful musical artifacts were born in the European continent.

One of the most beautiful periods of musical history on the European continent was the Baroque age.

European Baroque was the first major “outburst” of the spirit that wanted to expand beyond the Medieval and Renaissance forms and encompass the experiences of the people, the sonic description of the beauty of places, the argumentation of ideas.

The word Baroque comes from Portuguese, where barroco means “misshaped pearl,” a name that came to mean an explosion of live and beauty.

Though the current was embraced and backed by both Roman-Catholic and Protestant churches, Baroque went beyond mere religious music, though it never went against religion.

Since 1600 until 1750, when Baroque evolved into Classical music, new musical notations have been developed, new themes were explored, new instruments were employed to make music.

Whenever we listen to Baroque music we are inclined to consider it something elitist, some cultural act reserved only for few. In that time, though, Baroque music was speaking to all the people, it was the way people were expressing in music, it was the way their world looked like, and, by God, it must have been a beautiful world!

Baroque composers were inspired by religious chants and by popular songs, and after they refined their music and put it in accord with the Baroque musical canon, they would give it back to the people either in their churches or in their carnivals, and other forms of celebrations.

We see it as something reserved for the cultural elite because we are completely uprooted from the profound tradition of the European nations where the Baroque composers found their inspiration.

What is striking when hearing Baroque music is la joie de vivre, the pleasure of living, the joy of savouring every moment though it was the last.

Also it no longer depicts a realm made in the image of the realm of heaven, as the Byzantine music used to some centuries ago, Baroque still speaks to our hearts of a world where the divine grace of God was still warming the hearts of people, guiding them to live beautifully.

There is one thing we should not forget when contemplating Baroque music: it was made in a time when Europe was confronted with the bloodiest wars religiously motivated, and the lives of the composers were in peril at all time as were those of the public.

And yet, predicaments didn’t turn the Baroque people into depressed zombies like those who are shouting and howling something they call music nowadays, which the Baroque would call at least noise and at most the sound of hell.

Another thing that strikes about Baroque is the immense number of people who were actually composing this kind of music. We have now a few well known composers every one has listened to, like Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Albinoni or Boccherini, but they’re so many more in every Western country in Europe.

We are going to attempt to create a top of the ten best lesser known Baroque composer, maintaining that this is a very subjective classification accorded to the taste of the author of this article.