Top Ten Baroque Composers

Johann Sebastian Bach, (born March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany]—died July 28, 1750, Leipzig), composer of the Baroque era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north German musicians.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (Italian: [anˈtɔːnjo ˈluːtʃo viˈvaldi]; 4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born in Venice, he is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread across Europe.

Baroque composer George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany, in 1685. In 1705 he made his debut as an opera composer with Almira. He produced several operas with the Royal Academy of Music in England before forming the New Royal Academy of Music in 1727.

Born in 1659, Henry Purcell was the finest and most original composer of his day. Though he was to live a very short life (he died in 1695) he was able to enjoy and make full use of the renewed flowering of music after the Restoration of the Monarchy.

baroque composers and musicians Georg Philipp Telemann Born in Magdeburg in 1681, Georg Philipp Telemann belonged to a family that had long been connected with the Lutheran Church.

Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, Kingdom of Naples, belonging to the Spanish Crown, in 1685, the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He was the sixth of ten children of the composer and teacher Alessandro Scarlatti.

Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of the violin, and as the first coalescing of modern tonality and functional harmony.

Monteverdi is lauded by modern critics as "the most significant composer in late Renaissance and early Baroque Italy"; "one of the principal composers in the history of Western music"; and, routinely, as the first great opera composer.

Jean-Philippe Rameau (French: [ʒɑ̃filip ʁamo]; () 25 September 1683 – () 12 September 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the 18th century.

Jean-Baptiste Lully was an Italian-born French composer, instrumentalist, and dancer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered a master of the French baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in 1661.

Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 22 October 1725) was an Italian Baroque composer, known especially for his operas and chamber cantatas.He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera.

Composer, musicologist and writer Johann Gottfried Walther is probably the most famous of the composers influenced by Pachelbel – he is, in fact, referred to as the "second Pachelbel" in Mattheson's Grundlage einer Ehrenpforte.

François Couperin was the most important member of the illustrious Couperin family and was one of the leading composers of the French Baroque era.

Giovanni Battista Draghi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista ˈdraːɡi]; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), often referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian: [perɡoˈleːzi]), was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (French: [maʁk ɑ̃.twan ʃaʁ.pɑ̃.tje]; 1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French composer of the Baroque era. Exceptionally prolific and versatile, Charpentier produced compositions of the highest quality in several genres.

Heinrich Schütz (German:; 18 October [O.S. 8 October] 1585 – 6 November 1672) was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century.

Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (Italian: [dʒiˌɾɔːlamo fɾeskoˈbaldi]; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September, 1583 – 1 March 1643) was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.

Dieterich Buxtehude (German: ... Today, Buxtehude is considered one of the most important composers in Germany of the mid-Baroque. Life Early ...

Giovanni Battista Sammartini was born to French emigrant and oboist Alexis Saint-Martin and Girolama de Federici in Milan, in what was Hapsburg-ruled Lombardy during most of his lifetime and is Italy today. He was the seventh of eight children.

Tomaso Albinoni Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni was born in Venice in 1671, eldest son of a wealthy paper merchant. At an early age he became proficient as a singer and, more notably, as a violinist, though not being a member of the performers' guild he was unable to play publicly so he turned his hand to composition.

Samuel Scheidt (baptized 3 November 1587 – 24 March 1654) was a German composer, organist and teacher of the early Baroque era.

Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557 – 12 August 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ tradition.

Johann Christoph Bach Johann Christoph Bach (6 December 1642 – 31 March 1703) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period. He was born at Arnstadt, the son of Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's great uncle, hence he was Johann Sebastian's first cousin once removed.

baroque composers and musicians Jan Dismas ZELENKA The Dresden court attracted many foreign musicians under Heinrich Schütz, who developed a chapel of international repute during his long term of office as court Capellmeister from 1617 to 1672.

Francesco Cavalli (born Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni 14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. He was known as Cavalli, the name of his patron, venetian nobleman Federico Cavalli.

Johann Hermann Schein (20 January 1586 – 19 November 1630) was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in Grünhain and died in Leipzig. He was one of the first to import the early Italian stylistic innovations into German music, and was one of the most polished composers of the period.

Giacomo Carissimi (baptized 18 April 1605 – 12 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.

Alessandro Stradella (Nepi, 3 April 1639 – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.

Johann Jakob Froberger (baptized 19 May 1616 – 7 May 1667) was a German Baroque composer, keyboard virtuoso, and organist. Among the most famous composers of the era, he was influential in developing the musical form of the suite of dances in his keyboard works.

Barbara Strozzi (also called Barbara Valle; baptised 6 August 1619 – 11 November 1677) was an Italian singer and composer. Her Baroque compositions were published in her lifetime.

Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (12 August 1644 – 3 May 1704) was a Bohemian-Austrian composer and violinist.

Antonio Draghi (ca. 1634 – 16 January 1700) was a Baroque composer. He possibly was the brother of Giovanni Battista Draghi. Draghi was born at Rimini in Italy, and was one of the most prolific composers of his time.

Giovanni Legrenzi was an Italian composer of opera, vocal and instrumental music, and organist, of the Baroque era. He was one of the most prominent composers in Venice in the late 17th century, and extremely influential in the development of late Baroque idioms across northern Italy.

While in the service of Filippo Colonna in Rome, Bononcini collaborated with the poet Silvio Stampiglia on six serenatas, an oratorio and five operas, of which the last, Il trionfo di Camilla, was the highlight of the 1696-7 Naples Carnival.

Geminiani's significance today is largely due to his 1751 treatise Art of Playing on the Violin Op. 9, published in London, which is the best known summation of the 18th-century Italian method of violin playing and is an invaluable source for the study of late Baroque performance practice.

With a ministerial decree dated 27 April 2006, the Opera Omnia of the composer Luigi Boccherini was promoted to the status of Italian National Edition. Boccherini's style is characterized by Rococo charm, lightness, and optimism, and exhibits much melodic and rhythmic invention, coupled with frequent influences from the guitar tradition of his adopted country, Spain.

Antonio Caldara Antonio Caldara (1670 – 28 December 1736) was an Italian Baroque composer. Caldara was born in Venice (exact date unknown), the son of a violinist.

André Campra (French: ; baptized 4 December 1660 – 29 June 1744) was a French composer and conductor.. Campra was one of the leading French opera composers in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

Hieronymus Praetorius was a north German composer and organist of the late Renaissance and very early Baroque eras. He was not related to the much more famous Michael Praetorius, though the Praetorius family had many distinguished musicians throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.

Fray Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde (Cuenca ca. 1595 – after 1638) was a Spanish Baroque composer and virtuoso player of the dulcian, a predecessor to the modern bassoon.

Gregorio Allegri Gregorio Allegri (c. 1582 – 7 February 1652) was a Roman Catholic priest and Italian composer of the Roman School and brother of Domenico Allegri; he was also a priest and a singer.

Jacopo Peri (Zazzerino) (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera.

Carlo Pallavicino (Pallavicini; c. 1630 – 29 January 1688) was an Italian composer. Pallavicino was born at Salò. From 1666 to 1673, he worked at the Dresden court; from 1674 to 1685, at the Ospedale degli Incurabili (a conservatory where orphaned children were musically trained) in Venice and further in Dresden.

Trevor David Pinnock CBE (born 16 December 1946) is an English harpsichordist and conductor. He is best known for his association with the period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical music.

John Blow John Blow (baptised 23 February 1649 – 1 October 1708) was an English Baroque composer and organist, appointed to Westminster Abbey in 1669. His pupils included William Croft, Jeremiah Clarke and Henry Purcell.

Louis Couperin (c. 1626 – 29 August 1661) was a French Baroque composer and performer. He was born in Chaumes-en-Brie and moved to Paris in 1650–1651 with the help of Jacques Champion de Chambonnières. Couperin worked as organist of the Church of St. Gervais in Paris and as musician at the court.

Nicola Antonio Porpora Nicola (Antonio) Porpora (or Niccolò Porpora) (17 August 1686 – 3 March 1768) was an Italian composer and teacher of singing of the Baroque era, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli.

Antonio Francisco Javier José Soler Ramos, usually known as Padre ('Father', in the religious sense) Antonio Soler, known in Catalan as Antoni Soler i Ramos (baptized 3 December 1729 – died 20 December 1783) was a Spanish composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras.

Giuseppe Tartini was a Venetian Baroque composer and violinist.