I don't always listen to the baroque music that plays on my computer while I do something else, like writing an entry in this occasional blog. I enjoy the sound of baroque music, maybe because it doesn't always impose itself on the listener.
I wonder how attentively it was listened to back in the times it was written. Did the courtiers who congregated where music was played, in salons, listen carefully, or did they converse, scheme, and flirt? A lot of baroque music is dance music, and dancers listen to music differently from the way an audience listens to music. And a lot of baroque music is church music. Today that music is performed in secular settings, and the audience listens to it differently from the way the congregation of a cathedral listened to it originally. They were expected to believe in the religious message of the music and to be inspired spiritually. We are also expected to be inspired spiritually, I supposes, but aesthetically, not theologically.
I play in a saxophone quartet. We have several arrangements of Bach. Often when we have played something by him, I have the feeling that my soul has been cleansed by the music.
Recently we hosted a dinner in our garden for friends of ours who recently got married. I played flute duets with a friend of mine while the guests were arriving. No one stood near us and listened attentively, which was fortunate, because I was making a lot of mistakes, and we had to stop here and there when we lost our way. The music was written by Devienne, a secondary classical composer, and after a while we got bored with it. Each of the six duets was pretty much more of the same - pleasant, but not terribly interesting. Recently we've been working on more challenging duets by Kuhlau, a generation later than Devienne, whose music is sometimes too interesting.
I prefer baroque and classical music to romantic music, in general, and I've discussed this preference with my fellow flurtist, who shares it. We both think there's too much ego in romantic music, not that we don't love Brahms, Chopin, and Schubert. Baroque and classical music is essentially about the music itself, not about the composer's angst.
