Barock and Roll
Over in that post over there, R J Keefe left a comment in which he praised Baroque music for providing workable background music. I’d never come across this point of view, but can totally see where he is coming from — despite the risk of being burned at the stake for talking about Bach like that.
Baroque music (or Barock, which is how it’s been thrust in front of my eyes recently, during the reading of the Baroque Cycle books — yes yes, the title and interior spellings don’t match) has way less dynamic range and change than Classical, Romantic, etc. It doesn’t have strain-your-ear solos cascading into destroy-your-ear total orchestra devastation. It’s mostly all at the same volume. Also, the tempo doesn’t change very much.
It’s not the kind of music where you are hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for the story to unfold. There isn’t as much of a story to hear.
Or is there? Does anyone fancy arguing this one? I’m not tremendously experienced with the Baroque genre, but from what I’ve experienced it seems less like a narrative and more like word games: puns, acronyms, anagrams, palindromes. This can be beautiful, but in a more abstract, clever way. It doesn’t drag me in and tie me up like my favorite, later pieces do.
HOWEVER: I know that a lot of people totally cream their pants over Bach. What I don’t know is if they feel the same way about him as… say… Beethoven or Brahms (the stereotypical 3Bs favorites list).