This section contains materials that will focus on the major genres of vocal music you’ll encounter in your study of the Baroque period: namely opera, cantata, and oratorio, and some of the composers who developed those genres. Because Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel are generally viewed as the towering masters of the late Baroque, readings focusing on their lives and works of vocal music will be in a separate section.

This section includes the following pages:

• Slideshow: Vocal Music in the Baroque
• Opera
• Monody
• Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo
• Henry Purcell
• Dido and Aeneas
• Cantata
• Oratorio