Learning About Baroque Music

Realm of Music is committed to helping people learn about music in a non-intrusive way. We believe that the listening experience can be more fulfilling if we learn about the instruments, practices, and context of the period when the music was first enjoyed. There are several ways we are trying to do this:

The performances include brief talks by the performers, explaining what to listen out for

Listening packs you receive before the concert provide information about the pieces and context in an attractive, easy to read format (see further comments below)

The programme notes in our web site contain "nerd" links, identifed by this little fellow; click on him for some more detailed background information, and hit the "Back" button if he gets too boring

This "Learn!" section of our web site will have sections on learning about various musical concepts, including multimedia interactive listening guides to some of the key pieces. This section is a bit sparse now, but will grow over time to include more materials

About our Listening Cards

It is our experience that progamme notes provided at concerts are often unhelpful. Instead of guiding you on what to listen out for so you can understand and enjoy the music, they are often wordy, academic and dry accounts of the musicological background to the piece. We want to change that, since this was certainly not how the composers intended their works to be presented -- they meant it to be fun and relevant.

Audiences in the 17th and 18th centuries lived in a different environment, and usually knew about the music of their day. Composers knew these audiences, who came from a strata of society for whom a good knowledge of music was a prerequisite to social success. Our listening cards are brief and visual, and try to give you enough of the context that these audiences would have been familiar with to make sense of what you are hearing, even if you don't want to spend a lot of time learning about the the music.

Let us know what you think!