Concert times vary from 2 to 3 hours with a 20-minute intermission. Exact times and details are listed on each performance’s concert page.Description text goes here

Boston Baroque has no formal dress code—we want you to feel comfortable and confident at our performances. For some, attending is a fun excuse to dress up, while others prefer to keep it casual. We like to think of it as “date night” formal: wear whatever makes you feel great and ready to enjoy the music!

At Boston Baroque, we love when our audiences show their enthusiasm!

In most orchestral concerts, it’s traditional to wait until the end of a full piece before applauding. Many works have several movements (or sections), and audiences usually hold their applause until the conductor lowers their hands or turns to face the audience. (If you are unsure when this is, a good tip is to wait until others clap first)

It’s also common to applaud after a soloist finishes a concerto or after an especially impressive solo passage. Your applause lets the performers know you appreciated their artistry!

During our operas, things can be a little more lively. If a singer delivers a particularly powerful or beautiful aria, it’s perfectly appropriate to applaud—or even call out “Bravo!” (for a man), “Brava!” (for a woman), or “Bravi!” (for a group).

And of course, at the end of the performance, let your excitement show. Clap as much as you like, cheer, or even give a standing ovation if you loved it. Your energy and response help make every Boston Baroque performance special.

In Baroque and classical music, a single piece such as a concerto, symphony, or suite is often divided into movements, which are like chapters in a story.

Each movement has its own tempo, character, and mood. For example, a typical Baroque concerto might have three movements: a fast opening, a slow and lyrical middle, and a lively finale.

Audiences traditionally wait to applaud until the end of the entire piece, rather than between movements, to preserve the flow and continuity of the music. Movements allow composers to explore different emotions and musical ideas while keeping the piece cohesive as a whole.

Yes! Boston Baroque welcomes families to attend our concerts, and we often have multiple generations in attendance, from grandparent to grandchild. Boston Baroque leaves it up to the discretion of the parent(s) to decide if their child(ren) is/are able to attend a program, as each individual and family are different.

Many Baroque operas are sung in Italian, French, Spanish, and occasionally English. When the opera is performed in a language other than English, supertitles—similar to subtitles—are provided. These display a translation of the text on screens near the stage, allowing the audience to follow the story and understand the music.

Supertitles make the performance accessible to audiences who may not speak the language being sung. The only time supertitles are not projected is when a performer repeats a verse, as the translation has already been displayed.

Baroque music refers to the rich, expressive style that flourished in Western Europe between 1600 and 1750. Known for its ornate detail and dramatic flair, this era of music was later dubbed the “Baroque Period” by 19th-century critics—borrowing the term barroco, meaning “oddly shaped pearl,” to reflect its bold and intricate character.

Some of the most celebrated composers in history emerged from this period, including Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, and Claudio Monteverdi. (citation: https://www.baroque.org/baroque/whatis)

Period performance means playing music on the instruments and in a style that was used when the music was written.

At Boston Baroque, we use historical instruments or accurate replicas and perform with the techniques and sounds of the 17th and 18th centuries, so the music is heard as it would have been in its own time.

Period instruments differ from modern instruments in their construction, materials, and sound. For example:

• Strings: Baroque violins, violas, and cellos use gut strings instead of modern steel, giving a warmer, softer tone.

• Bows: Baroque bows are shaped differently, allowing for more flexible articulation and subtle phrasing.

• Woodwinds: Flutes and oboes were made of wood with fewer keys, producing a gentler, more nuanced sound.

• Brass: Natural trumpets and horns have no valves, so players rely on lip tension and hand placement to produce different notes.

• Keyboards: Harpsichords and early fortepianos pluck or strike strings differently than modern pianos, creating a lighter, more transparent sound.

Together, these differences create the distinct colors and textures of Baroque and early Classical music, making period performance sound closer to what audiences would have heard in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Performances on period instruments are often described as "transparent." When you listen to a Boston Baroque performance or recording, you’ll hear a beautiful blend of sounds; every line in the detailed, complex music of the Baroque and even of Mozart and Beethoven can be heard.

These are the kinds of instruments that these composers wrote for. But it's not just the instruments that make our performances sound the way they do. Boston Baroque musicians, our orchestra, and our chorus, use what we know of the articulate and highly nuanced earlier performing styles.

The result is that musical lines sparkle with a crystalline clarity, and the music is expressive, dramatic, and exciting.

Boston Baroque performs with period instruments, giving our music the sound and style of the 17th and 18th centuries. Our core ensemble is typically 30–35 musicians, though the group can expand depending on the program. We frequently perform with a full chorus and vocal soloists, and each year we present a fully staged opera in which our instrumentalists play onstage alongside the singers. This combination of period instruments, versatile ensemble size, and immersive staging brings Baroque and early Classical music vividly to life for audiences.

In Baroque music, ornamentation refers to the decorative musical flourishes that performers add to melodies—like trills, turns, and grace notes—to make the music more expressive and personal. These embellishments weren’t always written out by the composer; instead, musicians were expected to add their own, much like improvising.

Ornamentation helped show off a performer's skill and brought emotion and variety to the music. It’s similar to adding stylish details to a simple outfit—small touches that transform something plain into something striking and unique.

Citation: https://www.londonpianoinstitute.co.uk/baroque-ornamentation-a-window-into-the-art-of-musical-decoration/

A Recitative is a style of singing used in Baroque music that sounds more like speaking than traditional singing. It was used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas to quickly move the story along, often between more emotional or melodic songs called arias.

Accompanied by just a few instruments, recitative focuses on the words and drama rather than melody, helping audiences follow the plot.

At Boston Baroque, our string players perform on Baroque violins—early versions of the modern instrument that create a distinctly warm and expressive sound. These violins use gut strings rather than modern steel, giving them a softer, more natural tone. The neck, bridge, and fingerboard are shaped differently, allowing for lower string tension and greater subtlety in phrasing.

Our musicians also use Baroque-style bows, which are shorter and gently curved outward. This design makes the sound lighter and more flexible, perfectly suited to the graceful, speech-like quality of Baroque music. Together, these features help bring the music of composers like Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel to life just as their audiences might have heard it centuries ago.

You can hear a Baroque violin in action in our performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto in B minor for four violins.

The viola is the alto or tenor member of the family, tuned a fifth lower than the violin. It existed in many different sizes in the baroque period, from instruments which were almost as small as a violin, to instruments so large that they would seem almost unplayable to a modern violist.  Orchestral music at Louis XIV’s court included three viola parts, called haute-contre, taille, and quinte, played on instruments ranging in size from smallest to largest. By the early 18th century, most orchestral music had only one viola part, though the French continued to favour the rich sound of divided violas in the opera.

You can hear a Baroque Viola in action in our performance of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante in Eb Major for violin and viola, III. Presto

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

The Baroque cello is an earlier form of the modern cello, played with gut strings instead of steel, giving it a warmer, softer tone. The neck, fingerboard, and bridge are shaped differently to allow for lower string tension and more expressive phrasing. Baroque bows are also shorter and curved outward, producing a lighter, more flexible sound that suits the style and ornamentation of Baroque music.

Baroque cellos often provide the foundation of the ensemble, supporting both harmony and rhythm, while also carrying solo passages in concertos and chamber works. Their rich, resonant tone blends naturally with other period instruments, creating the intimate and nuanced sound that is characteristic of Baroque performance.

The double bass was introduced to the baroque orchestra to reinforce the bottom line of the musical score. During the baroque era there was no standardization of shape, size, or tuning of these bass string instruments. Terminology was highly variable, but today we often make a distinction between two types: the violone and the double bass (or contrabass).

The double bass is the largest member of the violin family, pitched to play an octave lower than the cello and other continuo players, and adding depth and vigour to the orchestra. Although heard in Italy throughout the 17th century, its first use in the Paris opera orchestra, to add drama to a storm scene, caused quite a stir.

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

Baroque composers usually referred to the flute as the “flauto traverso” (transverse flute, so-called as the player held it sideways), as opposed to the “flauto,” which usually meant recorder. To create a sound on the flute, the player shapes their lips to direct the sound across an opening at the head of the instrument. Recorders are sometimes called “whistle flutes,” as a block of wood in the mouthpiece creates a confined channel, directing the air across the opening at the front of the instrument. In short, anyone can immediately produce a sound (pleasant or otherwise!) by blowing into a recorder, but to create a sound on a flute requires some guidance and practice. Some have experienced this when trying to produce a sound by blowing over the top of a beer bottle.

Simple wooden flutes had been used around the globe for several centuries, but the one-keyed baroque flute was developed in France for use in the court orchestra of Louis XIV. It was made of wood or ivory; the modern instrument is most commonly made of silver, resulting in a very different sound.

Like the flute, recorders or recorder-like instruments have been played for centuries. During the renaissance and baroque periods, recorders came in many sizes and were often made in sets called consorts. The solo recorder of choice for baroque composers was the alto or treble size: there was a large repertoire of highly virtuosic music written for this instrument. Like its flute cousin, recorders were fashioned out of wood and ivory by famous families of makers.

You can hear a Baroque recorder in action in our performance of Jacob van Eyck's "Engels Nachtegaeltje" with Aldo Abreu

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

The Baroque piccolo, also called a flauto piccolo or flautino, is a small, high-pitched woodwind that sounds one octave above the regular flute. In the Baroque era, it was made of wood and often had few or no keys, requiring careful finger placement and breath control. Its bright, penetrating sound made it ideal for special effects, adding sparkle or dramatic contrast in orchestral and operatic music.

Piccolo parts were relatively rare in the 17th and 18th centuries and often used to highlight a particular moment or imitate natural sounds. Composers like Handel included piccolo or flauto piccolo parts in works such as Rinaldo and Water Music. Because of its high register, the piccolo can project over a full ensemble even at soft dynamics, giving Baroque music a unique brilliance and clarity.

The baroque oboe and bassoon were developed in France for use in the court orchestra of Louis XIV. Their sound is created through a double reed: two pieces of cane tied together that vibrate when air passes through (the same effect as the age-old trick of blowing through two blades of grass held between your thumbs). Both have a larger bore and smaller tone holes than their modern counterparts, requiring a considerably larger, more freely vibrating reed.

These features give the instruments more flexibility of articulation as well as a softer, less concentrated sound, making them ideal for blending with the string instruments with which they so often play in baroque orchestras.

You can hear a Baroque oboe in action in our performance of Handel’s Water Music in F Major

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

The principal keyboard instruments of the baroque era, the harpsichord and organ, both enjoyed a vast quantity of solo repertoire, but were also at the core of the continuo section of ensembles both large and small, including in orchestras at court, in the church, and in the theatre.

The harpsichord is a keyboard instrument in which thin metal strings are set into vibration by the plucking action of a small piece of quill, called a plectrum. The plectrum, carved from a primary feather of a large bird (Canada Goose works well!), is fit into a hinged tongue on the end of a “jack,” a small piece of wood roughly the size and shape of a popsicle stick. The jack sits on the end of the key: when the key is depressed the jack is raised and the quill plucks the string. When the key is released, gravity sends the jack back down, and the hinged tongue allows the quill to pass back over the string without re-plucking it. A small square of felt fitted on to the end of the jack stops the vibration of the string.

Harpsichords varied in size and shape from small rectangular or hexagonal instruments with one keyboard, often called “virginals” of “spinets,” to large instruments with two keyboards and 3 or 4 sets of strings, and an overall shape akin to the grand piano. Obvious gradations of loudness and softness are not possible on individual notes of the harpsichord: unlike the piano, it produces the same volume whether the key is pressed lightly or strongly. Contrast can be obtained from one piece to another on large instruments by activating extra sets of strings.

The harpsichord was a mainstay of the baroque orchestra, adding clarity to the bass line and rhythmic energy to the performance. Musically and socially the harpsichord also served the roles later served by piano: a respected solo instrument, it was also the instrument owned by any well-to-do households, and the instrument on which many children received their first musical instruction.

You can hear a harpsichord in action in a performance by founder Martin Pearlman of François Couperin, 23e Ordre

The organ is a keyboard instrument that consists of a series of pipes standing on a wind chest. The wind chest is fitted with valves connected to the keys, such that when the key is pressed the valve is opened and wind passes through the pipe to make a sound. To maintain pitch, a constant wind pressure must be supplied to the chest. In the baroque era, this was accomplished through hand-operated bellows. On church organs the operation of the bellows was often the responsibility of choir boys. Today, baroque organs have been refitted with electric blowers.

The simplest organs have one set of pipes where each pipe corresponds to one key on the keyboard. Most organs have several sets of pipes, known as stops, made in different styles and of different materials to allow the performer to create a variety of tone colours. Large baroque church organs had dozens of stops, several keyboards, and a pedalboard—essentially a keyboard for the feet. In continuo playing, small portable organs are often used, with only a few sets of pipes and no pedalboard. Tafelmusik’s organ has 3 sets of pipes, 2 made of wood, and a higher set of pipes made of metal. Some of the metal pipes are visible along the front of the instrument; the rest are tucked into the case of the organ.

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

Plucked instruments in the 17th and 18th century came in a wealth of shapes and sizes. They were used extensively in chamber and orchestral settings, playing continuo alongside or in place of the keyboards.

They can be divided into two basic types: the round-backed lute, and the guitar. At the dawn of the baroque era, the smaller renaissance lutes were expanded to add bass strings, allowing the lute to enter the “continuo era.”  The theorbo and archlute are large lutes fitted with an extended neck that holds an extra row of long bass strings. These run alongside the fingerboard, and are plucked with the right hand thumb, allowing the player to play bass lines while plucking chords on the strings that lie over the fretted fingerboard. A rich solo repertoire appeared for both the theorbo and archlute. The distinction between the two instruments lies largely in their tuning, and continuo players choose which to use according to historical aptness, and the key, range, and style of the music.

The guitar is long associated with Spain, but a great deal of its evolution took place in Italy. It enjoyed a rise in status when it became a favoured instrument of Louis XIV of France as well as Charles II of England.  The instructor of these two monarchs, the Bolognese guitarist Francesco Corbetta, published two volumes of guitar music entitled La Guitarre Royale, one dedicated to each king.  In these books, Corbetta brought French dance music to life on the guitar in an astounding way by fusing plucking and strumming techniques together into one mesmerizing texture. The guitar brings great energy to the continuo section in dances and lively movements.

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/

Baroque percussion adds rhythm, color, and excitement to music from the 17th and 18th centuries. The most common instruments include timpani (kettledrums), side drums, small cymbals, and occasionally bells or triangle. Baroque timpani were tuned to specific pitches using hand-turning screws, producing a focused, resonant sound that blends naturally with strings and winds, rather than the louder, more forceful tone of modern timpani. Side drums, often used in festive or military-style music, add rhythmic drive and drama.

Composers like Handel and Vivaldi frequently wrote timpani parts in orchestral works, including Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, where the drums provide a ceremonial and celebratory effect. In Baroque opera, percussion is used sparingly to emphasize dramatic moments, underscore battles or processions, or accentuate dance rhythms. By using historical instruments and techniques, period percussion contributes to the vibrant, dynamic sound that is central to Boston Baroque’s historically informed performances.

Brass instruments are essentially long, hollow tubes with a gradually increasing diameter, with a bell added at the end to amplify the sound. A mouthpiece is inserted at the small end, and the player purses their lips, places them against the mouthpiece, and blows through with a “buzz” to create a sound. Different notes are produced by varying the speed of the air sent through the lips and the tension in the embouchure. This allows the player to produce only a limited series of notes, and in order to play in different keys on a baroque or “natural” horn or trumpet, they must change the length of the tubing by adding or removing crooks (lengths of tubing) between the mouthpiece and the main body. On modern horns and trumpets, this is accomplished with a system of valves or pistons,

Types of brass instruments have been in use for centuries. The horn has long been associated with the hunt, and the trumpet with the military, and both were eventually “domesticated” and introduced into court and theatre orchestras. Both instruments are capable of great dynamic contrast, ranging from a pure sweet sound to dramatic “brassy” flourishes. Both horns and trumpets are used to great effect in Handel’s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks.

You can hear a Natural Trumpet in action in our performance of The Trumpet Shall Sound from Handel’s Messiah with Dashon Burton.

You can hear horns in action in our performance of George Frideric Handel's Water Music Suite in F Major

Description Source: https://tafelmusik.org/