If any one characteristic can be singled out as central to the music of the late Baroque period, it would be its thorough, methodical quality. Much of a Baroque composition (or at least a segment of that composition) consists of inspired repetition and variation. It is as though the composers had intended to draw their material out to the maximum extent and wring it dry, as it were.

Indeed, the shorter pieces we will be examining in Chapters 10 and 11 — pieces like the prelude and fugue from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier and the aria from Handel’s opera Julius Caesar — contain little if any notable contrast in rhythm, dynamics, melody, texture, or tone color (see pages 129 and 138). Baroque composers preferred thoroughness and homogeneity.

With longer pieces, Baroque composers tended to break them up into blocks of music that contrast with one another in obvious ways, but are still homogeneous in themselves. This is the case with Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, for example, where the orchestral and solo sections contrast clearly enough. Within each orchestral or solo section, however, things are usually quite regular (see page 123).