Tone color in Baroque music presents something of a contradiction. On the one hand, the early part of the period evinced a new interest in sonority, and the end of it echoed with some very sophisticated sounds: Handel’s imaginative orchestration in his operas, Bach’s sensitive writing for the flute, and the refined harpsichord textures developed by several generations of composers in France. There are distinctive and attractive Baroque sounds that we do not hear in other periods: the harpsichord, the bright Baroque organ, the virtuoso recorder, and what we will call the festive Baroque orchestra, featuring high trumpets and drums.

On the other hand, a significant amount of music was written to allow for multiple or alternative performing forces. Thus it was a regular practice to designate music for harpsichord or organ, for violin or oboe or flute. Bach wrote a sonata for two flutes and rewrote it as a sonata for viola da gamba (a cello-like instrument) and harpsichord. Handel took solo arias and duets and rewrote them as choruses for his oratorio Messiah. In the last analysis, then, it seems the original tone color was often not critical in Baroque music.