the purpose of baroque

Someone in Regina, Saskatchewan, has reached this blog via a Google search on "what was the purpose of baroque." What?! This is doubly hurtful to me, as Ms Rational Self-Determinism, my best friend, who is nonetheless in her own way rather baroque,* also hails from Saskatchewan.

It's as the man said: if food is useful because it sustains life, what is life useful for?

There.

However, if we're going to get technical about it, we could say that baroque is "exemplified by drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur;" this fits me rather well, don't you think? Does it need to have a reason for being that way?

And, in musical terms, that in relation to the dominance of imitative counterpoint, "different voices and instruments echo each other but at different pitches, sometimes inverting the echo, and even reversing thematic material." This also fits me quite well, I think. It explains why my sleep can sometimes be fitful. That, and the pretty dresses, and - er - the El Greco... but it's bedtime now...

As it happens, when my friend said I was baroque, at the time I did tell him that no, I was more rococo. And that's a chocolate shop in the Kings Road.

Sweet dreams, all.


* as measured by the words of my sainted friend Simon, when I asked him how he could tell I was "a baroque poet:" he said, "the gold angels are usually a dead giveaway."