As Machlis and Forney suggest the music of the Baroque era was composed in an era steeped in absolutism, monarchy, and belief in the doctrine of affections, ideas that today seem out-of-date. The music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was also composed in times very different from our own in which institutions like the church had much more power than they do now, and systems like feudalism shaped the lives of Europeans.
Why should music composed in these eras have relevance to listeners today?
Why should it not be understood merely as a historical curiosity?