 With the rise in historically informed performance, however, the number of performers who are able to improvise their parts from the figures, as Baroque players would have done, has increased.Basso continuo, though an essential structural and identifying element of the Baroque period, rapidly declined in the classical period (up to around 1800).A late example is C. P. E. Bach's Concerto in D minor for flute, strings and basso continuo (1747).