Music History Timeline

  • Period: 400 to 1300

    Medieval Period

  • 742

    Charlemagne

    (742-814)
  • Period: 1098 to 1179

    Hildegard of Bingen

  • Period: 1160 to 1250

    Notre Dame School of Polyphony

  • Period: 1170 to 1260

    Troubadour/Trobairitz

  • 1250

    Franco of Cologne wrote Ars Cantus Mensurabilis

  • Period: 1300 to

    Renaissance Period

  • Period: 1300 to 1377

    Guillame de Machaut

  • Period: 1335 to 1397

    Landing

  • 1440

    Gutenberg printing press

  • 1485

    Josquin's Ave Maria Serena Motet

  • 1529

    Martin Luther's Ein feste burg

  • 1538

    Arcadelt composed Il bianco e dolce cigno

  • 1561

    Palestrina's Pope Marcellus Mass

  • Period: 1580 to

    Concerto Delle Donne

    Court of Ferrara, Italy
  • Musica Transalpina

    Collection of madrigals
  • Sonata pian' e forte

    By Giovanni Gabrieli in Italy; first known piece of music to call for specifically brass instruments; also called for dynamics
  • Period: to

    Baroque Period

  • Monteverdi's L'Orfeo

  • England's first public concerts

  • Period: to

    Versailles' Orchestras Vingtquatre Violons du Roi

  • Period: to

    Johann Sebastian Bach

  • Period: to

    Handel

  • Purcell's Dido and Aeneas

  • Period: to

    Farinelli

  • Antonio Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico

  • Rameau's Traité de l’harmonie

  • The Well-Tempered Clavier volume 1

  • Period: to

    Brandenburg Concertos

  • Period: to

    Pre-classical

  • Period: to

    Franz Joseph Haydn

  • Pergolesi's La serva padrona

  • Pergolesi's La serva padrona

  • Handel's Messiah

  • J. Quantz Essays on Playing the Flute

  • J. Quantz Essays on Playing the Flute

  • Period: to

    WA Mozart

  • Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice

    Return to original opera
  • Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice

    Return to original opera
  • Period: to

    Viennese Classical Period

  • Period: to

    Beethoven

  • Piano Concerto No.23

  • Don Giovanni

  • Period: to

    London Symphonies

  • Period: to

    Schubert

  • Period: to

    Musica Enchiriadis

  • Symphony No. 5 in C minor

  • Period: to

    Frederic Chopin

  • Erlkonig

  • Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia

  • Nicolo Paganini's 24 caprices for Unaccompanied violin, Op. 1

  • Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"

  • Symphony No. 9

  • Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

  • Period: to

    Mazurkas Op. 7

  • Period: to

    Robert Schumann Carnaval

  • Feliz Mendelssohn-Bartholdy- Violin concerto in E minor, Op. 64

  • Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel Das Jahr

  • Clara Wieck Schumann "Liebst du um Schonheit"

  • Berlioz Treatise on instrumentation

  • Verdi's La traviata

  • Period: to

    Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Souvenir de Porto Roco

  • Period: to

    Moguchaya kuchka (decade of activity)

  • Wagner's tristan und Isolde premier date

  • Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov

  • Smetana's Ma Vlast-Moldau

  • Bizet's Carmen

  • Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen premier

  • Brahms' Symphony No. 4

  • Mahler's Symphony No. 1 premier

  • Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

  • Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "New World"

  • Debussy's Prélude à l’aprés midi d’un faune (premiere)

  • Maple Leaf Rag (published)

  • Jean Sibelius' Finlandia (premiere)

  • Puccini's Madama Butterfly

  • Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire

  • Stravinsky's Le sacre du Printemps (premiere)

  • Schönberg's Piano Suite, Op.25

  • George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue

  • Henry Cowell's the Banshee

  • Louis Armstrong's "Hotter Than That"

  • Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 premiere

  • Prokofiev "Alexander Nevsky"

  • Ellington's Cottontail

  • Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour le fine du temps

  • Bela Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra

  • Copland Appalachian Spring

  • John Cage's 4’33’’

  • Period: to

    Edward Varese "Poeme Electronique"

  • Miles Davis Kind of Blue

  • George Crumb's Black Angels

    For an electric string quartet
  • Del Tredici Final Alice (premiere)

  • Glass Koyaanisqatsi

  • John Adams' Dr. Atomic