History of Music Timeline

By arguetanora
  • Period: 500 to 1450

    Medieval Period

  • 1030

    Guido of Arezzo's micrologus

    The monk Guido of Arezzo proposed the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, and la to help singers remember the set of whole tones and semitones in the hexachords. He also developed an arrangement of lines and spaces, from which the modern staff came from and taught students the system of the Guidonian hand, where each of the twenty notes that made up the musical system at the time stood on each joint and any accidentals outside of the hand, were considered false music.
  • Period: 1098 to 1179

    Hildegard of Bingen

  • 1323

    Ars Nova Treatise

    It was a style of polyphony from France and was a new system of rhythmic notation that allowed duple and triple subdivisions of longer notes, new note shapes to indicate shorter durations than previously used, a greater variety of rhythmic combinations and flexibility, including syncopations.
  • Period: 1450 to

    Renaissance Period

  • 1485

    Josquin's Ave Maria motet

  • 1529

    Martin Luther Chorale- Ein feste Burg

  • 1538

    Arcadelt Madrigal, Il bianco e dolce cigno

  • 1567

    Palestrina Pope Marcellus Mass

    Palestrina's mass is a six-voice mass that is freely composed and does not use canons or borrowed material and demonstrates his counterpoint. He mostly uses a stepwise melodic motion with very few repeated notes; leaps that are greater than a third are followed by stepwise notes that would reverse the direction of the skip, and the melody remains diatonic to avoid chromaticism.

  • Victoria- Missa O magnum mysterium

  • Gabrieli Sonata Pian e Forte

    This was piece written by Giovanni Gabrieli to be performed for a service at St. Mark's church and was the earliest known piece to demonstrate what instruments were to be played for the piece and the dynamics in the music.
  • Period: to

    Baroque

  • Monteverdi's L'Orfeo

  • First public concerts in England

  • Period: to

    Johann Sebastian Bach

  • Vivaldi's L'Estro Armonico

    It is a set of 12 concertos for stringed instruments and was published by a foreign publisher, Estienne Roger. It was the most significant publication in the early 18th century that developed the popularity of the Italian concerto in Europe.

  • Rameau's Traité de l’harmonie

    Treatise on Harmony is a music treatise that was published in Paris in 1722 by Jean-Philippe Rameau. It describes music and how to write it based on the tonal system that is still used today. It uses the major and minor keys, with the triad and seventh chord being the most important.

  • Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier volume one

    It is a collection of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys composed for the keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. It includes compositions from many different periods of Bach's life and it was designed to explore the possibilities of playing in all keys on an instrument tuned in near-equal temperament.
  • Period: to

    Franz Joseph Haydn

  • Handel's Messiah

  • Period: to

    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  • Period: to

    Viennese Classical Period

  • Period: to

    Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges as director of Concerts des Amateurs

    He played as a violinist in Gossec's new orchestra, Les Concert des Amateurs in 1769, and impressed the Parisian public. In 1772, he became the conductor and created a sensation as a soloist, playing his first two violin concertos, with Gossec conducting the orchestra.

  • Mozart's Don Giovanni

  • Haydn's Symphony No. 94 "Surprise" (Premiere date in London)

  • Beethoven Symphony No. 5

    Premiere Date

  • Schubert Erlkönig

  • Rossini Il Barbiere di Siviglia

  • Nicolo Paganini 24 Caprices for Violin, op.1

  • Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique

  • Period: to

    Frederic Chopin Mazurkas Op.7

  • Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel Das Jahr

  • Period: to

    Louis Moreau Gottschalk Souvenir de Porto Rico

  • Musorgsky Pictures at an Exhibition

  • Bizet Carmen

  • Wagner Der Ring des Nibelungen

  • Brahms' Symphony No.4

  • Mahler Symphony No.1

  • Claude Debussy “Voiles” from Préludes Book 1

  • Arnold Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire Nacht

  • Igor Stravinsky The Rite of Spring (Premiere)

  • Manuel de Falla Homenaje (Homage)

  • George and Ira Gershwin "I Got Rhythm"

  • Margaret Bonds "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"

  • Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 (Premiere)

  • Duke Ellington Cottontail

  • Aaron Copland Appalachian Spring

  • John Cage Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano

  • Miles Davis Kind of Blue

  • George Crumb Ancient Voices of Children

  • John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine