Música

Prehistory

Period: 100,000 BCE to 3500 BCE

Primitive music that emerged from the imitation of the sounds of nature.

Mesopotamia

Period: 3500 BCE to 2100 BCE

The music had a divine origin and was closely linked to religion. The singing was accompanied by instruments.

Egypt

Period: 3100 BCE to 332 BCE

The music had a divine origin and was closely linked to religion. The singing was accompanied by instruments.

Greece

Period: 800 BCE to 146 BCE

Music had a great development and was closely linked to poetry and theatrical performances. The most used instruments in ancient Greece were the lyre, the harp, the aulos and the organ.

Piotr Ilich Chaikovski

184

Russian composer. Despite being a strict contemporary of the Group of Five, produced by figures such as Borodin, Mussorgsky or Rimski-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky's style cannot be pigeonholed within the margins of the then prevailing nationalism in his native Russia. Of a cosmopolitan character as far as influences are concerned, his music is above all deeply expressive and personal, revealing the author's personality, complex and tormented.

The troubadours

476

The troubadours were mainly poets and musicians who developed artistic expression in the Middle Ages. They were poets in the Middle Ages who wrote their works and set them to music with their own compositions, for this reason they were considered both poets and musicians.

The minstrels

476

The minstrels were men dedicated to the show, they were traveling musicians who delighted in singing songs, playing instruments or performing all kinds of acrobatics. The minstrels belonged, unlike the troubadours, to a lower social class.

Middle ages

Period: 476 to 1453

Monasteries became the centers of culture. Music is strongly linked to religion and was performed by the clergy. Musical notation arose. In monasteries, copyists began to draw signs on the text called neumes to help remember the melody.

Gregorian singing

600

This ancient chant is called Gregorian because it was Pope Gregory I in the year 600 who introduced this liturgical chant. Gregorian chant has three characteristics: it was monodic, that is, it has only one voice; in addition, it was sung a cappella: without instruments or accompaniment.

Guido d' Arezzo

991

Guido d'Arezzo was born in 991 and died in 1033. He was a Benedictine monk who has gone down in music history as one of the most important reformers of the musical notation system.

Hildegard von Bingen

1098

Hildegard von Bingen (Germany, 1098-1179) was a versatile medieval abbess, physicist, philosopher, naturalist, composer, poet and linguist. She was the creator of the first musical liturgical drama that is preserved.

Leonin

1135

Between 1150 and 1160 he was administrator of the cathedral in Paris. He was ordained a priest at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 1192. He was recognized as the greatest organ composer of his time. Organum is recognized as a form of primitive polyphony that had its peak at the School of Notre Dame in Paris, the center of Ars Antiqua. He is credited with creating the Magnus liber organi, (Great Book of the Organum), used in Notre Dame around 1200.

Ars antiqua

1170

Refers to the music of Europe in the late Middle Ages from about 1170 to 1310, covering the period of the Notre Dame School of polyphony and the years after. Includes the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This is followed by other periods in the history of medieval music called ars nova and ars subtilior.

Perotin

1200

French composer. Successor of his teacher Léonin, he is considered the most outstanding representative of the so-called School of Notre Dame de Paris, active during the 13th century and in which the polyphonic style began to take shape. Pérotin distinguished himself in the revision of the collection of polyphony for two voices Magnus liber de Léonin and in the composition of organa and conductus for two , three and four voices .

Alfonso X el Sabio

1221

Alfonso's reign stood out above all in the cultural order. Alfonso X el Sabio is considered the founder of Castilian prose and, in fact, the adoption of Castilian as the official language can be dated to his time. His deep knowledge of astronomy, legal sciences and history and his interest in the most diverse areas of knowledge led him to promote the organization of three great cultural centers that revolved around Toledo, Seville and Murcia.

Guillaume de Machaut

1300

Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300‑1377), a French composer and poet, was the most prolific author of the 14th century, both in music and poetry. In his musical compositions all the usual forms of his time have a place and conservative and progressive elements are mixed.

Ars nova

1310

The Ars Nova was a musical style that flourished mainly in France and Italy during the late Middle Ages in the 14th century (approximately 1310 to 1377). This type of music developed mainly in prestigious environments, such as universities, stately courts and the church. Being the Ars Nova a style subject to the academic field, it was in constant study and development.

Francesco Landini

1325

Francesco Landini or Landino (1325 – 1397) was an Italian composer, organist, singer, poet, instrument maker, and astrologer. He was one of the most famous and admired composers of the second half of the 14th century and without a doubt the most famous composer in Italy.

Guillaume Dufay

1397

Guillaume Dufay was born in 1397, He was a Franco-Flemish composer and musician of the Renaissance. And he died in 1474.

Renaissance

Period: 1401 to 1599

This era is so called because it sought to revive the ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
An intellectual and cultural movement called humanism developed

Musical chapels

1404

Musical chapels were an instrument that contributed to the creation and dissemination of music during the Renaissance in Spain. Although of remote origin in time, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries they reached their greatest splendor as an institution, so that practically each cathedral had its own chapel to musically support liturgical acts and religious events.

Motet

1407

It is a polyphonic composition born in the thirteenth century to be sung in churches, and its themes are commonly biblical. They were songs for religious worship with 4 voices in Latin and "a cappella".

Mass

1409

It is a choral composition that moves the music to fixed sections of the liturgy. Most masses are parts of the liturgy in Latin, the traditional language of the Catholic Church.

Franco-flemish school

1420

The name of this school is due to a region that includes part of Belgium. In this century a group of musicians emerged who renewed the way of composing.

Secular vocal music

1450

Medieval secular music arose to amuse the popular masses through the sung narration of romances, love stories, etc. With this type of music the famous jugglers arose, singers who moved from town to town and from city to city.

Appearance of printing press

1455

Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press

Cromormo

1460

The cromormo is an instrument baton-shaped encapsulated reed woodwind instrument. It enjoyed popularity during the Renaissance.

Harpsichord

1461

The harpsichord is a keyboard and plucked string musical instrument. The person who plays this instrument is called a harpsichordist. The harpsichord was one of the most popular instruments during the Baroque.

Juan del Encina

1468

He was born in 1468. He was a Spanish poet, musician and playwright. he entered the cathedral of Salamanca as a choirboy and later entered the service of the brother of the Duke of Alba, who financed his studies for a bachelor's degree in law at the University of Salamanca. And he died in 1529.

Martín Lutero

1483

Martín Lutero was born in 1483 in Germany.
He was the main promoter of the Protestant Reformation. And he died in 1546.

Josquin des Prés

1489

Josquin des Prés was born in 1450. He was a very famous Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. And he died in 1521.

Cristóbal de Morales

1500

He was a Spanish composer. Master of polyphonic sacred music, his work is considered one of the pinnacles of Spanish Renaissance polyphony. He received musical education from Pedro Fernández de Castilleja, chapel master of the cathedral of Seville. And he died in 1553 in Málaga.

Italian school

1501

Rome and Venice were two of the most important musical centers in Europe

Spanish school

1501

The features that distinguish this school are depth and mysticism or dramatic expressionism.

Protestant reformation

1517

Is the Christian religious movement started in Germany in the 16th century by Martin Luther, which led to a schism in the Catholic Church to give rise to numerous churches and religious currents grouped under the denomination of Protestantism.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

1525

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in 1525. He was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known representative of the 16th-century Roman School of musical composition. And he died in 1594.

Orlando di Lasso

1532

Orlando di Lasso was born in 1532. He was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance. And he died in 1594.

Madrigal

1533

The madrigal is a composition of three to six voices over a secular text, often in Italian. It had its peak in the Renaissance and early Baroque. Musically, it recognizes origins in the frottola, it has lyrics in the Italian language with secular themes, contrapuntal harmony, and a popular character.

Andrea Gabrieli

1533

Andrea Gabrieli was born in 1533 in Venecia. He was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. Uncle of the famous composer Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers. He had great influence in the spread of the Venetian style in both Italy and Germany. And he died in 1585 in Venecia too.

Trento council

1545

In this council the Counter-Reformation was promoted, establishing strict rules for writing Catholic religious music.

Counter Reformation

1545

The Counter Reformation was a period of Catholic revival that included persecution of non-Catholics, efforts against the corruption of the Church, spiritual impulse, and the founding of new religious orders.

Tomás Luis de Victoria

1548

Tomás Luis de Victoria was born in 1548 in Ávila.
He was the greatest Spanish polyphonist of all time and one of the best in Europe of his time. His father died when he was only 9 years old. The following year he became the boy singer of the Ávila cathedral where he would remain until the age of eighteen. In 1571 he returned to the Collegium Germanicum where he was hired as a professor. In 1572 he published his first book of motets. And Tomás Luis de Victoria died in 1611.

Jacobo Peri

1561

Jacopo Peri (August 20, 1561-August 12, 1633) was an Italian composer and singer of the period of transition between the Renacimiento and the Baroque, and is considered the inventor of the opera. He composed the first opera that is preserved: Eurydice (1600) and the one considered the first opera in history, La Dafne (around 1597).

El Escorial Monastery

1563

It includes a royal palace, a basilica, a pantheon, a library, a college and a monastery. It is located in the Spanish town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, in the Community of Madrid, and was built in the 16th century between 1563 and 1584.

Carlo Gesualdo

1566

Carlo Gesualdo was born in 1566. He was an Italian composer, one of the most significant figures in late Renaissance music with intensely expressive madrigals and pieces of sacred music with a chromatism that would not be heard again until the end of the 19th century. And he died in 1613 in Italy.

Claudio Monteverdi

1567

Composer and musician considered one of the most important figures in the history of Western music. A leading figure in the development of the Baroque, his works are considered some of the best examples of that style. His first major work, the collection of madrigals "Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi", was published in 1638 and established him as one of the leading composers of his generation.

La Camerata Fiorentina

1573

The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals, who emerged at the end of the Renaissance of Florence, who met under the patronage of Count Giovanni de Bardi to discuss and guide artistic trends, especially within music and drama. They met from approximately 1573 until the end of 1580, in Bardi's house, and their meetings had a reputation for including almost all the most famous men in Florence as frequent guests.

German opera

1600

German opera dates back to the 17th century where it existed in the form of singspiel, spoken and sung operas. We go back to authors such as Johann Thiele, Reinhard Keizer or Georg Philipp Telemann and also George Friedrich Handel, with his opera Almira from 1705 or Mozart himself who composed his opera The Magic Flute in the purest singspiel style.

Baroque

Period: 1600 to 1750

Baroque music or Baroque music is the European musical style, related to the homonymous cultural era, which covers approximately from the birth of opera around 1600 to the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, in 1750. It is one of the styles of the generally called European classical or cultured music. Characterized by the appearance of tonality and the use of the continuous bass, the Baroque era was the time in which musical forms such as the sonata, the concerto and the opera were created.

Violin

1601

Historically, the violin is considered to have appeared in the 1520s in Italy, more specifically in the Milan region. The documents do not specify who was the first violin maker. Several names are mentioned, but to this day it is still not possible to identify with certainty the creator of the first violin. Among these names, we find for example Andrea Amati. The violin is supposed to have been inspired by three instruments: the rebec, the fidula and the lira da braccio.

Opera

1601

Opera designates a genre of theatrical music in which a stage action is harmonized, sung and has instrumental accompaniment. Performances are usually offered in opera houses, accompanied by an orchestra or a smaller musical group. It is part of the European and Western classical music tradition.

Sonata

1601

The term sonata is used in Italian Baroque to refer generically to a multi-part instrumental composition with a continuous bass, to distinguish it on the one hand from the "cantata".

Concert

1601

The baroque concert can be considered the translation into the instrumental medium of the style defined by serious opera in the field of dramatic music. Like the serious opera, the Baroque concert was born in Italy and spreads rapidly throughout Europe.
The baroque concert is also an ideal means for the exhibition of virtuosity by one or more instrumentalists, accompanied by an orchestra of more continuous bass string instruments, as if it were an opera singer.

Oratory

1601

The oratory is a form of European classical music consisting of choirs, arias and recitatives, performed by soloists, choir and orchestra. The oratory is almost identical to opera, what differentiates one genre from another is that the oratory is performed in the form of a concert without scenic representation, more conservative, with more emphasis on choirs and with a religious theme, although we also find oratorios with non-religious themes and written in the vernacular language.

Passion

1601

Passion is a musical genre that consists of the musicalization of a text directly related to the passion and death of Christ. The text is generally based on one of the four gospels: according to Saint Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, although it can also take up elements of all four. In most cases, however, the story is presented as it appears in one of them.

Suite

1602

The Baroque Suite is made up of baroque dances often beginning with a prelude. The dances share the same tonality. They are ordered to create contrast between tempo and meter. The suite is also known as a partita or sonata.

Cantata

1603

Is a work composed for one or more voices with instrumental accompaniment. It is one of the most important vocal genres that emerged in the Baroque period.

Giacomo Carissimi

1605

Giacomo Carissimi began his musical career as a singer and organist. In 1627 he was appointed choirmaster in Assisi, and from 1628 until his death he held the position of chapel master in the church of San Apolinar, in Rome.

Barbara Strozzi

1619

She was an Italian singer and songwriter from the Baroque period. Barbara was the adopted daughter, and possibly the illegitimate daughter of Giulio Strozzi. The vast majority of her works are works for solo soprano and continuous bass, so it is possible to think that they were written to be performed by herself. His music is deeply rooted in the technique called "second practice", whose main example is the work of Claudio Monteverdi. However, his works have a greater lyrical emphasis.

Italian opera

1637

Is part of various musical influences that have emerged over time and gave life to melodrama, which are known as the most complete musical cultural expression produced in this country. From its beginnings it was one of the shows that was most accepted and liked by the Italian people, thus managing to adapt to any musical era, correctly adopting the aesthetic changes that have arisen over time, without letting the public lose interest. so it continues to hold an important place in their culture.

Antonio Stradivari

1644

Heir to the Cremonese traditions of bowed string instrument construction from his teacher Nicolo Amati, he brought his craft to perfection. He made several changes in the proportions of the instruments, especially the violin. The
secret of his mastery is difficult to explain. There are some that reside in the varnish he used but this is controversial.
Between 1700 and 1725 he made the best of his instruments. Today numerous copies of his violins are preserved, but cellos and violas are rarer.

Henry Purcell

1659

British character of the second half of the 17th century, Purcell, known for his great compositional skills, who brought together Italian and French influence in his work to create his own style of British Baroque. Purcell was born on September 10, 1659, in the county of St. Anne Westminster, England. Purcell, who began composing at the age of nine, was the older of his two brothers.

Antonio Vivaldi

1678

Antonio Vivaldi was born in 1678 in Venice. He was a Baroque Venetian Catholic composer, violinist, impresario, teacher and priest. He was nicknamed Il prete rosso because he was a priest and had red hair. And he died 1741 in Vienna.

Georg Philipp Telemann

1681

Georg Philipp Telemann was born in 1681 in Germany. He was a German Baroque composer, although his work also had characteristics of early classicism. He is considered the most prolific composer in the history of music. Self-taught in music, he studied law at the University of Leipzig. And he died in 1767.

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685

German composer. Considered by many to be the greatest composer of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach was born into a dynasty of musicians and performers who played a decisive role in German music for about two centuries and whose first documented mention dates back to 1561.

Georg Friendrich Händel

1685

A prolific musician like few others, his production covers all genres of his time, with a special predilection for opera and the oratory, to which, with his contribution, he contributed to a stage of great splendor.

The llustration

1685

The llustration was a primarily European cultural and intellectual movement that began in the mid-18th century and lasted until the early years of the 19th century. He was especially active in England, France, and Germany.

Opera buffa

1706

Opera buffa is an opera with a comic theme. It was developed in Naples in the first half of the 18th century. From there it spread to Rome and northern Italy. Its stylistic counterpart is opera seria.

Christoph Willibald Gluck

1714

Christoph Willibald Gluck, was a German composer. He is considered one of the most important opera composers of the Classicism of the second half of the 18th century. He completely reformed the opera by eliminating the da capo arias, suppressing the long dry recitatives with the harpsichord and replacing them with recitatives accompanied by the orchestra, dispensing with the castrati and giving greater relevance to the plot of the works.

Classicism

Period: 1750 to 1820

Classicism is the name of the style of European classical music developed between approximately 1750 and 1820 by composers such as Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Maria Anna Mozart

1751

Maria Anna Mozart was the older sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the daughter of Leopold and Anna Maria Mozart. He soon stood out as a brilliant harpsichord and piano interpreter. His little brother would soon join his classes, also a partner in his games in which they created a fantasy world and became inseparable. When Leopold Mozart decided to show the world the prodigy of his son Wolfgang, he also took Maria Anna with him.

Classical music

1751

Classical music is the musical current that is based mainly on music produced or derived from the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, mainly Western Europe, and that has a fundamentally written transmission referent, which gives it a meaning and rigorous character for its reproduction or interpretation.

Symphony

1751

A symphony is a type of extended musical composition in Western classical music and composed mostly for orchestra. Generally, it is divided into four movements, each with a different moment and structure.

Concert

1751

The concert in classicism is a composition for one or several instruments that act as soloists with orchestral accompaniment. Its name comes from Italian music where it was called concerto per soli, from which, through its abbreviation, the word concert was reached.

Sonata

1751

The Sonata is the great form par excellence of Classicism, and although that name was later used to refer to pieces with several movements, such as Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, its structural form is applied to a single movement. It was used effusively in the first and last movements of the Symphonies and Quartets, in works for soloist and even in works for a single instrument.

Religious vocal music

1753

In religious vocal music, the Catholic Church promotes the singing of masses and motets for various voices. For its part, the German Protestant Church reaffirms the choir as an important work for its faithful to participate singing in the liturgy.

Mass

1753

The Mass is a choral composition that translates the music into fixed sections of the liturgy.​Most Masses are parts of the liturgy in Latin, the traditional language of the Catholic Church.

Oratory

1753

The oratory is a dramatic musical genre without staging, costumes, or decorations. Usually composed for solo voices, choir, and symphony orchestra, sometimes with a narrator, its theme is frequently religious, but it can also be secular. Formally quite close to the cantata and the opera, the oratorio generally comprises an overture, recitatives, arias, and choruses.

Serious opera

1753

Serious opera is a musical term that refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that prevailed in Europe between approximately 1710 and 1770. Opera seria's only popular rival was opera buffa, the comic subgenre on which the comedy of art and its tendency to improvise exerted a great influence. Italian opera seria was composed not only in Italy, but also in Habsburg Austria, Dresden and other German states, England and Spain, among others.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

1756

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was a composer, pianist, conductor and professor of the former Archbishopric of Salzburg, master of Classicism, considered one of the most influential and prominent musicians in history.

Maria Theresia von Paradis

1759

Maria Theresia von Paradis was an Austrian pianist and composer. Despite the fact that she had completely lost her sight since she was three years old, this was not an impediment to the production and work of this great pianist, singer and composer from not failing to stand out. His contributions were essential for the musical education of his time, especially for the blind.

Chamber music

1760

Chamber music is that composed for a small group of instruments, as opposed to orchestral music. The name comes from the places where small groups of musicians rehearsed during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. These rooms, not very large, were called chambers.

Ludwig van Beethoven

1770

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and piano teacher. His musical legacy covers, chronologically, from Classicism to the beginnings of Romanticism.
At the beginning of the 19th century he began to lose his hearing and over the years his deafness reduced his creative capacity.

Romanticism

Period: Jan 1, 1770 to Jan 1, 1850

Romanticism is an artistic and intellectual movement that took place towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century in England, Germany and France, and later spread to the whole world.
Romanticism was a very diverse current because it emphasized subjectivity and emotions. It manifested itself as a break with the principles of the Enlightenment (which held reason as the basis of all knowledge), and exalted the freedom of the individual and his intuitive capacity.

Requiem

1791

The requiem is the mass for the dead, a prayer for the souls of the deceased, carried out just before the burial or in remembrance or commemoration ceremonies.

Gioacchino Rossini

Feb 29, 1792

Italian composer. Chronologically located between the last great representatives of Neapolitan opera (Cimarosa and Paisiello) and the first of the romantic (Bellini and Donizetti), Gioachino Rossini occupies a preponderant place in the Italian lyric repertoire thanks to comic operas such as Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Cenerentola or L'italiana in Algeri, which have given him universal fame, eclipsing other no less valuable titles.

Franz Schubert

1797

Franz Schubert excelled in all musical genres. However, with over 600 songs, he proved to be by far the most creative composer in music history when it comes to beautiful melodies. He turned poems into music, such as Goethe's The King of the Elves and Margaret at the Spinning Wheel. These songs have a powerful undercurrent of mystery, light and darkness that has never existed before. Franz Liszt described Schubert as "the most poetic musician that ever lived".

Hector Berlioz

1803

French composer. Romanticism has in Hector Berlioz one of its paradigmatic figures: his romantic and passionate life and his desire for independence are reflected in a daring music that does not admit rules or conventions and that stands out, above all, for the importance given to the orchestral timbre and the Extramusical, literary inspiration. Not in vain, together with the Hungarian Franz Liszt, Berlioz was one of the main promoters of the so-called program music.

Fanny Mendelssohn

Nov 14, 1805

She was an early Romantic composer and pianist. His compositions include a piano trio, a piano quartet, an orchestral overture, four cantatas, more than 125 piano pieces, and more than 250 lieder, most of which were published posthumously. Although she was praised for her piano playing prowess, she rarely gave concerts in public.

Joseph Haydn

1809

Joseph Haydn, was an Austrian composer. He is one of the greatest representatives of the Classical period, as well as being known as the "father of the symphony" and the "father of the string quartet" thanks to his important contributions to both genres.

Romantic piano

1809

Throughout the 19th century, numerous piano manufacturers were born, including Bösendorfer in Vienna, Steinway & Sons in New York, Bechstein in Berlin and Pleyel in Paris. The piano, indispensable in concert halls, became an essential element in the living rooms of houses in half of Europe. The bourgeoisie, increasingly educated and economically powerful, acquired wall or portable pianos with which to liven up the evenings.

Felix Mendelssohn

1809

German composer, pianist and conductor. His music, of great technical and formal perfection, is a splendid synthesis of classical and romantic elements. A Romantic who cultivated a classical or classical style that reflected a romantic expressiveness, Mendelssohn was one of the most influential and prominent musicians of Romanticism.

Robert Schumann

1810

German composer. Both his life and his work make him one of the paradigms of German musical Romanticism. The son of a bookseller, literature and music shared his artistic concerns during his youth, to the point that Schumann was hesitating between the two vocations.

Frédéric Chopin

Mar 1, 1810

Polish composer and pianist. If the piano is the romantic instrument par excellence, it is largely due to the contribution of Frédéric Chopin: at the opposite end of the orchestral pianism of his contemporary Liszt (representative of the most extroverted and passionate, almost exhibitionist, facet of Romanticism), the Polish composer explored an intrinsically poetic style, with a lyricism as refined as it is subtle, which has not yet been equalled.

Franz Liszt

1811

Hungarian composer and pianist. His life is one of the most exciting novels in the history of music. A peerless virtuoso, throughout his life, and especially during his youth, he surrounded himself with the aura of a brilliant artist, violently torn between mystical rapture and demonic ecstasy.

Giuseppe Verdi

1813

Italian composer. He was the great dominator of the European lyrical scene during the second half of the 19th century. His art was not that of a revolutionary, for him all renewal had to find its reason in the past. Consequently, even without betraying the most characteristic features of the Italian operatic tradition, especially with regard to the type of vocal writing, he managed to give his music a new, more realistic slant and opposed to any unjustified convention.

Richard Wagner

1813

German composer, conductor, poet and music theorist. Although Wagner practically only composed for the stage, his influence on music is an indisputable fact. The great musical currents that emerged later, from expressionism to impressionism and by continuation or by reaction, find their true origin in Wagner, to the point that some critics maintain that all contemporary music is born from harmony, rich in chromaticism and in unresolved dissonances, from Tristan and Isolde.

German lied

Jan 1, 1814

Characteristic song of German Romanticism, written for voice and piano, and whose lyrics are a lyrical poem.

Clara Schumann

1819

German pianist and composer, wife of Robert Schumann, also a German composer and pianist. Professor at the Frankfurt Conservatory from 1872 to 1892 and an excellent interpreter of Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt and Schumann himself, she directed the edition of her husband's works.

Bedrich Smetana

Mar 2, 1824

Czech composer and conductor. Although historically the territories that make up Bohemia have given great names to music, Smetana was the first to know how to express the spirit, essence and desires of his homeland in his works. In this sense, he should be considered the father of the Czech nationalist musical school, whose imprint would be decisive on the authors who followed him, including Dvorak and Janacek.

Johannes Brahms

May 7, 1833

German composer. At a time when the division between supporters and detractors of Richard Wagner reached its highest degree, the figure of Brahms embodied for many of his contemporaries the ideal of a music that continued the classical tradition and of the first romantic generation, opposed to Wagnerian excesses and megalomanias.

The prelude

1835

The prelude essentially belongs to instrumental music, it is a piece of quite variable dimensions that, as its name indicates, its function is to introduce one or more pieces: fugue or dance suite.

Modest Músorgski

1839

The Russian nationalist musical school had its greatest exponents in the members of the so-called Group of Five. Of them, the one who best knew how to reflect the soul of the Russian people, despite the profound deficiencies in his technical training, was Modest Mussorgsky. A self-taught musician, many of his works remained unfinished due to lack of knowledge of the composer's trade, but despite this they reveal a talent and originality that would exert a profound influence on later author.

Anton Dvorák

1841

Czech composer. The son of an innkeeper, since he was a child he showed a willingness for music. He began his studies in Zlonice in 1853 and continued them in Prague during the period 1857-59. Then he played the viola in an orchestra until 1871. At the same time he began his activity as a composer. The first success achieved in this field was a Hymn with a text by Viteslav Hálek; thanks to such work he obtained the position of organist of the church of San Etelberto, which he kept until 1877.

Edvard Grieg

1843

Norwegian composer considered the main representative of nationalist music in his country. Edvard Grieg began his musical training with his mother. In 1858 an important event took place for the musical training of the Norwegian composer: a friend of the Griegs, the composer and violinist Ole Bull, paid them a visit during which he heard the young Edvard play the piano. He was so impressed that he convinced his parents to send him to study at the Leipzig Conservatory.

Nikolái Rimski-Kórsakov

1844

Russian composer and conductor. Between 1856 and 1862 he studied at the St. Petersburg Marine School, while he was trained musically. In 1859 he began studying piano with F. A. Canille, who encouraged him to compose and introduced him to Mily Balakirev and Cesar Cui. Together with these two, as well as Borodin and Mussorgsky, he formed the group of innovators of the Five.

Musical nationalism

1850

Musical nationalism, conceived as the search for its own cultural identity through the use of folkloric elements, is a trend that has had a impact on music composed for symphonic band during the 20th and 21st centuries. The
The possibilities offered by this movement to composers are very rich and varied, since that allow new forms of expression with very particular resources.

Musical drama

1857

Musical drama is a philosophy of Richard Wagner that deals with the intrinsic combination of drama and music, where both systematically express a unified dramatic idea. Wagner's famous “Ring Cycle” was the one that established the innovative genre called “musical drama”.

A symphonic poem

1858

A symphonic poem is a work of extra-musical origin, of a literary poetic nature, whose purpose is to move feelings and awaken sensations, or to describe a scene through music. It generally consists of a single movement and is written for orchestra, although it can be for piano or for small instrumental ensembles. The symphonic poem is a guide for the development of the musical form as such in technical terms.

Ethel Smyth

1858

She was an English composer and one of the leaders of the suffragette movement. Very committed to social causes, during World War I he worked as a radiology assistant at the Vichy Hospital. This experience almost cost him his life, since it entailed hearing problems and in November 1918 he suffered a double pneumonia and pleuritis that he already overcame in England.
In 1922 she was decorated by the Order of the British Empire.

Giacomo Puccini

Dec 22, 1858

Italian composer. Heir to the great Italian lyric tradition, but at the same time open to other currents and styles typical of the turn of the century, Puccini became the great dominator of the international lyric scene during the first decades of the 20th century.

Hugo Wolf

Mar 13, 1860

Austrian composer. His restless and tormented life reflects the spiritual turmoil of late romanticism, to which he passionately adhered. In 1875 he entered the Conservatory in the Austrian capital and began to be in contact with Wagner, who had come to Vienna to take charge of directing Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. This event was decisive for Hugo Wolf, since it helped him to find himself and to initiate a rigorous stylistic study.

Gustav Mahler

Jul 7, 1860

Austrian composer and conductor. , Mahler stated that his music would not be appreciated until fifty years after his death. He was not without reason: valued in his time more as a conductor than as a composer, today he is considered one of the greatest and most original symphonists in the history of the genre.

Claude Debussy

1862

French composer. Initiator and top representative of so-called musical impressionism, his harmonious innovations paved the way for the new musical trends of the twentieth century.

Jean Sibelius

1865

Finnish composer, founder of the modern school of musical composition in his country. Fatherless since he was three years old, he belonged to a family of Swedish descent, which is why this language was spoken at home. Later he learned Finnish at school and took a deeper interest in various aspects of the culture of his country, which until 1917 belonged to Russia.

Leitmotiv

1871

Melody or fundamental idea of ​​a musical composition that is repeated and developed in different ways throughout the entire composition.

Arnold Schönberg

1874

Arnold Schönberg was an Austrian composer, music theorist, and painter of Jewish origin. Since he immigrated to the United States in 1934, he has adopted the name Arnold Schoenberg, and this is how he often appears in English-language publications and throughout the world.

Ravel

1875

Joseph Maurice Ravel was a 20th century French composer. His work, often linked to Impressionism, also displays a bold neoclassical style and, at times, expressionist traits, and is the fruit of a complex heritage and musical discoveries that revolutionized music for piano and orchestra.

Manuel de Falla

1876

Spanish composer. Manuel de Falla from Cadiz is the third of the names that make up the great trilogy of Spanish nationalist music. He was also one of the first composers of this tradition who, cultivating a style as unequivocally Spanish as it is far from the topic, knew how to make himself known successfully throughout Europe and America, and with this he surpassed the isolation and subordination to other traditions to which Hispanic music seemed condemned since the 18th century.

Béla Bartók

1881

Hungarian composer. Together with his compatriot Zoltán Kodály, Bela Bartok is the most important composer that Hungarian music has produced throughout its history and one of the essential figures on which contemporary music is based.

Zoltán Kodály

1882

Hungarian composer, music critic and ethnic musicologist. In 1900 he moved to Budapest, and studied composition at the Musical Academy, and Philology at the university. Between 1906 and 1907 he perfected his studies in Paris with C. Widor, and when he returned to his homeland he was appointed professor at the Musical Institute of the capital, where he had been a student.

Joaquín Turina

1882

He was a Spanish composer and musicologist representing nationalism in the first half of the 20th century. Manuel de Falla, Isaac Albéniz and he composed the most important works of Impressionism in Spain. His most important works are Fantastic Dances and The Rocío Procession.

Stravinski

1882

Russian composer nationalized French and, later, American. One of the key dates that point to the birth of so-called contemporary music is May 29, 1913, the day on which Stravinsky's ballet The Consecration of Spring premiered. Its polytonal harmony, its abrupt and dislocated rhythms and its aggressive orchestration provoked in the audience one of the greatest scandals in the history of the art of sounds.

Heitor Villa-Lobos

1887

Brazilian composer. Author of a catalog of colossal proportions, with close to two thousand compositions covering all genres, Héitor Villa-Lobos is the essential figure of Brazilian music. From an indigenous mother, he received his first musical lessons from his father, an amateur cellist. The cello, precisely, was going to be his first musical instrument; later he learned to play the piano and various wind instruments.

Verismo

1896

Puccini is the last representative of verismo, from which he is moving away as his production is diversifying. He dedicated himself almost exclusively to theater music, although he only composed 12 operas. Fundamental ingredients: variety, speed, synthesis, psychological depth and scenic finds galore. He did not enjoy the favor of critics.
He has an eclectic bent, taking in several different musical languages ​​and cultures.

George Gershwin

Sep 26, 1898

American composer. He was the first to make a voice heard that was unmistakably indigenous, yet capable at the same time. time, to achieve success outside the borders of their homeland. And he did so through works that skilfully synthesized elements from jazz and the classical tradition, and which allowed him to stand out equally in fields as disparate as symphonic and popular music.

The nocturne

1900

Piece of vocal or instrumental music, with a sweet melody and free structure. The denomination "nocturne" was given, in the first instance, in the 18th century, to a piece played at times, generally at night parties and then left aside.

Romantic symphony

1900

This symphony is constructed as a sonata for orchestra. This symphony begins with a slow rhythm that consists of an introduction, reminiscent of Beethoven's drama. The romantic symphony is considered an orchestral form since it developed with extensive sequences established by the musicians.

Impressionism

Period: 1900 to 1999

Musical Impressionism is, in its most restricted sense, the musical style synthesized by Claude Debussy and amplified by the musical cosmopolitanism of the Paris of the Belle Époque. Debussy crossed the most advanced currents of French and Russian music of his time, from the modalism of the French neo-Greek movement to harmonic experiments - non-functional link of chords, scale/harmonia of whole tones, harmonic spatiality - of composers such as Musorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.

Ruth Crawford

Jul 3, 1901

She was an American composer. He actively participated in the dissemination of contemporary music and was one of the founders of the International Society for Contemporary Music. A scholarship granted by the Gugenheim Foundation, in 1930, allowed him to spend a fruitful season in Europe, where he came into contact with the most important composers of the time, such as Bela Bartók, Arnold Schönberg or Alban Berg, and also managed to make his own music known outside of America.

Oliver Messiaen

1908

French composer, organist, pedagogue and ornithologist. A deep Catholic faith, the fascination with Hinduism, the seduction by instrumental color and, above all, the love of birds and nature are some of the heterogeneous elements on which the personal style of Olivier Messiaen is based, an author that is difficult to encase in a specific current.

Pierre Schaeffer

1910

Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer was a French composer. He is considered the creator of concrete music. He is the author of the book titled Tratado de los objetos musicales, where he exposes all his theory on this type of music. He composed different works, all of them based on the technique of concrete music.

Expressionism

1912

Expressionism was an movement that emerged in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century, coinciding with French Fauvism, with which it has many points in common.
It has a more pessimistic nuance, uglier, so to speak, since the German expressionists did not skimp on showing the morbid, the forbidden, the obscene... It comes to be a distortion of reality to express it in a more subjective way.

John Cage

1912

American composer. Also a poet and essayist, he is placed within the American avant-garde current of the second half of the twentieth century, influential both in contemporary experimental trends in the United States and Latin America.

Neoclassicism

1920

Neoclassicism is mainly to rescue certain characteristics of music during classicism (developed in Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries, by musicians such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Haydn) and also a little music during the Baroque period (17th century, with musicians such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel and Antonio Vivaldi), to mix the excellence of academic

Dodecaphonism

1921

Dodecaphonism is a composition technique based on the systematic use of the twelve sounds of the western tempered chromatic scale. That is, the seven natural sounds (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La and Si) plus the five altered sounds (Do#/Re♭, Re#/Mi♭, Fa#/Sol♭, Sol#/La ♭ and A#/B♭).

Pierre Henry

1927

Pierre Henry was a French musician, considered the creator, along with Pierre Schaeffer, of the so-called concrete music and one of the godfathers of electroacoustic music.

Philip Glass

1937

Is a composer of American minimalist classical music. He studied at the Juilliard School in New York. His international recognition increased since the appearance of his opera Einstein on the Beach. Prolific composer, he has worked in various fields such as opera, orchestral music, chamber music or cinema. He usually works with the Philip Glass Ensemble. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, Doris Lessing and Robert Wilson.

Concrete music

1948

Concrete music is considered the first musical manifestation that uses electronic media. This type of music starts from noise or natural sounds. Its origin dates back to 1948, when at the French Broadcasting Studio, Pierre Schaeffer offered his Noise Studies.

Integral Serialism

1950

Integral Serialism is a movement that takes place from the second half of the twentieth century. It consists of the application of the series concept, introduced by Dodecaphonism, to all the integral parameters of the sound (timbre, height, duration, intensity...), and not only at the height of the notes.

Random music

1950

From 1950, random music (or random music) was introduced, which is based on elements not regulated by established guidelines and in which it acquires a role generating improvisation. Such traits can be fixed on the creation of the author or on the development of the interpretation itself.

Electronic music

1952

Electronic music is that type of music that uses electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology for its production and performance. In general, one can distinguish between the sound produced by using electromechanical means, from that produced by electronic technology, which can also be mixed. Some examples of devices that produce sound electro-mechanically are the telarmonium, the Hammon organ, and the electric guitar.