Timeline One: Medieval/Ren (476-1430-1600)

The School of Notre Dame (476-1450)

476

The Notre Dame school is important to the history of music because it produced the earliest repertory of polyphonic (multipart) music to gain international prestige and circulation.

Middle Ages: The Beginning

476

The Middle Ages; aka 'the medieval time period'; began after the fall of the Roman Empire, which later transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery periods.

Gregorian/Plain Chant- (476-1430)

476

The church suppressed the most popular music of the time, which then resulted in Gregorian chant. Plainchant/Gregorian Chant- *Monophonic sacred song*Unaccompanied*Limited range*Free rhythm (non-metrical)*Used the 8 church modes. *Latin Text *Modal Music *A cappella.

The Middle Ages: Musical Views (476-1430)

476

Divine: Music came from God.
Cosmic: Music was actively being created in the movements of the stars and planets-the music of the spheres.

Middle Ages: 476-1430

Period: 476 to 1430

Chinese Buddhist Chant (220–589)

589

A Buddhist chant is a form of musical verse or incantation, in some ways analogous to religious recitations of other faiths.

Ethiopian Orthodox Chant: 501-600

600

Ethiopian Orthodox Chant was brought around the 6th century. It is a form of Christian liturgical chant, and the related musical notation is known as 'Melekket'.

The 8 Church Modes

749

Seven of them were given names identical with those used in the musical theory of ancient Greece: Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, and Mixolydian, while the name of the eighth mode, Hypomixolydian, was adapted from the Greek.

'Neumes'

800

Notes were called 'Neumes', they were considered to be; Melismatic: many notes per syllable,

Guido d’Arezzo: 991 CE-1033 CE

991

Guido d’Arezzo was an Italian Benedictine monk, a music theorist, and a pedagogue of High medieval music. He is also credited with inventing the musical staff, which replaced neumatic notation that was popular at the time.

The Musical Staff

1000

Guido d’Arezzo- Created and is the founder of the invention of the musical staff.

Diastematic Notation

1001

One of Guido's contributions was the creation of the 'Diastematic Notation'. Diastematic Notation is a musical notation in which the pitch of a note is represented by its vertical position on the page.

Discant Organum- (1001-1200)

1001

"Discant organum" refers to the two voices falling into a rhythmic mode -- a 6/8 or 9/8 feel -- singing more or less at the same rate for a passage. In the 11th and 12th centuries, octaves, fourths, and fifths were considered consonant; but not thirds yet.

The Crusades (1095-1291)

1095

The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to recover Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Islamic rule.

Saint Hildegard:1098 CE-1179 CE

1098

Saint Hildegard von Bingen, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as the first female composer, writer, philosopher, mystic, and visionary during the High Middle Ages. She wrote liturgical dramas and religious poetry.

Dulcimer (1101-1200)

1101

The dulcimer is a late medieval instrument which is very much like the psaltery. The significant difference is that the strings of the dulcimer were struck with little hammers rather than being plucked.

Leonin (1135-1201

1135

Leonin was the first known significant composer of polyphonic organum. He was a cantor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Perotin (1160-1230)

1160

Pérotin was a composer associated with the Notre Dame school of polyphony in Paris and the broader ars Antiqua musical style of high medieval music. Both Perotin and Leonin were cantors at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Perotin may have studied with Leonin.

Vielle (1201-1300)

1201

The vielle is a European bowed stringed instrument used in the medieval period, similar to a modern violin but with a somewhat longer and deeper body, three to five gut strings, and a leaf-shaped pegbox with frontal tuning pegs, sometimes with a figure-8 shaped body. The vielle was well-known and popular in both knee-held and shoulder-held forms by the middle of the 13th century and was documented by Jerome of Moravia (who died after 1271).

Gunpowder (1267)

1267

Although gunpowder was originally invented in the 9th century in Asia, it was not prominent in Europe, until it appeared in Roger Bacon's Opus Majus in 1267. With the introduction of Gunpowder, it signaled the end of the age of knighthood

Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)

1291

Philippe de Vitry was a French composer, music theorist, and poet. He was an accomplished, innovative, and influential composer. He was also the first composer of the Ars Nova.

Russian Orthodox Chant: 1001-1300

1300

The Russian Orthodox Chant was a monophonic, or unison, chant. Chanting in Russia almost certainly followed Byzantine melodies, which were adapted to the accentual patterns of the Old Church Slavonic language.

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)

1300

Guillaume de Machaut was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the ars nova style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to separate the ars nova from the subsequent ars subtilior movement. He was one of the most famous composer and poet of the time.

The Lute (1301-1500)

1301

Lutes were in widespread use in Europe at least since the 13th century, and documents mention numerous early performers and composers. However, the earliest surviving lute music dates from the late 15th century.

Francesco Landini (1325-1397)

1325

Francesco Landini was an Italian composer, organist, singer, poet and instrument maker who was a central figure of the Trecento style in late Medieval music. One of the most revered composers of the second half of the 14th-century, he was by far the most famous composer in Italy.

Dordrecht Recorder (1335-1418)

1335

Amongst the oldest surviving more-or-less complete recorders, the so-called Dordrecht Recorder. The recorder, which has become the most widely popular of all end-blown flutes, came into being in Europe during the Middle Ages.

The Bubonic Plague- (1346-1353)

1346

The Black Death was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Afro-Eurasia from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the death of 75–200 million people in Eurasia and North Africa, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.

John Dunstable (1390-1453)

1390

John Dunstaple was an English composer who was the leading composer of 15th century England and among the most influential composers of his time. Composers who heard his music were impressed by the “English quality” (la contenance angloise).

Joan of Arc: Siege of Orleans (1428-1429)

Jan 1, 1429

The Siege of Orleans was the watershed of the Hundred Years' War between France and England. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who, believing that she was acting under divine guidance, led the French army in a momentous victory at Orléans in 1429 that repulsed an English attempt to conquer France during the Hundred Years' War.

Middle Ages: The End

1430

In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the Post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery.

The Renaissance:1430-1600

Period: 1430 to 1600

The Renaissance period was the rebirth of these complex subjects; cultural, artistic, political, and economic. The subjects that were mostly focused on during this timespan were; Religion, Science, and The Arts.

Johannes Tinctoris (1435-1511)

1435

Johannes Tinctoris was a composer and music theorist: wrote about contemporary music. He wrote the first dictionary of musical terms: Diffinitorum musices (1475).

Printing Press (1440)

1440

Johannes Gutenberg was a political exile from Mainz, Germany when he began experimenting with printing in Strasbourg, France in 1440. He returned to Mainz several years later and by 1450, had a printing machine perfected and ready to use commercially: The Gutenberg press.

Crumhorns (1440)

1440

The first definite record of crumhorns is the Krummpfeyffen, meaning curved/crooked pipes, at the 15th-century court of Albrecht Achilles of Ansbach (reigned 1440–1486), in what is now Germany.

Movable type (1450)

1450

Goldsmith and inventor Johannes Gutenberg was a political exile from Mainz, Germany when he began experimenting with printing in Strasbourg, France in 1440. Movable type is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document usually on the medium of paper.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Apr 15, 1452

Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. He is most famous for his creation of the painting 'Mona Lisa's Smile'.

Gaudenzio Ferrari (1475-1546)

1475

Gaudenzio Ferrari was an Italian painter and sculptor of the Renaissance. From his paintings, we were able to trace back the historical events of the creation of many instruments; such as the violin and the cello.

Viola Organista (1480)

1480

The viola organista is a musical instrument designed by Leonardo da Vinci. It uses a friction belt to vibrate individual strings, with the strings selected by pressing keys on a keyboard.

Age of Discovery: Cape of Good Hope (1488)

1488

Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488

Age of Discovery: Bahamas (1492)

1492

Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492

Pope Borgia (1492-1498)

1492

Rodrigo Borgia was appointed Pope Alexander VI in 1492, a rule considered broadly corrupt, and he had Savonarola excommunicated, tortured, and killed in 1498.

Italian Wars (1494-1559)

1494

The Italian Wars involved most of the major states of Western Europe in a series of conflicts fought between 1494 and 1559 in Italy during the Renaissance, the year the French king Charles VIII invaded Italy. It is referred to as the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars.

'The Last Supper' (1495-1498)

1495

The Last Supper is a late 15th-century mural painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci housed by the refectory of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. It is one of the Western world's most recognizable paintings.

Leonardo's robot (1495)

1495

Leonardo's robot, or Leonardo's mechanical knight, was a humanoid automaton designed and possibly constructed by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1495. The design notes for the robot appear in sketchbooks that were rediscovered in the 1950s.

The Violin (1501-1530)

1501

The violin was invented around the early 16th century. The earliest evidence for its' existence is in paintings by Gaudenzio Ferrari from the 1530s, though Ferrari's instruments had only three strings.

Politics & Reformation: (1501-1550)

1501

By the first half of the 16th century, the Renaissance was impacting and impacted by political events throughout Europe. In 1503, Julius II was appointed pope, bringing in the start of the Roman Golden Age. Henry VIII came to power in England in 1509 and Francis I succeeded to the French Throne in 1515. Charles V took power in Spain in 1516, and in 1530, he became Holy Roman Emperor, the last emperor to be so crowned. In 1520, Süleyman “the Magnificent” took power in the Ottoman Empire.

Mona Lisa (1503)

1503

The Mona Lisa is considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. It has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". Today it has been in the 'Louvre Museum' since 1797.

Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)

1505

He was an English composer who wrote a 40-voice part motet. Thomas Tallis occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. He is considered one of England's greatest composers, and he is honored for his original voice in English musicianship.

Arcadelt (1505-1568)

1505

Jacques Arcadet was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in both Italy and France, and principally known as a composer of secular vocal music.

Cipriano (1516-1565)

1516

Cipriano De Rore was one of the most important composers of the middle decades of the 16th century. Although he lived to be only 49 years old, his music, particularly his Italian madrigals, underwent profound changes in style from his early to his late works. His innovations both in harmonic language and in texture created a dramatic style intensely expressive of the text and very important for later developments in the madrigal.

Philipp de Monte (1521-1603)

1521

Philipp de Monte: He was a Flemish composer of the late Renaissance active all over Europe. He was a member of the 3rd generation madrigalists and wrote more madrigals than any other composer of the time. He composed in total1073 madrigals.

Palestrina- (1525-1594)

1525

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was one of the most famous composers during the Renaissance period. He had a vast influence on the development of Roman Catholic church music. His work can be seen as a summation of Renaissance polyphonic musical textures.

The Italian Madrigal (1530s+)

1530

Used aristocratic poetry. Flourished in Italian courts. Spread to England. Instruments participated but were rarely notated. The first madrigals were homorhythmic and 4 solo voices (similar to a frottola). 5 solo voices became the norm around 1550: by 1600 no restrictions. Became the experimental genre for the Baroque style.

Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594)

1532

Orlando di Lasso was a composer of the late Renaissance, chief representative of the mature polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school, and considered to be one of the three most famous and influential musicians in Europe at the end of the 16th century.

Shakespeare (1564-1616)

1564

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

Monteverdi (1567-1643)

1567

Claudio Monteverdi:
Moved music from the Renaissance style to the Baroque
He wrote 9 books of madrigals
During the Baroque era, he composed several operas

The English Madrigal: (1588-1627)

1588

Originated in northern Italy during the 14th century, declined and all but disappeared in the 15th, flourished anew in the 16th, and ultimately achieved international status in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At first, they were translated Italian madrigals. Often characterized by nonsense syllables-- even when the text was serious.

The Microscope (1590)

1590

Every major field of science has benefited from the use of some form of the microscope, an invention that dates back to the late 16th century, and a modest Dutch eyeglass maker named Zacharias Janssen. While extremely rough in image quality and magnification compared to modern versions, the Janssen microscope was nonetheless a seminal advance in scientific instrumentation.