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Period: 1 CE to 1400
Ancient and Medieval
In ancient Greece, philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle believed that music could impact one's ETHOS. However, both philosophers had different Ideas as to what music was appropriate for consumption. Plato encouraged people to listen to music in the Dorian and Phrygian modes (or harmoniai). Centuries later in the Christian church, St. Augustine addresses in his text, Confessions. In his text, he warn's of music’s power to promote good habits of worship or a rise in secular Ideas -
1098
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
also known as Saint Hildegard; was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. -
1140
Comtessa da Dia (1140-1212)
one of few female poets of her time, Comtessa da dia is known for her "a chantar" -
1160
Perotin (1160-1230)
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. He is credited with developing the polyphonic practices of his predecessor, Léonin, with the introduction of three and four-part harmonies. -
1300
Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377)
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 successive ars subtilior. he is also regarded as the most significant French composer and poet of the 14th century and is often seen as the century's leading European composer. -
1390
John Dunstable (1390-1453)
Although not born in the era, his works greatly affected the renaissance era, because they adopted the use of more 3rds and 6ths(rather than the use of 4ths and 5ths or 2nds and 7ths from the renaissance era), this extra harmony impressed European composers because of its English quality and the style became known as triadic music. Dunstable is seen as a transitional figure because his style of music distinguished the Renaissance era from the medieval era. -
1397
Guillaume Du Fay (1397-1474)
in 1440 Du Fay went to Cambrai cathedral to supervise the music. In his time, he wrote over 90 motets, 87 chansons. He is said to have developed fauxbourdon and is revered as the first important renaissance defining composer. -
1400
Gilles Binchois (1400-1460)
Binchois wrote church and secular music a collection of 28 mass sections, 29 motets, 51 rondeaux, and 7 ballades. In 1430 Binchois joined the chapel of Philip the good of burgundy where he wrote music until his death in 1460 -
Period: 1400 to
Renaissance
Throughout the Renaissance, aristocratic courts established a system of support for music and the arts. The Renaissance is often described as European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, which falls later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines of art. -
Period: 1400 to
Renaissance era melodies
many melodies during the renaissance era were mostly melismatic occasionally using wide leaps for the expression of word-painting but in most cases were mainly conjunct as opposed to disjunct. In most compositions, the melody was given to the highest voice. Many secular compositions began using pre-existing melodies of plainchant and referred to them as cantus firmi, the combination of secular and sacred music later led to the catholic church calling for reform and asking composers to stop. -
Period: 1400 to
Rhythm and Harmony
Rhythms in the Renaissance era were simpler compared to those from the Medieval and Baroque. groupings of triple and duple were used next to each other as shown by the text.
Harmony during the renaissance began to focus on intervals of 3rds and 6ths, this became the distinguishing harmony of the renaissance because of a preference to consonance rather than dissonance, in cases which used dissonance were often set up to resolve into consonance. the harmonic structure was still based on modality -
Period: 1400 to
Polyphony
a major aspect of the music during the Renaissance was Polyphony. based on the principle of imitation, musical ideas are exchanged between voices often imitating each other in different registers. many composers used a fixed melody (known as Cantus Firmus) in one voice to use ornamentation in other voices. -
1440
Printing press
The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg, the press allowed opportunities for musicians to make copies of musical scores and also helped preserve music -
1450
Josquin Dez Prez (1450-1521)
regarded as the master of notes by Martin Luther in his 95 thesis, Dez Prez was a great influence on future composers and known widely for his work with motets having written over 50 motets, 65 chansons, and 18 masses. -
1450
Motets
a popular genre of the renaissance, the motet was a sacred work with Latin text, used in mass and other religious services. motets were appealing to composers because they combined texts of praise, with prayers. motets that praised the virgin mary and were popular during this era because of Europe's devotion to her -
1510
Loys Bourgeois (1510-1561)
Loys Bourgeois was a French composer who wrote, compiled, and edited many melodic settings of Psalms in the Genevan Psalter. He moved to Geneva in 1541 and lived with John Calvin from 1545 to 1557. Bourgeois was made a citizen of Geneva in 1547. In 1551 he was imprisoned for a day for tampering with the accepted Psalm tunes without authorization, but Calvin secured his release, and eventually, Bourgeois’s alterations were approved. -
1517
Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther presents his ninety-five thesis (a list of reforms) to the catholic church, after which he was excommunicated from the church. In his thesis, Luther believes that monophonic congregational singing in vernacular should be the basis of Christian worship, but also encouraged his followers to polyphony to worship so it would enhance unison singing. -
1525
Palestrina (1525-1594)
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He had a long-lasting influence on the development of the church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint, and his work is considered the culmination of Renaissance polyphony. -
1545
Counter reformation/Council of trent
movement by the catholic church in an attempt to regulate every aspect of discipline in the church. Cardinals in the council claimed that traditional chants have been corrupt by singers adding embellishments to the melodies, and refused to use certain instruments during mass. many even called for abolishing polyphony entirely. -
1557
Gabrieli (1557-1612)
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms. -
1563
John Dowland (1563-1626)
John Dowland was a Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists. -
1567
Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, string player, choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is often considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history. Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua and then in the Republic of Venice, he became the maestro di cappella at the basilica of San Marco until his death. -
1576
Weelkes (1576-1623)
Thomas Weelkes was an English composer and organist. He became organist of Winchester College in 1598, moving to Chichester Cathedral. His works are mainly vocal and include madrigals, anthems, and services. -
F. Caccinni (1587-1640)
Francesca Caccini was an Italian composer, singer, lutenist, poet, and music teacher of the early Baroque era. She was the daughter of Giulio Caccini. Her only surviving stage work, La liberazione di Ruggiero, is widely considered the oldest opera by a woman composer.[2] -
Opera
The Camerata realized that their homophonic approach to music and short poems could be applied to entire dramas, which led up to the baroque innovation of "music through drama" also known as opera. -
Figured bass
A new style of notation followed the new style of music, where the composer would write intervals above or below the bass note that would identify the chord, which performers would fill in with harmonies. This is known today as figured bass and led to the development of major and minor tonality, in which each chord could assume its function in relation to the key center. -
Period: to
Baroque
the term baroque has been widely used since the 19th century to describe the period in Western European art music from 1600 to 1750. Largely known for the music of Bach and Handel’s era sounding overly ornamented and exaggerated as well as one of the richest and most diverse periods in music history. -
Period: to
Homophony
the style of early baroque was defined by the shift from polyphony to homophony. a group of Florentine writers, artists, and musicians known as the Camerata, wanted to resurrect the musical art of ancient Greece, although they didn't have much information, they assumed that it enhanced the emotional power of text. They then decided that their "new style" would consist of a melody that moved freely above simple chords. -
Chiara Margarita Cozzolani (1602-1678)
Chiara became a member of the St. Radegunda covenant, where late she would serve as director of one of the choirs and would compose motets and the large-scale Magnificat-Canticle of Mary which closes with the Doxology, a prayer to god, which is still relevant today in Christian services. -
Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677)
Barbara Strozzi was an Italian composer and singer of the Baroque Period. During her lifetime, Strozzi published eight volumes of her own music and had more secular music in print than any other composer of the era. This was achieved without any support from the Church and with no consistent patronage from the nobility. -
De La Guerre (1665-1729)
Élisabeth de La Guerre was a French musician, harpsichordist and composer. Born into a family of musicians and master instrument makers in Paris. She received her initial musical education from her father. And at the age of five, Louis XIV took notice of her when she performed, evidently as a child prodigy, at his palace of Versailles which eventually led to her becoming a musician in the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King. She wrote most of her works for her king, which was common. -
Vivaldi (1678-1741)
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher, impresario, and Roman Catholic priest. Vivaldi composed many instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of other musical instruments, as well as sacred choral works and more than fifty operas. His best-known work is a series of violin concertos known as the Four Seasons -
Handel (1685-1759)
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, and organ concertos. He was strongly influenced both by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition and by composers of the Italian Baroque. In turn, Handel's brought Italian opera to its highest development, creating the genres of English oratorio and organ concerto, and introducing a new style into English church music. He is consistently recognized as one of the greatest composers of his age -
John Gay (1685-1732)
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera, a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. -
J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the Brandenburg Concertos; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard works such as the Goldberg Variations and The Well-Tempered Clavier; organ works such as the Schubler Chorales and the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. -
Fortepiano
the fortepiano was invented in 1700 by Bartolomeo Cristofori. The idea that differentiated the fortepiano from the organ or the harpsichord is that the fortepiano was essentially able to play in the dynamic extremes of fortissimo and pianissimo -
Johann Stamitz (1717-1757)
Johann Stamitz was a Bohemian composer and violinist. His two surviving sons, Carl and Anton Stamitz, were composers of the Mannheim school, of which Johann is considered the founding father. His music is stylistically transitional between the Baroque and Classical periods. -
Symphony
the symphony was developed to showcase the capabilities of a full orchestra, this was the reason for the growing attraction of the orchestra during the classical era. -
Period: to
Classical
The Classical era of music falls roughly around 1750-1820 and encompasses composers such as Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven. The Classical era saw the formalization of fixed structures, compositional techniques, and orchestral sizes and shapes in the symphony, comic operas, and the Classical piano sonata. -
Haydn (1732-1809)
Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was fundamental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have led him to be called "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet". Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for the wealthy Esterházy family at their Eszterháza Castle. -
Cadenza
the classical era shifted the concertos emphasis on solo instrument and orchestra, this feature was known as a cadenza, a virtuosic solo passage that is an improvisation toward the end of a movement. the orchestra becomes silent and the soloist gets to improvise a set on the themes of the movement. -
Mozart (1756-1791)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was an influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition resulted in more than 800 works of virtually every genre of his time. Many of these compositions are acknowledged as pinnacles of the symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral repertoire. Mozart is among the greatest composers in the history of Western music, with music admired for "its formal elegance and its richness of harmony and texture". -
Beethoven (1770-1827)
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. His works span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. His early period lasted until 1802. From 1802 to around 1812, his middle period showed an individual development from the styles of Haydn and Mozart and is sometimes characterized as heroic and he began to grow increasingly deaf. In his late period, from 1812 to 1827, he extended his innovations in musical form and expression. -
Schubert (1797-1828)
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and Winterreise -
Period: to
19th Century (Romantic)
The 19th century brought great change to western societies as they began to advance and hit the peak industrial revolution.
The lives of musicians, composers, and makers of musical instruments were greatly altered by these social changes. With the rise of the middle class, more people wanted access to music performances and music education.
Romanticism replaced the ideals of order and valued and idealized the natural world, the life of the common man, and the importance of emotion in art. -
Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
Fanny Mendelssohn, born in Berlin, Germany in 1805, sibling of Felix Mendelssohn. Fanny learned the piano from her mother and studied music theory and composition with Carl Zelter. because of her gender, her father discouraged her to follow a career in music. so in 1829, Fanny married Wilhelm Hensel, a renowned court artist. fanny continued to make music every Sunday until she died of a stroke on May 13th, 1847. -
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
born in Hamburg, Germany. Mendelssohn was already directing orchestras at the age of 17, specifically performing his overture to a midsummer night's dream. at twenty-six, Mendelssohn became the conductor for the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and later founded the conservatory, Leipzig. Felix died six months after the death of his sister Fanny Mendelssohn. over his career Mendelssohn wrote over five symphonies, two piano concertos, and two oratorios. -
Chopin (1810-1849)
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation." -
Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Clara Josephine Schumann was a German pianist, composer, and piano teacher. Regarded as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era, she exerted her influence over a 61-year concert career, changing the format and repertoire of the piano recital from displays of virtuosity to programs of serious works. She also composed solo piano pieces, a piano concerto, chamber music, choral pieces, and songs. -
Program Music
program music was a turn away from absolute music. This presentation of music became more common as musicians became more conscious of the connection between music and the world around them. this brought music closer to poetry and painting and helped composers relate their music to the moral and political issues of their time. -
Minstrelsy
Minstrel shows were a form of entertainment done by white Americans in blackface which painted false realities of what slave life was like on plantations. Minstrelsy was a way that music was popularized in America during the 1800s. -
Johannes Brahms(1833-1897)
Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany. he began performing on the piano at the age of 10, eventually Brahms moved in with Robert Schumann and his wife because Schumann saw the potential of Brahms as a leader. the death of Brahms's mother leads him to write the german requiem. over his career, he wrote over four symphonies and four concertos. -
Bizet (1838-1875)
Georges Bizet was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire. -
Dvorak (1841-1904)
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer, one of the first Czech composers to achieve worldwide recognition. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia, following the Romantic-era nationalist example of his predecessor Bedřich Smetana. Dvořák's style has been described as "the fullest recreation of a national idiom with that of the symphonic tradition, absorbing folk influences and finding effective ways of using them". -
Strauss (1864-1949)
Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. -
Schoenberg (1874-1951)
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and the leader of the Second Viennese School. As a Jewish composer, Schoenberg was targeted by the Nazi Party, which labeled his works as degenerate music and forbade them from being published. He emigrated to the United States in 1933. -
Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century and a pivotal figure in modernist music. He is best known for his three ballets commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev and first performed in Paris by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). -
Copland (1900-1990)
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Composers". The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape. He is best known for the works he wrote in the 1930s and 1940s including Appalachian Spring and Rodeo -
Period: to
20th Century
The 20th century was the first century of recorded music. the political tension across the globe made way for tons of art movements including modernism, soviet realism, and minimalism. Art began to be used as a medium for propaganda which would lead to the cold war. The height of WWII led to the immigration of Jewish composers like Schoenberg to America -
Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist. He is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century as well as one of its most popular.
Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of the Soviet chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex relationship with the government, from which he earned state awards and privileges. -
Margaret Bonds(1913-1972)
Margaret Allison Bonds was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and teacher. One of the first Black composers and performers to gain recognition in the United States, she is best remembered today for her popular arrangements of African-American spirituals and frequent collaborations with Langston Hughes. -
Ginastera (1916-1983)
Alberto Ginastera was an Argentinian composer of classical music who studied at the Williams Conservatory in Buenos Aires, graduating in 1938. he would study under Copland between 1945-47. Ginastera describes his music in three periods "Objective Nationalism" (1934–1948), "Subjective Nationalism" (1948–1958), and "Neo-Expressionism" (1958–1983). -
Socialist realism
Socialist Realism, is an officially sanctioned theory and method of literary composition prevalent in the Soviet Union from 1932 to the mid-1980s. Socialist Realism looks back to Romanticism and encourages a certain heightening and idealizing of heroes and events to mold the consciousness of the masses. Hundreds of positive heroes—usually engineers, inventors, or scientists—created to this specification were strikingly alike in their lack of lifelike credibility. -
Philip Glass (1937)
Philip Morris Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically. -
Julia Wolfe (1958)
Julia Wolfe is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to The Wall Street Journal, Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are recharged by the repetitive patterns of minimalism and the driving energy of rock". Her work Anthracite Fields, an oratorio for chorus and instruments, was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Music. -
Bright Sheng (1955)
Bright Sheng is a Chinese-born American composer, pianist, and conductor. Most of Sheng's musical career has followed the path of mixing Western cultures and Asian cultures into his pieces, leading his music to be performed in both Asia and the United States, as well as around the world. he is also a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist. His music has been commissioned and performed by virtually every major American symphony orchestra. -
David Lang (1957)
David Lang is an American composer living in New York City. Co-founder of the musical collective Bang on a Can, he was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Music for The Little Match Girl Passion, which went on to win a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance by Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices. -
Minimalism
Minimalism originated in underground activity in the cinema, music, painting, and sculpture in the late 1950s and early 1960s, centered in New York and San Francisco. Between early minimalist composers, performances often took place in galleries and lofts rather than traditional concert venues. Minimalist composers were reacting against the complexity, density, and sheer difficulty of recent modernist music. -
Jerod Tate (1968)
Jerod Tate is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist. His compositions are inspired by American Indian history and culture, and he makes use of traditional instruments. With both parents involved in music, theatre, and dance, he grew up immersed in classical music. His parents recognized and nurtured Jerod's musical talent, they were influential in encouraging his work in music. -
Caroline Shaw(1982)
Caroline Shaw: American composer, violinist, and vocalist. She received degrees from Rice and Yale and became a doctoral fellow at Princeton University in 2010. Her piece Partita for Eight Voices won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, making her the youngest recipient of the award, ever. The première of Partita was performed by the vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, whom she regularly performs with. As a violinist, she performs with the American contemporary music ensemble. -
Kendrick Lamar (1987)
Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is an American rapper, songwriter, and record producer. Since his mainstream debut in 2012 with Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Lamar has been regarded as one of the most influential rappers of his generation and one of the greatest rappers of all time. Aside from his solo career, he is also known as a member of the hip hop supergroup Black Hippy alongside his Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) labelmates Ab-Soul, Jay Rock, and Schoolboy Q. -
Period: to
21st century
music of the 21st century is mostly post-modernist, drawing on many different styles and open to a great many influences. however, it is still a struggle to encourage the public to listen to contemporary music. The growing trends in the 21st century combine elements of diverse musical genres and compositional techniques, often alien to the composers' own culture, into a unified and coherent body of works.
