History of Music

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For the academic study of history of music, see Music history.

A culture's music is influenced by all other aspects of that culture, including social and economic organization, climate, and access to technology. The emotions and ideas that music expresses, the situations that music is played and listened to in, and the attitudes toward music players and composers all vary between regions and periods.

"Music history" is the distinct subfield of musicology and history which studies music (particularly Western art music) from a chronological perspective.

Prehistoric music

Main article: Prehistoric music

Prehistoric music, once more commonly called primitive music, is the name given to all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history.

Traditional Native American and Australian Aboriginal music could be called prehistoric, but the term is commonly used to refer to the music in Europe before the development of writing there. It is more common to call the "prehistoric" music of non-European continents – especially that which still survives – folk, indigenous, or traditional music.

Music in cradles of civilizations

Main article: Ancient music

Ancient music was long thought to be all monophonic, but recent archaeological [evidence] indicates that this view is no longer true. The "oldest known song" in cuneiform, 4,000 years old from Ur, deciphered by Prof. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer (University of Calif. at Berkeley), was demonstrated to be composed in harmonies of thirds, like ancient English gymel, and also was written using the [diatonic scale]. Neither harmony nor the diatonic scale can still be considered developments belonging only to "Western" music.

One pipe in the aulos pairs (double flutes) likely served as a [drone] or "keynote," while the other played melodic passages.

In addition, double pipes, such as used by the ancient Greeks, and ancient bagpipes, as well as a review of ancient drawings on vases and walls, etc., and ancient writings (such as in Aristotle, Problems, Book XIX.12) which described musical techniques of the time, all indicate harmony existed. In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual reasons. Instruments included the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara. Music was an important part of education in ancient Greece, and boys were taught music starting at age six. Greek musical literacy created a flowering of development; Greek music theory included the Greek musical modes, eventually became the basis for Western religious music and classical music.

The term Early music era may also refer to contemporary but traditional or folk music, including Asian music, Jewish music, Greek music, Roman music, the music of Mesopotamia, the music of Egypt, and Muslim music.

Classical traditions

For more information see Classical music.

In many cultures a classical tradition coexisted with traditional or popular music, occasionally for thousands of years, and with different levels of mutual borrowing with the parallel tradition.

See also: Andalusian classical music, Arab classical music, Gagaku, Gamelan, Music of Korea#Classical music.

Asia

Asian music covers the music cultures of Arabia, Central Asia, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.

China

Performance of traditional Chinese music using reproduction Tang Dynasty instruments

Chinese classical music is the traditional art or court music of China. It has a long history stretching for more than three thousand years. It has its own unique systems of musical notation, as well as musical tuning and pitch, musical instruments and styles or musical genres.

Chinese music is pentatonic-diatonic, having a scale of twelve notes to an octave (5+7 = 12) as does European-influenced music.

Japan

India

Purandara Dasa, the father of Carnatic music

The classical music of India includes two major traditions of the southern Carnatic music and the northern Hindustani classical music. India's classical music tradition has a history spanning millennia and, developed over several eras, remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment.

Indian classical music (marga) is monophonic, and based around a single melody line or raga rhythmically organized through talas. Carnatic music is largely devotional; the majority of the songs are addressed to the Hindu deities. There are a lot of songs emphasising love and other social issues. In contrast to Carnatic music, Hindustani music was not only influenced by ancient Hindu musical traditions, Vedic philosophy and native Indian sounds but also by the Persian performance practices of the Afghan Mughals.

The origins of Indian classical music (marga), the classical music of India, can be found from the oldest of scriptures, part of the Hindu tradition, the Vedas. Samaveda, one of the four vedas describes music at length.

Persia

Ancient Iranians attached great importance to music and poetry, as they still do today. 7th century plate depicts Sassanid era musicians. The British Museum.

Persian music is the music of Persia and Persian language countries: musiqi, the science and art of music, and muzik, the sound and performance of music (Sakata 1983). See: Music of Iran, Music of Afghanistan, Music of Tajikistan, Music of Uzbekistan.

Europe

Main article: European classical music.

Greece

Music was an important part of education in ancient Greece, and boys were taught music starting at age six. Greek musical literacy created a flowering of development; Greek music theory included the Greek musical modes, eventually became the basis for Western religious music and classical music. Later, influences from the Roman Empire, Eastern Europe and the Byzantine Empire changed Greek music.

In the 19th century, opera composers like Nikolaos Mantzaros (1795 - 1872), Spyridion Xyndas (1812 - 1896) and Spyros Samaras (1861 - 1917) helped revitalize Greek classical music.

Timeline of Classical European Composers' Music

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id:bar      value:rgb(0.6,1,0.6)   legend:Baroque
id:cla      value:rgb(1,1,0.6)     legend:Classic
id:rom      value:rgb(1,0.75,0.75) legend:Romantic

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at:1600 color:darkGray layer:back
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barset:Composers

width:15 fontsize:M textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(4,-6)

barset:Composers
from:1430 till:1495 color:Ren text:J Ockeghem
from:1440 till:1521 color:Ren text:J Des Prez
from:1525 till:1594 color:Ren text:GP da Palestrina
from:1543 till:1623 color:Ren text:W Byrd

from:1562 till:1621 color:Bar text:JP Sweelinck
from:1563 till:1621 color:Bar text:K Harant
from:1567 till:1643 color:Bar text:C Monteverdi
from:1583 till:1643 color:Bar text:G Frescobaldi
from:1585 till:1672 color:Bar text:H Schütz
from:1632 till:1687 color:Bar text:JB Lully
from:1637 till:1707 color:Bar text:D Buxtehude
from:1653 till:1713 color:Bar text:A Corelli
from:1659 till:1695 color:Bar text:H Purcell
from:1660 till:1725 color:Bar text:A Scarlatti
from:1674 till:1754 color:Bar text:T Albinoni
from:1678 till:1741 color:Bar text:A Vivaldi
from:1681 till:1767 color:Bar text:GP Telemann
from:1683 till:1764 color:Bar text:JP Rameau
from:1685 till:1750 color:Bar text:JS Bach
from:1685 till:1757 color:Bar text:D Scarlatti
from:1685 till:1759 color:Bar text:GF Händel
from:1710 till:1736 color:Bar text:GB Pergolesi
from:1714 till:1798 color:Cla text:CW Gluck
from:1732 till:1809 color:Cla text:J Haydn
from:1750 till:1825 color:Cla text:A Salieri
from:1751 till:1825 color:Cla text:D Bortniansky
from:1756 till:1791 color:Cla text:WA Mozart
from:1770 till:1827 color:cla text:L v Beethoven
from:1782 till:1840 color:Rom text:N Paganini
barset:break
from:1786 till:1826 color:Rom text:CM von Weber
from:1791 till:1857 color:Rom text:C Czerny
from:1792 till:1868 color:Rom text:G Rossini
from:1797 till:1828 color:Rom text:F Schubert
from:1797 till:1848 color:Rom text:G Donizetti
from:1803 till:1869 color:Rom text:H Berlioz
from:1809 till:1847 color:Rom text:F Mendelssohn
from:1810 till:1849 color:Rom text:F Chopin
from:1810 till:1856 color:Rom text:R Schumann
from:1811 till:1886 color:Rom text:F Liszt
from:1813 till:1883 color:Rom text:R Wagner
from:1813 till:1901 color:Rom text:G Verdi
from:1819 till:1880 color:Rom text:J Offenbach
from:1824 till:1884 color:Rom text:B Smetana
from:1824 till:1896 color:Rom text:A Bruckner
from:1833 till:1897 color:Rom text:J Brahms
from:1835 till:1921 color:Rom text:C Saint-Saëns
from:1838 till:1875 color:Rom text:G Bizet
from:1838 till:1920 color:Rom text:M Bruch
from:1839 till:1881 color:Rom text:M Mussorgsky
from:1840 till:1893 color:Rom text:PI Tchaikovsky
from:1841 till:1904 color:Rom text:A Dvorák
from:1843 till:1907 color:Rom text:E Grieg
from:1844 till:1908 color:Rom text:N Rimsky-Korsakov
from:1858 till:1924 color:Rom text:G Puccini
from:1872 till:1915 color:Rom text:A Scriabin
from:1873 till:1943 color:Rom text:S Rachmaninoff
from:1881 till:1945 color:Rom text:B Bartók
from:1891 till:1953 color:Rom text:S Prokofiev

Early music

Main article: Early music.

Medieval music

Neume used in the notation of Gregorian chant

While musical life was undoubtedly rich in the early Medieval era, as attested by artistic depictions of instruments, writings about music, and other records, the only repertory of music which has survived from before 800 to the present day is the plainsong liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, the largest part of which is called Gregorian chant. Pope Gregory I, who gave his name to the musical repertory and may himself have been a composer, is usually claimed to be the originator of the musical portion of the liturgy in its present form, though the sources giving details on his contribution, date from more than a hundred years after his death. Many scholars believe that his reputation has been exaggerated by legend. Most of the chant repertory was composed anonymously in the centuries between the time of Gregory and Charlemagne.

During the 9th century several important developments took place. First, there was a major effort by the Church to unify the many chant traditions, and suppress many of them in favor of the Gregorian liturgy. Second, the earliest polyphonic music was sung, a form of parallel singing known as organum. Third, and of greatest significance for music history, notation was reinvented after a lapse of about five hundred years, though it would be several more centuries before a system of pitch and rhythm notation evolved having the precision and flexibility that modern musicians take for granted.

Several schools of polyphony flourished in the period after 1100: the St. Martial school of organum, the music of which was often characterized by a swiftly moving part over a single sustained line; the Notre Dame school of polyphony, which included the composers Léonin and Pérotin, and which produced the first music for more than two parts around 1200; the musical melting-pot of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, a pilgrimage destination and site where musicians from many traditions came together in the late middle ages, the music of whom survives in the Codex Calixtinus; and the English school, the music of which survives in the Worcester Fragments and the Old Hall Manuscript. Alongside these schools of sacred music a vibrant tradition of secular song developed, as exemplified in the music of the troubadors, trouvères and Minnesänger. Much of the later secular music of the early Renaissance evolved from the forms, ideas, and the musical aesthetic of the troubadors, courtly poets and itinerant musicians, whose culture was largely exterminated during the Albigensian Crusade in the early 13th century.

Forms of sacred music which developed during the late 13th century included the motet, conductus, discant, and clausulae. One unusual development was the Geisslerlieder, the music of wandering bands of flagellants during two periods: the middle of the 13th century (until they were suppressed by the Church); and the period during and immediately following the Black Death, around 1350, when their activities were vividly recorded and well-documented with notated music. Their music mixed folk song styles with penitential or apocalyptic texts.

The 14th century in European music history is dominated by the style of the ars nova, which by convention is grouped with the medieval era in music, even though it had much in common with early Renaissance ideals and aesthetics. Much of the surviving music of the time is secular, and tends to use the formes fixes: the ballade, the virelai, the lai, the rondeau, which correspond to poetic forms of the same names. Most pieces in these forms are for one to three voices, likely with instrumental accompaniment: famous composers include Guillaume de Machaut and Francesco Landini.

Renaissance music

Main article: Renaissance music.

By the middle of the 15th century, composers and singers from the Low Countries and adjacent areas began to overspread Europe, moving especially into Italy where they were employed by the papal chapel and the aristocratic patrons of the arts, such as the Medici, the Este family in Ferrara, and the Sforza family in Milan. They carried their style with them: smooth polyphony which could be adapted for sacred or secular use as appropriate. Principal forms of sacred musical composition at the time were the mass, the motet, and the laude; secular forms included the chanson, the frottola, and later the madrigal.

The invention of printing had an immense influence on the dissemination of musical styles, and along with the movement of the Franco-Flemish musicians throughout Europe, contributed to the establishment of the first truly international style in European music since the unification of Gregorian chant under Charlemagne seven hundred years before.

Composers of the middle generation of the Franco-Flemish school included Johannes Ockeghem, who wrote music in a contrapuntally complex style, with varied texture and an elaborate use of canonical devices; Jacob Obrecht, one of the most famous composers of masses in the last decades of the 15th century; and Josquin Desprez, probably the most famous composer in Europe before Palestrina, and who during the 16th century was renowned as one of the greatest artists in any form.

Music in the generation after Josquin explored increasing complexity of counterpoint; possibly the most extreme expression of this tendency is in the music of Nicolas Gombert, whose contrapuntal complexities influenced early instrumental music, such as the canzona and the ricercar, ultimately culminating in Baroque fugal forms.

Portrait of Renaissance composer Claudio Monteverdi in Venice, 1640, by Bernardo Strozzi

By the middle of the 16th century, the international style began to break down, and several highly diverse stylistic trends became evident: a trend towards simplicity in sacred music, as directed by the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent, and as exemplified in the austere perfection of the music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina; a trend towards complexity and chromaticism in the madrigal, which reached its extreme expression in the avant-garde style of the Ferrara School of Luzzaschi, and the late century madrigalist Carlo Gesualdo; and the grandiose, sonorous music of the Venetian school, which took advantage of the architecture of the Basilica San Marco di Venezia to create a music of antiphonal contrasts. The music of the Venetian school can be seen on the cusp of the Renaissance and the Baroque eras, and included the development of orchestration, ornamented instrumental parts, and continuo bass parts, all of which occurred within a span of several decades around 1600. Famous composers in Venice included the Gabrielis, Andrea and Giovanni, as well as Claudio Monteverdi, one of the most significant innovators at the end of the era.

Most parts of Europe had active, and well-differentiated, musical traditions by late in the century. In England, composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd wrote sacred music in a style similar to that written on the continent, while an active group of home-grown madrigalists adapted the Italian form for English tastes: famous composers included Thomas Morley, John Wilbye and Thomas Weelkes. Spain developed instrumental and vocal styles of its own, with Tomás Luis de Victoria writing refined music similar to that of Palestrina, and numerous other composers writing for a new instrument called the guitar. Germany cultivated polyphonic forms built on the Protestant chorales, which replaced the Roman Catholic Gregorian Chant as a basis for sacred music, and imported wholesale the style of the Venetian school (the appearance of which defined the start of the Baroque era there). In addition, German composers wrote enormous amounts of organ music, establishing the basis for the later spectacular flowering of the Baroque organ style which culminated in the work of J.S. Bach. France developed a unique style of musical diction known as musique mesurée, used in secular chansons, with composers such as Guillaume Costeley and Claude Le Jeune prominent in the movement.

One of the most revolutionary movements in the era took place in Florence in the 1570s and 1580s, with the work of the Florentine Camerata, who ironically had a reactionary intent: dissatisfied with what they saw as contemporary musical depravities, their goal was to restore the music of the ancient Greeks. Chief among them were Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer, and Giulio Caccini. The fruits of their labors was a declamatory melodic singing style known as monody, and a corresponding dramatic form consisting of staged, acted monody: a form known today as opera. The first operas, written around 1600, also define the end of the Renaissance and the beginning of the Baroque eras.

Music prior to 1600 was modal rather than tonal. Several theoretical developments late in the 16th century, such as the writings on scales on modes by Gioseffo Zarlino and Franchinus Gaffurius, led directly to the development of common practice tonality. The major and minor scales began to predominate over the old church modes, a feature which was at first most obvious at cadential points in compositions, but gradually became pervasive. Music after 1600, beginning with the tonal music of the Baroque era, is often referred to as belonging to the common practice period.

Common practice period

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the most notable composers of the Baroque period

Baroque music

Main article: Baroque music.

The three outstanding composers of the period are Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, and Antonio Vivaldi, but a host of other composers, some with huge output, were active in the period. They include:

• Georg Philipp Telemann
• Arcangelo Corelli
• Alessandro Scarlatti
• Henry Purcell
• Jean-Baptiste Lully
• Dieterich Buxtehude
• Johann Pachelbel
• Giuseppe Torelli
• François Couperin
• Jean-Philippe Rameau
• Francesco Manfredini
• Domenico Scarlatti
• Johann Friedrich Fasch
• Francesco Maria Veracini
• Giuseppe Tartini
• Giovanni Pergolesi
• Tomaso Albinoni

Classical music era

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's compositions characterized music of the classical era.

Main article: Classical music era.

Along with the gradual displacement of the voice in favor of stronger, clearer melodies, counterpoint also typically became a decorative flourish, often used near the end of a work or for a single movement. In its stead, simple patterns, such as arpeggios and, in piano music, Alberti bass (an accompaniment with a repeated pattern typically in the left hand) were used to liven the movement of the piece without creating a confusing additional voice. The now popular instrumental music was dominated by several well-defined forms: the sonata, the symphony, and the concerto, though none of these forms were specifically defined or taught at the time as they are now in the field of music theory. All three derive from sonata form, which is used to refer both to the overlying form of an entire work and the structure of a single movement. Sonata form matured during the Classical era to become the primary form of instrumental compositions throughout the 19th century.

The early Classical period was ushered in by the Mannheim School, which included such composers as Johann Stamitz, Franz Xaver Richter, Carl Stamitz, and Christian Cannabich. It exerted a profound influence on Joseph Haydn and, through him, on all subsequent European music.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was the central figure of the Classical period, and his phenomenal and varied output in all genres defines our perception of the period.

Other prominent classical composers include:

• Carl Czerny (1791-1857)
• Muzio Clementi (1752-1832)
• Frederich Kuhlau (1786-1832)

Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert are transitional composers, leading into the Romantic period, with their expansion of existing genres, forms, and even functions of music.

The title character from a 19th century performance of Wagner's opera Siegfried

Romantic music

Main article: Romantic music.

Post-common practice

20th century music

Main article: 20th century music.

20th Century music brought a new freedom and wide experimentation with new musical styles and forms that challenged the accepted rules of music of earlier periods. The invention of electronic instruments and the synthesizer in the mid-20th century revolutionized popular music and accelerated the development of new forms of music.

See also

• History of Greek music
• History of Western music
• History of Indian music
• History of African music
• Prehistoric music
• Timeline of trends in music

References

• Brown, Steven, et al, eds. (2000). The Origins of Music. The MIT Press. ISBN 0262232065.
• Fink, Bob (2004). On the Origin of Music. [Greenwich], Canada. ISBN 0912424141.
• Reese, Gustave (1954). Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0393095304.
• Bangayan, Phil, Bonet, Giselle and Ghosemajumder, Shuman (2002) [Digital Music Distribution] (History of the Recorded Music Industry), MIT Sloan School of Management.
• Hoppin, Richard H. (1978). Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0393090906.
• Schwartz, Elliot and Godfrey, Daniel (1993). Music Since 1945. United States, Simon & Schuster Macmillan. ISBN 0028730402

External links

• [Timeline of European music]
• [The history of ideas in literature and the arts in aesthetic theory and literary criticism. In The Dictionary of the History of Ideas.]
• [On-line essay: Stages in Evolution of Music, Scales, etc.]
• [U.S. popular music timeline]
• [China music timeline]
• [Portable Music History]

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