Medieval music

Medieval music consists of songs, instrumental pieces, and liturgical music from
about 500 A.D. to 1400. Medieval music was an era of Western music,
including liturgical music (also known as sacred) used for the church, and secular
music, non-religious music. Medieval music includes solely vocal music, such
as Gregorian chant and choral music (music for a group of singers),
solely instrumental music, and music that uses both voices and instruments
(typically with the instruments accompanying the voices). Gregorian chant was
sung by monks during Catholic Mass. The Mass is a reenactment of Christ's Last
Supper, intended to provide a spiritual connection between man and God. Part of
this connection was established through music.[1] This era begins with the fall of
the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century and ends sometime in the early
fifteenth century. Establishing the end of the medieval era and the beginning of
the Renaissance music era is difficult, since the trends started at different times in
different regions. The date range in this article is the one usually adopted
by musicologists.

During the Medieval period the foundation was laid for the music
notation and music theory practices that would shape Western music into the
norms that developed during the common-practice era, a period of shared music
writing practices which encompassed the Baroque music composers from 1600–
1750, such as J.S. Bach and Classical music period composers from the 1700s such
as W.A. Mozart and Romantic music era composers from the 1800s such
as Wagner. The most obvious of these is the development of a
comprehensive music notational system which enabled composers to write out
their song melodies and instrumental pieces on parchment or paper. Prior to the
development of musical notation, songs and pieces had to be learned "by ear",
from one person who knew a song to another person. This greatly limited how
many people could be taught new music and how wide music could spread to other
regions or countries. The development of music notation made it easier to
disseminate (spread) songs and musical pieces to a larger number of people and to
a wider geographic area. However the theoretical advances, particularly in regard
to rhythm—the timing of notes—and polyphony—using multiple,
interweaving melodies at the same time—are equally important to the development
of Western music.
Famous Medieval
Composers
Medieval music evolved significantly from plainsong monophonic
sacred chants in the early medieval period to both secular and
sacred music by the late medieval period and the use of a high
variety of instruments.

This immense change in the nature and style of music in Europe

took place from the 5th to 15th centuries of the medieval period,
and critical in bringing about this change were the leading
composers of different medieval centuries.

While early medieval period reflected little extra-regional

influences, the late medieval period came to be a mixture of
different cultural currents of Europe and was more
cosmopolitan in nature.

Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von Bingen was a German nun who composed a vast
body of sacred music during the 12th century.

At a time when sacred music had to be composed within strict

church guidelines, Hildegard was able to push the limits of
composition by adopting many new techniques and introducing
many innovations to sacred music.
Most of the music composed by Hildegard comprised of
melismatic solos and hymns.

A notable aspect of her songs was their highly melodic nature, the
use of many different notes and pitches in a single composition and
the musicality of words corresponding with their meaning.

She tested extensively with the limits of composition of sacred

music and produced some enduring masterpieces of medieval
music that survive to this day.

Moniot d’Arras
In the 13th century, Arras in northern France was a hub of the
trouvere tradition of music. It was in this setting that Moniot
d’Arras, a monk in the abbey of Arras, made a name for himself as
a notable musician and composer.

Given that the scope of his music was mostly limited to the
trouvere tradition, he mostly composed monophonic songs
with themes of courtly love and chivalry. He also wrote a
number of sacred music pieces. Many of his secular and
sacred compositions are extant today.
Leonin and Perotin
By the High Middle Ages, the music school established at the
Notre Dame cathedral emerged as a major centre of musical
innovations in the composition of sacred music. The most notable
composers to emerge out of school were Leonin and Perotin.

Until the 13th century, church music was mostly monophonic,

utilising a single vocal composition. Leonin altered this by
introducing a new style wherein a second voice could chant in
parallel with the original chant or a lot faster than the original chant.

This additional vocal part came to be called organum and

was the defining characteristic of the High medieval music.

While Leonin introduced two-part sacred music, his student

Perotin took this even further by introducing three-part and
four-part compositions, combing the vocal effects of
multiple singers.

The style introduced by the duo would remained an

enduring aspect of the sacred European music on which
subsequent musical developments in medieval Europe were
based.
Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle was another French composer who emerged out

of the trouvere tradition of northern France. Born in mid-13th
century, Halle was a not just a composer but also a poet and a
musician like many of his contemporaries.

He was most noted for the fact that he pioneered the drift away
from sacred music and established the foundations of independent
secular music.

One of his most notable compositions is the Jeu de Robin et da

Marion, a dramatic work which includes a significant portion of
musical compositions. He was also notable for being adept at both
monophonic and polyphonic forms of composition, a rarity at the
time.

Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut was one of the greatest composers of the

late medieval period. He was born around 1300 and died in 1377,
spanning a long career of musical compositions, poetry and a
variety of other creative endeavours.

He was one of the leading figures of the Ars Nova movement in

France during the late medieval period.
A notable aspect of Machaut’s music is that he composed both
sacred and secular music.

In secular music, he composed in the motet, ballade, rondeau,

virelai and lai genres. Although he adhered to the form of genres,
he creatively embellished them with his own style.

He similarly created many brilliant pieces in sacred music as well,

one of the most notable being the Messe de Nostre Dame, a cyclic
mass which was the first to be composed by a single person.

In the general composition of his music, Machaut used both

monophonic and polyphonic forms. He is a towering figure of Ars
Nova due to the sheer breadth of the variety of his music and the
sheer volume of music he composed.

Francesco Landini

Francesco Landini was one of the most notable composers of the

final decades of the medieval period. During the late 14th century,
he was considered one of the best composers of all Europe and the
best composer in Italy. Born in Italy in 1325, he was the key figure
in the Italian Trecento which ushered in the late medieval style of
music in Italy.
A large body of his musical compositions is extant today,
most of it in the ballate and madrigal styles of Italian
music. All of his extent pieces are secular music and there
is little proof that he composed any sacred music.

The “Landini” in his name refers to the Landini cadence, a special

element used in musical composition. Although he didn’t invent
the Landini, he make extensive use of it in his compositions,
earning him the eponym.

Guillaume Dufay
Guillaume Dufay was born in 15th century France and went on to
become one of the foremost European composers of the 15th
century.
Like many other composers of the period, he admitted influence
from composers of different regions of Europe. John Dunstable,
the English composer, was a notable influence on Dufay’s music.
Dufay composed both secular and sacred music with his secular
music written mostly in the virelai, rondeau and ballade forms.
In the list of his sacred music are included a number of Mass
compositions and a notable lament he wrote following the fall of
Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire.
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and
performed in Europe during the Renaissance era. Consensus among
music historians has been to start the era around 1400, with thith the
beginning of the Baroque period, therefore commencing the musical
Renaissance about a hundred years after the beginning of the
Renaissance as it is understood in other disciplines. As in the other arts,
the music of the period was significantly influenced by the
developments which define the Early Modern period: the rise
of humanistic thought; the recovery of the literary and artistic heritage
of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome; increased innovation and
discovery; the growth of commercial enterprises; the rise of
a bourgeois class; and the Protestant Reformation. From this changing
society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular,
the polyphonic style (this means music with multiple, independent
melody lines performed simultaneously) of the Franco-Flemish school,
whose greatest master was Josquin des Prez.

The invention of the printing press in 1439 made it cheaper and easier to
distribute music and musical theory texts on a wider geographic scale
and to more people. Prior to the invention of printing, written music and
music-theory texts had to be hand-copied, a time-consuming and
expensive process. Demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure
activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a
bourgeois class. Dissemination of chansons, motets,
and masses throughout Europe coincided with the unification of
polyphonic practice into the fluid style which culminated in the second
half of the sixteenth century in the work of composers such as Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina, Orlande de Lassus, Thomas Tallis and William
Byrd. Relative political stability and prosperity in the Low Countries,
along with a flourishing system of music education in the area's many
churches and cathedrals allowed the training of large numbers of singers,
instrumentalists, and composers.
 These musicians were highly sought throughout Europe, particularly in
Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers,
performers, and teachers. Since the printing press made it easier to
disseminate printed music, by the end of the 16th century, Italy had
absorbed the northern musical influences with Venice, Rome, and other
cities becoming centers of musical activity. This reversed the situation
from a hundred years earlier. Opera, a dramatic staged genre in which
singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence.
Opera was developed as a deliberate attempt to resurrect the music of
ancient Greece (OED 2005).

The Renaissance Period was a vibrant time when

knowledge and fine arts flourished. Artists like Leonardo
da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Raphael, and Titian
were painting some of humanity's most awe-inspiring
works of art. Wars like the War of Roses were fought
between clashing dynasties in their arduous quests to rule,
and great changes were made in the church during
the Protestant Reformation. Generally classified as taking
place between 1400 and 1600, these 200 years mark an
incredible transformation and advancement in the world.
And among those transformations was that of great music
notation and composition. If it weren't for these great
Renaissance composers, whose ground-shaking, mold-
breaking musical ideas opened a floodgate of musical
curiosity, the world of classical music we know today
might be drastically different.
William Byrd (1543–1623)
William Byrd is perhaps the greatest English composer of
all time. With hundreds of individual works, Byrd
seemingly mastered every style of music that existed during
his lifetime, outshining Orlando de Lassus and Giovanni
Palestrina. He was a pupil working under Thomas Tallis,
also on this list. Apart from his choral works, Byrd is
considered by many to be the first "genius" of the
keyboard. Many of his piano works can be found in "My
Ladye Nevells Book" and the "Parthenia."

Josquin Des Prez (1440–1521)

Widely recognized by just his first name, Josquin Des Prez
was Europe's most sought-after musician during his
lifetime. His popularity, no doubt, was a result of his
diverse interests, combining many contemporary styles of
music. His originality and his ability to unveil the meaning
and emotions of a text through music, both sacred and
secular, added to his popularity. While he may not be the
most well-documented composer, his reputation is strong,
and much of Josquin's music survives today, with his
masses and chansons being the most popular.
Thomas Tallis (1510–1585)
Thomas Tallis, an English composer, flourished as a church
musician and is considered one of the church's best early
composers. Tallis served under four English monarchs and
was treated very well. Queen Elisabeth granted him and his
pupil William Boyd exclusive rights to use England's
printing press to publish music—a first of its time.
Although Tallis composed many styles of music, the
majority of it is arranged for choir as Latin motets and
English anthems. While Tallis' music is well-known, not
much is actually known about his life.

Pierre de La Rue (1460–1518)

Pierre de La Rue, a Frenco-Flemish composer and singer,
wrote many styles of music (almost as much as Josquin).
La Rue's repertoire consists entirely of vocal music. His
style of voicing shows that he preferred low voice types,
often composing Cs and B-flats below the bass clef. His
most popular work, the "Requiem," and one of the earliest
surviving Requiem masses, emphasizes the lower voices.
Along with low voicing, various rhythmic patterns and
long, flowing melodies are main characteristics of La Rue's
music.
Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643)
Linking the Renaissance to the Baroque, Claudio
Monteverdi's revolutionary music included the first
dramatic opera, "Orfeo." An Italian composer, string
player, and choirmaster, he was considered a pioneer in the
realm of opera and an artist who served an integral
transitional role between the Renaissance and Baroque
periods. Much of Monteverdi's early years were spent
composing madrigals: nine books in total. These books
clearly mark the change in thinking and compositional style
between the two musical periods. Book 8, "Ottavo Libro,"
includes what many consider to be the perfected form of
the madrigal, "Madrigali dei guerrieri ed amorosi."

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1526–

1594)
With over hundreds of published works, Italian composer
Palestrina was the most famous representative of the
Roman School of musical composition, greatly influencing
the development of music in the Roman Catholic Church.
Because the voicing is extremely well balanced and
beautifully harmonized, Palestrina's polyphonic music is
smooth, pure, and transparent in sound.
Orlando de Lassus (1530–1594)
Orlando de Lassus, a Netherlandish or Franco-Flemish
composer of the late Renaissance, was known for his
smooth, polyphonic style. His beautiful motetscombined
the rich northern style of polyphony, the superb French
style text-setting, and the expressive Italian melody. With
over 2,000 written works for all styles of music, including
all Latin, French, English, and German vocal genres,
Lassus easily remains one of Europe's most versatile
composers.

Giovanni Gabrieli (1553–1612)

Giovanni Gabrieli, an Italian composer and organist, also
bridges the Renaissance to the Baroque and is most known
for his mastery in the style of the Venetian School. Gabrieli
preferred composing sacred works; using the unusual
layout of the San Marco Basilica in Venice, Italy, he was
able to create stunning musical effects. Unlike those before
him, Gabrieli meticulously created and planned the use of
antiphone (a choir or group of instruments first heard on the
left, followed by a response from another group of
musicians on the right).
Baroque music
Baroque music (US: /bəˈroʊk/ or UK: /bəˈrɒk/) is a period or style of
Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750.[1] This
era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by
the Classical era. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical
music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to.

Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian

Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio
Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry
Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe
Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, Tomaso
Albinoni, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich
Schütz, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Dieterich Buxtehude, and Johann
Pachelbel.

The Baroque period saw the creation of common-practicetonality, an

approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a
particular key; this kind of arrangement has continued to be used in
almost all Western popular music. During the Baroque era, professional
musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo
melodic lines and accompaniment parts. Baroque concerts were typically
accompanied by a basso continuo group (comprising chord-playing
instrumentalists such as harpsichordists and lute players improvising
chords from a figured bass part) while a group of bass instruments—
viol, cello, double bass—played the bassline. A characteristic Baroque
form was the dance suite. While the pieces in a dance suite were inspired
by actual dance music, dance suites were designed purely for listening,
not for accompanying dancers.
During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate
musical ornamentation (typically improvised by performers), made
changes in musical notation (the development of figured bass as a quick
way to notate the chord progression of a song or piece), and developed
new instrumental playing techniques. Baroque music expanded the size,
range, and complexity of instrumental performance, and also established
the mixed vocal/instrumental forms of opera, cantata and oratorio and
the instrumental forms of the solo concerto and sonata as musical
genres. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such
as toccata, fugue and concerto grosso are still in use in the 2010s. Dense,
complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines
were performed simultaneously (a popular example of this is the fugue),
was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works.
The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning
"misshapen pearl".[2] Negative connotations of the term first occurred in
1734, in a criticism of an opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, and later
(1750) in a description by Charles de Brosses of the ornate and heavily
ornamented architecture of the Pamphili Palace in Rome; and from Jean
Jacques Rousseau in 1768 in the Encyclopédie in his criticism of music
that was overly complex and unnatural. Although the term continued to
be applied to architecture and art criticism through the 19th century, it
was not until the 20th century that the term "baroque" was adopted
from Heinrich Wölfflin's art-history vocabulary to designate a historical
period in music.
The music of the Baroque Period is even more popular
today than it was in the 17th and 18th centuries when it was
written. We now have instant access to a nearly infinite
catalog of music and Baroque's unique musical
style continues to enchant and delight millions of listeners
each year.

What is so fascinating about Baroque music? It was

innovative, a time when composers experimented with
instruments as well as polyphonic textures and forms. The
word "baroque" actually stems from the Italian
word barocco, meaning "bizarre." It really is no wonder
that it remains appealing to modern audiences.
The composers of the Baroque period include many notable
names. From Bach to Sammartini, each composer on this
list greatly influenced the shape and course of classical
music. Keep in mind, though, that this is a short list of the
best-known and most influential composers of the era.
There are others whose legacy also had a great impact on
the future and evolution of music.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Coming in at number one is Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–
1750), one of the best-known of all composers in classical
music.

Bach was born into one of the great musical families of the
day. A natural genius at the keyboard, he mastered the
organ and harpsichord and was simply a brilliant composer.
Bach brought baroque music to its climax, writing over
1,000 compositions in nearly every type of musical form.

George Frideric Handel

Born in the same year as Bach in a town 50 miles away,
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759), who later became a
British citizen, lead a much different life than Bach.
Handel, too, composed for every musical genre of his time.
He is credited with creating the English oratorio, most
famous among these was "Messiah." Handel also
specialized in operas and often took on the Italian-style
cantatas.
Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli (1653–1713) was an Italian teacher,
violinist, and composer. Corelli’s mastery of tone on the
newly invented violin earned him great reviews throughout
Europe. He is often credited as the first person to create
basic violin technique.

Corelli worked during the time of expressive opera known

as High Baroque. He is equally famous for his harpsichord
compositions and his talent with the violin.

Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) wrote over 500 concertos
and is believed to have invented ritornello form in which a
theme returns throughout the piece. Known as a virtuoso
violinist and prolific composer, Vivaldi often held the title
of Maestro de' Concerti (director of instrumental music) at
Vienna's Ospedale della Pieta.

His influence was felt throughout the later years of the

Baroque Period. However, much of Vivaldi’s music lay
“undiscovered” until the early 1930s. This newly identified
music earned Vivaldi the title, “The Viennese Counterpart
to Bach and Handel.”
George Philipp Telemann
A good friend of both Bach and Handel, George Philipp
Telemann (1681–1767) was also a distinguished musician
and composer of his time. He, too, appeared in the latter
part of the Baroque Period.

Telemann’s incorporation of unusual instrumentation in his

concertos is one of the things that that made him unique.
His church music is most notable. As a music teacher, he
was known for organizing students and offering concerts to
the public.

Henry Purcell
Within a lifetime of only 36 years, Henry Purcell (1659–
1695) achieved musical greatness. He was considered one
of England’s greatest composers and the most original
composer of his time.

Purcell was extremely talented in word-setting and

composed very successful works for the stage. His chamber
music of suites and sonatas, as well as compositions for the
church and courts, also helped establish his name in music
history.
Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti (1685–1757) was the son of Alessandro
Scarlatti, another well-known baroque composer. The
younger Scarlatti wrote 555 known harpsichord sonatas,
over half of which were written in the last six years of his
life.

Scarlatti made use of Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish

dance rhythms throughout many of his works. He was also
admired by his contemporaries and influenced many,
including the Portuguese keyboard composer, Carlos de
Seixas.

Jean-Philippe Rameau
A French composer and music theorist, Jean-Philippe
Rameau (1683–1764) was known for music with bold
melodic lines and harmonies. This caused controversy,
particularly from those who preferred the styles of either
Jean-Baptiste Lully or Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
Aside from harpsichord, Rameau’s greatest contribution to
music was in tragédie lyrique opera. His wide use of
moods and musical colors in these French lyrical tragedies
were beyond those of his counterparts.
Johann Pachelbel
Johann Pachelbel (1653–1706) taught music to Johann
Christoph Bach, J.S. Bach’s older brother. The elder Bach
said that his brother greatly admired Pachelbel’s music and
many people see stylistic similarities between the two.
Pachelbel's "Canon in D Major" is his most famous work
and you can hear it to this day in countless wedding
ceremonies. And yet, the respected organ teacher's
influence stretches far beyond the chapel. His influence on
Baroque music led to the success of many of these other
composers.

Giovanni Battista Sammartini

Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700–1775) specialized in
the oboe and organ and the Italian also worked as a
composer, teacher, and choirmaster. He took over the
Baroque scene later in the period and his influence
stretched into the Classical Period.

Sammartini is one of the earliest composers of the

symphony and 68 of these revolutionary works have
survived. Many believe his symphonic pieces and thematic
development are the precursors to Haydn and Mozart.