Baroque Music and American History Timeline

  • 1573

    The Florentine Camerata (1573)

    The Florentine Camareta were a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama. That also lead some composers to start the baroque music with new notes and other materials.
  • The First Settlement to America

    Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America, is established by the London Company in southeast Virginia.
  • L’Orfeo premiered in 1607

    Claudio Monteverdi composed the opera, called “L’Orfeo” in the late Italian Renaissance and early Baroque era of music, and it has a libretto by Alessandro Striggio.
  • The House of Burgesses

    The House of Burgesses, the first representative assembly in America, meets for the first time in Virginia. The first African slaves are brought to Jamestown.
  • The Plymouth Colony and Mayflower

    The Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts is established by Pilgrims from England. Before disembarking from their ship, the Mayflower, 41 male passengers sign the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that forms the basis of the colony's government.
  • The Age of Absolutism began in 1643

    The Age of Absolutism is usually thought to begin with the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715) and ends with the French Revolution (1789). Absolutism was primarily motivated by the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was ruled by very powerful monarchs. Monarchs with absolute control. Thus, the Age of Absolutism. Absolute monarchs were rulers who held all the power in a country
  • Corelli led festival performances of music

    In 1687, Corelli led the festival performances of music for Queen Christina of Sweden. He was also a favorite of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, grandnephew of another Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, who in 1689 became Pope Alexander VIII
  • Gradus ad Paranassum

    The middle Baroque had absolutely no bearing at all on the theoretical work of Johann Fux, who systematized the strict counterpoint characteristic of earlier ages in his Gradus ad Paranassum.
  • Handel’s works and career

    A continuous worker, Handel borrowed from others and often recycled his own material. He was also known for reworking pieces such as the famous Messiah, which premiered in 1742, for available singers and musicians.
  • French & Indian War occurs in 1754-1763

    Final conflict in the ongoing struggle between the British and French for control of eastern North America. The British win a decisive victory over the French on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec. The war is active for at least 9 years.
  • Boston Tea Party occurs

    Group of colonial patriots disguised as Mohawk Indians board three ships in Boston harbor and dump more than 300 crates of tea overboard as a protest against the British tea tax.
  • American Revolution (1775-1783)

    War of independence fought between Great Britain and the 13 British colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America. Battles of Lexington and Concord, Mass., between the British Army and colonial minutemen, mark the beginning of the war.