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Period: 500 to 1450
Medieval Period
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800
Charlemagne Becomes Holy Roman Emperor
The pope crowned Charlemagne, ruler of the Frankish lands, to become the emperor of Rome, which established a relationship between church and king. As a result, Roman chant was imported from the Alps of Italy, along with manuscript production and illumination. Thus, Gregorian chant made its way into the Christian liturgy throughout Frankish lands. Its repertory eventually stabilized and became a preservation in written form (composers and theories were educated with this repertory in churches). -
814
End of Charlemagne's Rule
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900
Musica Enchiriadis
This was a treatise that describes two kinds of "singing together," both classified as organum. One species was parallel organum, which typically duplicated the principal voice (vox principalis) a fourth or fifth below by an organal voice (vox organalis) and moved in parallel motion. The other species was oblique organum in which the principal voice and the organal voice moved in oblique motion. -
1030
Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus
This was a treatise that contained Arezzo's teaching techniques for sight reading, including solmization-- a set of syllables (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la) to help singers remember the pattern of whole tones and half tones in the hexachords (six steps) that began on C, G, or F, and proposed an arrangement method for notating music. -
1098
Birth of Hildegard of Bingen
She was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, and visionary who wrote her own poems and hymns to be sung in her convents and nearby monasteries and churches. One of her most famous works was called "Ordo virtutum," which was a music drama that featured eighty-two songs for which she wrote both the poetic verse and the melody, which was uncommon among authors of tropes and sequences. -
1163
Beginning of Notre Dame School Polyphony
The Notre Dame School was a group of composers, including two known composers, Léonin and Pérotin, working in and around the cathedral who stepped beyond the boundaries of Gregorian chant. They introduced the idea of polyphony-- multiple music voices occurring simultaneously-- which set the stage for future composers like Bach's preludes. Léonin is also credited with the development of the Magnus Liber Organi (the Book of Organum), which features the motion of voices. -
1170
Troubadours/Trobairitz Flourished
They were poet-composers of love songs who flourished in the south of France. They didn't constitute a well-defined group. Some were kings. Others came from families of merchants , craftsmen, and jongleurs but were accepted into the aristocratic circle because of their accomplishments. Many of them snag their own songs, but those who did not entrusted the performance to a minstrel. -
1179
Death of Hildegard of Bingen
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1213
End of Troubadours/Trobairitz Activity
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1250
End of Notre Dame School Polyphony
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1280
Franco of Cologne/Ars Cantus Mensurabilis
This was a treatise that proposed that individual notes could have their own durations that were independent of context. This treatise later became the foundation for the mensural notation system and the ars nova style. -
1300
Birth of Guillaume de Machaut
He was the first composer to single-handedly write a polyphonic setting of the mass ordinary. In most of this four-part setting, he employed the Ars Nova technique of isorhythm. -
1323
Ars Nova Treatise
This was a treatise titled by Philippe de Vitry that proposed new developments in notation, allowing for notes to be written with greater written independence. It also mixed sacred and secular styles of music (texts/melodies) wherewith secular music acquired much of the polyphonic structures that were previously found only in sacred music. Other new techniques and forms that became prevalent for aesthetic effect were isorhythm and isorhythmic motet. -
1325
Birth of Francesco Landini
He was known for writing pieces in his favorite form which was the ballata, an Italian song form where the sections were organized as AbbaA with the first and last lines sharing the same texts. He is also credited for a cadence formula that was distinctively common in 14th century music known as the Landini cadence, in which the leading tone dropped down to the sixth scale degree before approaching the ending tonic note. -
1377
Death of Guillaume de Machaut
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1397
Death of Francesco Landini
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1450
Gutenberg Printing Press
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Period: 1450 to
Renaissance Period
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1515
Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua
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1529
Martin Luther’s Ein feste burg
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1538
Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno
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1562
Palestrina Pope Marcellus Mass
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1580
Concerto delle Donne Flourished
A professional female ensemble that performed and flourished, especially in Ferrara, Italy. -
Sonata pian’e forte
One of the earliest known pieces that designated specific instruments in its printed parts and indicated dynamics. It was composed by Giovanni Gabrieli at St. Marks Cathedral in Venice, Italy. -
End of Concerto delle Donne Activity
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Period: to
Baroque Period
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Monteverdi's L’Orfeo
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Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi (24 Violins of the King) Founded
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First Public Concerts in England
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Birth of Johann Sebastian Bach
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Birth of George Frederic Handel
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Purcell's Dido and Aeneas
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Antonio Vivaldi's L’Estro Armonico
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Brandenburg Concertos
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Rameau's Traité de l’harmonie
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The Well-Tempered Clavier Volume 1
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Period: to
Pre Classical Period
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Birth of Franz Joseph Haydn
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Handel's Messiah
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Birth of Chevalier de Saint-Georges
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Death of Johann Sebastian Bach
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Birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Death of George Frederic Handel
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Les Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi (24 Violins of the King) Disbanded
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Establishment of Concert des Amateurs
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Birth of Ludwig van Beethoven
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Period: to
Viennese Classical Period
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End of Concerts des Amateurs
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Haydn's String Quartets, Op. 33
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Mozart's Piano Concerto No.23
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Don Giovanni
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Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
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Birth of Franz Schubert
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Death of Chevalier de Saint-Georges
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Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor
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Death of Franz Joseph Haydn
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Schubert's Erlkönig
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Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia Premiere
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Niccolo Paganini 's 24 Caprices for Unaccompanied Violin, op.1
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Schubert's Symphony No. 8 "Unfinished"
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Beethoven's Symphony No. 9
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Death of Ludwig van Beethoven
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Death of Franz Schubert
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Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique
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Frederic Chopin Mazurkas Op.7
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Robert Schumann's Carnaval
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Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Das Jahr
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Clara Wieck Schumann's "Liebst du um Schönheit"
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Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64
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Berlioz Treatise on Instrumentation
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Verdi's La traviata
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Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Souvenir de Porto Rico
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Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
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Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov
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Bizet's Carmen
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Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
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Brahms' Symphony No.4
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Mahler's Symphony No.1
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Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker
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Dvorak's Symphony No.9 “New World"
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Debussy's Prélude à l'après midi d'un faune
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Maple Leaf Rag
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Jean Sibelius' Finlandia
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Puccini's Madama Butterfly
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Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire
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Stravinsky's Le sacre du Printemps
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Schönberg's Piano Suite, Op.25
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George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
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Louis Armstrong's "Hotter Than That"
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Shostakovich Symphony No.5 premiere
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Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky (film)
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Ellington's Cottontail
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Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour le fine du temps
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Bela Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra
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Copland's Appalachian Spring
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John Cage's 4’33’’
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Edward Varese's Poeme Electronique
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Miles Davis' Kind of Blue
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George Crumb's Black Angels
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John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine
