Music History (Early Music)

By ajhyatt1
  • Period: 33 BCE to 500

    Hymns/Psalms

    St Basil, St Augustine
  • 313

    Edict of Milan

    Christianity is legalized by Emperor Constantine
  • 392

    Christianity becomes official Roman religion

  • 400

    Mass (4th century on)

    Proper - day to day text varies
    Ordinary (kyrie, gloria, credo, sanctus, angus dei, ite missa est) - text stays the same
  • 476

    End of Western Roman Empire

  • Period: 480 to 524

    Boethius

    De institutione musica (musica universal, humana, instrumental)
  • 530

    Rule of St. Benedict

    Set of instructions on running a Monastery - Codified liturgy of the Office
  • Period: 590 to 604

    Pope Gregory I (reign)

    Gregorian Chant (primary genre of music from 6th-16th centuries) (responsorial, antiphonal, direct)
  • Period: 752 to 754

    Dissemination of Roman Chant to the Franks

  • 800

    Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor

  • Period: 800 to 1000

    Trope Composition flourishes in monastaries

  • 850

    Musica enchiriadis (9th century treatise)

    Organum (Parallel, Mixed-Parallel, Oblique)
  • Period: 991 to 1033

    Guido of Arezzo

    Micrologus (1025) - practical guide for singers that covers notes, intervals, the eight modes, melodic composition, and improvised polyphony
    Solmization - use of note names
    Guidonian Hand - pneumonic teaching device
  • Period: 992 to 996

    Winchester Troper

    Largest source of written down organum
    Features Polyphony by Wulfstan of Winchester
  • 1025

    Tropes to Mass for Christmas Day copied into manuscript for abbey near Limoges

  • 1054

    Final split between Roman and Byzantine churches

  • Period: 1095 to 1099

    First Crusade

  • 1100

    Aquitanian Polyphony (12th Century)

  • 1150

    Founding of the University of Paris

  • Period: 1150 to 1201

    Leoninus

    Polyphonic composer at Notre Dame
    Magnus Liber Organi (Great Book of Polyphony)
  • Period: 1150 to 1250

    Clausula (12th/13th century)

    Newly composed sections of discant inserted into preexisting organum. Associated with Notre Dame school
  • 1151

    Hildegard of Bingen, Ordo virtutum

  • Period: 1160 to 1250

    Construction of Notre Dame

    First Mass celebrated 1183
  • Period: 1175 to 1225

    Perotinus (late 12th, early 13th)

    Polyphonic Composer at Notre Dame
    Wrote substitute clausulae in discant style (both tenor and duplum voices moving in modal rhythm)
    Created organum triplum and quadruplum
  • 1198

    Viderunt Omnes, Perotin

  • 1200

    Motet

    New genre created by musicians at Notre Dame by adding new latin text to the upper voices of discant clausulae. By 1250 motets were for three voices with two related texts in latin or french (often both)
  • 1215

    Magna Carta

  • 1250

    Rota and Rondellus

    English compositional techniques inspired by french voice exchanges
  • 1260

    De mensurabili musica, Johannes de Garlandia

  • Period: 1260 to 1300

    Petrus de Cruce

    Extends rhymic variety of the franconian motet
  • 1270

    "cantus firmus"

    term introduced by theorist Hieronymus de Moravia to designate an existing melody (usually plainchant) on which a new polyphonic work is based
  • 1280

    Ars cantus mensurabilis, Franco of Cologne

    Treatise which codified Franconian Notation. Uses relative duration of notes through different note shapes. Leads to creation of the Franconian Motet
  • 1285

    Anonymous IV (treatise)

    Highlights work of Leonin and Perotin in paris
  • Period: 1291 to 1361

    Philippe de Vitry

    French composer, inventor of Ars Nova (new french musical style from 1310-1370). Introduces duple rhythm, smaller durations of note value, imperfect consonances (3rds and 6ths), and time signatures or "mensuration signs." Ars Nova motets utilized isorhythm and hocket.
  • Period: 1300 to 1377

    Guillaume de Machaut

    Most important composer of the French Ars Nova period. Isorhythmic motets utilizing hocket. La Messe de Notre Dame (one of the first polyphonic masses). Wrote virelais.
  • Period: 1310 to 1370

    Ars Nova Period

    Ars Nova treatise - ca. 1320
    Duple rhythm, Mensuration Signs
    Imperfect Consonances
    Isorhythmic motets
    French Chansons (treble dominate style, featuring a leading cantus and supporting tenor)
    Formes Fixes (text and music have patterns of repetition including a refrain)
    -Ballade: Serious, Philosophical, Historical Themes
    -Rondeau: Themes of Love
    -Virelai: Related Love to Natural Descriptions
  • Period: 1337 to 1453

    Hundred Years War

  • Period: 1347 to 1350

    Bubonic/Pneumonic Plagues Decimate Europe

  • 1360

    Messe De Notre Dame, Machaut

    One of the first polyphonic settings of mass ordinary
  • Period: 1378 to 1417

    Papal Schism

  • Period: 1562 to

    Council of Trent bans Tropes and most Sequences