Music History Timeline

By Stephane_Nazaire
  • 500

    Medieval Period

    Medieval music was both sacred and secular. The predominant genre, Gregorian Chant, was monophonic c. 500-1450 CE
  • 768

    Charlemagne

    (768-814)
    500-600 tunes established during his reign and was then later expanded to 3000.
  • 900

    Musica Enchiriadis

  • 1030

    Guido of Arezzo's Micrologus

    Provided a 4 line staff. Also added relative pitch and the ability of sight-singing with the invention of the Guidionain Hand.
  • 1098

    Hildegard of Bingen

    1098 - 17th of September 1179
    Would have visons which she would record down and also record other people visions and explain them.
    Also provided scientific and medical writings
  • 1163

    Notre Dame School Polyphony

    Leonin c.1163-1190
    First extensive repertory of composed polyphony
    Perotin c.1190-1225
  • 1170

    Troubadour/trobairitz

    Bar form (ca.1170-ca.1230)
    Crusades (1096-1270)
    medieval poet-musicians who created one of the first repertories of vernacular song to be written down
  • 1280

    Franco of Cologne/Ars Cantus Mensurabilis

    German intellectual who came to Paris to teach around 1280.

    1. Franconian Mensural Notation
    2. Consonant and dissonant intervals
  • 1300

    Guillaume de Machaut

    1300-1377
    Continued troubadour/trouvere tradition
    Cantilena Style
  • 1323

    Ars Nova Treatise

    1323
    Replaced the Ars Antiqua, and the previously established style of music notation established by Leonin and Perotin and the Notre Dame School of Polyphony.
    Style of music notation (Breve)
  • 1325

    Francesco Landini

    1325-1397
    - 140 Ballate
    - Influenced by the treble-dominated French chanson
    - Landini cadences
    - Musica ficta
  • 1450

    Gutenberg Printing Press

    Gutenberg's invention of the movable type printing press meant that books could be produced in greater numbers and more quickly and cheaply than ever before
  • Period: 1450 to

    Renaissance

    he revival of art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14th–16th centuries.
  • 1515

    Josquin’s Missa Pangue Lingua

    it is an extended fantasia on the Pange Lingua hymn, and is one of Josquin's most famous mass settings
  • 1529

    Martin Luther’s Ein feste burg

    one of the best known hymns by the reformer Martin Luther
  • 1538

    Arcadelt Il bianco e dolce cigno

    (The White and Sweet Swan) by Jacques Arcadelt (ca. 1505-1567). It was one of the most popular Italian madrigals of the Renaissance.
  • 1562

    Palestrina Pope Marcellus Mass

    a six-voice mass, but voice combinations are varied throughout the piece. The mass was composed in honor of Pope Marcellus II, who reigned for three weeks in 1555. Considered to be the piece that saved polyphony
  • 1580

    Concerto delle Donne

    c. 1580-97
    The concerto delle donne was a group of professional female singers in the late Renaissance court of Ferrara, Italy, renowned for their technical and artistic virtuosity.

  • Sonata pian’e forte

    Giovanni Gabriel
    Venice
    This is the earliest known piece of music to call for specific brass instruments. It was written for 8 instruments divided into 2 groups of 4 and placed in opposing galleries in the cathedral.
  • Period: to

    Pre Classical Period

  • Franz Joseph Haydn

    1732-1809
    Father of the Symphony
    106 Symphonies 68 String Quartets 47 Piano Sonatas 26 Operas 4 Oratorios Ca. 35 Concerti

  • WA Mozart

    1756-1791
    Over 600 Compositions Köchel, Not Opus 41 Symphonies 18 Piano Sonatas 28 Piano Concerti 23 String Quartets Other concerti
  • Period: to

    Viennese Classical Period

  • Period: to

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Might have been born December 16th, 1770
  • Period: to

    Chevalier de Saint-Georges as director of Concerts des Amateurs

  • Haydn's op.33 String Quartets

    composed in a “quite new and special way”
    Set the standard for intricacy and wit in string quartets writing Scherzo

  • Mozart's Piano Concerto No.23

    The concerto is scored for piano solo and an orchestra consisting of one flute, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and strings.
    Key of A major

  • Mozart's Don Giovanni

    The score was completed on 28 or 29 October 1787
    The opera was first performed on 29 October 1787 in Prague
  • Period: to

    Haydn's London Symphonies

  • Period: to

    Franz Peter Schubert

    an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music.

  • Symphony No. 5 in C minor

    The Symphony No. 5 in C minor of Ludwig van Beethoven, Op. 67, was written between 1804 and 1808. It is one of the best-known compositions in classical music and one of the most frequently played symphonies,[1] and it is widely considered one of the cornerstones of western music.

  • Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia

    opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini.

  • Niccolo Paganini 's 24 Caprices for Unaccompanied Violin, op.1

    The Caprices are in the form of études, with each number exploring different skills (double stopped trills, extremely fast switching of positions and strings, etc. They were never meant to be played in performance.

  • Erlkönig

    Franz Schubert composed his Lied "Erlkönig" for solo voice and piano at the age of 17 or 18 in 1815, setting text from Goethe's poem. Schubert revised the song three times before publishing his fourth version in 1821 as his Opus 1; it was catalogued by Otto Erich Deutsch as D. 328 in his 1951 catalog of Schubert's works. The song was first performed in concert on 1 December 1820 at a private gathering in Vienna and received its public premiere on 7 March 1821

  • Symphony No.9

    The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, also known as Beethoven's 9th, is the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as Beethoven's greatest work and one of the supreme achievements in the history of western music.

  • Symphony No.8 “Unfinished”

    commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony (German: Unvollendete), is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.

  • Berlioz Symphonie fantastique

    After attending a performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet on 11 September 1827, Berlioz fell in love with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson who had played the role of Ophelia. He sent her numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered. When she left Paris, they had still not met. Berlioz then wrote Symphonie fantastique as a way to express his unrequited love. Harriet did not attend the premiere in 1830, but she heard the work in 1832 and realized Berlioz's genius.
  • Period: to

    Frederic Chopin Mazurkas Op.7

    a set of five mazurkas by Frédéric Chopin. The mazurkas were written in 1830 – 1832. A typical performance of all five mazurkas takes a little over eleven minutes.

  • Robert Schumann Carnaval

    It consists of 21 short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent. Schumann gives musical expression to himself, his friends and colleagues, and characters from improvised Italian comedy

  • Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel Das Jahr

    a cycle of pieces depicting the months of the year, Das Jahr. The music was written on coloured sheets of paper, and illustrated by her husband Wilhelm. Each piece was also accompanied by a short poem.

  • Clara Wieck Schumann"Liebst du um Schönheit"

  • Berlioz Treatise on Instrumentation

    The book discusses the various technical aspects of instruments, such as chromatic range, tone quality, and limitations. An explanation of the role of particular instruments within the orchestra is also provided. The book also provides orchestral excerpts from classical scores to give examples of techniques discussed. These examples are sometimes of works by Berlioz himself, while Mozart, Wagner, Beethoven, and Gluck are also frequently cited

  • Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64

    Mendelssohn originally proposed the idea of the violin concerto to Ferdinand David, a close friend and then concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Although conceived in 1838, the work took another six years to complete and was not premiered until 1845. During this time, Mendelssohn maintained a regular correspondence with David, who gave him many suggestions.

  • Verdi 's La traviata

    DescriptionLa traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La Dame aux camélias, a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas fils.

  • Louis Moreau Gottschalk's Souvenir de Porto Rico

    it is based on the Christmas folk song Si me dan pasteles, denmelos calientes, performed by local peasants known as Jíbaros.[2] The piece makes use of Latin-American and Afro-American melodies and rhythms almost fifty years before early ragtime and jazz would popularize its use.

  • Wagner's Tristan und Isolde

    DescriptionTristan und Isolde, WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg.

  • Mussourgsky's Boris Godunov

    Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece.

  • Carmen Bizet

    DescriptionCarmen is an opera in four acts by French composer Georges Bizet. The libretto was written by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée.

  • Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen

    a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied.
    August 13-17, 1876

  • Symphony No. 4 (Brahms)

    last of his symphonies.

  • Mahler's Symphony No.1

    It was composed while Mahler was second conductor at the Leipzig Opera, Germany. Although in his letters Mahler almost always referred to the work as a symphony, the first two performances described it as a symphonic poem and as a tone poem in symphonic form respectively.

  • Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

    an 1892 two-act ballet

  • Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák)

    composed by Antonín Dvořák in 1893 while he was the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America from 1892 to 1895. It has been described as one of the most popular of all symphonies.

  • Puccini's Madama Butterfly

    an opera in three acts ( originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

  • Shostakovich Symphony No.5 premiere

    St. Petersburg, Russia

  • Prokofiev Alexander Nevsky (film)

    a 1938 historical drama film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It was produced by Goskino via the Mosfilm production unit, with Nikolai Cherkasov in the title role and a musical score by Sergei Prokofiev.

  • Olivier Messiaen's Quatuor pour le fine du temps

    Quatuor pour la fin du temps, also known by its English title Quartet for the End of Time, is a piece of chamber music by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. It was premiered in 1941. The piece is scored for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

  • John Cage's 4’33’’

    4′33″ is a three-movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, and the score instructs the performer not to play their instrument during the entire duration of the piece throughout the three movements.

  • Edward Varese Poeme Electronique

    Poème électronique is an 8-minute piece of electronic music by composer Edgard Varèse, written for the Philips Pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.

  • Miles Davis Kind of Blue

    a studio album by American jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. It was recorded on March 2 and April 22, 1959, at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City, and released on August 17 of that year by Columbia Records.

  • George Crumb's Black Angels

    a work for "electric string quartet" by the American avant-garde composer George Crumb. It was composed over the course of a year and is dated "Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli)" as written on the score

  • John Adams' Short Ride in a Fast Machine

    a orchestral work by John Adams. Adams applies the description "fanfare for orchestra" to this work and to the earlier Tromba Lontana (1986). The former is also known as Fanfare for Great Woods because it was commissioned for the Great Woods Festival of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

  • Copland Appalachian Spring

    a musical composition by Aaron Copland that premiered in 1944 and has achieved widespread and enduring popularity as an orchestral suite.