Music as a whole is an amalgamation of people’s work and emotions, but what was it before our time? Before our time, there were 6 musical periods which were the Medieval period, Renaissance period, Baroque period, Classical period, Romantic period, the Great War period, and our time period, being the 20th and 21st century.
The first ever musical period was the Medieval period which lasted from 1150 to 1400. The Medieval period is the first batch of music that we can actually tell what they sounded like. Most music coming from that time period was connected to their churches, meaning that they were based on religions. The music was made from the flute, recorder, and plucked string instruments. The most known song from the Medieval period is the Gregorian Chant. And it was monophonic, being a single musical line. But later on into the 11th and 13th century, it switched into organum, consisting of two or three musical lines. The music that was very popular during this era was written by John Dunstable, Adam de la Halle, Philippe de Vitry, Guillaume de Machaut, and Francesco Landini.
The next musical period, the Renaissance period, lasted from 1400 to 1600.
This period was more focused on harmony and polyphony, and composers were more on making choral music. And the music still stuck to its religious base and also included new music like masses, anthems, psalms, and motets. The instruments also became more complex with trumpets, viol, guitar, harpsichord, triangle, small drums, reed pipe, bagpipe, and many more. Along with this, the latter half of this period was the period where composers strayed away from the modal system of harmony and moved onto the organization of major and minor scales.
After the Renaissance, comes the Baroque period, which lasted from 1600 to 1750. The Baroque period was the start of opera, concerto, sonata, cantata, and modern orchestra. And choral music was no longer being made as much, composers instead turned to compose instrumental works for various ensembles. The earlier versions of the viol from the last period, to the violin, viola, and cello. But the Baroque also came with new instruments like the drum, snare, timpani, tambourine, and castanets. Composers of the Baroque period include Henry Purcell, Alessandro Scarlatti, Claudio Monteverdi, and Jean Baptiste Lully. And later on in the period also includes Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Philipp Telemann, George Frederick Handel, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Antonio Vivaldi, and Dominico Scarlatti.
The composers of the Baroque period soon adjusted into the next period, the Classical period. The Classical period lasted until 1750 to 1820. And with the Classical period, also comes with the instrumental composition that is still present to this day : sonata form. The Classical period is mostly known for its near-obsession with structural clarity in music. The compositions of the Baroque period also developed in the Classical period in which those composition forms are modern concerto, symphony, sonata, trio, and quartet. There weren’t that many instruments invented in this period, but the period did replace the harpsichord with the piano. Orchestras also expanded in size, range, and power. Popular composers in this period include Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and last but not least, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Soon after the Classical period, The Romantic period started. But there are two periods in this period. Being the Early Romantic period, lasting from 1830 to 1860. And the Late Romantic period, lasting from 1860 to 1920. A reason why they called this period Romantic is because the Classical period’s music was more intense and overwhelming statement. But the Romantic period was more dramatic and emotional. This era made virtuoso shine, where the friendliest music would be performed with absolute ease. The instrumentation was also becoming more popular with orchestras expanding and growing. And music in general was widely explored and the composers of this time came up with more originality. And they added story lines to their work of art, which added more structure and base to it. The composers of this era included Berlioz, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt and Verdi. But there are Nationalists that compose, being the Russian Glinka and the Bohemian Smetana. Furthermore, the Late Romantic period was the same as the early era, but had more growth and freshness with different composers making different music.
Following the Romantic period, comes the Great War period. Lasting from 1920 to 1955. And like the Romantic era, this era expanded the music genres even more than last time. But because of the inter-war years, Austrians, Webern and Lehar were set back half a century on experimenting music because of the war. Moreover, what they were experimenting with was known as serial structure.
Subsequently, our era started, being the 20th and 21st century. And the stark contrast between our music and the rest of the eras is very clear. Music composers became less popular, but music artists’ stocks had risen. With artists like Elvis Presly, Micheal Jackson, and David Bowie being the start of the music artists. But bands were also gaining popularity with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Queen. And even later into our era, there are more artists that are popular today like Drake, Taylor Swift, Adele, Eminem, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Kanye, and many more. Adding to that, all of these artists have all of their own feel to their music. In addition to that, music genres are also vastly different, like R&B, Hip Hop/Rap, Country, Funk, Rock, Folk music, Pop, and numerous more. And that’s what makes our era different from the rest.
