Western Music

Timeline of Western Music

Medieval Music

• Music in France
• Gregorian chant
• Organum (polyphony)
• Notre Dame school (Léonin, Pérotin)
• Motet

Renaissance Music

• Music in Flanders, Italy
• Dufay (origin of Renaissance music)
• Flanders school (Ockeghem, Binchois, Josquin)
• First composers
• Venetian school (Gabrieli, Monteverdi)

Baroque Music

• Court music, religious music, fugue, background music
• Monteverdi (origin of Baroque music)
• Opera (Bernini, Tintoretto)
• Monody and Basso Continuo
• German Protestant music (Bach)
• Notable figures and works:
  • Opera
  • Monteverdi
  • Lully
  • Vivaldi
  • The Four Seasons
  • Stradivarius
  • First opera house and first public concert
  • Pachelbel’s Canon and Albinoni’s Adagio
  • Telemann
  • Handel
  • Bach
  • Symphony
  • Sonata
  • The very first symphony

Classical Music

• Mannheim school
• Music popularization
• Symphony (Haydn)
• Sonata (Vivaldi)
• Opera (Mozart)
• Enlightenment music (Beethoven)
• Key figures and concepts:
  • Haydn
  • The musical city of Vienna
  • Mozart
  • Beethoven (Eroica, Fate, Pastoral)
  • Dedications
  • Orchestra and conductor
  • Schubert (Unfinished Symphony)
  • Rossini

Romantic Music

• Individuality (Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Rossini, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky)
• Music schools & music criticism
• Grand opera & salon music in Paris
• German sacred music opposing social music trends
• Early Romantic:
  • Piano
  • Program music and absolute music
  • The Four Seasons, Revolutionary, Pathetique
  • Paganini
  • French music
  • Berlioz
  • Mendelssohn
  • Schumann
  • Clara Schumann
  • Chopin (Etudes)
• Late Romantic:
  • Liszt
  • Symphonic poems
  • Wagner (Ring of the Nibelung)
  • Music festivals
  • Bizet
  • Verdi
  • Puccini
  • Musical adaptations of literary works
  • National schools:
    • Grieg
    • Sibelius
    • Smetana
    • Dvořák
    • Russian Five:
      • Mussorgsky
      • Tchaikovsky (Pathetique)
  • Brahms
  • Bruckner
  • Mahler
  • Impressionism in music:
    • Debussy
    • Ravel
    • Satie

20th-Century Music

• Break from Romanticism
• Neoclassicism (Stravinsky)
• Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique
• Avant-garde music
• Popular music (The Beatles)
• Key figures and concepts:
  • Strauss
  • Schoenberg
  • Rachmaninoff
  • Bartók
  • Prokofiev
  • Stravinsky
  • Popular music
  • Gershwin
  • Elgar
  • Phonograph
  • Shostakovich
  • Britten
  • Messiaen
  • Piazzolla
  • Contemporary music
  • Cage
  • Callas
  • Gould
  • Karajan
  • Early music revival
  • Bernstein
  • Musical theater
  • Film music