Music Terminology Reference

Periods of Music History

Baroque
Time Span	Representative Composers	Quick Look
~1600 - 1750	J. S. Bach Telemann Purcell Vivaldi Handel	Hard on the heels of the Renaissance, Baroque music reflected the exquisite ornamentation found in the great art of the day by Rembrandt, Rubens and others. Science was making great leaps and bounds courtesy of Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Galileo. Among the literary giants were Milton, Swift, Pope and Moliere. The most popular types of compositions were opera and oratorio (and its cousin, the passion). Cantatas and chorale preludes became important in church literature and were perfected by the Baroque's most illustrious master, J. S. Bach.

Classical
Time Span	Representative Composers	Quick Look
1750 - ~1825	Haydn Mozart Beethoven Schubert	Upon the close of the Baroque era, church music's prominence began to fade and orchestral music blossomed, particularly with regards to the symphony and the concerto. Among the great events of the era were the American Revolution, the fall of France's Sun King and subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic era.

Romantic
Time Span	Representative Composers	Quick Look
~1800 - ~1910	Berlioz Saint-Saens Tchaikovsky Verdi Mendelssohn Schumann Brahms Wagner	Music history has fluid divisions, yet it's fairly easy to give an approximate date when Renaissance or Baroque began. The early 1800's began a rather quick succession of fairly distinct, but overlapping, musical periods. The infusion of emotion and 'Sturm und Drang' into music, as a rebellion against the perceived "antisepticness" of the Baroque and early Classical eras, began to be standard practice. As in the previous period, orchestral music continued to take center stage: symphonic boundaries were being extended (some would say "obliterated"), concerti were following their own evolutionary path and something new arrived on the scene: tone poems.

Impressionist
Time Span	Representative Composers	Quick Look
~1875 - ~1925	Debussy Satie	Impressionism was the natural 'next step' for music at the end of the Romantic period. Like other times in music history, the compositions are mirrors to what was happening in art, literature and culture. Technically, the Impressionist period is the shortest of those covered (approximately 50 years). It would, however, be a mistake to think of it as simply a passing phase or an aberration because Impressionism foreshadowed the next chapter. You would be accurate in saying that this short period still has influence amongst composers of the present day.

Modern
Time Span	Representative Composers	Quick Look
~1910 - present	Prokofiev Stravinsky Copland Schoenberg	The logic behind the Romantic rebellion has reached its inevitable conclusion regarding the rules of composition, consonance and dissonance. The tonal music of the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms (and several hundred others) is left in the dust with the introduction of bitonality, polytonality, atonality, serial and 12-tone music. John Cage proves with 4'33" that you need not have one musical note sounded in order for a composition to be 'performed.' [4'33" is the title of a piece wherein a performer sits motionless in front of a piano for exactly four minutes, thirty-three seconds, after which time the "performance" is over.] There is a Neo-Classical movement afoot - the thrust of which is a return to the musical order of bygone periods.

Back to index of Music Terminology