Six Eras Of Music

The Six Eras of Music
Juacara Diggs
MUS-110-IN2
May 10th, 2015 In the history of Western music, there are six eras of music. These eras are the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Classical period, the Romantic era, and the Twentieth century. From 450 to 1450, music developed during the Middle Ages was characterized by the development of rhythmic independence in polyphonic textures. In the Middle Ages, there was medieval music that was mostly vocal. Medieval church music had eight scales or modes. Modes could be used for joyful music, chants, or tell stories. The modes were assembled from notes in the C major scale. The Gregorian chant was music of the Roman Catholic Church. It was a set of sacred texts that held elements of the Jewish
One of the characteristic art forms of the Baroque era was opera. Opera in the Baroque era had many different arts in music, drama, poetry, and dancing. Architecture in the Baroque era interacted with the music and was influenced by historic features of the era. Features in dynamic and dramatic elements were visible to both music and architecture. Composers contributed to instrumental music. Instrumental music had three developments. The first development of instrumental music was dance. Dance had a unique momentum from opera. With ballet being linked to opera, it would put together sets of dances chosen from the operas. The second development is virtuosity, which composers of instrumental music drew as a source. Virtuous players would have played instruments that already prevailed but the fine art of early virtuosos was created and preformed without preparation. The last development is vocal music. In vocal music, the main technique was imitative polyphony. This was transported to the instrumental medium. Vocal music influenced instrumental music by giving instrumentalists a variety of materials they could use as a basis of sets of sectional
Classical music was important to classical composers who favored important forms such as themes and variations, minuet and trio. Classical music that was developed by the most famous and influential composer, Beethoven, found new ways and developed new ideas into his works. From his symphonies to sonatas, it caught the attention of listeners in his time. In his symphonies, three main features of this work is what impressed and stood out towards the listeners is its motivic consistency, rhythmic drive, and a sense of progression. . His music was separated into 3 different style periods. The first style period focused on building up the style of Mozart and Haydn. Beethoven’s mood of excitement and urgency sets apart Mozart and Haydn. With that, Beethoven maximized virtually all-musical elements. From harsher dissonances, higher and lower registers, to sharper syncopations, all of these musical elements are found in Beethoven’s music. The second style period consisted of characterized works such as the Eroica and Fifth symphonies. Beethoven associated with the most public of Classical genres, which is the symphony. Beethoven wrote fewer symphonies than sonatas that no musician would rank these works lower than the symphonies. Last, is the third style period. In this period, Beethoven’s music lost its tone and became introvert, thus making genres more intimate than symphonies. One of Beethoven’s powerful symphonies, the Ninth, dates from