survey of western music history final

Monteverdi

Bridged Renaissance and Baroque; composer who transformed madrigals and helped invent opera; known for emotional expressiveness, early recitative, and contrast

J. S. Bach

Baroque composer whose mastery of counterpoint, fugue, and harmonic structure shaped Western music; wrote Brandenburg Concertos, Well-Tempered Clavier, and sacred works like the St. Matthew Passion.

Handel

Baroque composer famous for operas, oratorios, and instrumental suites, dramatic vocal writing; and he was central to 18th-century English musical life. German born but worked in England

Messiah is a famous work

Beethoven

Bridge between Classical and Romantic eras; known for intense expression, expanding forms, and innovations in harmony and orchestration; works include nine symphonies, late string quartets, and the Heiligenstadt Testament.

Weber

Early Romantic composer who pioneered German Romantic opera; Der Freischütz established supernatural and folk elements as hallmarks of German opera.

Schubert

Early Romantic composer known for lyrical melodies, over 600 lieder, and major chamber works; created the modern song cycle with works like Winterreise.

Chopin

Polish Romantic composer famed for piano works—nocturnes, mazurkas, études—deeply expressive and nationalistic; revolutionized piano technique and color.

Berlioz

Radical French Romantic composer known for imaginative orchestration and programmatic music; wrote Symphonie fantastique with its idée fixe theme technique.

Wagner

German composer who revolutionized opera with “music drama,” leitmotifs, expanded harmony, and the massive Ring Cycle; built Bayreuth for his works.

Mahler

Late-Romantic composer whose massive symphonies explore existential themes with huge orchestras, expanded harmony, and emotional extremes.

Brahms

Conservative yet masterful Romantic composer who extended Classical forms with rich harmonies; known for his symphonies, chamber music, and German Requiem.

Liszt

Virtuosic Romantic pianist and composer who invented the symphonic poem and expanded harmonic language; pioneer of thematic transformation.

Tchaikovsky

Russian Romantic known for ballets (Swan Lake, Nutcracker), symphonies, and lush orchestration blending Western forms with Russian lyricism.

Debussy

Founder of musical Impressionism, using innovative harmonies, modes, whole-tone scales, and new orchestral colors; known for La Mer and Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune.

Ravel

French composer of refined orchestration and neo-Classical tendencies; works include Boléro, Daphnis et Chloé, and virtuosic piano writing.

Schoenberg

Leader of the Second Viennese School; broke from tonality, developed atonality and the twelve-tone/serial technique; known for Pierrot Lunaire.

Webern

Second Viennese School composer known for extremely concise pieces, pointillism, and radical serial techniques that influenced postwar modernism.

Berg

Combined twelve-tone technique with Romantic expressivity; known for operas Wozzeck and Lulu with deep psychological complexity.

Stravinsky

Influential 20th-century composer whose styles transitioned from Russian primitivism (The Rite of Spring) to neo-Classicism and later serialism.

Gershwin

American composer blending jazz and classical idioms; known for Rhapsody in Blue, Porgy and Bess, and popular Tin Pan Alley songs.

Louis Armstrong

Transformative jazz trumpeter and vocalist who pioneered swing, improvisation, and expressive phrasing; central figure in early jazz and scat singing.

Duke Ellington

Jazz composer, bandleader, and pianist whose sophisticated orchestration and harmonies defined the big-band era; wrote over a thousand works.

Sergei Diaghilev

Ballet impresario who founded the Ballets Russes and commissioned groundbreaking works from Stravinsky, Debussy, Ravel, and others.

Nadia Boulanger

Legendary composition teacher who mentored generations of major composers including Copland, Quincy Jones, and Philip Glass.

Tan Dun

Contemporary Chinese composer renowned for blending Western orchestral traditions with Chinese instruments and theatricality; known for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Les Paul

Innovator of the solid-body electric guitar and multitrack recording; one of the most influential figures in modern popular music technology.

H. T. Burleigh

African American singer and composer who popularized concert spirituals and influenced Dvořák’s American musical ideas.

William Grant Still

“Dean of Afro-American composers,” integrating blues, jazz, and spirituals into classical genres; known for Afro-American Symphony.

Charles Burney

18th-century English music historian whose travel writings document European musical life and remain foundational sources.

C. P. E. Bach

Key figure of Empfindsamer Stil; transitional composer influencing Classical style through expressive keyboard works.

J. C. Bach

The “London Bach,” whose light Galant style strongly influenced the young Mozart and early Classical aesthetics.

Domenico Scarlatti

Baroque composer famous for over 500 virtuosic keyboard sonatas using bold harmonies and Spanish idioms.

Giovanni Gabrieli

Venetian composer known for polychoral, antiphonal music and innovations in early instrumental scoring at St. Mark’s Basilica.

Palestrina

Renaissance master of smooth polyphony whose sacred music exemplified clarity and balance; associated with ideal Catholic Counter-Reformation style.

Petrucci

Early music printer (16th c.) who revolutionized distribution of music using triple-impression printing; published Odhecaton.

Guillaume de Machaut

Leading Ars Nova composer, poet, and creator of the first complete Mass Ordinary cycle; known for sophisticated isorhythmic motets.

Philippe de Vitry

French Ars Nova theorist and composer whose treatise Ars nova notandi established new rhythmic notation.

Haydn

“Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet”; shaped Classical style and mentored Beethoven; known for humor and structural clarity.

Mozart

Classical-era prodigy whose operas, symphonies, and chamber works exemplify balance, drama, and melodic perfection.

Salieri

Classical composer known for operas and sacred music; respected teacher of Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt; rival to Mozart in Vienna.

Gluck

Opera reformer seeking dramatic truth and simplicity, clearing away da capo excess; famous for Orfeo ed Euridice.

Schumann

Romantic composer and critic exploring literary expression and character pieces; created Florestan and Eusebius personas.

affect / doctrine of affections

A Baroque theory asserting that each movement or section of music should embody one clear emotional state (joy, anger, sadness, love) using consistent rhythm, harmony, and melodic gestures to “move the passions” of the listener.

aleatoric music

A 20th-century experimental approach where elements of the music (pitch, rhythm, form, timing) are left to chance or performer choice; associated with John Cage and “chance operations.”

atonality

A musical system without a tonal center, avoiding traditional major/minor hierarchies; pioneered by Schoenberg as a break from Romantic harmonic expectations.

bi-/polytonality

The simultaneous use of two (bitonality) or more (polytonality) distinct keys; used by modernists such as Stravinsky for sharp contrast and bold harmonic color.

antiphonal / polychoral

A spatial performance technique with separated ensembles answering each other; famously used in St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, by Giovanni Gabrieli for dramatic stereo effects.

Baroque

The period (c.1600–1750) marked by dramatic contrast, ornamentation, basso continuo, the rise of opera, and the solidification of major–minor tonality; associated with Bach, Handel, and Monteverdi.

Bayreuth

Wagner’s specially designed opera house with a hidden pit and unique acoustics, hosting the annual Bayreuth Festival devoted to his music dramas.

bop (bebop)

A virtuosic jazz style of the 1940s featuring fast tempos, angular melodies, complex harmonies, and intense improvisation; associated with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie.

castrato

A male singer castrated before puberty to preserve a high vocal range with powerful adult lungs; dominant in Baroque opera seria.

countertenor

A high-voice male singer performing in the alto or mezzo-soprano range, often in Baroque repertoire originally written for castrati.

Classical

The period c.1750–1820 emphasizing clarity, proportion, balanced phrases, and standardized forms such as sonata and symphony; represented by Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven.

Empfindsamer Stil

A sensitive, expressive German style of the mid-18th century with sudden emotional changes, chromaticism, and speech-like phrasing, associated with C. P. E. Bach.

Florestan & Eusebius

Robert Schumann’s fictional alter egos, representing his passionate (Florestan) and introspective (Eusebius) sides; used in his writings and music.

impresario

A producer/manager who organizes performances, hires musicians, secures funding, and shapes artistic direction; e.g., Sergei Diaghilev of the Ballets Russes.

impressionism/-ists

A French movement (late 19th–early 20th c.) emphasizing timbre, atmosphere, color, whole-tone and modal scales, and subtle harmonic ambiguity; associated with Debussy and Ravel.

isorhythm

A medieval technique where a repeating rhythmic pattern (talea) and a repeating melodic pattern (color) structure the tenor line of motets; used by Machaut and Dufay.

Kalevala

The Finnish national epic whose mythology inspired nationalist composers such as Jean Sibelius in the 19th century.

Le Hot Club de France

A Parisian 1930s jazz ensemble/venue featuring Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli; central to the development of “gypsy jazz.”

leitmotif

A recurring musical idea symbolizing a person, object, or idea; used extensively by Wagner to unify musical drama.

idée fixe

Berlioz’s recurring obsessive theme in Symphonie fantastique, representing the beloved and transforming across movements to depict hallucination and emotional turmoil.

Les Six

A group of early 20th-century French composers—Milhaud, Poulenc, Honegger, Auric, Tailleferre, Durey—who rejected Romantic and Impressionist excess in favor of clarity and wit.

lied / lieder

A German art song for voice and piano setting lyric poetry; major composers include Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms.

Mannheim School

An influential 18th-century orchestra renowned for precision and innovations like the Mannheim crescendo and rocket; shaped Classical orchestral writing and influenced Mozart.

Medieval

The era c.500–1400 featuring chant, early notation, modes, troubadour song, organum, and the first polyphonic innovations at Notre Dame.

Mighty Handful / Five

A group of 19th-century Russian nationalist composers—Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Borodin—seeking a distinct Russian musical identity.

minimalism

A late 20th-century movement with repetition, steady pulse, gradual change, and modal or tonal harmony; represented by Reich, Glass, and Riley.

monophony

Texture consisting of a single melodic line without accompaniment; typical of early chant and some folk music.

homophony

Texture with a clear melody supported by chordal harmony; dominant in Classical and Romantic eras.

polyphony

Multiple independent melodic lines sounding simultaneously; central in Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint.

musique concrète

Early electronic music using recorded natural sounds manipulated by editing, looping, reversing, and filtering; pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer in the 1940s.

nationalism

A 19th–20th-century trend where composers used folk material, national myths, languages, and rhythms to express national identity; seen in Smetana, Sibelius, and Mussorgsky.

Neo-Classical

A 20th-century movement reviving Classical balance, clarity, and form with modern harmonic language; exemplified by Stravinsky and Prokofiev.

opera

A staged drama combining music, singing, orchestra, costumes, and sets; originated c.1600 with the Florentine Camerata.

opera buffa

Comic Italian opera featuring everyday characters, fast dialogue, and witty ensembles; exemplified by Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

opera seria

Noble, tragic Italian opera of the Baroque/Classical periods with virtuosic arias for castrati; associated with Handel.

pants role

An operatic role in which a woman portrays a young male character, typically mezzo-soprano; e.g., Cherubino in Mozart’s Figaro.

Renaissance

The musical era c.1400–1600 characterized by smooth modal polyphony, imitation, and sacred motets; culminates in the style of Palestrina.

Romantic

The 19th-century era emphasizing emotion, individualism, expanded harmony, and programmatic expression; includes Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner.

rondo form

A musical form featuring a recurring refrain (A) alternating with contrasting sections (B, C, etc.); patterns include ABACA and ABACABA.

Second Viennese School

Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg—early 20th-century composers who pioneered atonality and the twelve-tone system.

sonata-allegro form

Classical first-movement form with exposition (themes introduced), development (themes transformed), and recapitulation (themes return in home key).

song cycle

A group of art songs linked by story, poetry, or musical theme; notable examples include Schubert’s Winterreise and Schumann’s Dichterliebe.

sturm und drang

An 18th-century movement emphasizing emotional turmoil, minor keys, and dramatic contrasts; found in works by Haydn and Mozart.

third-stream music

A mid-20th-century synthesis of jazz and classical traditions, coined by Gunther Schuller.

Tin Pan Alley

The New York publishing center for American popular song (1890s–1950s), producing many standards and early Broadway hits.

tone poem (symphonic poem)

A one-movement orchestral work inspired by a story, poem, or idea; pioneered by Liszt and expanded by Richard Strauss.

Treatise on Instrumentation

Berlioz’s influential 1844 manual describing orchestral instruments and techniques, shaping later orchestration practices.