Medieval & Renaissance (476-1600

By CellistJonahKing
  • 476

    Fall of Rome

  • Period: 476 to 1430

    Eyeglasses Invented

  • Period: 476 to 1430

    Medieval Genres

    Secular
    Ballads
    Iais
    Rondeaux
    Virelais
    Madrigals
    Chant
  • Period: 476 to 1430

    Notations for Pitch and Rhythm Invented

  • Period: 476 to 1430

    Medieval Stylistic Traits

    Almost purely-functional music, for specific services, dances, or for entertainment. Melodies are confined to a small range of steady and regular rhythms. Technically harmonies are not yet established but, but common intervals used are 4ths, 5hts, and octaves. Monophonic. Text and poetic form determined musical structure.
  • Period: 480 to 524

    Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

    Roman writer and statesman; important as a music theorist with his De instituione musica ("The Fundmentals of Music, early 500s)
  • Period: 991 to 1033

    Guido of Arezzo

    Music theorist; he is credited with creating a system of precise pitch notation through lines and spaces on a staff; he advocated a method of sight-singing using the syllables, (ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la); His treaties, Micrologus, Is the earliest and best treaties on musical composition of chant and polyphony.
  • Period: 995 to 1050

    Wipo of Burgundy

    Priest, poet, and composer.
  • Period: 1071 to 1126

    William IX

    Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Poitiers, father of Eleanor; Earliest of the troubadours whose works survive; respected nobleman, but remembered for his womanizing.
  • Period: 1098 to 1179

    Hildegard von Bingen

    Composer of the first morality play; known as the Sybil of the Rhine; writer, composer, theologian; her counsel was sought after by rulers.
  • Period: 1130 to 1200

    Bernart de Ventadorn

    (ca. 1130-40-ca. 1190-1200)
    Famous troubadour; perhaps the finest of the troubadour poets; very important musically to us because more of his music survives than any other 12th-century poet.
  • Period: 1135 to 1201

    Leonin

    (Magister Leoninus II); Master of organum purum at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; Our information comes largely from anonymous IV's writing.
  • Period: 1150 to 1200

    Arnaut Daniel

    Dante esteemed him above all other troubadours; master of the "difficult" style; He took the poetic style to new heights.
  • Period: 1155 to 1200

    Blondel de Nesle

    One of the most important early trouveres; his works show up in multiple manuscripts.
  • Period: 1160 to 1213

    Gace Brule

    One of the earliest trouveres and most famous of poets; Melodies show influence of Gregorian Chant.
  • Period: 1170 to 1230

    Walther von der Vogelweide

    Poet and Minnesinger; worked at the Viennese court; he wrote the earliest surviving minnesinger melody; his contemporaries considered him the leading composer and poet among Minnesinger.
  • Period: 1180 to 1238

    Perotin

    Master of discant organum at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; supposed student of Leonin; write 3 and 4-voice organum; his identity is regarded as speculative.
  • Period: 1180 to 1278

    Peire Cardenal

    One of the most celebrated troubadours of his time; He was fond of satirical criticism of contemporary nobility and clergy.
  • Period: 1183 to 1205

    Peire Vidal

    Troubadour; eccentric character; wide-ranging melodies.
  • Period: 1190 to 1236

    Neidhart von Reuental

    Austrian Minnesigner; one of the earliest German poets; folk-like style; his works were the only Minnesinger songs printed in the Renaissance; sang in Vienna.
  • Period: 1212 to 1212

    Comtessa Beatriz de Dia

    (d. ca. 1212)
    Famous female troubadour; She has left us the only surviving melody by a female troubadour.
  • Period: 1213 to 1239

    Moniot d'Arras

    Trouvere; wrote in several genres and forms; monk at Arras.
  • Period: 1221 to 1284

    Alfonso X

    Spanish Monarch; King of Castile and Leon; brother in law of Edward I of England; patron of literature and art; initially did the study of music at Salamanca University; helped compile Cantigas de Santa Maria.
  • Period: 1230 to 1300

    Guiraut Riquier

    The last of the troubadours; lived in Spain under Alfonso X.
  • Period: 1245 to 1288

    Adam de la Halle

    (ca. 1245-50-ca. 1285-8)
    One of the last trouveres; wrote polyphony; studied in Paris.
  • Period: 1291 to 1361

    Philippe de Vitry

    Known as the "inventor of a new art," French composer, poet, theorist, and bishop; established a new tradition of mensural notation.
  • Period: 1300 to 1350

    The Ars Nova in France

  • Period: 1300 to 1390

    The Trecento in Italy

  • Period: 1300 to 1377

    Guillaume de Machaut

    The leading composer and poet of the Ars Nova; his importance and innovations are extraordinary.
  • Period: 1320 to 1363

    Gherardello da Firenze

    (ca. 1320-25-1362/63)
    Italian composer; ranks second in importance to Landini; priest.
  • Period: 1325 to 1397

    Francesco Landini

    Know for his cadences; virtuoso organist; blind from early age; most celebrated musical personality of the Trecento; also an instrument maker.
  • Period: 1337 to 1453

    Hundred Years War

  • Period: 1340 to 1386

    Jacopo da Bologna

    Italian composer; virtuoso harpist; theorist; teacher of Landini; wrote a treatise on notation.
  • Period: 1376 to 1445

    Oswald von Wolkenstein

    Austrian poet and composer; used French notation; wrote polyphony; used German texts.
  • Period: 1390 to 1453

    John Dunstaple

    The leading English composer; created a new consonant style of 3rds and 6ths that became the Renaissance style; many works destroyed during the English Reformation 1536-40.
  • Period: 1397 to 1474

    Guillaume Du Fay

    Franco-Flemish; the first important Renaissance composer; used older medieval cadences.
  • Period: 1400 to 1460

    Gilles Blinchois

    Early Renaissance composer, often paired with Dufay in importance; served at the Court of the Duke of Burgandy; Franco-Flemish.
  • Period: 1400 to 1400

    Baude Cordier

    French composer; he wrote in the older style and in the new modern are subtilior; his rondeau, Belle bonne sage, was published in musical notation in the shape of a heart.
  • Period: 1410 to 1497

    Johannes Ockeghem

    Bass singer; served 3 Kings; very respected; did not use much imitation; born in Northeastern France; important teacher.
  • Period: 1430 to

    Renaissance Stylistic Traits

    The top voice was usually chosen as the melodic voice; rhythm was quite simple; progressions od 3rds and 6ths; dissonances were not encouraged; tonal system was modality; homorhythm; counterpoint; few forms; cantus firmus, poetic strophic, binary, madrigals; purpose shifted from function to beauty.
  • Period: 1430 to

    New Tuning Systems

  • Period: 1430 to

    Renaissance Genres

    Ballet, balletti, chant, masses, motets, hymns, secular, sacred.
  • Period: 1445 to 1518

    Loyset Compere

    Franco-Flemish composer, singer; worked in France and Italy; perhaps one of the earliest composers to use imitation prominently.
  • Period: 1446 to 1506

    Alexander Agricola

    Franco-Flemish; worked in France and Italy; his music was widely distributed.
  • 1450

    Printing Press Invented

  • Period: 1450 to 1521

    Josquin des Prez

    Considered by Martin Luther to be the "best of the composers of our time' and 'the master of the notes;' he was said to have had no peer in music; French.
  • Period: 1450 to 1517

    Heinrich Isaac

    Franco-Flemish composer who influenced German music; court composer to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in Vienna; served in Florence as well
  • Period: 1452 to 1518

    Pierre de la Rue

    Leading composer at the Burgundian court; never worked in Italy; very famous in his day; frequent use of canon and ostinato; preferred low sonorities.
  • Period: 1457 to 1505

    Jacob Obrecht

    Made important contributions to large-scale forms and their unity; Dutch; important composer of masses in Europe.
  • Period: 1466 to 1539

    Ottaviano Petrucci

    First music printer and publisher; preserved Renaissance music for us today.
  • Period: 1483 to 1546

    Martin Luther

    German theologian and composer; he was the founder of the Lutheran church.
  • Period: 1490 to 1562

    Adrian Willaert

    Complex, continuous polyphony; strong advocate of textual expression; studied with Jean Mouton; served in Italian courts; extraordinary teacher; worked in Venice at St. Marks Cathedral.
  • Period: 1505 to

    Thomas Tallis

    English organist; taught Byrd; he was Catholic during Henry VIII's troubled years; wrote both for the Latin and thee reformed English liturgies.
  • Period: 1507 to 1568

    Jacques Arcadelt

    Dutch; worked in Rome and Paris; famous for his early madrigals and his 3 to 7-voice masses (often homorhythmic style); well published in the 16th century.
  • Period: 1515 to 1565

    Cipriano de Rore

    Flemish; worked in Ferrara and Parma; associated with Willaert.
  • Period: 1521 to

    Philippe de Monte

    At the Viennese and Prague courts; religious; Franco-Flemish; mixed polyphony and homophony; one of the most prolific composers of the Renaissance.
  • Period: 1525 to

    Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

    Became an icon of Renaissance music for future generation; Roman style; responded to the requests of the Council of Trent to reform Catholic church music; mostly contrapuntal liturgical music.
  • Period: 1532 to

    Orlando di Lasso

    Also Roland de Lassus; widely traveled; employed G. Gabrieli in 1575; over 2000 compositions in all languages; one of the most versatile and prolific composers in the 16th century.
  • Period: 1532 to

    Andrea Gabrieli

    Italian organist, composer, teacher, uncle of Giovanni; worked in Venice; pupil of Willaert; versatile and innovative.
  • Period: 1534 to

    Count Giovanni Bardi

    Leader of the Florentine Camerate in the late 1570s-90s; Italian critic, poet, composer, and playwright.
  • Period: 1535 to

    Giaches de Wert

    Pupil of de Roree; served the Dukes of Manuta and Parma; stormy personal life; text declamation was important to him; he influenced Monteverdi; friend of the poet, Tasso; wrote madrigals for the Concerto della donne.
  • Period: 1540 to

    William Byrd

    English; Catholic composer writing both Protestant and Catholic music in England; greatest English composer of his time.
  • Period: 1548 to

    Thomas Luis de Victoria

    Spanish; continued Palestrina's Roman-style in Spain; studied in Rome; sacred-music composer; the greatest Spanish composer in the Renaissance.
  • Period: 1553 to

    Luca Marenzio

    The leading madrigal composer of the elate 16th century; worked in Rome, Ferrara, Florence, and Warsaw (serving the King of Poland); influenced the English madrigal.
  • Period: 1557 to

    Thomas Morley

    English; contributed to the development of the English madrigal; important for music publication and printing; probably a pupil of Byrd.
  • Period: 1561 to

    Carlo Gesualdo

    Known for his chromaticism; leading composer of madrigals; extreme expressive intensity.
  • Period: 1567 to

    Claudio Monteverdi

    Ahead of his time; took music into a new style.
  • Period: 1576 to

    Thomas Weelkes

    English organist; excessive drinking was a problem for him.