Music started in the year 600 the Medieval Period- (600-1400) when music was only played in churches-- written by Popes and performed by Monks. The musical notes used then were neumes; all songs were primarily monophonic (Music having a singlemelodic line.) All pieces were written by hand and copied by hand, so if a monk who accidentally writes a neume wrong, the person after him copies it wrong and they may change the piece. Kind of like a game of Telephone. These pieces were known asGregorian Chant, which got its name from Pope Gregory I. He didn’t invent it but he did in a way, organize it—he got together an official collection of the pieces that were sung at this time, being the Pope his approval for differing versions was a big deal. There…show more content… Jean-Baptiste Lully, one of the first conductors, is conducting a piece for King Louis XIV. Lully’s orchestra was enormous compared to the size of regular orchestras at that time. Lully’s orchestra was about the size of a modern day orchestra, consisting of a large number of violins, a few violas, some cellos, and a small brass section. Lully used a big stick to conduct his orchestra and would bang it on the floor in time with the music-- one unfortunate day Lully missed his podium and ended up hitting his foot causing a major injury, which eventually led to his death. Johann Pachabel wrote many pieces during this time, but one major piece stood out and is still played today, Canon in D, better known as Pachabel’s Canon. Archangelo Corelli was the first composer to make his claim to fame based directly on instrumental music. Corelli insisted that all of the many string instruments play their part in exactly the same way at exactly the same time. Archangelo Corelli wrote his Concerto Grosso No.8, which is more commonly known as the Christmas Concerto. The two main composers of the Baroque Period were Johann Sebastian Bach (J.S Bach) and George Frederic Handel. Bach was born into a very musical family, from his father to his many siblings and relatives there were many famous Bach composers. In J.S Bach’s time they didn’t have modern transportation—they had to walk everywhere—one day Bach walked 213 miles to…show more content… In the Classical Period, the performers were usually more famous than the composers who wrote the pieces being performed. The church gradually became less important employers and composers moved on to people of higher social class, such as noblemen. Concert Halls began to pop up all over Europe more so in this period. One of the more famous composers was Carl Phillip Emanuel (C.P.E) Bach, one of J.S Bach’s 20 children-- other Famous Bach’s’ include W.F Bach and J.C Bach. Another composer during C.P.E Bach’s time was Christoph Willibald Gluck, writing a more “modern” (at the time) version of Orpheo titled Orpheus and Eurydice. After Gluck came Franz Joseph Haydn—Haydn wrote more than 80 string quartets and more than 50 piano sonatas, and 20 operas. In addition to that, there were concertos and chamber music. Haydn however wrote 104 symphonies-- No.45 the Farewell Symphony, No.94 the Surprise Symphony, No.101 the Clock, No.104 the London Symphony--Haydn was known as the father of the symphony. Following Haydn was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—by the time Mozart was 12 years old he had already completed two operas, he was a true child prodigy. Mozart later moved to Vienna to the music capitol of the world being a big impulse spender Mozart borrowed from many friends but never repaid them-- by death he was virtually penniless and was buried in a grave with other poor people where they
