The Baroque Era:
                                   Rembrandt: "The Night Watch"
 
     The baroque era yielded many important advancements in the way music was written, performed, and heard. The most important of all these innovations, and the foundation on which all subsequent music would be built is the Equal-temperament Tuning System. Up to the point of its advent, musicians had been using many different temperaments including the widely used Mean-tone Temperament. This form of tuning allowed only about three key areas to be in tune while the rest would have flaws. The Equal-temperament tuning system allowed all keys to sound in tune with themselves throughout their entire range. The first widely-known composition to successfully employ this tuning system is J.S. Bach's "Well Tempered Clavier".
 
     The influence of the reign of Louis XIV could be seen in the music of the Baroque era. A key component of Baroque music, largely influenced by the French monarchy, is the "French Overture". The feel of the French Overture is of a slow, stately march, much the same as the walk Louis XIV might have taken down the Palace of Versailles's famed Hall of Mirrors. The French Overture was usually contained in a dance suite, the movements following the overture were the Air, Bouree, and Gigue. To this day, scholars study the subtleties of these dance styles to best recreate the way in which they were performed.
 

Key Composers:

- J.S. Bach

- Claudio Monteverdi

- Henry Purcell

- Antonio Vivaldi

 
The Classical Era:
                                 Fragonard: "Bathers"
 
                                  
     Where the Baroque era left off, the Classical era picks up and runs. The Classical era plays off of the ornamentation and regality of the Baroque era. It also perfects the compositional forms created in the Baroque era such as the symphony, sonata, concerto, and string quartet. The defining factor of the music of the Classical era is its strict adherence to the classic forms. Any music that broke these forms, let alone displayed strong emotion, was considered to be radical. It was the goal of Classical composers to find new and interesting ways to compose inside of these pre-configured forms.The key composers of the Classical era were grouped together into a group called the "Viennese School". The works of the viennese school composers got more visibility and exposure than any other era of classical composers. A boom in the building of concert halls and demand for live concerts made the music of the Classical era available to a wider audience.
 
     In the Classical era, we begin to see a standardization of instrumentation of the symphony orchestra. The string section would consist of two sections of violins, a section of violas, a section of violoncelli, and a section of contrabassi. There would still be many variations on this form for quite some time. The Classical era is the high point of symphonic writing
 

Key Composers:

- Ludwig van Beethoven

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

- Franz Joseph Haydn

 

 

The Romantic Era:
                                 John Constable: "Chain Pier, Brighton"
 
     "The categories which it has become customary to use in distinguishing and classifying "movements" in literature or philosophy and in describing the nature of the significant transitions which have taken place in taste and in opinion, are far too rough, crude, undiscriminating -- and none of them so hopelessly as the category "Romantic."
 
                                                                                                                                                      -Arthur O. Lovejoy, "On the Discriminations of Romanticisms"
 
     As Lovejoy stated it is hard to classify any era, let alone the Romantic era, but to do so democratically would be to call it a long awaited release of emotion in music art and literature. The Romantic era began mostly in literature. The dark and supernatural themes of the early romantic writers influenced contemporary composers to bring this type of emotion to their own works, allowing them to shed the emotional shackles placed upon them by the classical forms. The music of the Romantic era is known for its broad soundscapes and emotionally evocative melodies. The instrumentation of the symphony orchestra was, by this time, standardized.

Key Composers:

- Franz Schubert

- Hector Berlioz

- Felix Mendelssohn

- Robert Schumann

 
The Modern Era:
                              Jackson Pollock: "The Key"
 
     The Modern era includes all music composed from the late 19th century to this day. As with Romanticism, the Modern era also has it's bridge between eras, causing the transition from Romanticism to Modernism. This composer is Claude Debussy. Since no new era of classification has been placed on music since the beginning of the Modern era, we are still in it. The typical modern sound ranges from harmonically free variations on classical forms to the atonal or serial expeditions of Arnold Schöenberg. Music of the Modern era explores the emotions music evokes through total harmonic and melodic freedom. The harmonic innovations of such composers as Claude Debussy, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, and Aaron Copland have beaten the path for the next generation of Modern composers. This new school of Modern composers includes such luminaries as Gyorgy Ligeti, Edgard Varese, and Phillip Glass.
 

Key Composers:

- Claude Debussy

- Igor Stravinsky

- Arnold Schoenberg

- George Gershwin

- Alban Berg

- Paul Hindemith