Although most composers from this time wrote anonymously, a few dared
to attach their names to their incredible vocal compositions. One such
composer — a woman, no less — wrote such incredible choral music that
her work is still performed and recorded today. Hildegard von Bingen was
the Abbess of Rupertsburg in Germany in the 12th century A.D. She began to
record her religious visions in the form of poetry beginning about 1150, pro-
viding written melodic outlines using the Church’s archaic neumatic notation.
She is one of the first identifiable composers in the history of Western music.
Her compositions are also some of the only music known from that time that
suggest female voices for the high notes, and not boys or men castrated
as boys.
Pre-classical period (1700–1770) ......................................................
This particular period of music is sometimes divided into two separate peri-
ods of music, depending on who’s doing the lecturing: the Third Polyphonic
Phase of the Late Baroque Period (roughly 1700–1750) and the Pre-classical
Period (roughly 1720–1770). However, it works better to lump the two
“periods” together because there is so much intermingling of composers
and time frames that it’s hard to decide which composer belongs to which
particular style.
The main thing that sets this period apart, and what makes it really fascinat-
ing to study, is that this is the period where composers began to truly break
away from the simple and predictable rhythm structures that earmarked
nearly 1,000 years of popular music. Musicians such as Antonio Vivaldi
(1678–1741) created concertos that were so controlled and tense and such
a true study of the mathematics of rhythm that critics accused his work of
sounding like finger exercises for the violin. Johann Sebastian Bach
(1685–1750) is best known for the prominence of point-counterpoint in his
music, where two basic lines of music were played simultaneously on top of
one another.
Bach’s technique must have seemed liked massive grandstanding back in his
day, when most composers relied on having a lead line of music specifically
defined, with a lesser line of music designed solely for accompaniment. Two
of Bach’s 18 children, Carl Philipp Emanuel (his fifth, 1714–1788) and Johann
Christian (his last, 1735–1782), also grew up to be major composers during
this time frame. The former, known as “the Hamburg Bach,” was the principle
founder of the sonata style of the classical period; the latter, known as “the
London Bach,” wrote many symphonies, operas, and harpsichord works that
are still played today.
Chapter 23: Ten Periods of Music History to Explore ..............................................
