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Early music is a term used to describe pre- Classical Western music, from the earliest written music to 1500 at the earliest (Judd, 1998, p.4) and the end of the Baroque era in about 1750 at the latest.1 Music in Antiquity
Very little remains of music from Ancient Greece or Rome. The epics of Homer and the lyrics of Sappho, for instance, were meant to be sung with instrumental accompaniment, but nothing remains of their scores. Fragments of Greek music are, however, extant, most notably scraps from tragedy (a choral song by Euripides for his Orestes and an instrumental intermezzo from Sophocles' Ajax ) and a few hymns by Mesomedes of CreteCrete sometimes spelled Krete (Greek Kappa;ρτ&eta / Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the Greek island closest to North Africa. Tourist attractions in Crete include archeological sites ( second century AS ). Of Roman music, there remains but one meagre scrap: a line from TerencePublius Terentius Afer better known as Terence was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time c. 170 160 BCE, and he died young in 159 BCE. He wrote 6 plays, all of which survive. In comparison, his predecesso's Hecyra set to music by his composerA composer is a person who writes music. The term refers particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises. However, a perso FlaccusFlaccus is a composer from the second century BC, of whom little is known. He was a slave of one of Terence's patrons and wrote musical scores for Terence's comedies (playing or composing music was no occupation for a free citizen). Flaccus has the distin. All music of antiquity is monophonic, as polyphonyPolyphony is a musical texture consisting of several independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ( homophony). The term is usually used in reference to mus is an invention of the Middle AgesThe Middle Ages formed the middle period in a schematic division of European history into three 'ages': Classical civilization, the Middle Ages, and Modern Civilization. It is commonly dated from the end of the Western Roman Empire ( 5th century) until th.
2 Post-Antiquity
For information on early music post-Antiquity, see the following articles:
- Medieval musicMedieval music is music of Europe in the Middle Ages. This era, using the interchangeable terms "medieval" and "middle ages", covers the period from the fall of the Roman Empire ( 476) and the papacy of Gregory the Great ( sixth century) to approximately (roughly 1000-1450)
- Renaissance music (roughly 1450-1600)
- Baroque music (roughly 1600-1750)
3 Authentic performance
The term "early music" is closely associated with the concept of authentic performance. The authentic performance movement began with the performance of early music, and in general, the earlier the music, the more likely it is that its performers will show an interest in authentic performance as it becomes more difficult for the reason listed below and others.
4 Notation and performance
According to Margaret Bent (1998), Early music notation, "is under-prescriptive by our standards; when translated into modern form it acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies and distorts its original openness." Before about 1600, written music did not consistently state which instruments are used when. A century earlier, people who wrote down music did not always specify whether lines of polyphony were to be sung or played on an instrument. Similarly, the notation frequently does not indicate what key to play the music in, if any. Accidentals were not necessary. Notations for rhythm go back only to about 1200. There is thus a speculative element to all modern performances of Medieval and Renaissance music. However, Renaissance musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic counterpoint and thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score, "what modern notation requires [accidentals] would then have been perfectly apparent without notation to a singer versed in counterpoint." See the article on Renaissance music.
