Rough Chronology for MusL 242:
Music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Updated by Cynthia Cyrus on January 14, 2005

Early Middle Ages

Carolingian era (circa 800)--music of the mass
Plainchant additions to the liturgy (10th-12th c.)
parallel organum (c. 900)
note-against-note organum (11th c.)
melismatic organum (early 12th c.)
Notre-Dame organum (late 12th c.)
Secular monophony (12th-13th c.)

High Middle Ages

early motet and polyphonic conductus (early 13th c.)
Franconian and Petronian motet (late 13th c.)
Ars nova/Trecento (14th c.)
Contenance Angloise/Ars subtilior (late 14th/early 15th c.)

Early Renaissance (15th Century)

Dufay and Binchois (early-to-mid 15th c.)
Ockeghem and Busnois (mid-to-late 15th c.)
Josquin and contemporaries (late 15th/early 16th c.)
Petrucci's Odhecaton, 1501

High Renaissance (16th Century)

Impact of printing (beginning in the 1520s-1530s)
Madrigal: early, middle, late, "seconda prattica" (1530s-1605)
Vocal Virtuosity: Concerto di donne (1580); Intermedio (e.g. 1589)
Parisian chanson (1520s-end of century), musique mesurée (late 16th c.)
Reformation genres (1520s-end of century)
16th century motet and mass
Lasso (c. 1532-1594) and Palestrina (c. 1525-1594)
Venetian polychoral music (late 16th/early 17th c)

Other

(surviving instrumental music is mostly 16th century but falls outside of this scheme)


| 242 Syllabus | study guide | links to early music sites |
| ORB's medieval music pages and a back-up copy of the ORB medieval music glossary |
| Cyrus home page | Blair School of Music | Vanderbilt University Home Page |


Comments to: Cynthia.Cyrus@vanderbilt.edu