The History of Classical Music - Overlooked Origins

Musical history is notoriously difficult to preserve. While literature can be translated and sculptures and monuments viewed millennia after its creation, the music of our ancestors exists only in fleeting echoes, impossible to be preserved. Without a system to record sound, we know well of the musical traditions of Ancient Greece or Rome, but the melodies are all but lost to time. The documented history of European classical music begins in the 14th century, when European priests developed musical notation, finally providing a way to transcribe sound. This breakthrough is where we begin our discussion of early music. 

Medieval Beginnings

Medieval music (500 - 1400) was shaped by composers like Hildegard von Bingen and Pérotin, who expanded plainchant—melodies sung by a single voice without instrumental accompaniment—into early polyphony, where multiple independent melodic lines were sung simultaneously. A well-known example is Pérotin’s Viderunt Omnes, which demonstrates how simple Gregorian chants evolved into complex multi-voiced compositions. This music sounds musically uncreative to our modern ears, but the layering of melodic lines and the introduction of simple harmony would have been revolutionary to listeners of the era. Hildegard von Bingen's work, such as her De Spiritu Sancto, also makes incredible use of long melodic lines, creating beautifully delicate harmonic textures. The violin wouldn't be invented until the 1600s, so music was accompanied by pipe organs or the hurdy-gurdy, a string instrument that played with a hand crank. 

Music of this period was entirely devoted to God and religion, often performed in churches and monasteries. As a result, it lacked emotional intensity or dramatic climaxes, instead maintaining a stable and harmonious sound. Unlike later music, rhythm remained largely constant throughout, and dynamics (variations in loudness) were toned down. 

The Renaissance of Musical Expression

During the Renaissance (1400s - 1600s), much as art and literature exploded across Europe, composers began expanding harmonic and rhythmic structures beyond the constraints of the Medieval period. Music became more expressive and technically complex, with greater attention to how different vocal lines interacted. Melodies became much more noticeable and prominent, and music became much more expressive. 

Thomas Tallis, a leading English composer, was known for his intricate vocal works, such as Spem in Alium, a choral motet featuring an astonishing 40 separate vocal parts. Meanwhile, Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi pioneered opera, a dramatic art form where music and theatrical storytelling were combined. His opera L’Orfeo (1607) is one of the earliest surviving operas and introduced the use of orchestration and expressive vocal lines to enhance drama.

Unlike later Romantic Italian operas by composers like Verdi and Puccini, Renaissance operas were not sung-through, meaning they included spoken dialogue between arias and choral sections rather than being entirely sung. The style of opera would spread like wildfire, entertaining wealth audiences from Italy to France and Britain. Another important secular genre of this time was the madrigal, an unaccompanied vocal work that often set poetry to music. Monteverdi and William Byrd were instrumental in popularizing these often secular madrigals. In his heartbreaking Lamento Della Ninfa, for example, Monteverdi tells the story of a wood nymph yearning after a traitorous lover. 

One particularly special Renaissance composer who broke from the mold was Carlo Gesualdo. Unlike most composers, who had to cater to the taste of their patrons, Gesualdo was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, giving him significant freedom to compose as he pleased. His life was also as dramatic as his music—after discovering his wife’s affair, he brutally murdered her and her lover, an act that left him tormented by guilt and despair. This inner turmoil shaped his compositions, which stood out for their striking dissonance and unexpected atonality. In this, he would precede the avant-garde composers of the 20th century by nearly 400 years. 

Ultimately, Medieval and Renaissance music are often overlooked in favor of later composers like Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Beethoven. However, these early styles laid the foundation for the entire Western musical tradition. Without the innovations of these early composers, the evolution of classical music as we know it would not have been possible.