Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western art music.
Historically informed performance is an approach to the performance of classical music, which aims to be faithful to the approach, manner and style of the musical era in which a work was originally conceived.
A Baroque violin is a violin set up in the manner of the baroque period of music. The term includes original instruments which have survived unmodified since the Baroque period, as well as later instruments adjusted to the baroque setup, and modern replicas. Baroque violins have become relatively common in recent decades thanks to historically informed performance, with violinists returning to older models of instrument to achieve an authentic sound.
The Taverner Choir, Consort and Players is a British music ensemble which specialises in the performance of Early and Baroque music. The ensemble is made up of a Baroque orchestra, a vocal consort and a Choir. Performers place emphasis on a historically informed performance practice and players work with restored or replicated period instruments.
The general discussion of how to perform music from ancient or earlier times did not become an important subject of interest until the 19th century, when Europeans began looking to ancient culture generally, and musicians began to discover the musical riches from earlier centuries. The idea of performing early music more "authentically", with a sense of incorporating performance practice, was more completely established in the 20th century, creating a modern early music revival that continues today.
The Baroque guitar is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first course sometimes used only a single string.
Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical (religious) and secular music. While a more precise term is also used to refer to the period from 1750 to 1820, this article is about the broad span of time from before the 6th century AD to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1650 and 1900, which is known as the common-practice period.
The Galpin Society was formed in October 1946 to further research into the branch of musicology known as organology, i.e. the history, construction, development and use of musical instruments. Based in the United Kingdom, it is named after the eminent British organologist and musical instrument collector, Canon Francis William Galpin (1858–1945), who had a lifelong interest in studying, collecting, playing, making and writing about musical instruments.
Nigel North is an English lutenist, musicologist, and pedagogue.
Indianapolis Early Music (IEM) is a non-profit organization established in Indianapolis in 1966 to organize concerts featuring music of the medieval, renaissance, baroque, and early classic eras. Since 1966, it has produced the annual Indianapolis Early Music Festival, the oldest continuous Early Music festival in the United States.
Renaissance Ensemble Serbia is the first early music ensemble in Serbia and the second in south-eastern Europe, having been founded in 1968. Ensemble Renaissance usually focuses on the music of the Middle ages, Renaissance and Baroque. Occasionally, however, Ensemble performs modern music on ancient instruments.
Medieval folk rock, medieval rock or medieval folk is a musical subgenre that emerged in the early 1970s in England and Germany which combined elements of early music with rock music. It grew out of the British folk rock and progressive folk movements of the late 1960s. Despite the name, the term was used indiscriminately to categorise performers who incorporated elements of medieval, renaissance and baroque music into their work and sometimes to describe groups who used few, or no, electric instruments. This subgenre reached its height towards the middle of the 1970s when it achieved some mainstream success in Britain, but within a few years most groups had either disbanded, or were absorbed into the wider movements of progressive folk and progressive rock. Nevertheless, the genre had a considerable impact within progressive rock where early music, and medievalism in general, was a major influence and through that in the development of heavy metal. More recently medieval folk rock has revived in popularity along with other forms of medieval inspired music such as Dark Wave orientated neo-Medieval music and medieval metal.
Baroque music is a period or style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, with the galant style marking the transition between Baroque and Classical eras. The Baroque period is divided into three major phases: early, middle, and late. Overlapping in time, they are conventionally dated from 1580 to 1650, from 1630 to 1700, and from 1680 to 1750. Baroque music forms a major portion of the "classical music" canon, and is now widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". Key composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel, Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Giuseppe Tartini, Heinrich Schütz, Dieterich Buxtehude, and others.
Founded in 1988, The Historic Brass Society (HBS) is an international music organization whose goal is to promote the exchange of serious ideas about the history and performance of brass instruments and music, ranging from Antiquity through the twentieth century.
Early music festivals is a generic term for musical festivals focused on music before Beethoven, or including historically informed performance of later works. The increase in the number of music festivals specializing in early music is a reflection of the early music revival of the 1970s and 1980s. Many larger festivals such as that an Aix-en-Provence Festival also include early music sections, as do, inevitably, festivals of sacred music; such as the Festival de Música Sacra do Baixo Alentejo, in Portugal. Although most early music festivals are centered on commercial performance, many include also workshops. This articles includes an incomplete list of early music festivals, which may overlap with topics such as list of Bach festivals, list of maritime music festivals, list of opera festivals, and in some cases list of folk festivals.
Pedro Caldeira Cabral is a musician that specializes in Mediaeval, Renaissance, Baroque, Iberian music.
Andrew Wilson-Dickson is a British composer, pianist and an authority on early music practice.
Rachel Brown is a British flautist and author, known especially for her work with Baroque music and flutes. She is currently professor of baroque flute at the Royal College of Music in London, in addition to traveling around the world to give masterclasses. She has performed with many orchestras internationally, including as principal flute with Kent Opera, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Hanover Band, the King's Consort, Collegium Musicum 90, Ex Cathedra, and the Brandenburg Consort. She is known for her extensive work and mastery of both historical and modern flutes.
Sastamala Gregoriana is an annual early music festival that takes place in late July in the city of Sastamala, Finland. The festival combines an international concert programme of early music from the medieval, renaissance and baroque periods, old lakeside churches of Sastamala with the unique acoustic spaces and warm local atmosphere. An international early music master class complements the concert series.
The Early Music Shop is an early music store specialising in the sale and distribution of reproduction medieval, renaissance and baroque musical instruments, as well as associated sheet music and accessories, with two showrooms situated in Saltaire and London, United Kingdom. It was founded by Richard Wood in 1968 and has become the largest supplier of early musical instruments worldwide.
