Early music generally comprises Medieval music (500–1400) and Renaissance music (1400–1600), but can also include Baroque music (1600–1750). Originating in Europe, early music is a broad musical era for the beginning of Western classical 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.
An early music revival is a renewed interest in music from ancient history or prehistory. 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 historically informed performance, 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 generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" can also be applied to non-Western art musics. Classical music is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization, particularly with the use of polyphony. Since at least the ninth century it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical, critical, historiographical, musicological and philosophical practices. A foundational component of Western culture, classical music is frequently seen from the perspective of individual or groups of composers, whose compositions, personalities and beliefs have fundamentally shaped its history.
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.
Hans-Jörgen Holman was a Norwegian-American pianist/ harpsichordist and professor of music at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. Holman specialized in Medieval and Renaissance music, and his 1961 Indiana University School of Music doctoral dissertation The Responsoria Prolixa of the Codex Worcester F 160 is considered one of the principal authoritative works on the vocal music of the medieval church. One of the first musicologists to pioneer computer aided big-data studies, Holman built a database of 48.000 melodic phrases from European and Scandinavian sources in order to trace melodic migration and development. He was particularly interested in questions concerning the relationship between the religious vocal folk music of Norway and the liturgical music of the medieval church. Holman gave papers on topics of musicology at several international conferences and made contributions to the Harvard Dictionary of Music.
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.
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 refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transition. 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 widely studied, performed, and listened to. The term "baroque" comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning "misshapen pearl". The works of Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach are considered the pinnacle of the Baroque period. Other key composers of the Baroque era include Claudio Monteverdi, Domenico Scarlatti, Alessandro Scarlatti, Alessandro Stradella, Tomaso Albinoni, Johann Pachelbel, Henry Purcell, Georg Philipp Telemann, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Arcangelo Corelli, François Couperin, Johann Hermann Schein, Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, Dieterich Buxtehude, Gaspar Sanz, José de Nebra, Antonio Soler, Carlos Seixas, Adam Jarzębski, Jan Dismas Zelenka, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
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 is a peer-reviewed academic journal specialising in the study of early music. It was established in 1973 by John M. Thomson during the early music revival, and is published quarterly by Oxford University Press. The co-editors are Alan Howard, Elizabeth Eva Leach and Stephen Rose.
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.
Musical instruments used in Baroque music were partly used already before, partly are still in use today, but with no technology. The movement to perform music in a historically informed way, trying to recreate the sound of the period, led to the use of historic instruments of the period and to the reconstruction of instruments.
Andrew Wilson-Dickson is a British composer, pianist and an authority on early music practice.
The Early Music Shop is an early music store specialising in the sale and distribution of reproduction Renaissance and medieval musical instruments, with two showrooms situated in Saltaire and Snape Maltings, United Kingdom. It was founded by Richard Wood in 1968 and has become the largest supplier of early musical instruments worldwide.
The London International Festival of Early Music (LIFEM) is an English music festival which is devoted mainly to Baroque and Renaissance music. It takes place each November in Blackheath, London, at Blackheath Halls.
