The History of Music, 2nd Edition: The Baroque Era
Baroque music, which flourished between the years 1600 and 1750, expanded the size, range, and complexity of instrumental performance while also firmly establishing opera as a musical genre. In this program, the canzone, suite, sonata, concerto gros...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: Later Romanticism
This program adds the achievements of Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Modest Mussorgsky and the rest of The Mighty Handful, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Antonín Dvořák, Edvard Grieg, Georges Bizet, Giacomo Puccini, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Straus...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: The Middle Ages and the Renaissance
This program describes the development of music in Europe between the 2nd and 16th centuries, from the plainchant of the early Christians to the polyphony of the late Renaissance. The motet, chanson, madrigal, chorale, mass, canzone, and songs of th...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: Into the Classical Period
This program studies the birth of Classical music, which occurred during the final decades of the Baroque Era, and its maturation up to about 1800. Differences between Baroque and Classical music—particularly in matters of tonality and form—are ...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: Early Romanticism
While Classical composers relied on form and structure, Romantic composers gave priority to emotional expression. This program surveys the 19th century as it notes the contributions of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Hector Berlioz, Franz Lisz...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: The Early 20th Century
The early 20th century saw the virtual elimination of tonality as an organizing musical principle and dissonance used as sheer sound rather than a transitional state of musical tension that had to be resolved. This program examines how Claude Debuss...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: Modern Times
Over the past half-century, concert music has felt the influence of jazz and the Modernist innovations of serialism, “chance music,” microtonality, abstractly expressionistic electronic music, and minimalism. At the same time, there has been a r...
The History of Music, 2nd Edition: Origins and Overview
When and where did music begin? What functions does music serve in different cultures? What major similarities and differences define the world’s musical traditions? And how did early European music get its start? This program sheds light on those...