• Plain chant (or Gregorian chant, a single melodic line) developed around 750 from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chants, and was commissioned by the Carolingian rulers in France.
• Organum is a melodic line of a plainchant accompanied by an additional voice, usually at a fixed interval below it. It began developing in the 9th Century, creating early forms of counterpoint (the relationship between simultaneous interdependent musical lines) and the beginning of harmony. Monophony, polyphony, homophony
• Stephen of Liège, Bishop of Liège, 901 - 920, Gloria Patri (Gregorian chant)
• Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179, A feather on the breath of God
• Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, Planctus David super Saul et Jonathan

• The Notre-Dame school is associated with a highly florid or “melismatic” (having several pitches to a syllable) style of organum.
• Léonin, ca 1150s-1201, first to write two melodic parts with greater independence and strict note lengths, first composer of polyphonic art music, Viderunt Omnes (Organum)
• Pérotin (Perotinus Magnus), ca 12-13th cent, first ever four-part polyphony, Beata Viscera II (Organum)

• Philippe de Vitry, wrote influential treatise on Ars Nova, Vos qui admiramini (Ars Nova motet)
• Guillaume de Machaut, 1300/1305-1377, central figure of Ars Nova, many secular works with lyrics describing courtly love, Messe de Nostre Dame (a sacred work)
• Adam de la Halle, French trouvère (troubadour), first polyphonic secular songs Qui a droit veut amours servir (a sacred work)

• Guillaume Dufay, 1397-1474, transitional figure between the Medieval and Renaissance Nuper Rosarum Flores (complex motet)
• Josquin des Prez, 1450 – 1520, Missa L’Homme armé super voces musicales
• Giovanni Palestrina, 1525 – 1594, Missa Aeterna Christi munera
• Thomas Tallis, 1505 – 1575, Spem In Alium (motet)
• William Byrd, 1543 – 1623, Mass for 4 Voices

During the Renaissance period, masses and motets were the most common sacred forms, and madrigals were the most common secular form.

A motet is a polyphonic composition based on a sacred text and usually sung without accompaniment. It evolved from organum and was sometimes called a sacred madrigal.

A madrigal is a polyphonic song using a vernacular text and written for four to six voices. It is the secular counterpart to the motet.

In 1581, Vincenzo Galilei (father of Galileo), a member of the Florentine Camerata laid down the theories of opera.

• Claudio Monteverdi, 1567 – 1643, transitional figure between Renaissance and Baroque. He wrote many madrigals and developed the Italian operatic style, L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera still widely performed.
• Arcangelo Corelli, 1653 - 1713, helped establish many new features of Baroque music, including tonal keys (vs medieval modes) and the sonata and concerto grosso forms.
• Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750, employed many forms including concerto grosso, fugue, cantata.
• George Frideric Handel, 1685-1759, famous for operas and oratorios.

Prior to the 16th century, most "cultured" music was vocal. Instrumental music played an important role in dance, but for the most part, it was not played for its own sake. That began to change during the Renaissance, and especially, the Baroque periods.

Major vocal forms during the Baroque period include the oratorio, opera and cantata. Major instrumental forms include the sonata, concerto, fugue and suite.

• Musical monody was developed by the Florentine Camerata in the 1580s to restore ancient Greek ideas of melody and declamation (probably with little historical accuracy). In part, it was a reaction against the complicated polyphony that dominated the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
• In monody one solo voice sings a melodic part, usually with considerable ornamentation, over a rhythmically independent bass line.
• Basso continuo, or figured bass, was played by an instrumentalist who was free to play any notes as long as they followed the harmonic figures written above the bass part.
• Giulio Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1602; The New Music), a collection of solo songs with continuo accompaniment, exemplifies early monody, as do many solo compositions of Claudio Monteverdi.

• An opera is a dramatic work in one or more acts which incorporates many elements of theater. Here is a nice summary of the differences between opera and oratorio.
• The earliest operas date from around 1600. Monteverdi L'Orfeo (1607).
• Opera was the leading genre in the 17th and 18th centuries.

An oratorio is an extended musical drama with a text based on religious subject matter. There is usually little or no interaction between the characters in oratorio; there is neither scenery nor action.

• Cantata, from cantare, "to sing"
• A vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements.
• The term "cantata" changed over time, from the simple single-voice madrigal of the early 17th century, to the multi-voice "cantata da camera" and the "cantata da chiesa" of the later part of that century.
• The Italian solo cantata tended, when on a large scale, to become indistinguishable from a scene in an opera, in the same way the church cantata, solo or choral, is indistinguishable from a small oratorio or portion of an oratorio.
• J.S. Bach Cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 140 "Wake, Awake, for Night Is Flying"

• Sonata, from the Italian word "to sound"
• A musical composition for a solo instrument or a small ensemble that typically has two to four movements.
• After the Baroque period most works designated as sonatas specifically are performed by a solo instrument, most often a keyboard instrument, or by a solo instrument accompanied by a keyboard instrument.
• The Classical sonata developed from the sonata da chiesa.
• Most first movements of Classical sonatas are in sonata form.
• Mozart Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major
• Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 14 Moonlight in C major

• Originating in the early 17th century, the trio sonata was a favorite chamber ensemble combination in the Baroque era.
• The trio sonata typically consisted of three parts, two violins and continuo. The the basso continuo has two components. First, it includes the bass line, which commonly was played by a bass viol, violone, violoncello, or bassoon. Second, it includes a harmony-producing instrument, such as a small organ, a harpsichord, or a theorbo.
• From about the middle of the 17th century two distinct types of sonatas appeared: sonata da camera (chamber sonata) and sonata da chiesa (church sonata). Sonatas da chiesa ("church sonatas") usually consists of four movements, in the order slow–fast–slow–fast. Sonatas da camera ("chamber sonatas") often consisted of a prelude followed by a succession of dances. (After 1700, works comprising dance movements came to be called a variety of other names, such as partita, suite, ordre, ouverture, or air.)
• Arcangelo Corelli composed “solo” sonatas, for one violin with continuo, and trio sonatas (or sonatas a tre), for two violins and continuo.
• Corelli Trio Sonata in G major, Op. 2, No. 12, 'Ciacona' Largo Allegro from Opus 2: 12 sonate da camera (trio sonatas for 2 violins and continuo) (Rome 1685)
• Corelli Trio Sonata in D Major, Op. 3, No. 2 from Opus 3: 12 sonate da chiesa (trio sonatas for 2 violins and continuo) (Rome 1689)
• Corelli Sonata Op. 5, no. 1 in D major from Opus 5: 12 Suonati a violino e violone o cimbalo (The first six are sonate da chiesa and the last six are sonate da camera. The last sonata, No. 12, is a set of 23 variations on the theme La Folia.) (Rome 1700)
• J.S. Bach Trio Sonata from The Musical Offering, BWV 1079

• A concerto is an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble.
• The concerto began to take its modern shape in the late-Baroque period, beginning with the concerto grosso form developed by Arcangelo Corelli. Christmas Concerto, Adagio Op. 6 No. 8 Voices of Music.
• The concerto grosso is a baroque musical composition in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the concertino) and full orchestra (the ripieno, tutti or concerto grosso). This is in contrast to the solo concerto which features a single solo instrument with the melody line, accompanied by the orchestra.
• The most dominant type of concerto in the 18th century was the solo concerto.
• Bach Harpsichord concerto in F minor, BWV 1056
• Vivaldi Four Seasons
• Mozart Clarinet concerto in A major, K.622

• A fugue is a contrapuntal composition for a number of separate parts or voices. Here is an instructive video on the fugue.

• Based on the traditional pairing of dances in the Renaissance, the suite was the first multi-movement work for instruments. The suite was essentially a series of dances in the same key, most or all of them in two-part form. Johann Jakob Froberger is usually credited with establishing the classical suite (e.g., Suite XII for harpsichord). Les Pièces de Clavecin, Suite in A minor No.3 by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, a 17th century composer, is another example .
  • Allemande
  • Courante – upbeat in triple metre
  • Sarabande – slow in triple metre
  • Gigue – upbeat in compound metre

• Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732-1809, Father of the Symphony and String Quartet
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756-1791
• Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827 (transitional)
• Franz Schubert, 1797-1828 (transitional)
• Gioachino Rossini, 1792–1868 (transitional), champion of the bel canto style, The Barber of Seville

• A work usually in three or four movements, with the first movement usually in sonata form.
• The opera sinfonia, or Italian overture, is often considered the direct forerunner of the three-movement symphony.
• By the 18th century, Alessandro Scarlatti (1660–1725) had helped standardize the opera sinfonia's structure of three contrasting movements: fast, slow, fast and dance-like.
• The Italian composer Giovanni Battista Sammartini incorporated the fast-slow-fast movement structure in most of his symphonic works, and he started using an early version of sonata-form for his first movements.
• In the mid-1700s, Johann Stamitz, composer for the Mannheim Orchestra, began composing four-movement symphonies. He expanded the length of the sonata-form in the first movements and created greater contrast between the two themes (see, for example, his Symphony in E-flat op. 11 #3).
• Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven further developed the four-movement pattern, starting with a movement in sonata form followed by a slower movement, a Minuet and a lively finale.
• Sonata form is in three parts - exposition, development, and recapitulation.

• Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments.
• A string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them.
• The string quartet can be traced back to the Baroque trio sonata
• Joseph Haydn is responsible for the string quartet in its now accepted form and is generally credited with creating the modern form of chamber music as we know it.
• In 68 string quartets, 45 piano trios, and numerous string trios, duos and wind ensembles, Haydn established the conversational style of composition and the overall form that was to dominate the world of chamber music for the next two centuries.
• Joseph Haydn String Quartet in C major op 20 no 2

• Carl Marie von Weber, 1786 - 1826
• Frédéric Chopin, 1810 - 1849
• Robert Schumann, 1810 - 56
• Franz Liszt, 1811 - 1886
• Giuseppe Verdi, 1813 - 1901, La traviata, Rigoletto, Nabucco, Aida, La forza del destino, Il trovatore
• Richard Wagner, 1813 - 1883
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1840 - 1893
• Johannes Brahms, 1833 - 1897
• Antonín Dvořák, 1841 – 1904, 2nd movement Symphony No.9 In E Minor, Op.95 'From The New World'
• Giacomo Puccini, 1858 - 1924, La bohème, Tosca, Madame Butterfly, Turandot
• Sergei Rachmaninov, 1873 - 1943, Second Piano Concerto
• Gustav Mahler, 1860 - 1911

Der Freischütz (The Marksman), 1821, marks the birth of German Romantic opera.

The Romantic Period was characterized by new musical structures like the song cycle, nocturne, etude; nature and the supernatural; nationalism; and program music, symphonic poem.

Hector Berlioz's Symphony fantastique helped inaugurate the Romantic interest in programmatic music or tone poems.