Music History

In musical history, the six major eras of music were the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Baroque period, Classical period, Romantic period, and the 20th Century. The history of music begins with the Gregorian Chant, which came about around 600BCE, and was named for Pope Gregory the Great. Since music is still developing and changing you can not really say that music history has met its end.

The two periods of music I am most interested in are the Baroque period and music of the 1930s-1940s. Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" sparked my interest in the Baroque period because I really enjoyed the fast-slow changes with each change of season and the terraced dynamics, in which, instead of the first violin getting louder to create a forte, more violins play at different times to create a more dynamic, polyphonic texture. Also, the first time I heard "The Four Seasons" I was reading a very interesting book called The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, and whose title is an allusion to Botticelli's painting. It was by remarkable coincidence that Vivaldi's music was written only one or two centuries after Botticelli painted "The Birth of Venus", the same time period in which the novel takes place.

I love Frank Sinatra. And Dean Martin. And Ella Fitzgerald. And Count Basie. So it's kind of natural for me to want to learn more about the period in which these great musicians did so much. The 1930s and 40s was host to big band and swing, two offshoots of jazz from the 1920s.
A big band usually consisted of 12-25 musicians, and had trumpets, saxophones, trombones, singers, and a piano. Big bands originally had very little improvisation, and included violins, but, in the mid-30s swing was introduced and became big bands' defining style. Swing music, also known as swing jazz, used a double bass and drums to create a strong rythmn for the lead section of brass and woodwinds. Swing often had a medium to fast tempo, and vocalists would often improvise a melody. A prime example of the merging of swing and big band was the collaboration of Frank Sinatra, one of the most amazing swing musicians, and Count Basie and his Orchestra. Together, they produced many hits, including: "Hello, Dolly!", "Come Fly With Me", and "The Best Is Yet To Come".