A Timeline of Classical Music
Back in college, I took one of the most impactful classes of my life: History of Western Music. Learning how the music I loved came to be, how composers and audiences changed over time, how advances in technology shaped it all… it was awesome.
So I tried to start a project of my own. I though to myself, could I create a listenable experience which would show just how far Western art music had come? It took longer than expected, but in January of 2020, I finally completed my goal, with a Spotify playlist featuring a track from each year, 1600-2000.
So, how was this list constructed? Using the best literature on the subject, I selected a piece from each year, narrowing down the list based on a few criteria:
Is this piece historically significant?
Is this piece widely known today?
Do I just really like it?
Some decades were full of candidates- the 1880s being a prime example. It was painful having to pick between Faure's Pavane, Satie’s Gymnopedies, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade (I ultimately settled on the latter). Some decades were sparse and required extra digging. Some periods (Baroque and Contemporary in particular) were utterly foreign to a Late Romantic fanboy like me, and so involved a lot of research*. In all, I tried to strike a balance, and hope you like the balance I’ve struck!
To the side are links to the four varieties of this timeline, from the granularity of a single year up to a whole millennium (yes, a millennium). A list of the works included may be found here, and a post describing the making of (and my thoughts on projects like this) here. Please enjoy, and thanks for visiting!
* If you’re more knowledgeable about those periods and have opinions… I’m all ears : )
