Month: November 2017

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November 18, 2017

2:38 pm

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Throughout human history man has lived a drab and dreary existence; being born into poverty, living an uncomfortable and unforgiving life, and then dropping dead in their fifties (if they were lucky). It was a level of existence unimaginable – indeed never even though of – by modern man.

So how did we get here? How did we go from abject poverty for 99 percent of human beings to the society we live in today of unprecedented and unimiginable wealth? The answer lies in the scientifc and industrial revolutions that came out of western Europe.

By bringing these innovations to the world, western civilization is the greatest civilization that has ever existed.

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November 18, 2017

2:41 pm

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Francesco Landini  (Trecento)

Johannes Ciconia (Ars Subtilior)

John Dunstaple (Renaissance)

Guillaume Dufay (Renaissance)(Burgundian School)

Johannes Ockeghem (Renaissance)

Jacob Obrecht (Renaissance)

Josquin des Prez (Renaissance)

Pierre de la Rue (Renaissance)

Thomas Tallis (Renaissance)

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Renaissance)(Roman School)

Orlande de Lassus (Renaissance)

William Byrd (Renaissance)

Claudio Monteverdi (Renaissance/Baroque)

Heinrich Schutz (Baroque)

Johann Pachelbel (Baroque)

Henry Purcell (Baroque)

Antonio Vivaldi (Baroque)

Johann Sebastian Bach (Baroque)

Arcangelo Corelli (Baroque)

George Frideric Handel (Baroque)

Christoph Willibald Gluck (Classical)

Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach (Classical)

Joseph Haydn (Classical)

Luigi Boccherini (Classical)

Muzio Clementi (Classical)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Classical)

Ludwig Van Beethoven (Classical/Romantic)

Gioachino Rossini (Classical/Romantic)

Franz Schubert (Classical/Romantic)

Hector Berlioz (Romantic)

Frederic Chopin (Romantic)

Robert Schumann (Romance)

Franz Liszt (Romantic)

Richard Wagner (Romantic)

Giuseppe Verdi (Romantic)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Romantic)

Johannes Brahms (Romantic)

Gustav Mahler (Romantic/Modern)

Richard Strauss (Modern)

Claude Debussy (Modern)

Arnold Schoenberg (Modern)

Bela Bartok (Modern)

Anton Webern (Modern)

Igor Stravinsky (Modern)

Sergei Prokofiev (Modern)

Piece of the Week (Art)

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November 4, 2017

2:54 pm

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Piece of the Week (Art)

The artist I’ll be focusing on this week is Masaccio. Born in the year 1401 and only living until the age of 26, this extraordinary painter rounds out our look at the proto-Renaissance and brings us into the Quattrocento.

He is known for his movement away from the elaborate ornamentation of the international Gothic style to a more naturalistic style featuring perspective (representing three dimensions on paper) and chiaroscuro (the treatment of light and shade). Masaccio brings us fully out of the Medieval Period and into the Renaissance.

The works I’m going to focus on are his paintings in the Brancacci Chapel of Florence in the 1420’s and his Holy Trinity altar piece for the Dominican church Santa Maria Novella, also in Florence, in 1427.

Brancacci Chapel:

The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

and The Tribute Money

Holy Trinity altar piece

Piece of the Week (Music)

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November 4, 2017

2:29 pm

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Piece of the Week (Music)

This week I move from the ars antiqua period of medieval music into the ars nova period with the best known composer of the 14th century, Guillaume de Machaut. Guillaume was both a composer and a poet who was highly regarded in his lifetime.

The major piece I’ll be looking at is the Messe de Nostre Dame. This piece of music is widely regarded as the greatest composition of the Medieval Period and the earliest known complete setting for the Ordinary of the mass written by a single composer.

Also check out his Remede de Fortune and the Douce Dame Jolie, arguably the most famous song from the Medieval Period.