WORLD HISTORY Sound through time
Music History 84 instruments, rituals, traditions, works, styles and inventions from 9 world regions, from Ice Age flutes to electronic music. Dates of very ancient finds are approximate; the selection is not a complete or ranked canon.
Eras All eras
Prehistory before 3000 BCE 3 items Antiquity 3000 BCE – 500 11 items Middle Ages 500 – 1450 18 items Renaissance & Baroque 1450 – 1750 10 items Classical & Romantic 1750 – 1900 15 items 20th century & today 1900 – present 27 items Timeline of music
Prehistory before 3000 BCE · 3 items 🎻 Instrumentsc. 45,000–60,000 years ago (disputed) Divje Babe flute (disputed) Cerkno, Slovenia · Mousterian (Neanderthals) In 1995 archaeologists in the Divje Babe cave near Cerkno found an 11.4 cm piece of a young cave bear's thigh bone with several holes, beside a Mousterian hearth. Some researchers see a Neanderthal flute; others attribute the holes to carnivores chewing the bone. The debate is unresolved. Dating estimates range from about 43,000 years (radiocarbon) to 50,000–60,000 years (ESR). 🎻 Instrumentsc. 40,000 years ago Hohle Fels flute Hohle Fels near Schelklingen, Germany · Aurignacian In 2008 archaeologists in the Hohle Fels cave in the Swabian Jura found a nearly complete flute made from the radius of a griffon vulture, with five finger holes. Fragments of ivory flutes came from the same cave and from nearby Vogelherd. The finds from the lowest Aurignacian layers are at least 35,000 years old, possibly c. 40,000, and rank among the oldest known musical instruments. 🎻 Instrumentsc. 7000–5700 BCE Crane-bone flutes of Jiahu Jiahu, Henan, China · Jiahu (Neolithic China) At the Neolithic settlement of Jiahu in Henan, archaeologists found flutes made from the wing bones of cranes, with five to eight finger holes: six nearly complete examples and fragments of dozens more. They date from the site's occupation, c. 7000–5700 BCE, and are among the oldest playable multi-note instruments known. One well-preserved flute has been played and tonally analysed.
Antiquity 3000 BCE – 500 · 11 items 🎻 Instrumentsc. 2550–2450 BCE Lyres of Ur Ur, southern Iraq · Sumerian In the Royal Cemetery at Ur in southern Mesopotamia, an expedition led by Leonard Woolley found three lyres and a harp decorated with gold, silver, lapis lazuli and shell, some with bull heads. They date to Early Dynastic III (c. 2550–2450 BCE) and are among the oldest surviving stringed instruments. The wood had decayed, so Woolley poured plaster into the cavities to preserve the shapes. They are now in museums in Baghdad, London and Philadelphia. 🎻 InstrumentsOld Kingdom, c. 2300 BCE Egyptian harps and sistra Saqqara (Memphis), Egypt · Ancient Egypt Arched harps and sistra were already in use in Egypt in the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BCE). Early harps had four or five strings; from the New Kingdom larger harps with many strings appeared. The sistrum, a rattle shaken in rhythm, was linked to the goddess Hathor and to temple ritual; a royal example bears the name of King Teti (c. 2323–2291 BCE). 🎻 Instrumentsc. 2200 BCE Flutes of Caral Caral, Supe Valley, Peru · Caral-Supe (Andes) In the Sacred City of Caral-Supe, about 180 km north of Lima, researchers led by Ruth Shady found more than thirty flutes made of pelican bone (some accounts also mention condor bone). They date from the heyday of the Caral civilization (c. 3000–1800 BCE), with a radiocarbon date of c. 2200 BCE, and are among the oldest musical instruments of the Americas. What was played on them is unknown. 🎼 Worksc. 1400 BCE Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal Ugarit (Ras Shamra), Syria · Hurrian (Ugarit) In the ancient city of Ugarit (Ras Shamra, Syria), clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform with Hurrian hymns and musical notation were found in the 1950s, dating to c. 1400 BCE. One tablet, the Hymn to Nikkal (h.6), is nearly complete and is regarded as among the oldest substantially surviving notated melodies. The notation refers to a nine-stringed lyre; its interpretation is disputed and reconstructions differ. 🎶 Song & ritualc. 1200–1000 BCE Vedic chant Kurukshetra region, northern India · Vedic culture In the Vedic tradition of northern India, sacred texts are passed on orally with fixed pitch accents. The Samaveda holds the melodies (saman) for the liturgy, with verses largely taken from the Rigveda; its existing text is dated to c. 1200–1000 BCE. Eleven recitation methods (pathas) ensure exact transmission, and UNESCO recognised the tradition as intangible heritage in 2008. 🎶 Song & ritualtraditionally 10th century BCE – 70 CE Levite Temple singing Temple Mount, Jerusalem · Ancient Israelite and Jewish According to the biblical Book of Chronicles, King David appointed Levites as singers and musicians with lyres, harps and cymbals for worship; they would serve in Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Historians differ on how reliable this dating is, but the Second Temple (516 BCE–70 CE) also had Levite singers and musicians. The Mishnah describes a Temple orchestra and choir, and many psalms carry musical directions. 🎛️ Notation & technologyc. 530 BCE (traditional) Pythagorean tuning Croton (Crotone), Italy · Ancient Greek (Magna Graecia) Greek tradition credits Pythagoras, active around 530 BCE in Croton in southern Italy, with discovering that the octave, fifth and fourth correspond to simple string-length ratios (2:1, 3:2, 4:3). The monochord, a single string with a movable bridge, became the standard tool for measuring intervals, and Plato discusses the tuning in his Timaeus. Historians doubt Pythagoras found this himself: tuning by fifths and fourths already appears on Babylonian tablets (from the 18th century BCE). 🎻 Instrumentsfrom c. 500 BCE The guqin Central China (Zhou realm) · Chinese (Zhou and literati culture) The guqin, a seven-string Chinese zither, is mentioned in texts nearly 3,000 years old, and examples about 2,500 years old have been found in tombs. It was one of the four arts of the Chinese literati and is traditionally associated with Confucius. Its music is preserved in tablature, with more than 3,300 pieces known. UNESCO recognised the guqin in 2008, and Guan Pinghu's ‘Flowing Water’ travelled on the 1977 Voyager Golden Record. 🎻 Instrumentsc. 433 BCE Bianzhong of Marquis Yi Suizhou, Hubei, China · State of Zeng (Warring States) The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng near Suizhou, Hubei, excavated in 1978, held a set of 65 bronze bells on a three-tiered frame, regarded as the heaviest percussion instrument ever unearthed. Each bell sounds two different notes depending on where it is struck, and the range spans about five octaves. The bells carry 3,755 characters on pitches and music theory and date from c. 433 BCE. 🎻 Instruments3rd century BCE Hydraulis (water organ) Alexandria, Egypt · Hellenistic Egypt The hydraulis, an early pipe organ in which water keeps the air pressure in the wind chest steady, is attributed to the Hellenistic engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria (3rd century BCE). It remained in use in the Roman world: remains of an instrument dated 228 CE were found in 1931 in Hungary (Aquincum). The organ later reached Western church music via Byzantium. 🎼 Works1st–2nd century CE Seikilos epitaph Tralles (Aydın), Turkey · Greek (Roman Asia Minor) A marble column from Tralles (modern Aydın, Turkey), found around 1883, carries a song with Greek musical notation above the words. It is usually dated to the 1st or 2nd century CE and is regarded as the oldest surviving complete musical composition with notation. The text urges the listener to shine while alive; the column is kept in the National Museum of Denmark.
Middle Ages 500 – 1450 · 18 items 🎶 Song & ritualfrom the 5th–6th century Byzantine chant Constantinople (Hagia Sophia), Turkey · Byzantine In Constantinople a distinct church music for the liturgy of the Byzantine Empire developed from Greek, Syriac and Jewish traditions. The kontakion, a long sung verse sermon, reached its peak in the 6th century with Romanos the Melodist, around the rebuilding of Hagia Sophia. Orthodox churches still sing this tradition, which continued after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. 🎶 Song & ritual6th century (traditional) Ethiopian chant (Yared) Aksum, Ethiopia · Aksumite / Ethiopian Orthodox Ethiopian Orthodox church chant (zema) is traditionally traced to Saint Yared of Aksum (6th century), who is said to have received three modes (ge'ez, ezel and araray) and to have developed its notation. The earliest known manuscripts with notation date from the 14th century, and the notation (melekket) was codified in the 16th century. Little is known about Yared outside the tradition. 🎶 Song & ritualc. 622 (traditional, shortly after the hijra) Adhan (call to prayer) Medina, Saudi Arabia · Early Islamic community (Hejaz) According to Islamic tradition, the adhan, the sung call to prayer, was instituted in Medina shortly after the hijra (622); Bilal ibn Rabah, a formerly enslaved man of Abyssinian descent, became the first muezzin. In Islamic tradition the adhan and Quran recitation are not classed as ‘music’, but they are delivered melodically, with regional preferences for particular maqamat. Sunni and Shia accounts of its institution differ. 🪘 Traditions701 (court music bureau) Gagaku Nara, Japan · Japanese imperial court In 701 Japan established the Gagaku-ryō, the court music bureau; the word gagaku is the Japanese reading of Chinese yayue. Shaped by music from China, Korea and elsewhere, it was performed at state ceremonies in the Nara period (710–794), including those around the Great Buddha of Tōdai-ji. It took nearly its present form around the 10th century, is still performed by the Imperial Household's music department and was inscribed by UNESCO in 2009. 🎶 Song & ritualc. 750–900 (traditionally Gregory I, c. 600) Gregorian chant Rome (and the Frankish realm), Italy · Frankish-Roman (Latin Church) Gregorian chant is the monophonic, unaccompanied sung liturgy of the Latin church. Legend credits Pope Gregory I (c. 600), but scholars mainly see it as a Frankish-Roman synthesis around 750 under Pepin and Charlemagne. The earliest surviving manuscripts with notation date from c. 930. The chant spread quickly across Europe and became the basis for later notation and polyphony. 🪘 Traditionsc. 800–900 Abbasid music in Baghdad Baghdad, Iraq · Abbasid Caliphate In Baghdad under the early Abbasids (c. 800–900) music was both a court art and a field of learning. Masters such as Ibrahim al-Mawsili (742–804) served at the court of Harun al-Rashid, and the scholar al-Kindi (c. 801–873) is the earliest Arab-Islamic music theorist whose writings survive. He applied the Greek tonal system to the oud, used Arabic letters for notes and wrote on the therapeutic value of music. 🪘 Traditionsc. 8th–9th century (Borobudur) Javanese gamelan Borobudur, Central Java, Indonesia · Javanese Reliefs at Borobudur in Central Java (8th–9th century) show ensembles with flutes, drums, bells and metallophones, instruments that also occur in the gamelan. Whether this was already a gamelan in the modern sense remains uncertain; the instruments took their present form under the Majapahit Empire. The gamelan was inscribed by UNESCO in 2021, and a Javanese court piece travelled on the 1977 Voyager Golden Record. 🪘 Traditions822 Ziryab and Andalusian music Córdoba, Spain · Al-Andalus (Umayyad) The singer and lutenist Ziryab (c. 789–857), trained in Baghdad by Ibrahim al-Mawsili, settled at the Umayyad court of Córdoba in 822. There he founded a music school and introduced the Baghdad style; tradition also credits him with adding a fifth string (pair) to the oud. He is regarded as the founder of the Andalusian music traditions of North Africa, though the link with the later nawba is uncertain. 🎻 Instrumentsc. 1,000–1,500 years ago (disputed) Didgeridoo (yidaki) Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia · Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia (incl. Yolŋu) The didgeridoo, called yidaki in north-east Arnhem Land, is a wind instrument of Aboriginal peoples of northern Australia, played with song and in ceremony. There is no consensus on its age: rock paintings in Arnhem Land show players and point to use for roughly 1,000–1,500 years, while much greater ages have not been demonstrated. According to ethnomusicologist Alice Moyle it probably originated in the north-west of the Northern Territory, at first as a bamboo instrument. 🎛️ Notation & technologyc. 1025 Guido's staff notation Arezzo, Italy · Medieval Italy (Benedictine) The Benedictine monk Guido of Arezzo (c. 991–after 1033) developed, first at Pomposa and from 1025 at Arezzo, a method that let singers read melodies instead of memorising them for years. He is regarded as the inventor, or by some the developer, of staff notation and of the solmization syllables ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la, taken from the hymn ‘Ut queant laxis’. His Micrologus (c. 1025–26) became one of the most widely circulated medieval music treatises. 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1100–1350 Troubadour song Poitiers (Aquitaine), France · Occitan (courtly culture) Troubadours were poet-composers who wrote songs in Old Occitan about courtly love and chivalry, chiefly in Occitania and Aquitaine. The earliest troubadour whose work survives is William IX, Duke of Aquitaine (1071–1126). More than 2,500 lyrics are preserved, and women (trobairitz) composed too. The tradition inspired the trouvères, the Minnesang and Galician-Portuguese lyric. 🎼 Worksc. 1151 Ordo Virtutum Rupertsberg near Bingen, Germany · Benedictine (Rhineland) Around 1151 Hildegard of Bingen wrote the Ordo Virtutum, an allegorical sung play about the struggle between the Virtues and the Devil for a human soul. It contains 82 melodies in plainchant style, and every role is sung except the Devil, who only shouts. It is regarded as the earliest morality play and as one of the very few medieval music dramas with both text and music attributed to one person. 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1160–1250 Organum of the Notre-Dame school Notre-Dame, Paris, France · Parisian school (ars antiqua) Around Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris a school of polyphony (ars antiqua) flourished from about 1160 to 1250. Léonin and Pérotin are named as the best composers of organum and as compilers of the Magnus Liber Organi, which adds extra voices to chant. The motet arose from its clausulae. The surviving sources date from after 1230, and the rhythmic interpretation is disputed. 🪘 Traditions13th century (Mali Empire) Griots of the Mandé Kangaba, Mali · Mandé (West Africa) Griots (jeli) are hereditary singers, storytellers and keepers of Mandé oral history, often accompanied on the kora, balafon or ngoni. In the epic of Sundiata Keita, founder of the Mali Empire (13th century), the hero is given the griot Balla Fasséké as adviser. In 1352–53 Ibn Battuta described court poets and a balafon-like instrument in Mali. The tradition lives on, for example at commemorations in Kangaba. 🪘 Traditions1325–1521 Aztec music Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), Mexico · Aztec (Mexica) In Tenochtitlan (c. 1325–1521) music was closely bound to ritual and dance. Key instruments were the huehuetl (an upright drum played by hand) and the teponaztli (a slit drum played with mallets), alongside flutes, shell trumpets and rattles; string instruments were virtually absent. Song schools (cuicacalli) trained musicians. Our knowledge comes from surviving instruments, codices and Spanish chronicles, so it is partly reconstruction. 🎼 Worksc. 1360 (before 1365) Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame Reims Cathedral, France · Ars nova (France) Before 1365 Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300–1377) composed the Messe de Nostre Dame for Reims Cathedral, where he was a canon. The four-voice work is regarded as the earliest complete polyphonic setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer. Machaut unites the movements into a stylistically coherent whole; four movements are in motet style, and some tenors are based on plainchant. 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1420–1600 Franco-Flemish polyphony Cambrai, France · Franco-Flemish school From about 1420 to 1600 composers from northern France and the Burgundian Netherlands dominated European polyphonic church music: Du Fay and Binchois, later Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, and finally Lassus. Many trained in cathedral choir schools such as Cambrai and worked at Italian and Spanish courts. Their style, with equal voices, became the first truly international style since Gregorian chant, and printing sped its spread. 🎶 Song & ritual1447 (adapted in 1464) Jongmyo jeryeak Jongmyo Shrine, Seoul, South Korea · Joseon Korea (Confucian) At the Jongmyo shrine in Seoul, the Confucian ritual for the ancestors of the Joseon kings is accompanied by song, dance and court music. The pieces Botaepyeong and Jeongdaeeop were composed in 1447 under King Sejong for royal banquets and adapted in 1464 under Sejo for the ritual. It is still performed every May; its bronze bell chimes (pyeonjong) derive from the Chinese bianzhong. UNESCO listed it as intangible heritage in 2008.
Renaissance & Baroque 1450 – 1750 · 10 items 🪘 Traditions16th century Carnatic music and Purandara Dasa Hampi (Vijayanagara), India · Kannada / South Indian (Vijayanagara) Carnatic music, the classical tradition of South India, acquired its teaching method in the 16th century under the Vijayanagara Empire thanks to Purandara Dasa (c. 1470–c. 1564). He wrote accessible devotional songs in Kannada and designed graded exercises with the raga Mayamalavagowla as the basic scale, which is why he is called the ‘Pitamaha’ (grandfather) of Carnatic music. The tradition draws on ancient Hindu texts, notably the Samaveda. 🎛️ Notation & technology1501 Petrucci's Odhecaton Venice, Italy · Venetian printing In 1501 Ottaviano Petrucci published the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton in Venice, a collection of 96 polyphonic songs, mostly French chansons. It is regarded as the first book of polyphonic music printed with movable type, using a triple-impression technique (staves, text, notes). It mainly contained works by Franco-Flemish composers and helped spread their style across Europe. 🎻 Instrumentsc. 1550 Amati and the violin family Cremona, Italy · Cremonese violin making The violin emerged in early 16th-century northern Italy; the earliest pictures, showing three strings, date from about 1530. Andrea Amati (c. 1505–1577) of Cremona is credited as one of the first to build instruments of the modern violin family, alongside makers such as Gasparo da Salò of Brescia. Between about 1560 and 1574 Amati made some 38 instruments for the French court of Charles IX. 🎼 Works24 February 1607 Monteverdi's L'Orfeo Mantua (Gonzaga court), Italy · Gonzaga court (late Renaissance/early Baroque) L'Orfeo, a ‘favola in musica’ by Claudio Monteverdi with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio, premiered on 24 February 1607 at the Gonzaga court in Mantua. Jacopo Peri's Dafne is generally recognised as the first opera and his Euridice as the earliest surviving one, but L'Orfeo is the earliest still regularly performed. The printed score (1609) lists about 41 instruments, grouped by scene and character. 🎛️ Notation & technologyc. 1700 Cantemir's notation Istanbul (Fener), Turkey · Ottoman The Moldavian prince and scholar Dimitrie Cantemir (1673–1723), who lived mostly in Constantinople between 1687 and 1710, devised around 1700 a notation for Ottoman music based on the Turkish alphabet. In his Kitâb-ı İlmü'l-Mûsikî he recorded more than 350 instrumental pieces, an important source for Ottoman court music. He also composed some forty pieces himself. 🎻 Instrumentsc. 1700 Cristofori's piano Florence, Italy · Medici court, Florence In Florence Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731), instrument maker to Prince Ferdinando de' Medici, built a keyboard instrument on which the player could play soft and loud through touch alone. A Medici inventory of 1700 lists an ‘arpicembalo … che fa il piano e il forte’, the first unambiguous evidence of the piano. Three instruments from the 1720s survive (New York, Rome, Leipzig), and his hammer action was far ahead of its time. 🎻 Instruments1716 Messiah Stradivarius Cremona, Italy · Cremonese violin making In 1716 Antonio Stradivari (c. 1644–1737) built in Cremona the violin later nicknamed the ‘Messiah’. It stayed in his workshop until his death and was sold by his son only in 1775; because it was rarely played, it survives in exceptionally fine condition. Via the Hill family it reached the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Stradivari worked in the Cremonese tradition of the Amati family; his apprenticeship with Nicolò Amati is likely but not undisputed. 🎼 Works1722 (Book 1); 1742 (Book 2) The Well-Tempered Clavier Köthen, Germany · German Baroque (Lutheran) The first book of Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, compiled in 1722 at Köthen, contains 24 preludes and fugues in all major and minor keys, intended ‘for the profit and use of musical youth’. A second book followed twenty years later in Leipzig. The title points to a tuning in which all keys are usable; which temperament Bach intended is debated. Glenn Gould's recording of a prelude and fugue from Book 2 travelled on the 1977 Voyager Golden Record. 🎼 Works1725 (printed; composed c. 1716–1723) Vivaldi's Four Seasons Venice, Italy · Venetian Baroque Antonio Vivaldi's four violin concertos Le quattro stagioni were printed in Amsterdam in 1725 as part of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (Op. 8). They were probably composed between about 1716 and 1723; the exact dating is uncertain. Each concerto comes with a sonnet, possibly by Vivaldi himself, that elucidates the music, making them among the earliest and most detailed examples of programme music. 🎼 Works13 April 1742 Handel's Messiah Fishamble Street, Dublin, Ireland · German-British Baroque George Frideric Handel composed Messiah in 1741 in 24 days, to a biblical text compiled by Charles Jennens. The English-language oratorio was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, at a charity concert, and reached London a year later. After a modest start it became one of the best-known choral works in Western music; Mozart arranged it in 1789 for performances in Vienna.
Classical & Romantic 1750 – 1900 · 15 items 🪘 Traditions1766–1790 Haydn and the Classical style at Eszterháza Eszterháza (Fertőd), Hungary · Viennese Classical style (Esterházy court culture) Joseph Haydn served the Esterházy family from 1761; from 1766 to 1790 he and his orchestra lived and worked at Eszterháza Palace, far from Vienna. That isolation, he later said, forced him to be original. He played a key role in developing the symphony, string quartet and sonata form, which is why he is often called the ‘father of the symphony’, a simplifying label. Mozart dedicated six quartets to him, and Beethoven was his pupil. 🪘 Traditions1790 (traditional dating) Peking opera in Beijing Beijing, China · Han Chinese music theatre (Qing court and Beijing) By the usual dating, Peking opera was born in 1790, when four great Anhui troupes came to Beijing for the Qianlong Emperor’s eightieth birthday. Hubei troupes joined them in 1828. The result was a form that combines singing, recitation, mime, martial arts and acrobatics, accompanied by instruments such as the jinghu fiddle and percussion. UNESCO inscribed Peking opera on its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2010. 🎼 Works30 September 1791 Mozart’s The Magic Flute Vienna (Theater auf der Wieden), Austria · Viennese popular theatre and the Enlightenment On 30 September 1791 Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte premiered at Emanuel Schikaneder’s Theater auf der Wieden, two months before Mozart’s death. It is a Singspiel in German, with spoken dialogue, comic and serious scenes, folk-like melodies and virtuoso arias such as the Queen of the Night’s. Many scholars see an influence of Freemasonry in the libretto; its exact interpretation remains debated. 🎼 Works7 May 1824 Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Vienna (Kärntnertor Theatre), Austria · Viennese Classical–Romantic tradition Beethoven’s Ninth premiered on 7 May 1824 at the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna, with the almost totally deaf composer on stage. In the finale soloists and chorus sing Schiller’s ‘An die Freude’, making Beethoven one of the first major composers to use voices in a symphony. An instrumental arrangement of the theme is the Anthem of Europe. In 1989 Leonard Bernstein conducted the work in Berlin with ‘Freiheit’ (freedom) replacing ‘Freude’. 🪘 Traditions1831–1849 Chopin and Parisian piano culture Paris (Pleyel salons), France · Parisian salon and piano culture (Polish emigration) Chopin settled in Paris in October 1831 and stayed until his death in 1849. He made his Paris debut in the Pleyel salons on 26 February 1832 and later preferred small circles to large halls. His piano works include études, nocturnes and the 24 Preludes (1835–1839), a cycle through all keys inspired in part by Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Paris was then a centre of piano virtuosos, among them Franz Liszt. 🎼 Works9 March 1842 Verdi’s Nabucco Milan (Teatro alla Scala), Italy · Italian opera in the Risorgimento era Nabucco (originally Nabucodonosor) premiered on 9 March 1842 at La Scala in Milan, then under Austrian rule, and became Verdi’s first major success. Its chorus of the Hebrew slaves, ‘Va, pensiero’, is often seen as a symbol of the Italian unification movement, although historians dispute how strongly it was understood that way in 1842. At Verdi’s funeral in 1901 onlookers spontaneously sang it. 🪘 Traditionsc. 1860–1910 Flamenco and the cafés cantantes Seville, Spain · Andalusian Gitano culture In the second half of the 19th century the ‘cafés cantantes’ of Seville and other Andalusian cities gave flamenco a professional stage, with a regular audience and rivalry between singers. In 1881 Silverio Franconetti opened his famous café in Seville. The art form of song (cante), dance (baile) and guitar (toque) grew out of the Gitano culture of Andalusia; its exact origins remain debated. UNESCO recognised flamenco as intangible heritage in 2010. 🎶 Song & ritual6 October 1871 Fisk Jubilee Singers and the spirituals Nashville, Tennessee, United States · African American spiritual tradition Fisk University in Nashville, five years old and in financial trouble, sent a group of students on a fundraising tour in 1871, starting on 6 October. Most of the students and their families had only recently been freed from slavery. The Fisk Jubilee Singers performed spirituals, the religious songs of enslaved African Americans, a cappella for concert audiences; in 1873 they sang for Queen Victoria. Their first tours raised about $40,000. 🎼 Works13–17 August 1876 Wagner’s Ring at Bayreuth Bayreuth (Festspielhaus), Germany · German Romantic opera The Bayreuth Festspielhaus opened in 1876 with the first complete performance of Wagner’s four-part Der Ring des Nibelungen (13–17 August). The theatre was designed for the work, with a sunken orchestra pit and a darkened auditorium. Wagner aimed at a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ uniting music, poetry, visual art and drama, and Beethoven was a major inspiration. The annual festival continues; Wagner’s antisemitic writings and later Nazi appropriation make his legacy controversial. 🎛️ Notation & technologyNovember 1877 Edison’s phonograph Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States · American inventor culture Thomas Edison announced his phonograph on 21 November 1877, demonstrated it on 29 November and received a patent in 1878. It recorded sound on tinfoil and played it back, and is regarded as the first device to both record and reproduce sound. Earlier, Scott de Martinville’s phonautograph (1857) had traced sound waves but could not play them back. Wax cylinders and gramophone discs followed, laying the foundation of the recording industry. 🎻 Instrumentsfrom 1879 The ukulele in Hawaiʻi Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, United States · Hawaiian and Portuguese-Madeiran communities In late August 1879 Portuguese migrants from Madeira arrived in Honolulu aboard the Ravenscrag, bringing small guitar-like instruments such as the machete (braguinha), cavaquinho and rajão. From these the ukulele developed in the 1880s; the Madeiran cabinet makers Manuel Nunes, Augusto Dias and José do Espírito Santo are generally credited as its first makers. King Kalākaua strongly promoted the instrument. 🪘 Traditions1880s Tango on the Río de la Plata Buenos Aires (and Montevideo), Argentina · Urban working classes of the Río de la Plata Tango arose in the 1880s in the poorer port districts of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, among European immigrants, criollos and descendants of enslaved Africans. Milonga, habanera and candombe are named as forerunners; its origin lies on both banks of the Río de la Plata and cannot be pinned to one city or person. In 2009 Argentina and Uruguay jointly had the tango inscribed on UNESCO’s intangible heritage list. 🪘 Traditionsfrom 1881 Rabindra Sangeet: the songs of Tagore Kolkata (Calcutta), India · Bengali culture The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote and composed some 2,200 songs, known as Rabindra Sangeet. His musical drama Valmiki Pratibha was first staged in his family home in Calcutta on 26 February 1881. The music blends Hindustani classical music, Bengali folk song and Western melodies, such as a Scottish tune behind ‘Purano shei diner kotha’. Tagore’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ became India’s national anthem and ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’ that of Bangladesh. 🎼 Works22 December 1894 Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune Paris, France · Fin-de-siècle Paris (Impressionism and Symbolism) Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, inspired by Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem, was first performed in Paris on 22 December 1894 under Gustave Doret. Its free form, floating harmony and colourful orchestration, opening with a solo flute, make it a model of ‘Impressionist’ music, a label Debussy vigorously rejected. Pierre Boulez saw in it the beginning of modern music. Debussy first heard Javanese gamelan at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair; echoes of it sound in his later work. 🎼 Works1899 Scott Joplin’s ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ Sedalia, Missouri, United States · African American ragtime tradition The African American composer Scott Joplin signed a contract with the publisher John Stark in August 1899 for his piano piece ‘Maple Leaf Rag’; the copyright was registered on 18 September 1899. The piece became the model for ragtime, the syncopated piano style. Its name may refer to the Maple Leaf Club in Sedalia, where Joplin played, though direct evidence is lacking. Ragtime is counted among the roots of jazz.
20th century & today 1900 – present · 27 items 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1900 Delta blues in Mississippi Tutwiler (Mississippi Delta), United States · Rural African Americans of the Mississippi Delta Delta blues, one of the earliest known blues styles, took shape around the turn of the 20th century in the Mississippi Delta, drawing on work songs, field hollers and spirituals. In 1903 W. C. Handy heard a man at the Tutwiler train station play guitar with a knife as a slide, a frequently cited account. Recordings date only from 1928–1930; later Charley Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson became celebrated. Slide guitar is a hallmark of the style. 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1900–1917 Jazz in New Orleans New Orleans, Louisiana, United States · African American communities of New Orleans Jazz arose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the African American communities of New Orleans, from blues, ragtime, brass-band marches, spirituals and African rhythms, combined with collective improvisation. Cornetist Buddy Bolden, whose band peaked around 1900–1907, is a key figure, yet no recording of him is known. The first jazz record appeared in 1917 (Original Dixieland Jass Band). Louis Armstrong, born in the city, became one of the great innovators. 🎸 Styles & genreslate 19th century (Havana c. 1909) Son cubano in eastern Cuba Santiago de Cuba (Oriente), Cuba · Rural population of eastern Cuba (Oriente) The son cubano arose in the late 19th century in the mountainous east of Cuba (Oriente) as a blend of Spanish and African elements: the vocal style and the tres, derived from the Spanish guitar, alongside clave rhythm, call-and-response singing and percussion rooted in Bantu traditions. Around 1909 the son reached Havana; in the 1920s the sextet became its standard line-up. Salsa and the cha-cha-cha are derived from the son. 🎼 Works29 May 1913 Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring Paris (Théâtre des Champs-Élysées), France · Russian avant-garde (Ballets Russes) in Paris Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring premiered in Paris on 29 May 1913 as a Ballets Russes production by Diaghilev, with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky and designs by Nicholas Roerich. Its raw rhythms, harsh harmonies and depiction of a pagan spring ritual caused a sensation. The famous ‘riot’ is, according to some scholars, an exaggeration, as the word appears only in later reviews. The work is regarded as a milestone of modernism. 🎸 Styles & genresregistered 27 November 1916; released 1917 Samba and ‘Pelo Telefone’ Praça Onze, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil · Afro-Brazilian community of Praça Onze (Rio de Janeiro) ‘Pelo Telefone’, registered under Donga’s name in November 1916 and released in 1917, is according to the National Library of Brazil the first recorded samba, although older recordings exist. The song came out of the circle around Tia Ciata at Praça Onze and is a collective creation of disputed authorship. Samba itself grew out of Afro-Brazilian communities in Bahia and acquired its modern form in the late 1920s in Rio’s Estácio district. 🎸 Styles & genres25 July – 5 August 1927 The Bristol Sessions and country music Bristol (Tennessee/Virginia), United States · Appalachian folk and country tradition Between 25 July and 5 August 1927, Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company recorded dozens of songs by rural musicians in Bristol, on the Tennessee–Virginia state line. The sessions included the first recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. Some call them the ‘Big Bang’ of modern country music, although commercial country recordings existed since 1922; Bristol is known as the ‘birthplace of country music’. 🪘 Traditions14 March 1931 Alam Ara and the Hindi film song Bombay (Mumbai), India · Hindi film culture of Bombay Alam Ara, directed by Ardeshir Irani and released in Bombay on 14 March 1931, was India’s first sound film in Hindustani and featured seven songs. It launched the tradition of the film song, in which singing and dancing became integral to Hindi cinema. The film music of Bombay, later called ‘Bollywood’, grew into a dominant form of popular music in India, drawing on Indian classical and folk traditions as well as Western styles. 🎻 Instrumentsdesigned 1931; sold from 1932 The electric guitar: the ‘Frying Pan’ Los Angeles, California, United States · American instrument making and the Hawaiian-music craze In 1931 George Beauchamp, with Paul Barth, designed a cast-aluminium lap steel guitar with an electromagnetic pickup, nicknamed the ‘Frying Pan’. Ro-Pat-In, the company of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker and Barth, produced it in Los Angeles from 1932; it is regarded as the first commercially successful electric guitar. It was meant for Hawaiian-style playing, then popular, but the amplified guitar became the most important instrument of popular music in the 1950s and 1960s. 🎶 Song & ritualfrom 1934 Umm Kulthum and Egyptian radio Cairo, Egypt · Egyptian and Arab tarab tradition In 1934 Umm Kulthum sang at the inaugural broadcast of Egyptian state radio, and for decades afterwards gave a radio concert on the first Thursday of every month. Trained in Qur’an recitation by her father, a village imam, she sang in the tarab tradition, which aims at an intense emotional experience shared by performer and audience. Her concerts lasted hours and consisted of two or three songs; her funeral in 1975 drew millions. 🎶 Song & ritual1939 Solomon Linda’s ‘Mbube’ Johannesburg, South Africa · Zulu migrant workers (mbube and isicathamiya) In 1939 Solomon Linda and his group the Evening Birds improvised the song ‘Mbube’ in Gallo’s studio in Johannesburg; it reportedly sold more than 100,000 copies in South Africa. The a cappella style, rooted in the Zulu singing tradition of migrant workers, gave its name to the mbube genre and shaped isicathamiya. Via ‘Wimoweh’ (The Weavers, 1951) it became ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ (1961); Linda had sold his rights for ten shillings. 🎻 Instruments1930s–1940s The steelpan in Trinidad Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago · Afro-Trinidadian Carnival culture The steelpan developed in Trinidad and Tobago in the 1930s and 1940s from Carnival percussion traditions such as tamboo bamboo, and is made from oil drums. In 1939 Alexander’s Ragtime Band appeared as the first all-steel band. Several pioneers, including Winston ‘Spree’ Simon and Ellie Mannette, are credited with its development. In 1992 the steelpan was declared the national instrument of Trinidad and Tobago. 🎸 Styles & genresMarch 1951 (‘Rocket 88’) Rock and roll in Memphis Memphis (Sun Studio), Tennessee, United States · African American rhythm and blues and Southern country Rock and roll emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s in the United States from rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, country and boogie-woogie; there is no single place of origin. In Memphis, Sam Phillips recorded ‘Rocket 88’ in March 1951 in his studio, later Sun Studio, released as Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact Ike Turner’s band). Many writers call it one of the first rock and roll records, some the first. In 1954 Sun Records followed with Elvis Presley’s first single. 🎸 Styles & genres1958 Bossa nova and ‘Chega de Saudade’ Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil · Brazilian samba culture in Rio de Janeiro Bossa nova, ‘new trend’, is a relaxed style of samba that developed in the late 1950s in Rio de Janeiro; the clubs of the Beco das Garrafas in Copacabana are regarded as its cradle. An early landmark was ‘Chega de Saudade’ by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, released in 1958 on Elizeth Cardoso’s album with João Gilberto on guitar and the same year as a single by Gilberto himself. His calm, syncopated guitar style condensed the samba rhythm onto the classical guitar. Jazz influenced the style, but the resemblance is partly parallel evolution. 🎻 Instruments1964 The Moog synthesizer Trumansburg, New York, United States · American electronic music and engineering After meeting the composer Herb Deutsch in 1963, the American engineer Robert Moog developed a modular synthesizer in Trumansburg (1964), regarded as the first commercial synthesizer. Its key innovation was voltage control of pitch. The instrument reached popular music through Wendy Carlos’s ‘Switched-On Bach’ (1968); the portable Minimoog followed in 1970. 🎸 Styles & genreslate 1960s Reggae in Kingston Kingston, Jamaica · Marginalised communities of western Kingston; Rastafari Reggae emerged in Jamaica in the late 1960s, developing from mento through ska and rocksteady. Toots and the Maytals’ ‘Do the Reggay’ (1968) was the first popular song to use the word. The music stresses short offbeat chords on guitar or piano, a heavy bass line and call-and-response singing, and is closely linked to Rastafari. UNESCO added the reggae music of Jamaica to its intangible heritage list in 2018. 🎸 Styles & genresc. 1969–1970 Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat Lagos, Nigeria · Yoruba music and highlife (Nigeria) Afrobeat arose in Nigeria in the late 1960s around bandleader Fela Kuti and drummer Tony Allen, blending Yoruba music and highlife with American funk, jazz and soul. After ten months in Los Angeles in 1969, Kuti renamed his group Africa ’70 and from 1970 played at his club, the Afrika Shrine. His politically charged songs targeted Nigeria’s military rulers; in 1977 soldiers destroyed his commune, the Kalakuta Republic. 🎸 Styles & genres11 August 1973 Hip hop in the Bronx The Bronx (1520 Sedgwick Avenue), New York, United States · African American, Caribbean and Latino communities in the Bronx On 11 August 1973 the Jamaican-born DJ Kool Herc (Clive Campbell) played records at a back-to-school party organised by his sister Cindy in the recreation room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx. He extended the instrumental ‘breaks’ using two copies of the same record, giving dancers and rappers a platform, and brought the sound-system culture of Jamaica with him. That evening is widely cited as hip hop’s birthdate, though the culture developed gradually in several places during the 1970s. 🎼 WorksNovember 1974 Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’ Düsseldorf (Kling Klang), Germany · German krautrock and electronic music scene Autobahn (November 1974), the album by the Düsseldorf group Kraftwerk, led by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider, was recorded partly in their own Kling Klang studio and partly in Conny Plank’s studio. The roughly 22-minute title track evokes a car journey in electronic sounds; the band used a Minimoog among other instruments. Kraftwerk influenced synth-pop, hip hop, techno and house, and musicians such as David Bowie cited Autobahn as a major influence. 🎸 Styles & genres1976–1977 Punk in London and New York London (100 Club), United Kingdom · British and American youth culture of the 1970s Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s in local scenes in places such as New York (Ramones, Television), London (Sex Pistols, The Clash) and Australia, so its origin cannot be pinned to one city. The music is short, fast and do-it-yourself, rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock. In London 1976 became a turning point: the 100 Club Punk Special (20–21 September) is seen as the moment punk moved from the underground towards the mainstream. 🎛️ Notation & technologyAugust–September 1977 The Voyager Golden Record Cape Canaveral, Florida, United States · Worldwide (compiled under Carl Sagan) In 1977 NASA launched the Voyager 1 and 2 probes, each carrying a Golden Record: a gold-plated copper disc with greetings in 55 languages, sounds of nature, images and music from many cultures and eras. A committee led by Carl Sagan selected the contents, including Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry alongside Guan Pinghu, Blind Willie Johnson and Valya Balkanska. Both probes have since entered interstellar space. 🎻 Instruments1980 (produced until 1983) The Roland TR-808 Osaka, Japan · Japanese electronics industry Roland’s TR-808, introduced in 1980 under chief engineer Tadao Kikumoto, was one of the first programmable drum machines and generated its sounds by analogue synthesis. It flopped commercially (about 12,000 units) but gained a cult following; its deep bass drum became a foundation of hip hop, house and other dance music, for instance through ‘Planet Rock’ and ‘Sexual Healing’. Roland’s founder Ikutaro Kakehashi also drove the creation of the MIDI standard (1983). 🎸 Styles & genres1980s (first records from 1984) House in Chicago Chicago (The Warehouse), United States · Black queer club culture of Chicago House emerged in the early and mid-1980s in Chicago’s Black queer club culture, as DJs such as Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy reworked disco records with a more mechanical beat. The name is often traced to the club The Warehouse (1977–1982), though that origin is not undisputed. The first records appeared around 1984, such as Jesse Saunders’s ‘On and On’, which used a Roland TR-808 drum machine among other instruments. 🎸 Styles & genresmid-1980s Techno in Detroit Detroit, Michigan, United States · African American youth in Detroit (the Belleville Three) Techno emerged in the mid-1980s in and around Detroit, above all through Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the ‘Belleville Three’. They blended the electronic pop of Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Yellow Magic Orchestra with funk, electro and house, and drew on futurist ideas such as Alvin Toffler’s The Third Wave. Atkins released records as Model 500 from 1985; the term techno became attached to Detroit after the compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit (1988). 🎶 Song & ritualfrom 1985 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and qawwali Faisalabad, Pakistan · Sufi qawwali tradition (Punjab) Qawwali is Sufi devotional music, traditionally sung at shrines across South Asia and widely attributed to the 13th-century poet-musician Amir Khusrau. The singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, born in Faisalabad, brought the tradition to a global audience: his 1985 performance at the WOMAD festival was his first before a mainly non-Asian audience, followed by albums for Real World Records such as Mustt Mustt (1990, with Michael Brook). He died in 1997. 🎸 Styles & genres11 April 1992 K-pop and Seo Taiji and Boys Seoul, South Korea · South Korean pop culture Seo Taiji and Boys debuted on 11 April 1992 on an MBC talent show with ‘Nan Arayo’ and received the jury’s lowest score, yet the song became a hit. Their ‘rap dance’, a blend of hip hop, techno and rock, is often seen as the start of modern K-pop; the term itself became common only in the late 1990s. Lee Soo-man of SM Entertainment then developed the idol system with H.O.T., the ‘first generation’. Where K-pop begins remains a matter of definition. 🎛️ Notation & technologystandard published 1993 MP3 from Erlangen Erlangen, Germany · German research culture (Fraunhofer) MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III) was developed largely by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute in Erlangen under Karlheinz Brandenburg, who began working on music compression at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in the early 1980s. The method discards sound the ear barely notices. As part of the MPEG-1 standard it was published in 1993; Suzanne Vega’s a cappella ‘Tom’s Diner’ served as the first test track. 🎛️ Notation & technologyOctober 2008 Music streaming: Spotify Stockholm, Sweden · Swedish tech culture Spotify was founded in Stockholm in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon as a legal alternative to music piracy, and launched in several European countries in October 2008. With an ad-supported free tier and paid subscriptions, listening shifted from owning files to access to a vast catalogue. Spotify was not the first streaming service but grew into one of the largest; the payment of artists remains disputed.